Wednesday, 19 March 2008

What the heck...

Watch this!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5RQrxkGgCM

This is bad. You could say this has nothing to do with us. But it does, because no one has ever set the rules on this thing called "net neutrality". Hence, it can happen ANYWHERE, at 
ANYTIME, unless we as internet users start setting the rules of the game. Or, if we invent 
something to get around this. 

"Let it not be said said that we did nothing" Rep. Ron Paul.
You have been warned...

And about your comment "you really do think the Constitution like a bible".
I consider that as mocking. It is not blind respect to this document.

They really do have practical reasons, behind everything they put down.
They learnt many lessons in the process of getting the British imperialists out of
their homeland. And with the war on the people of the US, limiting government power
is nothing less than imperative.

And these founders knew that everything they wanted for their newborn country had
a dependent factor, a supporting block that could not be taken away.
For democracy, they need freedom of speech
For a working capitalist economy, you need money that cannot be photocopiable.
To overthrow a dictatorship or rampant government that is abusing its people and not
protecting their rights, you need firearms.

They have their reasons, and it is unlikely any politician would have had as many 
first-hand experiences of oppression and rampant government. Therefore, many 
politicians have much to learn from it.

I always wished that the founders put a footnote on their document, stating that
"should this document be ignored and infringed without the approval of the American 
people, the people must take action - through peaceful or radical means, to restore 
this document."

I bet they thought their future generations knew that already. Sadly, not yet.

9 comments:

Samuel Poon said...

Wait, don't be angry.

Okay, your post can be split up into two parts: part 1 deals with net neutrality, while the second deals with the constitution.

Yeah, I understand net neutrality. (Here for the humourous side of it).

While the constitution should be respected as what it is (a constitution), we must remember that 1) the founding fathers were human (therefore fallable), and 2) times change.

Easy example: in the earlier days the electors of the president of USA was chosen by state legislatures[1], meaning that the president was not directly elected.

Also, the senate used to be elected by the state legislatures[2], not directly by the people.

Don't flame me! You know this blog has only a readership of 2, and I am not a US citizen (bottom line).

Eugene said...

Ok, times do change. And yes, they ARE human. But you are human too. Which means that there can be debate.

There are many ways these election stuff can be done. There are definitely better ways to do it. And people do really change. They become more mature, intelligent, knowledgable and educated over time. The knowledge about the government is no longer the monopoly of these representatives/legislatures. And so, you could give them more rights.

But there are things that won't change. Freedom of speech and a type of money you can't copy will always be necessary to keep the political and economical systems working. And you'll always need to give people rights to fair trial and to possess and use firearms, to keep government in check.

These are the most significant sections of the Constitution.

Why should the citizenry be allowed to bear arms?
To defend their individual rights and liberties from a government gone bad. It is that simple.

Now, given this is agreeable, one would ask, "Does it means the entire population?" Could be. But I am inclined to see the horrors of what firearms can do. So, I don't think that a minimal amount of ground-rules must be set, and no more.

- No restrictions on the types of firearms citizens are allowed to have. Only registration is allowed.
(please note that rocket launchers are not firearms, and are not protected under this rule)
- People who have a medically diagnosed, registered and identified mental illness which would affect their judgement, sanity and self-control and who poses a risk to the people around them should not be allowed to possess a firearm or ammunition of any kind.
- People with a past crime record will not be allowed to possess a firearm.

With the second amendment under trial, I do hope that those who try to link firearm control in the US to violent crime rates will realize that there is no scientifically proven study that happens to show this.
And NRA lobbyists? Yes, no one can deny that they are partially backed by firearm companies. But the majority of supporters are the firearm owners themselves, whom are mostly responsible people.

I'm not flaming you. These are reasons, not spam. I do hope you are rational enough.

Samuel Poon said...

Ok.

Eugene said...

..what do you think?

Samuel Poon said...

I don't know what to say, really. My thought was "Ok, " so that's what I wrote.

Still thinking. But then I have to do En Lit...

Eugene said...

I think the issue on net neutrality is actually quite serious. There are places where capitalism is good, but this taking away my freedom of use of the internet?

Market failure anyone?

The problem of the structure of the internet was inherent, but quite unavoidable. Tim Berners-Lee should start making the next generation of the internet. Maybe something quantum, so no one can mess with our packets in the middle.

ISPs, paying or government, must obey certain rules of non-censorship.

And one thing I may want to add, "Individual Right to use cryptography and stegnography to protect the secrecy, security, integrity and privacy".

Call it the second amendment of the 21st century.

Eugene said...

HOWEVER, as my libertarian mind says,
"the government regulations don't work."

If the government regulation is imposed, the ISPs will only have more reason to raise prices to gain more from the consumer than from violating net neutrality. You must realize that the price elasticity of the Internet service is almost, if not 0.

As a result, as many fail to see, government intervention may not be the smartest way to deal with this serious problem. Supply-side MAY BE better, but they may also bring unforeseen problems.

Samuel Poon said...

Net neutrality is important to protect the diversity of the internet. By not endorsing any partiular content, creativity thrives on the net.

Eugene said...

nicely summed up, thank you.

But how can we prevent this from happening?

We are pretty much on our own here...big government will not help much here. The lobbying is pretty strong and clearly, there aren't enough Ron Paul type politicians who don't succumb to the billion-dollar lobbyists.

I hope the forces of the "free-market" may help here. ISPs which give better services, lower costs, faster rates to non-"big-corporation" sites (like blogs) will gain most of the consumers.

But ISPs are things that take a long time to set up, and even when you do, require a lot of marketing and maintenance to stay afloat.

Hackers need to start infiltrating these ISPs and twitching with their routers. LOL...

The time is now. We need to do something about all these threats to civil liberties and way of life (cyber-habitat).
Now you know why conspiracy theorists constantly urge people to join them. There is a bit of sense in it, because there is almost no second chance to stop this once it's done.