Republican Platform To Include Internet Freedom Plank 459
First time accepted submitter jay.madison writes "The new Republican Party platform includes language which promises action to promote freedom on the Internet. The move is being driven by Rand Paul's libertarian wing of the party. The text, which is still in draft form, says Republicans will work to guarantee that 'individuals retain the right to control the use of their data by third parties,' and that 'personal data receives full constitutional protection from government overreach.' Republicans would resist moves toward international governance of the Internet, and seek to 'remove regulatory barriers that protect outdated technologies and business plans from innovation and competition, while preventing legacy regulation from interfering with new technologies such as mobile delivery of voice and video data as they become crucial components of the Internet ecosystem.' The platform is due to be adopted at the Republican National Convention next week."
Re:Not so fast (Score:4, Informative)
Obama re-signed the Patriot Act and the NDAA.
Obama has deficit spent at twice the rate of GWB.
The 2008 economic decline was from......the housing bust. Government mandating home loans be provided to people who couldn't pay them back.
There is a lot of blame for both parties, but only one place where both those parties cause most of the trouble. =====>DC
Re:Not so fast (Score:5, Informative)
No he didn't. In 1996 Clinton authorized the use of a Cruise missile aimed at Bin Laden's satellite phone signal. Clinton was then lambasted for wasting money by the Republican Congress, especially Trent Lott (remember him?). And it was GWB just a year after 9/11 who said that he didn't know where bin Laden was and wasn't interested. It was Obama who finished the job.
"Obama re-signed the Patriot Act and the NDAA" - that doesn't absolve the Republicans any.
"Obama has deficit spent at twice the rate of GWB" - that doesn't absolve the Republicans any either.
"The 2008 economic decline was from......the housing bust." - and the housing bust was caused by the Housing Boom caused by the securitization of mortgages on GWB's watch while the Glass-Siegel act was gutted into uselessness
There is a lot of blame for both parties, but to absolve the Republicans and just blame the Democrats is just pathetic. And twisting history to fit your political beliefs is beneath contempt.
Re:Not so fast (Score:2, Informative)
Obama has not deficit spent at twice the rate of GWB, but, instead, has slowed deficit spending. See the slope of the deficit chart [usgovernmentdebt.us] over the past 13 years. It's most informative. You'll learn several things, namely that GWB and the republicans (remember, they started with a super-majority IIRC) put in motion actions that doubled our debt in 8 years. Another thing to note about said debt is that Obama inherited 2 wars from GWB and the republicans, as well as the prescription medicare piece, which were all unfunded and added to the deficit during his term. The last thing to note is that after his first year, in 2010, the slope starts to decline. Everything before that is GWB/repub doing.
Now for the 2008 economic bubble crash - this was not merely the result of the housing bust. If you bought that, I have some ocean front property in Montana to sell you. The housing bust was the trigger, the real cause was CDS's, which were banned until 2001, when Republicans, under the guise of removing "excessive" regulation, undid the last major piece of legislation enacted to prevent a repeat of the 1929 stock market crash. CDSs are essentially bets on whether something will go up or down, nothing more, and nothing less. IOW, it's gambling. AIG was left holding the bag, and that's when everything crashed. You could also consider it a Ponzi scheme if you'd like. As long as the music keeps playing, everyone gets to "reap" the rewards. But at some point, the music stops, and everything crashes back down to reality. Goldman Sachs, naturally, with government backing and a substantial presence of former partners in the regulatory pieces of government, kept its "rewards", and managed to take out a competitor at the same time.
Re:Internet Freedom (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, you can have freedom without net neutrality. We've had net freedom since forever, and no-one started talking about net neutrality until a couple of years ago.
Because net neutrality was the de facto standard for the internet up until a few years ago when certain providers thought they could make more money by penalizing their competitors (e.g. Comcast imposing bandwidth caps, but not counting their own streaming video service [ala Netflix] towards that cap).
Re:Not so fast (Score:4, Informative)
"Bill Clinton passed on Bin Laden after the first trade center attacks."
No he didn't. In 1996 Clinton authorized the use of a Cruise missile aimed at Bin Laden's satellite phone signal.
That is not what the GP is referring to. The GP is referring to a different incident, post embassy bombings (?), where a special ops team had a visual on Bin Laden. Clinton had them stand down.
"The 2008 economic decline was from......the housing bust." - and the housing bust was caused by the Housing Boom caused by the securitization of mortgages on GWB's watch while the Glass-Siegel act was gutted into uselessness
Bill Clinton signed the legislation permitting the credit default swap financial instruments. Not only did he authorize these financial WMDs but he made it illegal for States to attempt to regulate such activities. Voiding existing regulations that were on the books in some states, regulations that prevented the purchase of insurance on something you had no financial interest in.