The centralizing, high-tax government of Hungary has backed down in its attempt to tax the Internet. It has a majority in Parliament, but the Prime Minister has called off the tax.
This indicates that self-interest still rules in Hungary. People do not want the state to interfere with their access to the Internet. They perceive the threat. This is good news.
It is easy for Internet service providers to mobilize the troops on this issue. The voters respond: “no trespassing.”
It is highly unlikely that the Internet in the United States is going to be taxed. The regulation will come in other ways. The FCC is discussing the possibility of imposing telephone-style regulations on pricing: “net neutrality.” Republicans in Congress are opposed. There are few regulations on the Internet in the USA. The courts have placed restrictions on the FCC. Nevertheless, Democrats on the FCC want to control the Internet any way they can.
Jay Rockefeller once said the biggest mistake the American ruling class ever made was allowing the internet to go public. They can't control the flow of information anymore, which is what ruling classes are all about: control. John Kerry recently threw a public tantrum saying "the internet is making it more difficult for us to govern!". Translation: We can't lie to the people and expect them to believe anymore.
A similar event happened when Gutenberg rediscovered movable type printing. Literacy exploded as affordable books became available on a mass scale to ordinary people, who then read those books (like the Bible) that only royalty and the priestly caste had had access to before. "Say, this is not what that guy in the pulpit wearing the funny robes, or that dude on the balcony wearing a tiara, has been telling us for centuries."
So true….. a major force that promoted and encouraged our War for Independence was an unfettered press, in spite if King George Three's valiant efforts to throttole it in the COlonies. Varous broadsides, large poasters printed and distributed locally, explained the "backstory" of varoius events, including "bloody butchery at Lexington", the Boston Massacre, the story of how the tea neded up in Boston Harbor… and don't forget that little pamphlet, written anonymounsly (we now know it was Thomas Paine) called Common Sense, all were produced by the rebel and clandestine press and distributed by activists. These, taken together, were a powerful force in forwarding the struggle to throw off King George's tyranny, and worked. Efforts to silence the press in that time were minimalll successful, and "underground" presses abounded. Today's internet is far more scattered and uncontrollable, except at the point of actual collexion. No wonder the FCC want to control it at that point. But they far overstep their bounds, as did King George Three.Of course now we have tools such as HF radio, the FR band, short wave……. using airwaves with no physical portal. to be taxed, regulated, controlled, turned off. Silly government goons… don't they know we WILL communicate?
All it took was one priest with access to a printer in Wittenberg.