The War On Bullshit

Bell insists that throttling Internet services is necessary. More specifically, Bell engages in “deep packet inspection,” which means they figure out what kind of data your downloading, and slow down the stuff they don’t like, i.e., peer-2-peer traffic. They argue that this is all for their customers: before traffic throttling, 5% of users ate 33% of the bandwidth, so the other 95% of users were being victimized. Therefore, Bell has to inspect what you’re downloading to make everything fair, right? Bullshit.

1. What you download and how much you download are different issues.

You don’t need to snoop on what people are downloading to even out traffic. You just cap users’ bandwidths or total downloads. I have no problem having to pay more to download 100 gigs per month than someone who downloads 10 gigs a month. I don’t think anyone has a reasonable complaint against paying more for a faster connection than a slower one. This has nothing to do with net neutrality, it’s just about charging people based on usage. (Which is a topic for another post.)

HOWEVER, charging people more for 1 gig of torrent videos than for 1 gig of streaming video, on the other hand, is precisely the kind of online-freedom-destroying-shenanigans that should be punishable by public beating.

2. Throttling screws over independent ISPs.

See, Bell owns the fiber network. It doesn’t make sense to have 25 competing ISPs, all with their own fiber networks. So the little ISPs rent the bandwidth from Bell, thus providing a kind of confounded, screwed-up, pseudo-competitive environment. But Ma Bell doesn’t like competitors, and wants to go back to being a big ol’ fashion monopoly. So Bell invents throttling practices that drastically decrease the bandwidth of these little ISPs while holding prices constant to run them out of business, all the while claiming it’s in their customers best interests. Yeah, right.

3. It’s none of their damn business.

When did telecoms become the thought police? Or in this case, the data police? It’s none of Bell’s goddamn business what I choose to download. If they can’t be held, legally, as accessory to crimes committed by their users, then they have no business inspecting their users’ browsing habits. You wouldn’t stand for the UPS opening all of your packages, would you?

4. They’re infringing consumer choice.

When you pay for 5 mb/s interenet service, you should expect to get 5 mb/s, regardless of what you decide to download or when you decide to do it. I understand that speeds may decrease when the network gets overloaded, and that things slow down if you download from a slow server. But what Bell’s doing is more like: if Bell doesn’t like what you’re downloading or when you’re doing it, they impose their bullshit morals on you by slowing down your connection. If I wanted moral guidance from a monopoly I’d…. well, I don’t know what I’d do. Perhaps shoot myself for being such a fucking retard.

5. Bell’s in bed with the RIAA/MPAA

Bell is certainly coming under pressure from the recording and movie industries to help curtail unauthorized downloading. Internet throttling is a clear manifestation of Bell’s siding with these big industries over the preferences of their customers.

6. Bell didn’t ask their customers what they wanted.

Anybody who says they are doing something for their customers without asking their customers what they want is a lying sack of shit. Bell didn’t ask me what I think of their plan. Did they ask you? Didn’t think so.

Conclusion

Bell’s Bullshit Claim: We’re slowing down your downloads to improve your service.

Bell’s Hidden Agenda: We’re throttling traffic to quietly strangle our competitors so we can regain our monopoly, leach our customers for every cent we can and tighten our grip on media by decimating net neutrality. We want to control everything you see and hear so we can tell you how to think and act, and make the internet a one-way medium like TV and radio.

Edit: It’s not P2P traffic that eats all the bandwidth anyhow, it’s streaming video.

I am not often caught going after the left, guns blazing, but as someone with some experience as a radio host, I have to voice opposition to possibly the biggest idiocy in radio broadcasting: the Fairness Doctrine. Never heard of it? Let’s define this bit of garbage, first.

Definition
This is an ancient law that was in effect from the late 40s until well into the 80s, the goal of which was to ensure that the airwaves were fair and balanced. Though the law didn’t require radio hosts to offer both sides of the political spectrum within a single program, it required stations to ‘fairly’ divide their programming schedules to address both the leftist and right-wing views. Possibly the smartest thing Ronald Reagan ever did was get rid of this garbage.

