Republican-controlled Florida Legislature Outlaws all Computers, Electronic Tablets and Smart Phones

Originally posted by ownbestenemy

Originally posted by Cheesefleas

Originally posted by ownbestenemy
The language is very broad but to pin it to just Republicans is highly partisan; see New York's own Cuomo and his anti-gun legislation that effectively made every police officer out of compliance (until the oversight was adjusted of course).

Quick!

Pivot to New York!

I am not pivoting to New York. I am pointing out that idiotic "law" is legislated regardless of the makeup of the body: Illinois -- Vomiting prohibited in taxi-cabs (Democrat controlled government); California -- Allowing non-citizens to be poll workers (Democrat controlled government); Utah -- Ban "happy-hour" (Republican controlled government), etc, etc.

The list can go on so it wasn't an attempt to construct a red-herring or even a straw-man. It was to point out that in the OP, they made it clear that they believe that only stupid laws (or dangerous laws) flow from within the halls of a Republican held government. I can easily point out otherwise.

ETA:
40,000 "laws" were legislated in the Union and effected in 2012; both parties are involved in insanity.

edit on 10-7-2013 by ownbestenemy because: (no reason given)

I suspect that the OP notes that one party in particular touts an ideology, political strategy and narrative that claims to be opposed to the involvement of government. In my opinion it seems to be important and reasonable to point out that said party is acting contrary to the principles they claim to represent. Further more, it is very common for the Republicans to point the finger that the progressive are using government, when they use government just the same. It is worth pointing out that progressives do not claim to be against government or regulation. There is an unspoken truth that is ignored and denied by the people who are "anti government".

reply to post by Cheesefleas


You are tying a label to how people govern but isn't what is happening here. The People of the great State of Florida have elected officials to enact laws they see fit. In this instance, the People, indirectly (that whole republican form of government thing) has said "we don't want our State to be a safe harbor for such activities".

That is what the legislature did. Right or wrong, left or right, Republican or Democrat, the People of Florida have entrusted their representatives to present this legislation. Just as California has no problem with somethings and problems with others, it is localized to a region of People who have more direct control and ability to change their Governments than say the Congress of the United States.

ATS is hardly a soap box of the majority on anything (numbers are just not in their corners; but I am not implying they don't matter). I am merely pointing out that to say this is what happens when you elect republicans is overlooking all the other idiotic legislation that has been passed by the "other" party.

Post Script:
It should be pointed out that this isn't an opposition of regulation or an endorsement thereof. Regulation isn't always a bad thing when it is smartly applied. Regulation on the lead content of paint, when there is a readily viable alternative available is smart and well applied. Stupid regulation is the majority of our legislation.

I also have never argued that this bill is good.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by MrInquisitive

 

As other posters have mentioned here...this was a *BI-PARTISAN* Vote. That means those Democrats voted for it as well and also did their part to help pass it. You seem entirely scope locked on how Republicans ruin the day and getting rid of them all will make the sun shine again or some nonsense.

When BOTH parties helped make a law and then helped vote the law in together? It's called BI-partisan. It means it's not one side's fault or the other and getting rid of one may satisfy deeply partisan agendas but won't solve anything else to do with this situation.

If you'd like to suggest we get rid of BOTH sides of the Florida Legislature? That's an outstanding idea...but I won't be asking what party they belong to on their way out the doors. They are both as corrupt as the other with virtually no difference between them.

The Florida House of Representative has 76 Rep's and 44 Dems. The Florida Senate has 26 Rep's and 14 Dems. And once again the governor is the fine Republican Rick Scott. The Republican came up with this bill in a hurry because former Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll (Scott's former running mate, i.e. a Republican) was involved in a scandal concerning some hinky charity that ran some sort of gambling biz. The Republicans wrote and fast-tracked this law in order to inoculate themselves with respect to this scandal.

Given the party disparity in both houses, I would imagine the Democrats didn't read the bill too carefully as their votes really don't matter much. The party that controls the legislative bodies writes and pushes through legislation. This is the Republican's baby. Deal with it.

Here we have an overwhelmingly Republican-enacted law that was very poorly written and would appear to have major unintended consequences, and people are defending the responsible lawmakers and/or disputing my claims, by saying things such as "well all the aspects of the law don't have to be enforced" or "but some Democrats voted for it too." This is the usual Republican/conservative game: criticize whatever the other side does or says, but never own up to Republican mistakes.

reply to post by MrInquisitive


Legislatures tend to vote one of two ways in this day and age. They vote (often) along party lines and make as clear a statement of separation as can be made or they vote in a mixture showing no clear distinction in policy between the political parties involved.

