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December 16, 2017 – Net Neutrality

Apologies for the long post.  This is a collaboration between us on a fairly complicated story  Yes, we have an opinion. Since so many people have been asking me (and my other geek author I’m sure) what Net Neutrality really means, let me share our point of view.

Yesterday, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced the repeal net neutrality, a policy that went into effect in April of 2015. The internet didn’t stop, and Netflix and online prices didn’t immediately triple.  One of the crazier claims by those supporting Net Neutrality was repealing it would lead to more monopolies. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Ironically enough, one of the top issues people take with net neutrality is that people will now be able to pay for faster internet. I want faster internet, really fast internet. And I’m willing to pay for it. Imagine if all cars had governors on them so no car go could any faster than another car – that was Net Neutrality. Great for the guy who loves driving 55, not so much for some of us.

Back to the monopoly argument. The chicken little’s I’ve read claim that ending net neutrality will lead to more monopolies and corruption. But the truth of the matter is that net neutrality has caused increased monopolization and corruption. What net neutrality ultimately did was undermine the market allocation of goods by allowing the State to determine how the internet is managed – that worked really well for the Soviet Union.  Remember all the great products produced under Soviet Communism? No?  Neither do I.

It seems that advocates of net neutrality beg for a monopoly: the State. People that want the government to hijack the market for ISPs are just begging for the government to monopolize it either through the State, or through the State’s selected winner. This is where we get to corruption. If you have regulation, you have regulatory capture. I, as a big businessman, see that the government wants to regulate me, so I buy them off. It happens all the time. It happens more often than not, think Detroit.

Even if regulatory capture were to disappear miraculously, the regulations wouldn’t hurt big ISPs nearly as much as they would hurt small ones. Big businesses have a greater capacity to afford the costs of regulations than small businesses. It doesn’t take a PhD in economics to realize that having more money makes you more able to afford expenses, so why don’t people see this with regulation. The regulators will merely put small competitors out of business. Net Neutrality only stifles competition, and thus decreases quality of service and increases prices. We have seen this in the telecommunication industry before with the breakup of Ma Bell. 

It used to be that the phone company owned the lines and all the equipment in your house and it was all controlled by the myriad of regional Bell Telephone companies and the pricing and service was a monopoly. You either had a phone or you didn’t. When the government broke up the companies, we slowly started to see competition and change. The first big change was that you could (actually had to) buy and own your own phone. This alone jump-started the industry and opened the door for the cell phone manufacturing we have today.  By ending the artificial restrictions on the net under net neutrality we let the market dictate, which grows the economy. 

Now that Net Neutrality is on the way out, competition will finally reemerge and we can start to see even more progress in the digital sector. What the end of Net Neutrality does is lower the cost of entry into the industries of the internet. With this new deregulation, the young and entrepreneurial have a chance at making a better digital world for all of us. Net Neutrality was anything but neutral. Rather, it put people with new ideas at a disadvantage, all but forcing them to join the big corporations when they would be better off competing against the giants.

What if I want to just buy internet service that allows me to check my email and write articles, why should the government stop a producer from meeting that demand? What if someone wants a super fast internet speed (like me)? Why should the government stop this me from paying more for faster speeds? There is no reason. If there’s a demand, the market can handle such a situation much more effectively than Uncle Sam.

Think of it this way.  Look at the cable packages out there today.  We already have tiers of service, and the outcry is that we want more choice, not less. Have you ever looked at your bill and said, I don’t need 200 music channels, but I really wish I had a few more sports channels?  I thought so.  We prefer choice and ala carte pricing, because it puts us in control of what we consume, whether it be food or online content. 

Perhaps the greatest straw man regarding this is that ISPs will make you pay for access to specific websites. Really?  While the ISPs would in fact have the right to do this, it would be economic suicide for them to do so. There is no incentive for a business to lower their quality while charging the same price (unless they are a Soviets, or North Koreans). Also, it is important to remember that Net Neutrality was implemented in April of 2015. Do you remember when you had to pay extra to log in to Facebook back in 2014? Do you remember the super high fees you paid then? No? Me either. This has never happened before. People claiming this will happen have never given any reason to believe it will happen. It’s nothing more than a scare tactic to make the people wish away their choices and enforce monopolies like Google and Amazon. Why do you think they are all for Net Neutrality? Have you actually read the user agreement that Amazon and Google make you sign before you use their services? You should.

Ultimately, Net Neutrality is nothing short of Internet Communism. It is the State ordering the expropriation of the entire ISP industry from the private sector to the public sector. It is a massive uptake in central planning in which private owners have no say.  And it is particularly insidious in the way it is being marketed.  I call it FUD, fear, uncertainty and doubt. Rather than rely on the facts, people are being told the sky is falling. 

There are two pieces of advice that I have learned to trust in.  First, if someone is telling you all the bad things that could happen and none of the good, look really closely because nothing is 100% good or bad.  Second, when someone tells you we need the government to manage something for us, keep one hand tightly on your wallet.

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December 15, 2017 – R E S P E C T

Respect is a street that runs both ways. I was watching the news recently and there seems to be more and more people on both sides of the camera demanding respect – but showing little. I’m amazed at political groups that advocate violence in the name of suppressing violence. I’m amazed at politicians who talk about a lack of respect for the office they hold, while treating that office like a toilet. I’m amazed at journalists demanding respect for their profession, while at the same time writing stories with a decidedly political bent and far from objective.

I have told all my children – to have friends, be a friend. The same goes for respect, if you want respect, show respect. If you expect respect, then act accordingly.

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December 13, 2017 Gardener or Carpenter

A recently published book describes two approaches to raising children: The Gardener and The Carpenter. The Gardener approaches raising children by giving them just enough guidance (sunshine, good soil and water) and then letting them grow and explore throughout their developmental years. The Carpenter has a plan that must be followed with precision of the child is to turn out as desired.

The author argues that either approach has value and pitfalls. For example, maybe you don’t like the Carpenter’s approach because it’s too structured and limits possibilities, but what would you say to the child who after exploring possibilities for a dozen years decides she wants to be a world class figure skater or gymnast? Right or wrong, in today’s world it’s nearly impossible to be either of those things if starting at the age of 12. (Referring to a previous post, this is simply a fact whether we want to accept it or not.) Personally, I don’t think I could have ever made a decision for a toddler to become this or that, but theoretically, is that approach denying society something positive.

I hope I took the middle ground even though I was probably more of a Gardener. Luckily for our kids I was balanced by a Carpenter. Maybe that’s the best approach.

PS Today would have been my dads 70th birthday. He was much more of a Gardener. I still miss him.

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December 11, 2017 – Only 14 More Days

Well, we are smack dab in the middle of the Thanksgiving to Christmas sprint and it definitely feels like it.  From last minute shopping (thank you online retailers) to upcoming parties and visitors, the season feels less and less nostalgic and more and more frantic.  Sometimes it can feel like all we are doing is preparing and waiting for Christmas to arrive so that we can finally stop the frenetic pace, and that, in my opinion, robs us of most of what makes this season special.  I know that I have found myself stressing out about getting gifts purchased in time to be shipped, making sure that I have blocked the right days on the schedule to ensure that we keep all of the engagements that arise, etc.  In doing that, though, I have also found myself forgetting about the joy of the season, sacrificing the message of Peace on Earth, Goodwill Towards Men, and replacing it with, Please Let Me Get All This Done and Don’t Let That Jerk Take My Parking Place.

You would think a day of Thanksgiving would kick off a month of reflecting on the reason we celebrate the Christmas season.  I know for me, part of the issue is that reflection requires intention.  To reflect on the season means that you have to intentionally take time out of your day to think about why we celebrate and why, in particular, it is special to you, and, frankly, we all get so wrapped up in the day to day, minute to minute aspects of life that we just don’t think about it.  With our always online lives, we have so much entertainment and access to distractions that we rarely find ourselves alone with our thoughts, and I really think we have forgotten the art of taking time each day for quiet reflection, meditation, prayer, or the like.  Personally, when schedules get packed and time gets short, I find myself shortchanging these times or skipping them entirely, using the excuse that I just don’t have the time “right now” and that I’ll get to it when the schedule eases up.  In reality, though, there is never an abundance of time, so I have started to take a different tack and look at my quiet times as I do my exercise times.  Times that are priorities because they put me in the right physical, mental and emotional state to be at my best.  That means the schedule has to change and sometimes means that I don’t get other things done.  What is interesting, though, is that the more at peace I am, the more I am able to discern which things don’t need to be done, and the more able I am to tackle and complete the things that have to be done.

So, as you join me at the halfway point in this holiday season, I’d like to challenge you to intentionally make time each day to quiet yourself and reflect on what the season means in general and specifically to you in your life…no phones, no tablets, no other distractions, just quiet.  It’ll definitely make the season Merry and Bright.  Have a great week!

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December 9, 2017 – Being a Mentor

“Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” ― Anonymous Greek Proverb

This quote was shared with me recently (love it) and the following story of a great man who inspired an American president, Secretary of State, and one of America’s greatest generals and I’ll bet you don’t know his name. This great man was a U.S. Army general who retired in the early 1930’s. He was the mentor to President and 5-star general Dwight D. Eisenhower, Secretary of State and 5-star general George C. Marshall, and General George Patton.  All three credited him with their success and being the person who guided their careers.  General John “Blackjack” Pershing, on whose staff this man served, said of him, “I could lose any man in the AEF (American Expeditionary Force) except you”. High praise.

Eisenhower served as this man’s Aide-de-Camp in the Panama Canal Zone in the 1920s for two years. Eisenhower called the next two years under this man his most profound period of military education. Eisenhower recalled in his memoirs that his mentor started him on an intense military history reading program. He readd Carl von Clausewitz’s On War repeatedly and worked to expand Eisenhower’s intellectual horizons by introducing him to the works of Plato, Tacitus, Nietzsche, and and even Shakespeare, particularly Shakespeare’s’ play, Henry the 5th.

Eisenhower adopted his mentor’s three important war-fighting lessons:

1. Never fight unless you have to

2. Never fight alone

3. Never fight for long

Every Army officers career depended on completing the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Eisenhower was blackballed because of a controversial article he wrote on the future of mechanized infantry. Eisenhower was Infantry and each branch was allocated only a certain number of slots every year, and the competition was intense. His mentor realized that it would be crime if Eisenhower wasn’t allowed to  go so he contacted an old West Point classmate, Major General Robert C. Davis, who  was now the adjutant general of the U.S. Army. Davis was responsible for, among other things, all personnel management actions, and so Conner had Davis arrange Eisenhower’s transfer to the Adjutant General’s Corps. Davis then gave Eisenhower one of the corps’ two Leavenworth slots.  Eisenhower went on to graduate first in his class. After Eisenhower’s graduation,his mentor and Davis transferred him back to the infantry and his meteoric career took off.

He advised Patton to go into the then infant U.S. Army tank corps. He also quietly advised Eisenhower and Marshall how to handle the volatile Patton throughout the war.

Marshall served with his mentor in WW1 on Pershing’s staff and often cited him in his memoirs for many of the same lesson’s that Eisenhower mentions. He worked behind the scenes to ensure Marshall was in the right jobs at the right time. Marshall even sent him the plans for the invasion of Europe while his mentor was retired asking for his advice and consent.

The mentor for these three men was Major General Fox Conner U.S. Army (retired). A name you probably never heard or read about, but whose mentoring ability and vision probably had as much to do with the Allied victory in WW2 as any other person. Be the Fox Conner for people around you and acknowledge you own Fox Conners when you achieve success.

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December 8, 2017 – Hard Working Man

Apparently December is the month for loved one’s birthdays for the authors of this blog. Today is my Dad’s birthday. He has always been the template for the man I wanted to be – strong, responsible, determined, honest, and dependable. If my Dad said he was going to do something – he did it. I can remember so many moments from my childhood where my Dad provided me and my brother a text book example of how to be a man. He met people with a smile a firm handshake and always looked them in the eyes. He was a man’s man as they say. Whenever I watch John Wayne movies, I think of him.

My Dad was blue collar and proud of the hard work he did, day-in and day-out. He literally worked sun up to sun down with little complaint. When he did something, he always did his best. He instilled that lesson in both of his sons. I remember one particular incident where he had asked me to sweep out the garage. I was a typical teenager and did a very poor job of it and then went to watch TV.  My Dad called me back to the garage where he proceeded to show me what a good job looked like, then he tossed all the dirt and leaves he had just swept back into the garage and stood there while I did the job the right way – to his standard. He made it clear there were no excuses to doing any job poorly. Which reminds me of my favorite quote – which I might have shared, but will share again because it reminds me of him.

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

― Martin Luther King Jr.

That is my Dad. Happy birthday to a fantastic Dad and my role model.

 

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December 6, 2017 A Place to Gather

Tonight, I met some good friends at a unique little local spot. It was great to be able to spend some time with friends and catch up after a few weeks apart. Unfortunately, we chose this specific spot because it is closing soon and we wanted to go there once more before the era ends. Heroic Ale Works is a unique little spot in a terrible location. I assume that is why they are closing since they are so far off the beaten path. However, the place was crowded tonight for their Geek Trivia Night. While it was really awkward to be in a brewery with over 60 people drinking well brewed beer and playing trivia in nearly dead silence as the teams focused on getting the answers correct, the patrons all looked very comfortable in this gathering place where they shared common interests in a warm environment that seemed like a home away from home.

