On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 10:41 AM, Harry Penner <hpenner at gmail.com> wrote: > At the risk of flames: the Internet as we know it has flourished in > large part because its original sponsor, the federal government, has > mostly left it alone. Why do we think adding government regulations > to it will make it better (or preserve the freedom we enjoy on it)? > Generally speaking, doesn't regulation take away freedom rather than > increasing it, by definition? I'm no futurist but it seems to me that > putting restrictions on the big guys is likely to affect us little > guys in some unforeseen but unpleasant way. > > Sorry if the above sounds trollish but I just think we should be > careful what we ask for. With companies you can usually vote with > your feet to try to change or avoid their bad behavior, but > regulations are usually universal and forever... And the regs will > surely by written by people not nearly as close to or as thoughtful > about the problem as we tclug'ers... > > Seems to me we ought to show up and tell the FCC to keep their paws off us. > > -Harry > > Harry, How about instead of making sweeping generalizations you make a case for your position with supporting arguments. Regulation is no less a double-edged sword than an absence of regulation. How does net-neutrality regulation harm us? How does the absence of net-neutrality regulation help us? Do you even properly understand the topic you are debating, and do you know for a fact the federal government mostly left the internet alone after funding its creation and development, or does it just seem that way to you for other reasons? I don't think you should apologize for your comments sounding trollish. I think you should apologize for making trollish comments. I can already see this thread spinning away into the land of rhetoric. -Rob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20100819/06bba721/attachment.htm