The Impending Political Season

[steve74baywin]

I'm reasonably sure if you are a business in rural Oklahoma you'd embrace this. I had a colleague that tried to run a truck agency using some fly by night satelite service because that was all that was available. Every time there were sunspots, rain, snow or birds landing on the dish they were out of commission. Given virually every transaction they did from bookings to dispatch to finalization was done via the cloud I don't see how they could possibly have functioned without fast dependable internet service. I know I couldn't. I just wrote a check to AT&T. It seems to me corporations already have control over the internet.

1) This Oklahoma business may want or like faster Internet, but that does not mean government or presidential intervention is the answer.
2) I wonder if any gov regulations is behind the need for this guy to use that system?
Businesses have some control over what they own.
I wonder if anyone writes any checks to a trucking company?
Does this mean the trucking companies already controls the trucking industry and highways or just their company? And if so to any of that is this a bad thing? Should the government own or control trucking companies? Now back to the beginning, I wonder if the trucking company wanting a system like you mentioned has anything to do with government regulations?

[RussellK]

It would be a very tricky thing. It makes me sad how accessible hardcore pornography is today on the internet, and how accessible it will be for my two boys starting here in the next year or two (oldest one is 9). And I'm no prude when it comes to pornography. I'm just glad that when I was 12 I was perusing my father's Playboys and not internet videos involving pooping and bondage and face moisturizers. But the censorship of the internet is a slippery slope, especially given this new "it's now legal for us to make anyone involved with anything like terrorism disappear" legislation. It seems that our legislators are not nearly as discerning as I when it comes to passing laws that trod upon our liberties. (And yes, it pisses me off that I can't even type that last sentence without sounding like a Libertarian... but let's ignore that for now.)

Velo, you don't sound like a Libertarian. You sound like an evolving soul. I beat the RP thing too much around here that it probably turns people off.

Seriously, though, what about how easy it is to have access to hardcore porn? I'm worried about my kids too. As if parenting weren't hard enough already. Do we as parents treat it like drugs and alcohol and tell them about it? Let them learn about it under our watch so they learn how to deal with it our way as opposed to completely ignoring the subject forcing them to sneak around and over-indulge when we are not watching.

Let me put your minds at ease. I raised two of them right in the thick of it. Computers in their rooms. High speed Downloads. No Parental Controls. They had their interest in it I'm sure, but we never made a huge deal about it. When they were discovered checking it out we spoke about wholesome attitudes toward sex and we spoke more about respecting people as people. I didn't condone it but I didn't condemn it. It was like the whiskey in the cabinet. It wasn't locked up either. For them it became no big deal. When one of them went away to school he laughed at how the kids that had never seen porn couldn't seem to get enough of it that first semester.

[Velokid1]

Keep in mind that the Obama Administration has been the subject of some very serious cyber-attacks. And unless I'm confusing my news stories, I believe they have asked for those attacks to not be "overblown" by the media, i.e. kept quiet. Which is an indication of how seriously they take them. They are thought to have come from the Chinese government, right?

I just wonder how desperate the US Govt/Obama Administration is to convince the public and legislators that they need to gain full control of the internet, for national security. And I'm not saying they're wrong about that. Having our country (and the world) so completely dependent on the internet, including the Pentagon, the Federal Reserve, etc etc, puts us in a very vulnerable situation. And there's no turning back from that now. It's like a rich man putting his billions all in the same suitcase in his house; you bet your booty he's going to be VERY determined to protect that one suitcase, because if someone can get to that one suitcase, he's on the street. That makes a person desperate. So the question is, how desperate is the US (government) in their desire to have control over the internet?

I embrace our government's ability to do great things for us, but I remain vigilant, and this internet thing raises a real red flag for me.

[edit- thanks Russell... that does make me feel better.]

[RussellK]

I'm reasonably sure if you are a business in rural Oklahoma you'd embrace this. I had a colleague that tried to run a truck agency using some fly by night satelite service because that was all that was available. Every time there were sunspots, rain, snow or birds landing on the dish they were out of commission. Given virually every transaction they did from bookings to dispatch to finalization was done via the cloud I don't see how they could possibly have functioned without fast dependable internet service. I know I couldn't. I just wrote a check to AT&T. It seems to me corporations already have control over the internet.

