I agree with you on the WPA and depression misrepresentation. However, the main point of the article that the telecoms etc. are withholding information on the functioning of the internet and are not being forced by the FCC to provide that info and thus broadband in the U.S. is languishing is a valid and substantial and anything but libertarian viewpoint.

Japan's regulatory structure is even more opaque, and guess what, their broadband is 10 times faster than ours.

The problem isn't in the obscure details, it is in plain sight: fibre and wireless umbrellas.

for the place authoritarianism brought us.

Inauthentic, to say the least.

I did inhale.

He says it better than I.

http://www.kunstler.com/Mags_Forecast2009.html

I did inhale.

Needed to be said.

Even a high school student can grasp that an extensive fiber optic infrastructure is a crucial prerequisite for enabling national broadband capability. Laying fiber cables to all homes and offices in high and medium-density population centers is a blindingly obvious national technology policy priority.

It is proof of the crippling effects of Libertarian damage to our society that any proposals for obviously useful national IT infrastructure investment are viewed with fear and trembling by the usual idiots of the commercial press.

The neo-libertarian attack on government launched in the Reagan years is like some terrible social autoimmune disease that has ravaged our body politic. We now have an entire generation of "thought leaders" who despise government planning and resist investment in public goods, no matter how essential this investment is for the economic recovery of our nation.

The reign of ignorance in the commentariat leads to the obfuscation of the simplest facts about fiber optic infrastructure. The most costly component of the build-out, the physical stringing of the fiber to points of service, also has the lowest technology risk. With almost unlimited speed potential and excellent resistance to deterioration, the fiber cabling will be able to support many successive generations of terminating electronics, allowing carriers and consumers to ramp up bandwidth as local preferences and economics dictate. But without fiber in place, nothing can proceed. Copper phone wiring is crap, and coaxial cable has a limited lifetime, with a zero-sum bandwidth that is shared with TV signals. Only fiber offers an ideal combination of long service life and arbitrarily high bandwidth.

What does it take to get this simple concept into the heads of the cast of clowns we call our opinion makers? The need for a national fiber data infrastructure is directly analogous to the need for a national rail and highway infrastructure. I hope the Obama administration can grasp this obvious opportunity.

Interestingly, the United States is thoroughly laden with totally dark fiber optic cables. One of the few benefits of the telecom bubble (yes sometimes bubbles leave a useful infrastructure, at least when they involve real objects rather than paper games).

Here in Minnesota, a city got sued by its monopoly ISP in an effort to prevent the city from building its own array of fiber. It'll be community owned and operated, seems like an excellent template for what everyone is ranting about here.
http://www.monticellofiber.com/

BTW If you think Wired is riddled with blinkered libertarians, spend a while on slashdot. I like Wired's Danger Room and other areas spotting weird and ominous developments among the techno-fascists in the security complex. At least the libertarians instinctively loathe those people. That kind of tension is important to keeping the bastards in check!
--
Hongpong.com

When voice telephony was rolled out, many decades ago, government was not the enemy in America, so a far-sighted policy of universal service was mandated. In exchange for its monopoly, the Bell System was required to provide telephone service to all households, no matter how remote. Today, America needs to mandate universal broadband service. This is desirable for the following reasons:

1. Global industrial competitiveness
2. Energy conservation
3. Digital democracy

A combination of fiber optic and high-speed wireless service (e.g., WiMax from fiber-connected hubs) can deliver universal broadband Internet access to all American homes and businesses in just a few years. The fact that this initiative is being resisted is proof of how badly crippled our Federal Government has become.

One approach is to split the telecom universe into wholesalers and retailers. The number of total subscribers is a major part of the valuation formula for telcos with retail exposure. A wholesale-only company is strictly a commodity provider and has no choice but to build build build. The retail-only company is also a commodity vendor but can focus on competing in the retail market. Both will be flatter and more nimble companies.

“The Playboy reader invites a female acquaintance in for a quiet discussion of Picasso, Nietzsche, jazz, sex.” - Hugh Hefner

I'm a longtime Silicon Valley programmer type. Libertarians here are the nerdy kids who had to eat lunch at their own table and were picked last for crapball. They are generally estranged from society and thus are immature about The Social Contract.

What's your local libertarian psychological profile?

“The Playboy reader invites a female acquaintance in for a quiet discussion of Picasso, Nietzsche, jazz, sex.” - Hugh Hefner

I'm not sure you should pick on Tommy after all he has a moment in time named after him. Freidman moment, does any one know who said this 1st about his, Oh just give it six months and it will be better?
jo6pac

I have already shown, in several parts of this work, by what means the inhabitants of the United States almost always manage to combine their own advantage with that of their fellow citizens; my present purpose is to point out the general rule that enables them to do so. In the United States hardly anybody talks of the beauty of virtue, but they maintain that virtue is useful and prove it every day. The American moralists do not profess that men ought to sacrifice themselves for their fellow creatures because it is noble to make such sacrifices, but they boldly aver that such sacrifices are as necessary to him who imposes them upon himself as to him for whose sake they are made.

They have found out that, in their country and their age, man is brought home to himself by an irresistible force; and, losing all hope of stopping that force, they turn all their thoughts to the direction of it. They therefore do not deny that every man may follow his own interest, but they endeavor to prove that it is the interest of every man to be virtuous. I shall not here enter into the reasons they allege, which would divert me from my subject; suffice it to say that they have convinced their fellow countrymen.