You know as well as I do that the people controlling both majority and minority don't let this crap happen for votes as pure happenstance and 'Gee..I wonder what this vote will look like?" They poll, wheel, deal and negotiate the votes how they need BEFORE having a bill come up. Therefore, suggesting that the nice mix of both Republican and Democrat votes together to pass this doesn't really mean it's bipartisan is like saying a strict party line vote isn't really showing a clear line between Dem and Rep on an issue.

This was a Bipartisan vote. Your precious Dems helped pass it right along side the Reps. It's a truth to deal with and see about encouraging a change of BOTH sides out of that Statehouse (Florida needs it more than most, I'd say) not hide from it and pretend like the Bipartisan nature of this didn't even exist.

reply to post by MrInquisitive


I'm going to give you these links, but I am gonna wager you aren't ready for the facts:

en.wikipedia.org...

news.cnet.com...

money.cnn.com...

benton.org...

And it essentially comes down to this: Net neutrality regulation is an essential element of Internet freedom for most Democrats. (Note I said "most" because there are certainly individual exceptions, including a number of Hill Democrats; I am referring here mainly to party positions.)

Democrats have authored ALL FIVE of the net neutrality bills. Republicans have made sure none of them passed. Democrats (the party, not all specifically) try to say that we need the net neutrality bills to save the little man from the big mean scary corporations. When in reality, the wording of every bill has taken the rights to choose what can be viewed from the corporation offering the service, and given it to the government. Basically saying "We need this so we can stop them", but in reality giving them the law needed to censor the internet with governmental authority on a nationwide scale.

Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by raifordko

 

You raise a good, relevant point, and I'm grateful for it.

And while the opinion of an internet stranger should carry little, if any, weight with you, I have to say you've made me uncomfortable.

I don't always agree with MrInquisitive, but there is no purpose in calling him "blind," a "partisan hack," or less than honest. That hurts the thread and ATS, and while it may not matter to you, it lowers your reputation.

An apology is in order, but do what you have to do.

the dudes a partisan hack, and you're defending it. so what does that make you?

reply to post by MrInquisitive


Considering you use a link from a liberal attack dog (Daily Beast) and a left leaning organization (WCPO) it seems even more obvious that you should apologize. Next you should try and reinforce your point by linking the same article on dailykos.com since that seems to be where you drew your original post from:

www.dailykos.com...

Originally posted by MrInquisitive
This is what one gets when one votes Republicans overwhelmingly into office: terrible, astoundingly stupid laws.

And this is from the opening of the DailyKOS article:

learn what happens when you elect morons to control state legislatures -they pass idiotic legislation.

You shill. And I mean that with the utmost disgust for your ilk.

Edit: I also noticed you tried to pull the "Not from Glenn Beck" line. People like you are a total joke. Glenn Beck is a moron, and your assumption that because I disagree with your line of thought I must get my news from him is laughable and pathetic. I think that man is a buffoon. I also think Alex Jones and George Noory are loons. They may occasionally have valid points, but those are often marooned on an island surrounded by a sea of inadequacy. That is for another post at another time.

reply to post by raifordko


@raifordko,

Thanks for the reply, and including links on articles about internet neutrality. And I can handle facts just fine, thank you, as well as having considerable reading comprehension puissance.

First off, you seem to be equating the issue of network with censorship, when they aren't really the same thing, although I can see how non-network neutrality can, in effect, be a form of censorship. But this is why I had no idea what you were talking about, claiming that the Democrats having been pushing legislation for internet censorship for 10 years. Yet I am the one being accused of twisting facts and words around with the thread I posted.

But to this issue of net neutrality, it seems that even one's notion of censorship depends on what is one's view of the concept of net neutrality. To my mind, net neutrality means that ISP's cannot decide what content providers can be viewed or interconnected with by its customers, or ISPs limiting the bandwidth to too extreme a degree from some content providers or favoring others (what does seem reasonable is for ISPs to throttle the bandwidth of torrent downloads or massive parallel streaming by users as these can take up a lot of bandwidth and cause problems for other users). From my understanding of matters, net neutrality means keeping ISPs from making such discriminatory practices, and that it may require government regulation. Given that all other forms of long-distance communication have historically been regulated, I don't see why some level of government oversight of the internet is anathema to internet freedom. I see it as keeping ISPs from conducting discriminatory practices as described above.

The CNET editorial by Randolph J. May seems to be suggesting the contrary proposition: that government intervention means limiting internet freedom, yet he gives no compelling arguments to back his thesis up. In fact, he essentially says that the Republicans have said in their political platform that they are for internet freedom and that Democrats have done the same, but he doesn't believe the Democrats -- but again gives no good reason why. Obviously the devil is in the details of any laws to regulate the internet or ISP's. I am most certainly against the government having any say on what people can view or download, but I am for the government keeping ISP monopolies from affecting discriminatory bandwidth practices. That to me is net neutrality.

