Net Neutered

I posted my latest criticism of the FCC Net Neutrality ruling at Free Republic and got slammed by an FCC apologist know-it-all.

I plead guilty only to the charge of not making my main point clear: Free markets allocate resources way more efficiently than a government central-planning committee can.

Progressives love attaching warm and fuzzy feel good names like "Net Neutrality" on their statist projects in order to mask their true intent: Taming the digital wild west known as the internet.

Here's the Net Neutrality Problem in a Nutshell

The story goes that Level 3 Communications, which handles Netflix’s Internet traffic, says that, all of a sudden, Comcast started demanding more money to accept said traffic.

The problem is that there really doesn’t seem to be an easy way out of this mess. Clearly streaming media is taking over the world, but there’s one problem: bandwidth isn’t free, and that’s Comcast’s biggest complaint. If you want Comcast to carry this or that stream, then you can’t expect Comcast to do so at a loss, right?

Granted, I’ve no idea how much it costs Comcast to run and maintain a broadband network, but I recognize that they’re in business to make money. (Nicholas Deleon – Crunchgear)

The point here is that the content providers, the infrastructure people and the ISPs will work it out; they always have.  Nobody wants to make customers mad, since mad customers take their money elsewhere.  That concept is foreign to a monopolistic government bureaucrat.

With the Net Neutrality decision, the Federal Government has picked winners and losers.  Here are a few headlines following internet FCC's power grab:

StockMarketsReview.com: FCC Decision Disappoints Comcast

MarketWatch: Netflix Jumps

So government poobahs who have no idea what they're monkeying with end up swinging markets and stifling technology.

A WSJ article asks, "Is This the Peak for Netflix?"  The peak, if it has happened, has nothing to do with the FCC decision and everything to do with competition from the likes of Apple TV, Amazon, Roku, Boxee and Google TV.

Technology and the markets move fast, government needs to get the hell out of the way and stop blocking innovation and competition.

More reading:
Net Neutrality and the TV Wars
CATO - The FCC Should Not Regulate the Internet

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/01/canada-gets-first-bitter-dose-of-metered-internet-billing.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

Hundreds of Ways to Screw the Taxpayer

Our federal government is a clanking, soulless monster completely out of control. Good people like Senator Tom Coburn are looking to tame the beast.

Duplication of effort alone accounts for hundreds of billions in waste annually, according to the WSJ article, Billions in Bloat Uncovered in Beltway.

"The U.S. government has 15 different agencies overseeing food-safety laws, more than 20 separate programs to help the homeless and 80 programs for economic development."

OK, I can see food safety laws. I could even perhaps understand the government fostering economic development...  If I saw any evidence anyone in the federal government understood basic economics!  Given the current state of things, I’d say letting the federal government do “economic development” is kinda like allowing Freddie Kruger to perform heart surgery. The Homeless? The federal government has no mandate whatsoever to address that. It’s not in the constitution. Defund it.

The report says there are 18 federal programs that spent a combined $62.5 billion in 2008 on food and nutrition assistance, but little is known about the effectiveness of 11 of these programs because they haven't been well studied.

There is also nothing in the US Constitution that authorizes the federal government to take money from taxpayers and use it to hand out food to people. This is a function more rightly done at the local level, and better and more efficiently done by private charities. What does a DC apparatchik know about poverty in Denver or Detroit? Do they even care about the people they hand this stuff out to? Do they care if bums and welfare cheats are receiving benefits?

This is why faceless, mechanistic charity does not work, and in fact is not charity. There is no connection and no feedback loop.  The givers become callous cogs in a self-serving machine, turning the the entitled recipients into faceless, thankless wards of the state.


Here's More Wasteful Duplication...

"The agency found 82 federal programs to improve teacher quality…"

That clearly has failed—End it!

"80 to help disadvantaged people with transportation…"

Could you imagine President Washington and Congressman Adams handing out horses to those who have none?

"47 for job training and employment…"

That’s what schools and community colleges are for

"… and 56 to help people understand finances"

Government obviously does not understand finances. How in the hell does it expect others to do so? This is madness!