It’s important to have gathering places where we can go be ourselves, enjoy things that make us happen and soak up the warmth of community. We are social creatures and need to be in community with others…not alone. Nobody should be–or feel–alone in a world full of social creatures. Nobody should be–or feel–alone in their own home either. Our homes should be places to gather. If we don’t invite others into our homes, we turn it into a fortress keeping people out when it should be a nest into which others want to flock.

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December 4, 2017 – Sons and Mothers

Today is a special day for a special lady in my life.  It is my mother’s 29th+ birthday and I am glad the calendar conspired to let me write this today.  There is a special bond between mothers and sons.  There is a special bond between fathers and sons also, but it is uniquely different and that is a good thing.  While fathers teach sons how to be a man, I believe that mothers teach sons how to be a human.  Granted that’s a little tongue-in-cheek, but I do think that mothers teach sons how to relate to others more than fathers do, and that is a good thing.

My mom taught me many things over the course of my life.  She taught me how to evaluate intangibles when dealing with people, how to see things from their point of view and how to evaluate that in light of your own understanding and perspective.  She taught me that my relationship with God establishes the foundation of both my life and my relationships.  She taught me that family is the core unit of our lives and as it grows, our life becomes even more rich.  She taught me that loyalty and steadfastness to friends and family is not just a desired quality, but fundamental to being a good man.

Growing up we didn’t have lots of money, but we were rich.  We had a father who loved our mother, but, equally, we had a mother who loved our father, and they both loved us.  That commitment to each other and to our family carried us through difficult times and served as the perfect example to my brothers and me.  We weren’t just taught, we saw in the everyday lives of our parents the example they were seeking us to emulate.  Sure, rationally I know things weren’t and probably aren’t perfect, but, in comparison with the dysfunction we see so blatantly around us today, we had, and still have, the storybook family life.  We might not have been the Cleavers, but we sure weren’t the Bundys, even if, as kids, we didn’t fully appreciate what we had.

Today, my mother is (and I apologize if this sounds sexist), the matriarch of a family that extends three generations, enjoys not one or two, but five individual families who share the same values and desires as she and my father, and has a foundation built on a solid faith in God, Family and Country, in that order.  Knowing my own path, I am sure she never expected this future when she and dad started dating, and I am absolutely positive that the mother (and father) I know and love probably never thought they would be the people they are today, but I am forever grateful that they are.  The sacrifices of their past have enabled our present and our kids’ and grandkids’ futures.

Mom, thank you for the example you have been.  Thank you for helping me become the man I am today and the man I will be tomorrow.  Thank you for being my counselor, my cheerleader, and the inspiration for the husband I have and am becoming.  Thank you for being my mom.  I love you and hope you have had a wonderful birthday.

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December 3, 2017 – Perception is Not Reality

I used to be one of the people who chanted the mantra “perception is reality” because I used it as a way of trying to understand others and their responses to situations, ideas, etc.  Recently, though, I have been rethinking that position and have come to realize that the idea of perception being reality is only true if there is no objective truth, and we simply do not live in that type of world.  Think about it, if you perceive that the birds are hanging upside down on a branch, it could be that reality has shifted, or simply that you are standing on your head.  Your perception albeit something you have to process, in no way changes actual reality.

Far too often, though, we treat peoples’ perceptions and feelings as being reality, and, therefore, truth…at least “truth to them”.  But “truth to them” isn’t necessarily truth, so how does it help to support the rationalization of an irrational truth when what we really should be supporting is dealing with the feelings, thoughts and emotions that are making the perception seem real.  Feelings are real as are emotions, but that does not necessarily mean that they are an accurate interpretation of reality.  Yet we accord them that level of importance and turn them into the arbiter of what we consider truth and reality to be, when they are not designed to be that at all.

For example, you may feel miserable after doing something you know was a bad idea, like overeating, etc.  You may feel like you have failed and that the day is ruined.  You may even take it to the level of feeling like life is bad because you screwed up, but the reality is life itself is pretty good.  By objective measures, you live in one of the most prosperous times in the most prosperous country the world has ever known.  You have access to health care and food of such high quality and such abundance that we regularly end up throwing it away.  You have the knowledge of the world at your very fingertips and the ability to talk to almost anyone around the world at any time, for truly nominal amounts of money.  The reality is that life is pretty good even if it doesn’t feel like it.

In Og Mandino’s book The Greatest Miracle in The World, he authored a text called the “God Memorandum”.  In it, he addresses this concept of reality and our need to separate our feelings and reground ourselves in the reality of our lives.  It is an excellent read that I highly recommend and, so, I would like to leave you with this link to the text version and this link to a YouTube version.  During this holiday season, during the ups and the downs, remember your perception is NOT reality.  Life is better than that.