i received the following notice with my phone bill today: your internet access has always been tax free. but if congress doesn't act by november 1st, the government can start taxing internet access. help keep the internet tax free. write to your congressman or go to: http://www.donttaxourweb.org/actnow/
Why shouldn't it be taxed in the same way as any other service? The Internet is nothing but a phone connection to some big ....ahh, thing!? But isn't that what the phone system is .....a connection to some big ...ahhh, thing? I say tax it, and tax the help out of people who use the Internet! Tax the shit out of 'em and maybe someone will finally get a grip on this thing we call the Internet. As it is, it's just one giant propaganda machine. Baron Max
do you really believe this is going to be something like a 5, 6, or 7 percent tax? your internet bill could conceivably double. propaganda machine? well baron, if you want to get all philosophical about it, all education is propaganda.
Well I can't offer an opinion on it as an Englishman, I mean we all know what happen in regards to the "Boston Tea Party", although will you all start throwing your modems in the nearest river because of a tax hike? Seriously the Taxation is probably to outweigh the costs of Carnivore and The Echelon projects, since obviously wire-tapping isn't as cheap any more. (You know anti-terrorist measures, Decryption techniques and of course the masses of storage media needed for 'Recovery' should ever a 9/11 attack be directed at internet backbones)
Actually, I would prefer something like a group of knowlegeable people who could verify things that someone wants to put on the Internet. The group could be made up of "elected" officials, scientists, educators, etc, from all over the world. Or some other form of control and verification ...and that would include "news" items which would have to be verified prior to including it on the Internet. As it is, anyone can put anything on it without any control whatsoever. That can't be right, and it can't continue. Baron Max
How would you like to walk into a library and find all the books mixed up and not classified in any way, shape or form? You'd have to search through all the books to find what you wanted ...and then probably couldn't be sure, because there might be another book in the pile that refutes the book you selected. How would you like that? Baron Max
So what if there was a book that refuted what another book says? Cant you read both and make your own mind up? And organizing books in a library is not the same as voting for which books are "true" and which are not.
I don't see how it would be better to have one book on each subject. The problem here is the same one we seem to have with communism. On paper it looks good but in practice its worse than what we have. Any group of people put in control over the internet, or anything else for that matter, would become corrupt by an agenda and the internet would eventually be used to spread that agenda to the masses as the media is used today. ie The concern is no longer about issues, it is now about democrat versus republican who both do their own part to maintain what is going on.
There is nothing wrong with having differing opinions, a library just lke the internet is full of them. If you take away the freedom to post whatever you want on the internet, then you take away part of a persons right to express their views (however idiotic they may be). I think the internet is full of bullshit, but in between there is alot of good too, and I dont want some group of elected people deciding whats suitable for my viewing..we call that censorship.