Many of my blogger buddies are probably tired of my Air Force budget cut stories from the Clinton 90’s, but they are apropos. He slashed the DoD budget, and to be fair to him, Bush the Elder started it. DoD ended up being the only department that took real, no kidding cuts, as opposed to others who just had their rate of increase slashed. Bottom line: It forced us to get rid of the dead wood and drop inefficient practices. We came out a leaner, meaner fighting force in the end.

Every corner of federal, state and municipal budgets should be slashed so they can experience the same beneficial process.

Government Statistics Made Easy!

Another day, another liberal blogger making outrageous charges in a feeble attempt to score cheap political points...


 If you're interested in learning how to quickly (less than 5 minutes!) get to the bottom of government facts and figures, follow along with me. Learning how to do this is invaluable, especially when combating wild slurs from the left.

Unhinged Liberal:
"The biggest lie, which has put the Federal and State governments in the RED, is the lie that cutting taxes will spur growth and bring in more money to pay the bills.

We have had 30 years of experience with this promise, and the facts prove that theory to be false."

Of course, he's wrong.  You can go here and run the numbers yourself.  It is not a government site, but it uses publicly available government statistics from GPO Access.

Contrary to the unhinged liberal's claim, the data show that revenue did increase after the Reagan tax cuts and the Bush II tax cuts. The chart to the left is for the Reagan years and it shows the growth in constant 2005 dollars.  You can punch in the 2000-2010 timespan and you'll see continued revenue increases after the Bush tax cut as well.




The data plainly show that revenue increased after each tax cut, and GDP also kept climbing. So clearly, the culprit in all of this is the spending.

Unfortunately, government spending grew at an even greater rate than the revenue increase, resulting in the growth of the national debt.

Look at the chart during the Reagan 80's, and you'll see why liberals (and libertarians,and fiscal conservatives) criticize Reagan and the Democratic House.  They increased spending even more than revenue increased, adding to the public debt.  Clinton and a Republican congress eventually flatlined it around 1997, and even started it downward.  Bush II ramped it up even more, and Obama is on course to set new spending records.

A False Nexus
This is where the mischief comes in.  Liberals scream and point to the debt chart, ignoring the first chart showing the increase in revenue.  To them, this "proves" that tax cuts cause debt.  They have to leave out the fact that revenue increased and the economy grew in order to "prove" this.  That tax cuts caused the debt is patently and provably false.  Too much spending is what exploded the debt.

An Easy to Use Tool to Analyze Government Data

I highly recommend Christopher Chantrill's Government Spending site.   Look on the left sidebar and you will find links to the sister sites, US Government Debt, and US Government Revenue. 

You can use the interactive charts to zoom in on areas of interest.  All of his charts are powered by US Government data accessed at GPOAccess.Gov.  You can also download all the data yourself for your own analysis from that same site.

Chantrill's site makes this very easy to do.  If you click the little "Here" link below the charts, you can build your own interactive line chart that displays the data from year to year.  % of GDP is a good choice to display for government spending, since it shows you how big of a slice the federal government takes out of the economy.  I also like the "$ billion 2005" setting, which displays all data in constant 2005 numbers.  This is important since the dollar's value is constantly eroding and it allows us to compare the 1930's with the 1980's by basing all numbers in constant dollars.

Avoid Petty Partisan Spats and Focus on the Stats
I bring all of this to you because I am tired of arguing with people who just want to tear down republicans or score some cheap political point.  Engaging in these kinds of arguments is a descent into madness.  Stick to the facts, and you can at least make some headway towards understanding, if not for the lib you are arguing with, then at least for yourself.

Why Obamacare is Unconstitutional

Progressives and their Democrat Party handmaidens have it upside down

We The People are sovereign over our own lives; government is the servant, not the master. 


The US Constitution does not give us rights; it protects those unalienable rights given to us by God.  The Federal Government is not the "boss" of the states or the people.  The US Constitution is the instruction manual that the Federal Government must follow, and it was dictated by We The People and the several states.

