In this morning's Washington Post, reporter Tim Craig explains how the abuser fees rose and fell, ending their brief, ignominious life today, as the General Assembly votes today (most likely) to repeal "what many legislators have said is one of the state's biggest public policy failures in years." The article overall is highly flawed, but we'll get to that in a minute. First, here's the Most Stupidest Quote of the Day:
"We lost the PR battle," said Del. David B. Albo (R-Fairfax), a main supporter of the fees. "You can't fight the Internet."
You "can't fight the internet?" Think about that for a minute. According to Wikipedia, the internet is "a worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP)." Or, as Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) explained, it's "a series of tubes," but "not a big truck." Is that what Dave Albo believes you can't fight? Seriously, though, saying you "can't fight the internet" is like saying "you can't fight the radio" (or TV, or newspapers, or whatever). The comment demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of what the internet is, how it works, and why Dave Albo lost his battle over the abuser fees. A few points:
1. On the internet, there are hundreds of millions (billions?) of websites. Some of those websites are the hideous, dastardly things known as "blogs" (Dave Albo trembles in terror at the mere mention of the word).
2. A small percentage of those blogs are political in nature, and a miniscule proportion of those focus on Virginia politics. We're talking maybe 0.00000001% of the internet, and I probably missed a few zeroes, that are political blogs focusing on Virginia.
3. Of those, only a few -- NLS, RK, and a petition started by Bryan Ault -- took up the cause last summer against the abuser fees. The bottom line, when Dave Albo says "you can't fight the internet," let's be clear -- he's referring to two blogs out of hundreds of millions (neither of which are named by Tim Craig in his story), plus a petition started by "an Alexandria man" (also unnamed by Tim Craig).
4. At any time, given that the internet is open to creation of new blogs, or posting on existing blogs, Dave Albo and his allies who favored the abuser fees could have gone out on the "series of tubes" and made their case for the brilliance of their idea. Because ye, that's another aspect of the internet that Dave Albo apparently doesn't understand -- it's democratic, small "d," where one person's ideas and facts are inevitably critiqued and challenged by many other people with their own ideas and facts. The question is, if Albo's ideas were so brilliant and facts so strong, why didn't he and his allies make their case out on the internet (or on TV, radio, print media, or anywhere else for that matter)? Perhaps it's not that "you can't fight the internet," perhaps it's that "you can't fight the public when it is angry at your idiotic idea that will adversely affect their day-to-day lives?" But no, don't blame yourself for coming up with idiotic legislation, blame "the internet" -- that "worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks" -- for your defeat. Brilliant as always, Del. Albo. You really get it! (hint: that was snark, something we often use on the internet).
5. If you "can't fight the internet," then why is it that we haven't defeated Dominion Power yet? Why is it that we weren't able to get Leslie Byrne and Creigh Deeds elected in 2005? Why is it that Barack Obama's not the nominee yet? Why is it that John Kerry wasn't elected president in 2004? Why is it that Congress hasn't imposed a "cap and trade" system for carbon yet? Why is it that we still have the abysmal FISA law? Why is it that Bush and Cheney are still getting away with torturing people in our name? Why is it...etc., etc.
Now, just a couple of brief thoughts on Tim Craig's article. First, I find it a bit odd that, in telling the story of the demise of the abuser fees, no specific mention is made of the two blogs -- NLS and RK -- which led the charge against them.
Second, I find it strange that there's no mention is made of the actual NAME of the "Alexandria man," Bryan Ault, who started the petition that quickly -- with a big push from the bloggers -- gathered 170,000 signatures against Dave Albo's brilliant idea.
Third, Craig refers to some blogs printing "inaccurate but damaging information, but does not mention what was "inaccurate." I'd love to be enlightened; as far as I can tell, the information on the anti-abuser-fees blogs (and Ault's petition) was highly accurate, the best evidence for this being that Albo et al. never really refuted it, except to foam at the mouth about the evil blogs.
Finally, there's no recognition that Dave Albo et al. could have "fought the internet" (sic) if they had gone out there and made their case. Of course, that would have presumed that they actually had a case. The problem for them, in short, wasn't the "internet," it was their own deeply flawed legislation, which the public hated, and which they were utterly incapable of defending on the dastardly "internet" or anywhere else. It's a lot easier to point fingers at things you don't understand than to look in the mirror, I guess.
"You can't fight the internets"...
I think we'll be using this quote more in the future. A lot more.
http://archive.salon.com/news/...
I didn't mean to denigrate the good work of various reporters at various times at the WaPo and other msm outlets. And it would be stupid to overlook the historical importance of the press. Rather, I meant to point out that equally good work can and is increasingly being done on the web.
When the msm deliberately omits mention of particular websites, bloggers, and commenters, it is implicitly saying that web reporting isn't really journalism. This is not only silly, but ultimately futile.
It is in one way an opening gun in what will be (or is already) a Republican effort to 1) devalue anything the Republicans dislike that comes off the Internet blogs, enabling them automatically to dismiss it to their brainwashed followers, and 2) eventually stifle and control freedom of speech on the Internet.
How the Republicans must envy the Chinese Communist leaders, who conned Google and others into censoring internet communications across China. How we ourselves see Bush con AT&T and others in the US allow the American unitary executive President illegally to use warrantless wiretaps and searches of electronic communications under the excuse of patriotically supporting the war on terror---- when, in fact, we have no way of knowing what additional political uses were made of the information so sieved from their data mining, and never will know if, as Bush demands, AT&T et al are granted retroactive immunity.
Delegate Albo's whining goes far beyond his own dismay over the abuser fees' demise.
"$3,550 speeding ticket, the purpose of which is not to deter crime but to raise revenue!" - RK 6/21/07
The fact that these fines would have applied only to individuals convicted of felonies --killing someone while driving recklessly or a third offense DWI--was left out of the post.
I understand this may have been a misunderstanding of the bill, but other less well-intentioned blogs took these readings as gospel and distorted the truth.
Just my thoughts......
The original abuser fee bill that passed applied to all traffic offenses that constituted misdemeanors. This included things like displaying an obscene image on your car (plastic testicles?) to minor forms of Reckless Driving, all DWI's, Driving on a Suspended, Driving Without a Valid Operator's License, etc.