1) This Oklahoma business may want or like faster Internet, but that does not mean government or presidential intervention is the answer.
2) I wonder if any gov regulations is behind the need for this guy to use that system?
Businesses have some control over what they own.
I wonder if anyone writes any checks to a trucking company?
Does this mean the trucking companies already controls the trucking industry and highways or just their company? And if so to any of that is this a bad thing? Should the government own or control trucking companies? Now back to the beginning, I wonder if the trucking company wanting a system like you mentioned has anything to do with government regulations?

Steve the government doesn't have anything to do with truckers choosing to use the internet. The company this particular person was associated with uses the technology because it's effiicient and therefore have a requirement their agents use it also. Is trucking regulated? Yes. Does the government require truckers to have certain equipment? Yes. In the near future they will be required to have in cab reporting. The idea is to prevent a driver from cheating on hours of service and driving fatigued. I don't see that as an altogether bad thing.

Yes plenty of checks are still written to pay freight bills.

[steve74baywin]

Steve the government doesn't have anything to do with truckers choosing to use the internet. The company this particular person was associated with uses the technology because it's effiicient and therefore have a requirement their agents use it also. Yes plenty of checks are still written to pay freight bills.

Thanks for clarifying. I thought afterwards that I mixed up a couple things. ...IE, when you mentioned Satellite that led me to think of the tracking of drivers and the automated "weight station" things...IE, Satellite to communicate with the trucks. The guy you speak of had to use Satellite to get Internet in his office.

Anyways, I agree with your porn/computer/kids comment.
I'm not sure I even addressed it with my kids, and to the best of my knowledge my kids didn't view any porn online, if they did it didn't amount to much. They had high speed Internet since 10 probably. They are in their twenties now, they haven't had many girl friends. I attribute some of that to the fact they don't look at them as a piece of meat and haven't gone after girls for sex. They look to girls more to find a strong connection, fun and someone they want to spend their life with.
Even though I have beers with a few friends at my house three times a week, my kids don't drink or hardly ever drink. They don't smoke anything.
When you resist something you give it more power, which is something I thought of after the fact to add to the porn discussion on here the other day.
The mere campaign to drum up support to go after the watchers of porn probably give porn more power from all the attention they give it when they attempt to drum up awareness in the country to gain support for the laws. They probably make it worse, at least at first.

[Amskeptic]

Do regulations "grow the power of the government"? What if they merely reflect what the majority of Americans have decided would be good? Environmental regulations, financial regulations, energy use regulations, in what way do they grow the power of the government? Who goes home at the end of the day and says "ha HA! I am KING now that they passed a sulphur emissions limit!"?

Some go home and say, "ha ha, I made it hard for anyone else to do this but my big corporation with the team of lawyers. Only my big firm can now do this. We wrote the laws to insure Haliburton, or Carlisle group will prosper".
But that's just it. They don't reflect what the people want. Giving the gov more power than was intended, recommended or right has caused a mob of evil people to flock to it because those who control it can gain so much.

In bold above is the fatal flaw in your reasoning:
Our government has not been strengthened by your above example, it has not gotten stronger. On the contrary, our government has been weakened by those who seek to abuse this beautiful system of Representative Democracy. It is a sign of damage that corporate pirates have infected our laws to no longer represent the Will of The People.
You decide then, to throw the baby out with the bathwater infected by lobbyists? It is a feignt, a distraction, a lie to blame the government for the people who game it. The gamers LOVE hearing about how "the government" is the problem ... and they love hearing the arguments for limiting government to help them achieve their nefarious aims.

I say let's play by the rules for a change and see how the system works. Let's start with one man/one vote. Let's start with no money allowed in the Halls of Congress.
Colin

[steve74baywin]

Do regulations "grow the power of the government"? What if they merely reflect what the majority of Americans have decided would be good? Environmental regulations, financial regulations, energy use regulations, in what way do they grow the power of the government? Who goes home at the end of the day and says "ha HA! I am KING now that they passed a sulphur emissions limit!"?

Some go home and say, "ha ha, I made it hard for anyone else to do this but my big corporation with the team of lawyers. Only my big firm can now do this. We wrote the laws to insure Haliburton, or Carlisle group will prosper".
But that's just it. They don't reflect what the people want. Giving the gov more power than was intended, recommended or right has caused a mob of evil people to flock to it because those who control it can gain so much.

In bold above is the fatal flaw in your reasoning:
Our government has not been strengthened by your above example, it has not gotten stronger. On the contrary, our government has been weakened by those who seek to abuse this beautiful system of Representative Democracy. It is a sign of damage that corporate pirates have infected our laws to no longer represent the Will of The People.
You decide then, to throw the baby out with the bathwater infected by lobbyists? It is a feignt, a distraction, a lie to blame the government for the people who game it. The gamers LOVE hearing about how "the government" is the problem ... and they love hearing the arguments for limiting government to help them achieve their nefarious aims.