Ron DeSantis and Adam Laxalt have written an excellent article on why Obamacare is unconstitutional.  It is chock full of quotes from the founders talking about how the federal powers are few and defined, not indefinite.  They succinctly lay out their case using the words of the founders... 

As Madison famously explained inThe Federalist No. 45, the "powers delegated by theproposed Constitution to the federal government are few anddefined." 

As a congressman, Madison warned against constructions ofthe Constitution that rendered the government "no longer a limitedone, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subjectto particular exceptions." 

If inactivity can be characterized ascommercial activity, then virtually anything is ripe for federalsupervision, converting the Constitution into an "unlimitedgovernment," which is precisely what theFounding Fathers tried to prevent.  (American Spectator)

Such ideas embodied in our constitution are anathema to progressives and subversive to their cause.

Hey! Teacher! Leave Them Kids Alone!

What is it with all these female teachers getting jiggy with their male students, and where were these teachers when I was a teen, dammit?

But seriously, why are we seeing so much of this now? I’ll spare you the moralizing and leave it out there as an opinion question.

While I don’t condone this activity, I think it is an abuse of the law to treat an adult woman who seduces a 16 or 17 year old as a child molester. Also, calling a consensual act between an adult and a 17-year old an "assault on a child" is an abuse of the term, obscuring the fact that there are indeed nasty child predators out there.

Kick her out of her teaching job and ban her from the profession? Sure. Take her kids away? No. We have not only lost all sense of morality in this country, we've also lost all sense of proportionality, especially in legal matters.

In Arvada (part of Denver), an 11 year old student was arrested and taken into custody for drawing stick figures and scrawling the words "teacher must die."

This was a gross overreaction. The kid needs therapy, which he is in, and he was encouraged to make such drawings as a substitute for acting out. Can't a school simply suspend the kid if they think he's a threat, or talk with the kid's parents and therapist to see if there is an appropriate remedy?

Our Schools have turned into Government-Run Nuthouses

 

We need to privatize primary and secondary education. Government has completely botched it and can no longer be trusted. Our schools must cease being dysfunctional government institutions and instead become places of business, where professionals get paid based upon performance and wasteful bureaucratic overhead is slashed.

The customers also must learn to dress and behave appropriately, at the risk of being tossed out of the building. What place of business in America would tolerate making out in the hallways, bullies threatening others, coming to work high, or bored dingbats disrupting others for their own entertainment?

If a female teacher seduced my teen, I'd demand she be fired, not arrested. If it were a male teacher, I'd beat him up and then demand he be fired. Someone with so little self-control has no business shaping young lives. All of this can be taken care of with no government involvement whatsoever.

Same goes for disruptive students. Little Johnny Wankster doesn't want to follow the rules? Bounce him and refund the balance of his tuition to the parents! Cutting off welfare, food stamps and public housing will quickly make flunking out of school and being stupid a poor life choice.

Mother Should I Trust The Government?

We've lost control of ourselves and the circumstances around us, so government steps in, making a bad situation even worse. Government pampering creates a cadre of incontinent, self-indulgent whiners. It also creates a capricious environment where lazy authorities end up collaring only the simplest offenders, while the truly dangerous and street-savvy get away with murder.

Is is such a radical notion to want to chase government back to its constitutional corner and to once again learn to do for ourselves?

Are We Still Capable of Self-Governance?

Is the Founding Fathers' ideal of each person governing himself or herself outmoded?

Charles Schumer wants the government to collect even more information on free citizens, others want to keep guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens...

All kinds of stupid ideas are washing up on shore in the wake of the Arizona shootings.  Senator Schumer wants the military to report civilians who fail drug tests at the enlistment station.  Their names would go to the FBI and they would be banned from buying guns.  I don't want doped up people carrying weapons, but his idea would remove someone's constitutional right with no legal adjudication.

One government agency (DoD) reports your name to another (FBI) and your rights are gone.  Sounds like something out of an Orwell novel.  Would the FBI also raid the person's home looking for weapons?

