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Senators, including Republican Presidential candidate Marco Rubio, have signed a letter to the Federal Communications Commission opposing municipal broadband:
In a rare senatorial act, full-time Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio joined with a handful of fellow legislators on Friday in an attempt to block local municipalities from undercutting big telecom companies by providing cheap, fast internet service.
Rubio, who is raising campaign cash from the telecom industry for his presidential campaign, fired off a letter to the Federal Communications Commission asking the agency to allow states to block municipal broadband services. The letter was the latest salvo in a long-running effort by the major telecom companies to outlaw municipal broadband programs that have taken off in cities such as Lafayette, Louisiana, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, because they pose a threat to a business model that calls for slow, expensive internet access without competition.
In Chattanooga, for instance, city officials set up a service known as "The Gig," a municipal broadband network that provides data transfers at one gigabit per second for less than $70 a month — a rate that is 50 times faster than the average speed American customers have available through private broadband networks.
AT&T, Cox Communications, Comcast, and other broadband providers, fearing competition, have used their influence in state government to make an end-run around local municipalities. Through surrogates like the American Legislative Exchange Council, the industry gets states to pass laws that ban municipal broadband networks, despite the obvious benefits to both the municipalities and their residents.
[...] Rubio's presidential campaign has relied heavily on AT&T lobbyist Scott Weaver, the public policy co-chair of Wiley Rein, a law firm that also is helping to litigate against the FCC's effort to help municipal broadband. As one of Rubio's three lobbyist-bundlers, Weaver raised $33,324 for Rubio's presidential campaign, according to disclosures. Rubio's campaign fundraising apparatus is also managed in part by Cesar Conda, a lobbyist who previously served as Rubio's chief of staff. Registration documents show that Conda now represents AT&T.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 15 2015, @07:56PM
The federal government is supposed to just be a mutual defense compact for the states
You're confusing a confederacy with a federal state. I think we settled the whole confederacy vs federal nation a while back?
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 15 2015, @08:22PM
I think we settled the whole confederacy vs federal nation a while back?
Bad decisions ought to be revisited. Like a number of the decisions that were made in the original Constitution. You wouldn't want to keep that 3/5 thing as "settled," would you?
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 15 2015, @08:46PM
It takes some trump sized balls to argue that the results of the civil war were a "bad decision" by citing the 14th amendment's nullification of the part of the constitution that legitimized slavery. An amendment that would have never been passed if not for the civil war.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 15 2015, @08:52PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 15 2015, @10:31PM
after everything that happened in Iraq, if I still believe in entering other people's territory to help "liberate" people. It seems that every time that happens, the results are a terribly out of control government - an empire. I believe that's exactly what happened in the American Civil War.
You have a remarkable talent for focusing on the most superficial similarities in order to rationalize the most terrible conclusions.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday December 15 2015, @10:37PM
From that, I'm fairly certain you've only read the post-bellum Confederate version of what actually happened between 1860 and 1865.
South Carolina was responsible for starting the Civil War - they were the first to secede, and the first to start shooting. They were pretty proud of that fact until very recently. They and the other states that seceded were extremely clear about the fact that the only beef they had with Lincoln was that they thought (erroneously) he was planning to take away their slaves. The Confederate government was far more oppressive of the white population of the Confederacy than the Union was of the white population of the Union - the Confederates commandeered just about everything for the war effort, drafted just about everybody except for a few guys to guard against slave rebellions, and paid everybody in a currency that turned out to be worthless. It would not be unreasonable to question whether Jefferson Davis took more from Georgia than William T Sherman.
In the Union version of what happened, the Union never entered somebody else's territory, because it was Union territory all along. And I don't see anything in the Constitution that says "Oh, but if we don't like the president-elect's policy, we can secede and start shooting at you, and you aren't allowed to do anything about it." In addition, the slaves had very little question about the fact that they had much more freedom in 1865 than they did in 1855, and that is strangely absent from your analysis.
There is another problem, which is more visible if you scale down your argument from state-level to smaller groups of people:
A. If some guy, let's call him Smith, is holding 3 people hostage at gunpoint, is it OK for the government to go in and either arrest or shoot him?
B. Now let's say that Smith has a few buddies with him, and is holding 12 people hostage. Is it OK for the government to go in and either arrest or shoot them?
C. Now let's say that Smith has about 50 guys, and they're driving around a small town forcing people to work, beating and maiming the people who don't. Is it OK for the government to go in and either arrest or shoot the whole lot of them?
D. Now let's expand the size of things even further: Let's say Smith now has a couple thousand guys in his army/police force and has complete control of a county. Does that change your answer?
E. How about an entire state, with, say, 20,000 troops?
F. How about a nation with 100,000 troops and 500,000 oppressed people?
When you answered "Yes" to any of the questions above, you accepted the idea that Smith's freedom may be compromised for a greater good. If you answered "No" to any of the questions above, then you're accepting the idea that Smith can unilaterally take away the freedom of somebody else without any repercussions. Neither one is a pure pro-freedom position.
Somewhere, the "right" of secession has to end, or there is anarchy, because every criminal would much rather declare themselves to be an independent nation than submit to the court system. And anarchy quickly becomes a tyranny of whoever has the guns and the willingness to use them.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Wednesday December 16 2015, @03:55PM
And I don't see anything in the Constitution that says "Oh, but if we don't like the president-elect's policy, we can secede and start shooting at you, and you aren't allowed to do anything about it."
There are a lot of great records from northern states about secession and nullification in the immediate post-Constitution era.
Somewhere, the "right" of secession has to end, or there is anarchy
I am an anarchist.
every criminal would much rather declare themselves to be an independent nation than submit to the court system
That's no problem, because if somebody commits a crime against somebody, then their government has the right to punish that person whether they secede or not. Secession doesn't give you the right to infringe somebody's rights to life, liberty, or property.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Wednesday December 16 2015, @04:54PM
There is another problem, which is more visible if you scale down your argument from state-level to smaller groups of people:
The basic principle is in the Declaration of independence: "all men are ... endowed ... with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." In this context I view a government as simply an institution that provides the service of securing rights. It is just if it derives its powers from the consent of the governed, i.e., if people willingly accept the relationship.
A. If some guy, let's call him Smith, is holding 3 people hostage at gunpoint, is it OK for the government to go in and either arrest or shoot him?
Sure. But what the government can't do is make Smith's family and neighbors into its perpetual subjects. The hostages might have a rights-securing institution that would protect them, or such an institution might do such work pro bono. But after Smith is dead and gone (or in jail, or otherwise vanquished), the institution afterward doesn't get to have a monopoly claim on all the surrounding territory.
B. Now let's say that Smith has a few buddies with him, and is holding 12 people hostage. Is it OK for the government to go in and either arrest or shoot them?
Sure. Same answer, and the same for your other scenarios.
I think in practice when you get to bigger scenarios you will reduce your costs dramatically by helping slaves escape instead of going up against an army and trying to liberate everybody within the territory. I would have liked to have seen the north kick the south out of the union, repeal or stop enforcing the fugitive slave laws, and create an insanely porous border for escaping slaves. Lots less death would be one great benefit.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday December 16 2015, @03:05AM
The federal government is supposed to just be a mutual defense compact for the states
You're confusing a confederacy with a federal state. I think we settled the whole confederacy vs federal nation a while back?
Yup. back in 1789 [wikipedia.org]
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr