Glenn Beck RIP? Dayaamm!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

MSK, is that all you've got? Pellegrini's and your hysteria?

My, my, my...

Snark without any ideas?

Trolling?

Coming from you?

Dayaamm!

When I see that happen with intelligent people like you, it generally means the snarker got his ass handed to him right in front of everybody. I sympathize. I know it stings to be flat-out wrong and caught intellectually in bed with the bad guys, especially when everyone is looking...

But since you want to go there, let's do the snark qua snark for a moment.

Do you have to be so darn mediocre about it?

I mean, Jeez. Resorting to a canned O-Land put-down with your brain turned off?

I know you can do better than that. I've seen it.

So come on, dude. Let's jazz it up. There are readers reading this crap. At least let's entertain them. Here, let me help.

You asked: "MSK, is that all you've got?"

Actually, I thought I was clear that was not all I've got. It was the first thing I came across, not even the second. I wrote: "... it is on the first page of Google results. And hell, I thought I was going to have to do some serious hairsplitting research since you went all 'duh' and stuff on me."

Granted, I did not say the words, "first thing I came across," so let me take responsibility. I will try to be clearer the next time I say something to the reading comprehension impaired.

Ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnngg!

Or maybe this one:

You asked: "Pellegrini's and your hysteria?"

Come on.

Stop showing off your devastating rhetorical superpowers.

Ya' got me, dude. I'm outgunned.

How did you know I got loose from my straight-jacket and stopped taking my meds?

Now I'm forever shamed and have to crawl back into my hole.

I can do this snark qua snark crap all day. It just gets boring after a while for people who like ideas.

Pssssttt... come closer... (whispering) don't look now but the readers are watching and they ain't stupid...

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Technology and progress will break up monopolies de facto and de jure, real and perceived.

Brant,

I think so, too.

I'm just surprised to see someone who is deeply familiar with Rand defend government-enforced monopolies as if the backstage folks involved were some kind of Randian heroes.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Technology and progress will break up monopolies de facto and de jure, real and perceived.

Brant,

I think so, too.

I'm just surprised to see someone who is deeply familiar with Rand defend government-enforced monopolies as if the backstage folks involved were some kind of Randian heroes.

Michael

Great. That was easy! This whole argument needs to be reset for clarity and this is a good place to start that.

I think the real issue is whether there is a "tragedy of the commons" going on with the Internet for if there is that's what needs to be addressed first, not Netflix vs Comcast. I mean who really owns what and why? On top of that net neutrality favors one party over the other without defining actual property rights. It gives property away that the government does not own. As for Netflex, if it can't go through a cable it'll go through a dish and customers will do the same if they want to get it. Evderything is going to go dish eventually, as soon as the download problem is solved. There goes cable. There goes the old time phone companies already staggering from cable onslaught. Or, maybe something else will happen.

--Brant

[merjet]

Snark without any ideas?

The pot calls the kettle black.

It just gets boring after a while for people who like ideas.

Pssssttt... come closer... (whispering) don't look now but the readers are watching and they ain't stupid.

I agree. They can read what has been posted and decide for themselves, and I invite them to read the following:

Links: #1 #2 If not an online WSJ subscriber, you will need to find another way to read all of #1.

Despite MSK's facile attempts to say otherwise, the links show that the dominant issues are money and customers.

[Brant Gaede]

Snark without any ideas?

The pot calls the kettle black.

It just gets boring after a while for people who like ideas.

Pssssttt... come closer... (whispering) don't look now but the readers are watching and they ain't stupid.

I agree. They can read what has been posted and decide for themselves, and I invite them to read the following:

Links: #1 #2 If not an online WSJ subscriber, you will need to find another way to read all of #1.

Despite MSK's facile attempts to say otherwise, the links show that the dominant issues are money and customers.

That's why businessmen tend to be incompetent philosophers*. If they think that way they are stuck that way for they live and breath business 24/7. Are you posting as a businessman or a philosopher respecting your orientation?

--Brant

*and why Rand didn't get much traction with them

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The pot calls the kettle black.

Ohhh that hurts.

How will I ever compete with such erudition?

Despite MSK's facile attempts to say otherwise, the links show that the dominant issues are money and customers.

Good Lord!

False dichotomy alert!

Where did I deny money and customers are dominant?

Any beginner in Rand knows that money and customers are at the heart of monopolies. It's just UNEARNED money and customers that drive them. These good monopoly folks prefer power backed by guns than free market competition. Once again, think James Taggart.