Others are simply, and repetitively, calling for gun control of some flavor or other.  Limit the ammo, or magazine size, licensing...  You can put all the controls in the world in place, but people will find ways around them.

Locks are for Honest People
This is what John Adams meant by our constitution being made for "a moral and religious people."  Religious arguments aside, what he meant is that ours is not a top-down rules-based society, but one where each person governs himself or  herself.  The constitution does not dictate morality; it protects the God-given rights of all.

Such a system requires self-discipline.  As anyone in the military can tell you, imposed discipline only goes so far, and the military employs it chiefly to instill self-discipline.

An irresponsible person in one kitchen can cause an entire apartment block to burn down or explode.  An automobile is a dangerous weapon and kills thousands every year.  Life is fraught with dangers and randomness.

It's a balancing act, and I think enduring conservative principles, as outlined by Russell Kirk in his Ten Conservative Principles are a much better guide than reactionary thinking on the left.  Caution!  It's full of archaic concepts like customs and prudence.

A society in which men and women are governed by belief in an enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wrong, by personal convictions about justice and honor, will be a good society—whatever political machinery it may utilize; while a society in which men and women are morally adrift, ignorant of norms, and intent chiefly upon gratification of appetites, will be a bad society—no matter how many people vote and no matter how liberal its formal constitution may be. (Russell Kirk - 10 Conservative Principles)

Obama's No Lincoln, Plus a Quick Economics Lesson

Hailed as America’s first truly cosmopolitan president, Mr. Obama seems to have learned nothing from his youthful years on the international scene. It's no exaggeration to say that the typical Army Sergeant has more real-life experience than this elitist metrosexual poser.

He’s not like Lincoln because he’s shown no humility...

"I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me insufficient for that day."
  -- Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln had seen success and failure in his life,and he understood all too well our flawed and fallen nature. He had a deep humility borne of this knowledge.

It is impossible to imagine Obama saying something like that.  Instead, he and his wife lecture us on how stupid we are.  Obama juts his chin in the air and fills it with flowery words that have no basis in real-world experience. He’s an inexperienced, unlearned man, but this does not stop him from loudly calling out enemies and lecturing us on how to eat, how to live, how to sneeze and how to spend our money.

To comprehend economics, avoid Paul Krugman, read Greg Mankiw

Harvard Economics professor Greg Mankiw has a gift for explaining the dismal science. Here he explains how economic transactions in a free market are not a zero sum game, but rather, they are win-win situations:

… let’s start with a basic economic transaction. You have a driveway covered in snow and would be willing to pay $40 to have it shoveled. The boy next door can do it in two hours, or he can spend that time playing on his Xbox, an activity he values at $20. The solution is obvious: You offer him $30 to shovel your drive, and he happily agrees.

The key here is that everyone gains from trade. By buying something for $30 that you value at $40, you get $10 of what economists call “consumer surplus.” Similarly, your young neighbor gets $10 of “producer surplus,” because he earns $30 of income by incurring only $20 of cost. Unlike a sports contest, which by necessity has a winner and a loser, a voluntary economic transaction between consenting consumers and producers typically benefits both parties. (Greg Mankiw - Emerging Markets)

This also explains why trade deficits are not always bad. Think about it: Your household runs a permanent trade deficit with the grocer and the utility company. If they were simply vacuuming money out of your pocket this would be a bad thing, but it is not because you get a product back (food, heat) for the money you hand over. In turn, those products enable you to continue widening the trade surplus with your employer.

Finally, this is why I think, on balance Wikileaks helps more than hurts...

China has us by the balls:

An October 2008 cable, released by WikiLeaks, showed a senior Chinese official linking questions about much-needed Chinese investment to sensitive military sales to Taiwan.

His comments came days after the Pentagon notified Congress it was poised to sell $6.5 billion worth of arms to China's arch rival Taiwan.

The much-delayed package was eventually sold, but did not include requested F-16 jets. (AP - Breitbart)