The federal government has the authority to regulate interstate commerce, which includes telecommunications. The FCC charter tells it to use that power for the public interest.

You should really delve more into history then. There was a real movement for it. The red flags weren't a coincidence. Remember, the red scare hadn't happened yet. 'The Russians' were still good guys. The cold war was over a decade in the future.

Communism wasn't a dirty word at all except among the wealthy.

As for the rest about Marx, that's all irrelevant. It doesn't matter what actually was or how that came out, all that matters is what the people contemplating revolution at that time believed. Had they not been placated by positive changes, they would have pressed on to a revolution for better or worse. They didn't have the benefit of the rear view mirror that we have on the Russian revolution.

Again, read carefully. I didn't say it won't happen. I said it won't happen for a while. Personally, I would like to have an autonomous vehicle. I just want to see provisions made for the general welfare before we go much further down the path.

But it won't. The DOT doesn't give a damn about Google's union trouble and they're the ones who will ultimately have to sign off on automated vehicles.

Tie your knees down and read it again. I said that the concessions forced by unions PREVENTED a communist revolution and that it's a GOOD thing that they did.

If you WANT a communist revolution, by all means take back all that the unions have gained and ban them. Give a few years for the pressure to build up (plus or minus a few cities being burned) and BAM you'll have your revolution.

I prefer that we keep the relief valve in place maintaining a reasonable balance so we can avoid all that nonsense. Even better would be enlightened management recognizing that tightening the screws causes unions and union problems and adopting a more balanced approach, but given the quality of MBAs these days I'm not holding my breath.

I honestly doubt it will affect the timeline even one iota.

Of course they don't magically disappear. They get scraped away with the topsoil by glaciers or ablated and carried off by wind.

It's learned helplessness. Push lever A, push lever B, don't push any lever. It doesn't matter, the painful shock is coming anyway.

Sure, but only if you do not use government money at all, do not use any exercise of eminent domain. That means if you want to run a cable, you negotiate with each and every property owner it needs to run through or over.

Title II could make that happen, but it will be a few years until there are enough choices to make a market work half decently.

For example, back when dial-up was the best technology generally available there were dozens of ISPs to choose from, all connected to a highly regulated POTS network. Prices dropped like a rock and if there was an issue, you could actually get your call elevated to the actual network admin.

The big flub with DSL was not giving the regulations enough teeth to make access truly equal. Many providers gave up when it took a month or three to get their DSLAM connected to a subscriber line but the local Bell's own service would get connected within 24 hours.

They get the police to do that for them these days. In that sense, it's worse than it was back then.

It has everything to do with what capitalism becomes when the market regulators are asleep at the switch or simply absent. There is no such thing as "free market capitalism". It is either Capitalism and the market regulations that come with or it is not Capitalism at all. You can't call it anarchy and you can't claim that the government isn't involved because that would make corporations non-existent.

Corporatism might fit or Cronyism or perhaps just plain old corruption.

He was pointedly ignoring a number of compensatory services the top 53% get back.