This is kind of elementary.

I thought you knew elementary stuff about free-market economics.

It just gets worser and worser...

Michael

[merjet]

Despite MSK's facile attempts to say otherwise, the links show that the dominant issues are money and customers.

Where did I deny money and customers are dominant?

Jeesh! I will clarify it for you.

Despite MSK's facile attempts to say that it's all about Comcast being a crony capitalist, the links show that the dominant issues are money and customers.

[Brant Gaede]

And the beast beat goes on . . .

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Despite MSK's facile attempts to say otherwise, the links show that the dominant issues are money and customers.

Where did I deny money and customers are dominant?

Jeesh! I will clarify it for you.

Despite MSK's facile attempts to say that it's all about Comcast being a crony capitalist, the links show that the dominant issues are money and customers.

Heh.

Some clarification.

You are right about "the dominant issues are money and customers" (I even said that already--are you that reading impaired?) but you keep leaving out "rooted in government regulations that protect Comcast's monopoly."

Or should I say blanking out?

What's behind your implicit defense of government intervention in the economy?

You are smart enough to see it, so I am concluding this blank-out is purposeful misdirection.

And you still haven't shown me where I made that denial. Instead you play word games.

So now we have canned O-Land putdowns, snark without content, and word games, all instead of substance.

Tsk tsk tsk...

Let me simplify it for you and you can answer if you wish.

Do you approve of Comcast's monopoly in the geographic regions where it operates?

Is that a free market form of getting "money and customers" to you?

Michael

[merjet]

You are right about "the dominant issues are money and customers" (I even said that already--are you that reading impaired?) but you keep leaving out "rooted in government regulations that protect Comcast's monopoly."

The assertion in parentheses is false.

I have not left out government regulations. "No doubt Comcast gained some of its market share because many local governments allowed only one cable provider in a community. But Comcast gets blamed for what politicos did" (#24). Want more? Link1, link2, link3. On the other hand, there is potential government regulation to handcuff Comcast (and others) that you botched (#26). It is video streaming Netflix that wants government help -- with a pretext of net neutrality -- in being a bandwidth hog (#28).

What's behind your implicit defense of government intervention in the economy?

And you still haven't shown me where I made that denial. Instead you play word games.

So now we have canned O-Land putdowns, snark without content, and word games, all instead of substance.

The pot calls the kettle black.

I plan to stop now. I think this topic has run its course.

[Brant Gaede]

Respecting proposed legislation, what problem is supposed to be solved and for whose benefit at whose expense and why is anybody in any hurry?

--Brant

in this particular mixed-economy context, ideology is a reference point, not an argument as such, for the yellow brick road to more freedom may be mined or impassable around even the next bend and the better, quicker way may be through a pigsty

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

I was just pointing out the hypocrisy of blaming a true entrepreneur like Glenn Beck, who built up a multi-million dollar company very very fast WITHOUT resorting to government influence, for trying to use government rules when his back got shoved against the wall by a problem rooted in government protections, and holding up Comcast as a paragon of Objectivist virtue when Comcast has been deeply in bed with the government for a long, long time.

Comcast uses government regulations to shut competitors out. Glenn Beck does not. He is trying to break through that government monopoly game by any means available. His only other option is to quit.

So calling him a hypocrite in this situation, while extolling the capitalistic free-market virtues of Comcast, reminds me of a friend I once had who defended the Russian communist government for not allowing citizens to leave without exit visas, which were extremely hard to get back then.

He said anybody could leave Russia anytime they wanted. All they had to do was pay back the government for all the money the government invested in them since birth and they were free to go. Food, education, health care, everything. When I pointed out that the only way they could get money was through the government, he said that was a problem, wasn't it?

Merlin's attitude reminds me of this guy.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Michael, one needed be concerned about Merlin's attitude even if it is as you say. Whatever it is it's mostly on him. There are very few companies not angling for a government advantage as part of their business plan if it's perceived if for no other reason than to keep a competitor from doing to it what it's going to do if it gets in first. Screw or be screwed. Real dog eat dog. (The government will grant any request on its daughter's wedding day.)

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

A small update on Comcast. The headline from Variety says it all for those who do not like crony capitalism:

Comcast Security Chief Named Secret Service Director

Who can compete against that level of backroom influence? Clancy was already Secret Service before he went to Comcast. Now he's in charge of the Secret Service.

If Comcast ever wants a high-level favor from the President, I wonder if it will be hard to get a message to him... ahem... framed correctly.

Michael