New FCC Boss: We'll Defend Net Neutrality > Benefit of the doubt

reply to pandora

Re: Benefit of the doubt

In politics vague words can still have important effects. Stating general policy tendencies does signal to others what kind of behavior is likely to be tolerated and what isn't. Not giving specifics makes it difficult for enemies to coordinate opposition.
It could be productive to have a period of time where a positive tendency is in force without having a slug fest over specifics. It's about trying to steer things in a general direction.

Well said. I couldn't have explained it better myself.

Politics is an annoyingly complicated game. Understanding it requires some foresight and imagination. Still, I hope Genachowski has the courage to stand up to the incumbents when the big conflict inevitably comes.

reply to asdfdfdfdfdf

reply to asdfdfdfdfdf
A gov't of the people should be transparent and specific, not vague. There should be no enemies to the gov't, just constituents.

"There should be no enemies to the gov't, just constituents."

Different constituents have different and competing interests. Therefore any policy is going to have friends and enemies and the enemies are going to work to undermine the policy.

"A gov't of the people should be transparent and specific, not vague."

This is a tricky problem. When one is trying to fashion open, transparent, and fair government and one is confronted by groups that are not open and transparent organizations themselves, do not conceive of fairness and honesty as part of their agenda, and generally do not act in good faith how can one cope without exhibiting some subtlety oneself?

I realize this suggests that corruption is inevitable and opens me to charges of hypocrisy. I don't have a simple solution to this problem.

Unfortunately, the edit I made to my post didn't take.
I also suggest that each constituent should be given equal weight, that includes corporations that should only be given as much preference as any other single constituent. At least, until coporate personhood is eventually retracted.