I say let's play by the rules for a change and see how the system works. Let's start with one man/one vote. Let's start with no money allowed in the Halls of Congress.
Colin

Okay, I see where you are coming from, I think. Sure those people who wrongly use the gov have weakened it...They weakened it from our perspective.

In fact, if the gov was started for the reasons I say "To insure our liberty and natural inherent rights", then most certainly it is weaker, in fact you could say it is dead or on it's death bed.

I have gotten in many talks about this.
I have a friend who is also limited gov and he says many times about getting rid of lobbyist and only allowing people to donate and lobby. I agree that those things will most certainly help us. However, I also say that if the gov was limited, and let me define limited, we can have a huge defense, or be big in size when it comes to the number of peace officers, but limited in what laws and rules it can make and limited in it's role...Anyways, if it was returned back to being limited in as far as what they can do, this will also help, and even more so....The advantages to funding and influencing politicians would be removed. If they can't violate peoples rights and get the gov to do things that I mention often as being violations and beyond the role of the government, the advantages of spending money to get your man in office would be reduced or eliminated.
Why do the big corporations spend the money now to influence and get men elected?
Let's discuss some of the examples that we know of where a corporation has used money to influence our gov. I'm thinking in many or most cases the very change or law they got passed that helped them would not pass the limited gov test.

[RussellK]

Mostly corporations spend vast amounts of money to influence government with the intent to limit government. That way they can function unencumbered by regulation. Saaayyyy. Are corporations libertarian? Is steve74baywin a corporation? Hmmm.

[steve74baywin]

Mostly corporations spend vast amounts of money to influence government with the intent to limit government.

If your serious, then I would like to say something someone else says. Cites please.

[Amskeptic]

Mostly corporations spend vast amounts of money to influence government with the intent to limit government.

If your serious, then I would like to say something someone else says. Cites please.

??? Cites for a personal statement ???

There is no question that our large corporations have been throwing money at legislators and candidates to roll back regulations.

[RussellK]

Mostly corporations spend vast amounts of money to influence government with the intent to limit government.

If your serious, then I would like to say something someone else says. Cites please.

??? Cites for a personal statement ???

There is no question that our large corporations have been throwing money at legislators and candidates to roll back regulations.

OK Steve. Q2 of 2011 the ATA spent nearly $400,000 on lobbying efforts up from the previous quarter. The ATA is the largest orgainzation representing US trucking. Their primary clients are LTL carriers, Class 1's and medium sized carriers. They lobby hard on matters of safety and environmental concerns. Matters like hours of service, trailer spray, waste disposal, transportation of hazardous materials. Much of the effort is spent in educating the regulators so they understand the industry they are regulating from the truckers point of view. Trust they are always asking for less regulation, leniency in iterpretation, outright elimination, or delays on implementation. $400,000. Thats about what? $4400 daily? Think they're doing that because they love regulations? I have never heard a trucker declare what we need are a few more DOT stops.

[vdubyah73]

company drivers sometimes like dot stops.

[RussellK]

company drivers sometimes like dot stops.

Well sure. But not their bosses. Bill I remember 30 years ago working for a company that the only way a proper repair ever got done was to get red tagged. Don't CSA2010 regulations now assess severity points for equipment violations against the drivers also? Those points follow the driver to the next job. Manage to accumulate enough and you have no next job.

[dingo]

Do regulations "grow the power of the government"? What if they merely reflect what the majority of Americans have decided would be good? Environmental regulations, financial regulations, energy use regulations, in what way do they grow the power of the government? Who goes home at the end of the day and says "ha HA! I am KING now that they passed a sulphur emissions limit!"?

I say let's play by the rules for a change and see how the system works. Let's start with one man/one vote. Let's start with no money allowed in the Halls of Congress.
Colin

This kind of major shift in operating principles will never occur from within...it has to be be forced upon them by a major populist uprising. politicians are at best, mere reactionaries, and at worst ,mere whores in the bordello, as Silvio Berlusconi once described it. if there are any visionaries within the political realm, they will never gain momentum or backing..since the money,media and public only follow the quick payoffs

[vdubyah73]

round hear, the troopers write up the company not the driver. course a guy needs the sense to know what not to drive,... at all. you get screwed for driving a broke down old hurtling wobbley down the interstate running into stuff, and shit. ;-)