Re: FCC Regulation (fwd)

[Phil Karn <karn@qualcomm.com>]

This particular spoof is best appreciated by a radio ham -- it was
clearly a parody of the FCC licensing system for ham radio. It also
points out the substantial cultural similarities between the Internet
and (traditional) ham radio.

Unfortunately, one year's joke often has a nasty habit of turning into
next year's reality.

From personal experience, I can say that the current staff at the FCC
Private Radio Bureau (which regulates ham radio) is surprisingly
enlightened.  In recent years they've worked hard to remove obsolete
licensing requirements like morse code for VHF/UHF and many (but not
all, unfortunately) of the more onerous restrictions on "acceptable
use" of the ham bands.

In these proceedings it became clear that the hams themselves are the
real problem. Some hams still want a big benevolent FCC to protect
them from people who personally offend them, and many of these people
have a following. Although this phenomenon is by no means
qualitatively unique to ham radio, it does seem to have grown
quantitatively beyond anything seen elsewhere.

It really gives one pause. Is government really the enemy of personal
freedoms, or does it merely reflect an intolerant and unenlightened
general population? It's easy to make a government that responds to
the will and whim of the majority, but how can one create a government
that rises above the petty illiberalism of the people it governs to
protect the rights of the individual?

Phil