This business about "winning" and "losing"... For me, "winning" is about being in charge of my life and my business. Who has veto power over what I choose to do? Me. That's winning.
Losing: When someone else has veto power over any decision I make. Example, the FCC decides which aspects of my business I can control, and which aspects THEY control. This is the precise argument over our nation's founding. The rebellious types decided they'd had it, and they wanted to govern their own lives. Now, it's really hard to have a nation, with NO GOVERNMENT, but that doesn't mean that you have to live with a tyrant deciding what powers to exercise. We gave government limited powers, and everything else IS UP TO US. Government does not get to decide what additional powers it has. It does not get to "reinterpret" the establishing contract ( Constitution) for itself. It has never been given that power. No branch of government is delegated "interpretation" power of the Constitution, by the Constitution, for instance. It stands on its own, with plain and obvious language anyone can understand. Not even the Supreme Court. Don't believe me? Read the Constitution. In a microcosm, this is my point of view. Neither Congress nor the FCC has any statutory authority in the Constitution to require you to do SQUAT, unless your business is somehow "commerce between the states". And in that regard, it is still limited to the ability to override state policy toward commerce with ANOTHER STATE. Just because you buy internet in state 1 and sell it in state 2 does not mean that Congress now owns you. It just means that Congress can overrule any rules state 1 or 2 makes about what you do. When we take the attitude that it is inevitable that we are "regulated" as an industry, we have utterly forgotten the legal foundation of both OUR individual rights, our rights as business entities, and the statutory limitations of government. It's like establishing a contract between you and someone else, say, hiring a secretary, who, over time, decides that you are subservient to the employee you pay, and starts making your decisions for you. You, legally, would fire this person, and that's the end of that. Congress and the FCC simply do not have the authority to do many things they want to do. We should be bound, by civic duty, and by citizenship, to simply say "No". It is US who should decide if we WANT any federal laws on the matter, and if so, we ask for them, and if we decide they can't do anything useful, we say "no" and send them packing. No, not the people who want to control their neighbor's business, but those who own the business decide. We are in an "outside of the law" situation. Both Congress and the various agencies have decided for themselves what powers to exercise, far in excess of their constitutional limitations. And, for whatever reason, we have a significant segment of the population who likes this situation, of having an unlimited and unrestricted government controlling them. Why "unlimited"? Well, if you specify what your employee is empowered to do, and instead, your employee takes upon themselves full control over your enterprise... Then the agreement between you is broken. Either you assert your contractual standards... or there are no standards. Either you enforce your employee's behavior, to contractual limitations... Or your employee just does WHATEVER he or she wants. It really is an all or nothing situation. If you do not assert your dominance, which exists as a matter of contractual law, then you have lost all authority to object to anything. You cannot, as a matter of consistency say "I Object to the breaking of this part of the contract between you and me" and at the same time, refuse to enforce most other provisions, and have any logical leg to stand on. If it's not all valid, then who gets to decide what is and what isn't? I've been called "radical" and all sorts of things for this thinking. But for the life of me, I cannot understand why. There's nothing radical about insisting that your contractual rights be respected. We have them, and they're contained in the Constitution. And it says that WE, as the people, control our government, FULLY, except for approximately 36 specific, delegated, enumerated responsibilities ( the number is debateable, what they are isn't), and we have a process called "amendment" that gives us power to both further delegate and to rescind. I want that contract respected and honored. How is that radical? And why do so many of you object? It's all about law, and contract. We as businesses operate on agreements. We have agreements with our customers. We do x, they do y. We're only in business so long as that specific relationship stays intact. If we don't perform and / or, they don't pay, then it all falls apart. If your provider fails to provide for you, and yet wants to be paid, you consider yourself ill used. Fundamentally, HOW do we maintain any valid contract, if the one that gives us the power to engage in those contracts... Is simply ignored? Everyone's free to do whatever the heck they want. And that's why we're in such deep doo-doo in this country. I keep being told this is "politics". In some aspects it is, but it is an absolute essential aspect of being in business and is inseparable from any other aspect of our business. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Neofast, Inc, Making internet easy 541-969-8200 509-386-4589 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
