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posted by Fnord666 on Monday November 27 2017, @02:26AM   Printer-friendly
from the which-did-you-vote-for dept.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-isp-web-browsing-privacy-fire-sale

Republicans in Congress just voted to reverse a landmark FCC privacy rule that opens the door for ISPs to sell customer data. Lawmakers provided no credible reason for this being in the interest of Americans, except for vague platitudes about "consumer choice" and "free markets," as if consumers at the mercy of their local internet monopoly are craving to have their web history quietly sold to marketers and any other third party willing to pay.

The only people who seem to want this are the people who are going to make lots of money from it. (Hint: they work for companies like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T.) Incidentally, these people and their companies routinely give lots of money to members of Congress.

So here [below in the article] is a list of the lawmakers who voted to betray you, and how much money they received from the telecom industry in their most recent election cycle.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Nuke on Monday November 27 2017, @01:47PM (1 child)

    by Nuke (3162) on Monday November 27 2017, @01:47PM (#602052)

    Democracy died quite some time ago pretty much *everywhere*, and in a variety of ways from country to country

    It has not died everywhere; democracy is simply people voting for a government and clearly that still happens most places. You mistake is to assume that democracy should automatically lead to sweetness and light, and if it does not then it cannot be democracy.

    Or to put it another way, you think that if it does not give the result that you want, it cannot be democracy. It was funny to see all the "democratic" liberals in the UK, following the Brexit vote, suddenly become anti-democracy and rage for the vote to be overturned.

    If your elected representatives from all parties and viewpoints are not at least trying to work together in order to find the best possible compromise that will provide the best possible outcome for the majority of the electorate, then what was the point of having a ballot in the first place?

    Eh? The point of an election is to sideline the arguments and discussions, tell the losers to STFU, and for the winners to get on with whatever they want to do. It is a virtualised civil war. Or as someone said, it is like two wolves and a chicken voting what to have for dinner.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by zocalo on Monday November 27 2017, @04:01PM

    by zocalo (302) on Monday November 27 2017, @04:01PM (#602082)
    That kind of makes my point; people have forgotten what the original intent of deposing those "my way, or the highway" monarchy systems was and just accept the way it now is. Take how the Founding Fathers originally setup the US system, for instance; the losing party candidate was supposed to take the Vice Presidency to ensure that both views were represented (an unworkable ivory tower idea that was soon scrapped, but still), and both houses were supposed to work together to achieve a mutually beneficial goal - the only remaining legacy of which seems to be a requirement that a bill be co-sponsored by a representative from either side of the aisle, after which the votes are mostly down to which party's candidate is currently in The Whitehouse. Just because debates can (and should) get quite partisan, doesn't change what the intent is; to find a solution that best meets the collective needs of all the constituents (which might not necessarily be what the contituents actually *want*).

    Take the DPRK; they have elections, everyone chooses their preferred option (there's often only one, so it's really simple), and as a result everyone gets what they want and is happy, and it's a shining example of a functioning democracy, right? I'd actually say that if democracy was working as originally intended then almost nobody would get *exactly* what they wanted, but as many people as possible would get a result that they can at least accept and work with. Let's look at Brexit again; roughly a 50:50 split between Leave/Remain, and of the Leave vote a range of opinions from a soft exit to hard exit. That distribution most probably follows a bell curve, but even if it's a linear distribution the current hardline exit approach doesn't really work for either the best overall solution or your "You lost, STFU!" approach. Yes, the Leave vote got the majority, so fine, for better or worse that's the way it's going to be (leaving aside the whole non-binding referendum and all the other issues with the setup), and whatever the eventual outcome we're going to have to try and make the best of it - and there's nothing wrong with expecting and preparing for the worst as long as you keep hoping for the best. However, by going for a hard exit (or what seems increasingly likely to be a no-deal default , which even Leave think tanks were saying would be a disaster before the vote) the Conversatives have pretty much guaranteed that not only will most of the ~50% who voted Remain not like the outcome, but whatever proportion of Leave voters that just wanted a soft exit for some nominal improvement on a given issue won't either.

    The way I see it, there are two places where ballots should occur in a typical democracy; when electing representatives, and when those representatives make decisions on what becomes law. The former should really just inform the representatives of what their constituents views are so they can represent them more effectively, and the latter should be where you get the full-on, first past the post, "You lost, STFU!", style ballots based on that informed view of the distribution of their constituent's views on the matter. A referendum is a special case that applies the latter style to the general electorate, which is fine, but as the aftermath of Brexit demonstrated they need much clearer ground rules than David Cameron set up for Brexit to avoid all of the kinds of fallout that resulted. Things like being perfectly clear over the intent to avoid the Non-Binding vs. "It's the Will of the People, we're not have a debate!" issue, any ideally a minimum turnout / super-majority requirement (which Leave actually wanted to guarantee a do-over when they lost, but promptly shut-up about once the results came in) for what is presumably a major decision given that you're having a referendum in the first place.
    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!