Viewing the wikipedia article, there seems to be both Dems and Republicans putting forth net neutrality bills, with perhaps a bit larger number of Democrats weighing in on the matter. From what I understand, the bills proposed by Democrats have been in favor of the sort of net neutrality that I favor, but again -- the devils are in the details of the laws. I do seem to remember that during Michael Powell's tenure as FCC chairman, that he was pushing for ISPs to be allowed to do things that go against my sense of net neutrality, but was thwarted. He's a Republican, in case you weren't aware. He was also instrumental in getting the FCC to do a massive amount of deregulating of media companies, which brought about the consolidation of many media conglomerates. Anyone who thinks putting more media resources into fewer hands means for a more open and healthy society and more media freedom is obviously either off his/her rocker or majorly clueless on how reality works.

Speaking of regulation and deregulation, look at how well the deregulating of the financial industry has benefited this country. Yes, that was passed by Clinton, along bipartisan lines in congress, although there were dissenting voices, primarily Democrat.

The CNN article you cite also says that an attempt at a net neutrality bill failed. This bill, again, had more Democratic support, and was for the sort of net neutrality that I support. The fourth article by benton.org says much the same thing, although it mentions that Olympia Snowe, a Republican, was also for it (speaking of which, Olympia Snowe is one of the few Republican senators I ever find myself agreeing with, so I imagine she is on the right side here).

Given that these articles seem to describe net neutrality as I see it, but you think it is some form of censorship, I can only assume you buy the telecoms'/ISP's argument that such net neutrality regulation somehow circumscribes the First Amendment rights of ISP's by forcing them to allow traffic, which they don't like. This is a specious argument. This would be like telecoms saying that they have the right to denying allowing phone connections between people, companies or organizations that they disagree with. Or a utility company saying that it shouldn't be forced to provide power or water to persons, companies or organizations that it doesn't agree with. Claiming net neutrality is censorship is bogus.

Originally posted by ninepointfive

Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by raifordko

 

You raise a good, relevant point, and I'm grateful for it.

And while the opinion of an internet stranger should carry little, if any, weight with you, I have to say you've made me uncomfortable.

I don't always agree with MrInquisitive, but there is no purpose in calling him "blind," a "partisan hack," or less than honest. That hurts the thread and ATS, and while it may not matter to you, it lowers your reputation.

An apology is in order, but do what you have to do.

the dudes a partisan hack, and you're defending it. so what does that make you?

I think Charles1952 was just pointing out that name calling of posters to this thread is not necessary, and that someone who was disputing the thesis of the OP (me) may have a relevant and good point. Your using an ad hominem attack against me and suggesting the same regarding this poster would seem to make you the attacking hack of some partisan ilk.

I get it: you're evidently a conservative and/or Republican and you don't like it when us dang libruls point out stupidity and/or hypocrisy by Republican politicians. I understand your pain. But calling me a partisan hack is VERY WEAK SAUCE for attempting to refute my OP. And your suggesting that another poster is some kind of quisling or just as bad for calling for decorum here, is just very bad form on your part -- as is not starting your sentences with capital letters.

reply to post by MrInquisitive


Meh, I somehow missed this reply.

You have the liberal definition of what Net Neutrality means. Unfortunately nobody involved in the continuation of a true and free internet, including the owners of this site most likely, agree with you.

How the Democrats want to help the little guy from the corporations, according to their attempted bills thus far, is by saying they need you to give them the right to say what you can view, when you can view it, how often you can view it and how fast you can view it. By giving the government that right you are taking the power away from the corporations. The democrats who push the bills try and pass this off as a good thing because they are going to make sure those evil nasty capitalist corporations wont throttle your internet, or block sites, or make you pay more for access to porn...when in reality they are simply having you sign over the ability for THE GOVERNMENT to do that whenever they want. This is exactly how China setup their internet censorship and it is recognized by internet activists who want to prevent it here in the USA.

So you can try and skirt your way around it all you want, the bills are worded in such a way that they give the government the ability to censor the internet in the USA should they see fit to do so. You can't argue that point, period. You can claim they wouldn't do that all you want, but people also told themselves the government wouldn't take advantage of the patriot act and look what Snowden has proven on that front. Plain and simple, 95% of the people who have pushed the net neutrality bills have been democrats. It has been their open agenda to seek control of the internet as used in the US since around 1999 (see Al Gore) and they have pushed hard for it since 2005. Every single bill has been BLOCKED by republicans, libertarians and blue dog democrats.