Support from the left
Unfortunately, there are a number of folks on the left who have pushed to have this deceased doctrine brought back to life. One-time presidential candidate John Kerry supports passing this legislation; Dennis Kucinich would also like to see the Fairness Doctrine brought back to life; even California Dems Diane Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi are strong supporters of this load of bullshit.

The theory is that there are a limited number of airwaves, but an infinite amount of people who would like their voice expressed on those airwaves – thus, we must regulate radio stations to ensure that they express both sides of the fence equally. There are a few reasons this is bullshit – in particular in today’s multimedia world.

Why This is B.S.
First off, it’s terrifying to me for the government to control political expression. It seems counter to the political dogma of the left, who, using the American Civil Liberties Union, fight so hard to protect people’s right to freedom of expression. Why should the government be able to tell the owners of a radio station (or stations) what their programming schedule must look like? I’m not exactly a conservative in favor of complete free market, but I certainly don’t like the regulation of what is said in the media.

I bet these guys support the Fairness Doctrine.

Besides, this kind of regulation is based on a bullshit concept to begin with: complete objectivity in media. Students of writing and journalism used to learn all about hiding their bias and trying to objectively present both sides of an argument, without favoring one or the other. Unfortunately, that never really worked. It just leads to media outlets covering their bias up while using clever, sometimes subconscious, rhetorical tactics to favor one side over the other. It probably makes a little more sense to expose one’s bias as a media outlet; just be up front, and let people know which side of the political fence an agency leans toward.

Second, the Fairness Doctrine in its original incarnation was a tool for leftist politicians to attack their adversaries. Bill Ruder, Kennedy’s Secretary of Commerce, has openly said that the political strategy of the Dems in the 60s was to use the Fairness Doctrine to attack right-wing radio hosts in the hope that the attacks would cost the right-wingers so much they would decide the show was too expensive to continue airing.

Now, I’m not exactly a big conservative, but I don’t like to see anyone attacked for expressing their political views. This doctrine was used to force small radio stations to drop right-wing programming when station owners realized they would have to give free time to liberals to balance the programming. That is the most under-handed, sly and terrifying form of political censorship.

Most importantly, though, why is this nonsense about bringing back the Fairness Doctrine absolutely idiotic? Because it serves no purpose today. We live in a multimedia world, and the idea that radio is the place most people develop their political opinions is simply not true anymore. While it is true that radio programs are unquestionably right-biased, liberals now have outlets they did not have under the original Fairness Doctrine. This very blog is a good example of why the Fairness Doctrine is no longer necessary – if, in fact, it was ever necessary in the first place. Television is now filled with a host of liberal-biased shows to counter the conservative voices, and it’s now easier than ever to self-publish political ‘zines to get the liberal word out on paper.

Even traditional radio is on the verge of dying, giving way to satellite radio and Internet broadcasts, which are fairly easy to set up for those wishing to get their liberal voice heard.

We should all let this nonsense serve as a warning: there are no politicians not worth watching. Left or right, they will still spread the manure to get re-elected - or to silence Rush Limbaugh, apparently. This is just a dirty tactic to silence the free expression of opposing ideas, and I think conservative and liberal alike can see that this is dirty politickin’ in its purest form.

So, in closing, way to go, Pelosi & Co. Orwell would be proud. Or Hitler. Or Stalin…

Once again, public policy is being manipulated by people who watch too many action movies. In light of the recent events at Virginia Tech, a number of states, including Virginia and Louisiana, unfortunately my home-state, are considering a brilliant new law to deal with the problem of shootings on college campuses: allowing students and teachers with the proper licenses to carry concealed handguns with them to class. You heard me: concealed handguns in classrooms.

