[wplug] Fw: Call Congress, save the Internet

Michael Semcheski lists at immuneit.com
Fri May 12 22:20:18 EDT 2006


O'Connor, Michael P. wrote:
> Please no political stuff on this emailing list, because 1) many that
>  post political things have ways of distorting things, fact it was
> the democrats that wanted to treat blogs as political contributions,
> and force loggers to be regulated by the FEC, the Republicans did not
>  want that. 2) we do have a mix of political leaning people here (I
> for one am a Republican, take what I say with that grain of salt) 3)
> politics do seam to have a way to start flame wars.

I know you mentioned that you had already said your last word, but my
$.02 are such:

I personally don't care if people discuss politics on this list.  Its
alright to bash Microsoft or SCO, but not an elected official?  Of
course we can bash whomever we like.

I believe your assertion that we have a 'mix of political leaning
people' is false.  Sure, we probably have roughly the same number of
republicans, democrats, libertarians, etc. as a random sample of our
peers.  However, we all are on this list because of our interest in the
Linux operating system.

There is definitely an altruistic component to Linux and open source
software.  There is a gee-whiz niftyness to Linux, too.  But for me,
part of its appeal is that its free, as in beer (and sometimes as in
free).  It feels like I'm putting my effort into something a little more
worthwhile, because things can go back to the community.

So generally, I think there are common social ideals held among members
of this list.  Free software, open software, altruism.  To differing
degrees for individuals, sure.  But we do have things in common.

We're not just random strangers off the street.  We do have common
interests, and so I think its fine to post something which you feel is
politically important.  Its not like the mailing list is overrun.  And
lets keep off of the flame wars.  But so far, so good.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about net neutrality.  As someone who
once owned a 1200 baud modem and used FidoNet, I think the worst case
here isn't as bad as many people think.  I also believe that things have
seemed to progress pretty quickly already, so why change things?

Mike

Mike




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