[TomMckenny]

The monopolies' _claim_ of benevolence is irrelevant. Nor does it mater what anonymous voices on HN said. I at least have the limited option of using Bing and DuckDuckGo for search. But I have no choice for ISPs.

Demanding a free market in America did not use to be controversial. But for two years now, under a sea of double think, it's just used as cover for political cronyism and contribution shakedowns.

[18pfsmt]

It is the regulations themselves, not the lack of them, that have allowed for these de facto monopolies to form. These have been at the local level, where practical considerations were relevant (my local company often has a cable mess going on 30ft up these poles), but they went overboard. Should a given city allow 30 companies to string cable across their poles? I think it is up to the city, but if they make a mistake it shouldn't be the company that is punished. Local governments often disrupt free enterprise with their regulations for a reason, but when they get things wrong we should acknowledge that.

[TomMckenny]

We don't need 30 duplicate lines across country for competition so we don't need them for the last mile. And quite a few municipalities do allow multiple wires. But even so ISPs don't invade each others territory. The over-regulation stories, among others, are simply untruths promulgated to provide plausible pro-monopoly sentiment.

If the US wants something that works, then just do something that works. For example [1]

At any rate, the ISP arguments are well known. And are about as moot as appeals to a free market or the public good. In the current environment, no amount of evidence concerning monopolies will change policy that is fundamentally based solely on political favoritism and retribution.

[1]https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/03/uk-regulators-of...

[18pfsmt]

Do you believe the ends justify the means?

Ninja edit: If you do, we are not talking about anything other than straight civil war.

[TomMckenny]

>Do you believe the ends justify the means?

In the colloquial sense of that phrase, certainly not. Any honest calculation about the ends includes _all_ events that cause it. That necessarily includes the costs of the means.

> If you do, we are not talking about anything other than straight civil war.

I don't believe that is possible under any circumstances. The pattern being followed in the US is not at all unique. It is essentially identical to several other nations which are going or have gone down this path. There was never more than a broken window and burning trash can or two. (which of course are always portrayed as world ending violence justifying yet more authoritarian behavior)

In the end, either the public notices the situation in time and somehow gets enough ballots counted that they return the country to sanity (enough ballots to overcome gerrymandering, the electoral college, the unbalanced senate, systematic disfranchisement and foreign interference)

Or the country follows the same path that Hungary and Poland are on now, towards a hyper nationalistic, xenophobic kleptocracy. Essentially the same choice soon to be faced by several other western countries (and India and Turkey btw).

[18pfsmt]

America is based on an idea, not historical aristocracy or genealogy (i.e. blood and soil). We were founded on freedom. The US, as the first start-up country is simply not comparable to other countries. This is why an American conservative is not comparable to a European conservative. Certain degenerates are attempting to import these European ideas into the US (e.g. Bannon), but I will not condone these illiberal policies that are contrary to the founding of America.

[TomMckenny]

Clearly Trump's party is crucially different than John McCain's. It's unimaginable that McCain would keep kids in cages, call the press "enemy of the people", lead chants to lock up political opponents, undermine NATO, or encourage hostile powers to assist his candidacy. I may not be a conservative, but whatever else may be said of the old McCain-Regan-Rockefeller party, they would certainly never, ever engage in any of these obscene activities.

And I entirely agree, the US does have some considerable advantages:

- the "blood and soil" ideology is very alien (though not unprecedented as seen by the first, more obvious, "America first" movement [1] and later by John Birch)

- it's had 240 years of voting and some notion of civil-personal rights

- there's nice separation of powers. (Although it's becoming apparent that a president with >33% of the Senate can exercise almost unlimited authority.)

But these advantages are not automated, people have to use and defend them. The judiciary is especially delicate, it's been the first thing targeted by the other neo-autocrats.

Also there is a possibility of over confidence in these institutions ("it can't happen here"). And there's an unfortunate dose of denial ("he did not mean that literally"). And inexperience (modern Germans know exactly what the AfD is and how dangerous it is)

But absolutely, the future is not written yet and certainly I too am never going to be shut up.

By the way, the Bannon influence is so obvious (and 1930's obsessed) that you see Trump threatening opponents with half understood ideas of a paramilitary somehow made out of "bikers and police"[2]

[1] https://vimeo.com/237489146 [2] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/434110-trump-sug...