Montaigne said long ago: "Were I not to follow the straight road for its straightness, I should follow it for having found by experience that in the end it is commonly the happiest and most useful track." The doctrine of interest rightly understood is not then new, but among the Americans of our time it finds universal acceptance; it has become popular there; you may trace it at the bottom of all their actions, you will remark it in all they say. It is as often asserted by the poor man as by the rich. In Europe the principle of interest is much grosser than it is in America, but it is also less common and especially it is less avowed; among us, men still constantly feign great abnegation which they no longer feel.

The Americans, on the other hand, are fond of explaining almost all the actions of their lives by the principle of self-interest rightly understood; they show with complacency how an enlightened regard for themselves constantly prompts them to assist one another and inclines them willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property to the welfare of the state. In this respect I think they frequently fail to do themselves justice, for in the United States as well as elsewhere people are sometimes seen to give way to those disinterested and spontaneous impulses that are natural to man; but the Americans seldom admit that they yield to emotions of this kind; they are more anxious to do honor to their philosophy than to themselves.

I might here pause without attempting to pass a judgment on what I have described. The extreme difficulty of the subject would be my excuse, but I shall not avail myself of it; and I had rather that my readers, clearly perceiving my object, would refuse to follow me than that I should leave them in suspense.

The principle of self-interest rightly understood is not a lofty one, but it is clear and sure. It does not aim at mighty objects, but it attains without excessive exertion all those at which it aims. As it lies within the reach of all capacities, everyone can without difficulty learn and retain it. By its admirable conformity to human weaknesses it easily obtains great dominion; nor is that dominion precarious, since the principle checks one personal interest by another, and uses, to direct the passions, the very same instrument that excites them.

The principle of self-interest rightly understood produces no great acts of self-sacrifice, but it suggests daily small acts of self-denial. By itself it cannot suffice to make a man virtuous; but it disciplines a number of persons in habits of regularity, temperance, moderation, foresight, self- command; and if it does not lead men straight to virtue by the will, it gradually draws them in that direction by their habits. If the principle of interest rightly understood were to sway the whole moral world, extraordinary virtues would doubtless be more rare; but I think that gross depravity would then also be less common. The principle of interest rightly understood perhaps prevents men from rising far above the level of mankind, but a great number of other men, who were falling far below it, are caught and restrained by it. Observe some few individuals, they are lowered by it; survey mankind, they are raised.

I am not afraid to say that the principle of self-interest rightly understood appears to me the best suited of all philosophical theories to the wants of the men of our time, and that I regard it as their chief remaining security against themselves. Towards it, therefore, the minds of the moralists of our age should turn; even should they judge it to be incomplete, it must nevertheless be adopted as necessary.

I do not think, on the whole, that there is more selfishness among us than in America; the only difference is that there it is enlightened, here it is not. Each American knows when to sacrifice some of his private interests to save the rest; we want to save everything, and often we lose it all. Everybody I see about me seems bent on teaching his contemporaries, by precept and example, that what is useful is never wrong Will nobody undertake to make them understand how what is right may be useful?

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, II, 2, 8

Emphasis added

Alexis de Tocqueville
Democracy in America
Creation of machine-readable version: Electronic edition deposited and marked-up by ASGRP, the American Studies Programs at the University of Virginia, June 1, 1997.

Freely available for non-commercial use provided that this header is included in its entirety with any copy distributed.
From the Henry Reeve Translation,revised and corrected, 1899.

I agree with Thom Hartmann that Libertarians are mostly Conservatives who like to smoke dope and get laid. Hence the randy Randians.
As a librul white southerner, I run Libertarianism past some historical tests. I try to visualize how many black slaves of the antebellum South or southern blacks in general would be Libertarians. Big government bad. Big Federal government worse. Took away all those slave owners private property.
I think Libertarian philosopy is just fine where the human density is about 1 person per square mile or less. You just don't have to interact with others and can be free as a bird.
But we are a crowded little planet and we rub elbows frequently.
Government is about how we rub those elbows. It can be good, intelligent, fair, just, etc. or really crappy. Our choice, we collectively are the government.
And for all the social regressives and reactionaries out there....get over it or get out of the way.

My problem with libertarianism is simply that it tends to reflect the the more extreme individualism in our culture and, in advocating for "doing whatever you want as long as it doesn't infringe on other people's right to do what they want," it ensures that, unless you live in a vast wilderness (as was brought up by JT), you will almost certainly end up in conflict with someone else. Personal liberty and due process of law are critical in any society, but equally important is a sense of inherent responsibility to a larger community and polity. I think that part of the reason why our government tends to be so inept and corrupt is that in an individualistic society it tends in principle to be regarded as "them" rather than "us."

At the same time, I give tremendous credit to libertarians for being the most courageous, outspoken, and accurate critics during the eight years of the Bush administration. Justin Raimando of Antiwar.com, for example, has been ahead of just about anyone I can think of when it comes to challenging the Neocons early and making accurate predictions (for example, he predicted Scooter Libby would be indicted years before the story even hit the press). Ron Pal is in the similar mold, and it's no coincidence that these people are held in high regard by such old line leftists as Alexander Cockburn.