State Representative Ernest Wooten of Belle Chasse, La. (where there must be some serious inbreeding going on) has proposed that we arm more people on campuses – not just allowing guns in dormitories, but allowing students with the proper licenses to carry concealed handguns to their classes. In Virginia, NRA representatives have pushed legislation to allow basically the same thing. Under this proposal, college kids would be required to carry weapons to school.

Ted Nugent. Who needs photoshop when the world is populated by so many idiots?

I’ll make this real easy for you to figure out. Here’s three simple reasons why arming college kids is about the dumbest idea any statesman has proposed since Hitler decided Russia was worth invading.

3. Psychos are not deterred by guns.

Now, I realize that you and I, the average Joes, are pretty terrified of having our brains blown out. The college kid who decides shooting up a college campus is the best way to solve problems is, however, not the average Joe. Just consider a couple of the most recent examples of how these nuts commit suicide after shooting up a school:

Stephen Kazmierczak shot seven classmates and then himself at Northern Illinois University.

Cho Seung-Hui killed 32 schoolmates and then himself at Virginia Tech.

Right here in Louisiana, a nursing student shot and killed two women and then herself at the Louisiana Technical College. It’s pretty obvious to me that anyone deranged enough to shoot up a school is not going to be deterred by somebody’s concealed Beretta.

2. College guys are often on the prowl for a fight anyway. I don’t know if you remember your college daze as well as I do, but I recall most college-age guys putting off enough testosterone to intimidate the starting line of the Dallas Cowboys. Just think back on all the stupid reasons guys in their 20s beat each other senseless. I know, you’re saying, “but we arm our soldiers at that age!” Yeah, but soldiers and law enforcement are trained to use guns. We’ll look at that more in a moment. First, let’s look at a very typical college scene.

Greg just failed his College Algebra exam. He’s not doing as well as he needs to in order to stay on the track team, and he’s having a pretty bad day. Rufus is, unfortunately, the guy who gives him a reason; Greg catches Rufus laughing with Greg’s girlfriend Alice as they do homework together in the Student Union. In the good, old-fashioned, Andy Griffith version of this scene, Greg lashes out with a mean right cross and knocks Rufus’s block off.

In the Dick Cheney-sanctioned version of this scene, Greg reaches to the small of his back, pulls out the .45 tucked under his shirt, and blows Rufus and Alice’s brains out. Greg runs, but realizes after burning off the adrenaline that he has just killed his girlfriend, and shoots himself in the head. Unfortunately, Greg does not die – he just suffers massive brain damage and is then elected President. …well, I guess I was wrong on that one. Things worked out better for Greg in Scene II, right?

1. And the number one reason this is the dumbest crap I’ve ever seen: guns in untrained hands = chaos. Alright, we’ve seen on the news what happens when just one irate student opens fire on a college classroom. Can you imagine the devastation if there had been guns in the hands of five or ten classmates – all untrained in the use of a firearm? It would be a war-zone – worse, a war-zone full of idiots who can’t use a gun properly.

Imagine the devastation if one guy walks in brandishing a pistol, and eight people in the back row decide to take him down before he can hurt someone. In a matter of seconds, everyone in the front of the class is on the floor, dead.

Conclusion

This has got to be the stupidest shit I have ever seen anybody suggest. After Columbine, parents just said we had to stop letting our kids listen to devil music and we needed to censor everything. Now, Dick Cheney and Ted Nugent would have us believe we need to put more guns in schools. Do these morons really think a bunch of untrained, testosterone-laden college kids will be able to prevent more deaths when these shootings happen?

It seems like the theory is, if pantywaist liberal professors cannot protect our kids, let them protect themselves. Someone needs to tell Cheney that the flaw in this logic is that it is not a college administrator’s job to protect our students. That’s what campus police are for, you Darth Vader look-alike imbecile. Come to think of it, why would anyone even consider any gun law proposed by the guy who shot his hunting partner!?