I'd say apathy and ignorance are much bigger threats to democracy in the USA right now.

I keep reading here that the telecoms received massive tax breaks to build out broadband. Where can I find information on the bill or bills that did this?

I do want this.

This piqued my interest so I took a look at an article on "Actualism". Here is the first paragraph:

If this is a representative sample then I'll stick to wikipedia. Can someone decipher that last sentence for me? I've read it several times and I can't seem to grasp what it is saying.

1. Ok, you're wrong for a bevy of reasons on this one. The world is not that simple. "the money" is a lot of different people with different agendas and opinions.
2. Doesn't really matter.
3. I'd say the rich are very concerned about government sanctioned theft. I agree the middle class takes a lot of the hit, but I think that is because people claim they are only going to tax the uber rich but it slowly slides into the middle classes (see AMT)
4. The value you're choosing to call "rich" is arbitrary because you could have chosen other points 2%, 5%, .5% and the argument would have remained the same. Those are all concrete points, but they are arbitrary. The point I was trying to imply was that today's value of "rich" is likely tomorrows value of middle class and that is how they get the shaft.

(can't wait, thanks for keeping me from my real work!)

1. Then the quote from your original post was a pointless introduction.
2. You are equivocating and changing your statement. Before you said invariably that rich are for small government, but now they are for big government sometimes. I'm glad we agree. The point is that the poor want big government for the poor and small government for the rich. I.e. it is not a function of class, it is universal selfishness.
3. Then why did you say that the poor would be willing to put up with more?
4. It is a crystal clear dividing line, but it is still an arbitrary one.
5. This is the root of your argument, but what is your proof of this? Are you saying all rich have done this or that to be rich you must have done this? I'd say there are many people who have become rich by simply entering into agreements with multiple parties such that both parties felt they benefit from the agreement. This is not stealing. If someone has stolen, or done something else illegal then they should be prosecuted whether they have become rich by doing it or not.
6. There are many but I will not enumerate them here. I am not arguing for or against small government. I am arguing against stealing from the rich just because we can or because of some vague sense that "they stole from us first".
7. I agree completely, and let me add that I believe most people actually want to see excellence rewarded, even if they are not the recipient. We do not want excellence punished, but we do want unfairness punished.
8. You are arguing that the poor and middle class must be being fooled because they can not be for small government because it would not stand for their principals or be in their best interest. But they are for both small and large government depending on the situation. They have made their judgement based on their set of principals (e.g. those of fairness), and what is best for them.

It wasn't created with solely their ingenuity and labor, it was a group effort. In general, people benefit proportional to the risk they were willing to accept, their talent, and their determination. Risks may be higher for those who have no capital to start with, but that is another discussion.

Even if this were true, it doesn't give you the right to take their wealth. However, good investment can and does create wealth. And it takes hard work to make good investments.

Blanket statements such as this are pure bigotry. Such bigotry leads to the destruction of the freedom you claim to hold so dear. It is pitiable.

It's both, and everyone is greedy and selfish to some extent. Extreme stupidity can be indistinguishable from malice and evil.

It's too bad the government is filled with stupid, greedy, evil, and selfish people.

So here you are saying stupidity is the problem, it's just not a solvable problem.

Sometimes, but not always. When it comes at the cost of trampling the rights of others simply because they are not poor it does not benefit society. The ends do not justify the means.

If you mean a society where you remove economic inequalities from people, which is what you seem to be promoting, then I disagree. In a society where all people are forced to be economic equal then the most talented and hardest working are being cheated. They will see this and it will lead to social instability.

If you mean a society where all people are treated as equals and have the same political, economic, social, and civil rights, then I agree. But this is not what you are promoting.

Indeed, you seem to be one of those people.

You have made quite an extrapolation from a very specific quote.

1. Defense of property is not the only function of government and no one suggests that it should be, this is a poor premise to start from.
2. The rich do not nearly invariably favor small government. Just like everyone else, they favor big government when they think it works in their favor.
3. The more desperate the have-nots are the more likely they are to do something drastic, like steal from the "have's".
4. Your definition of "truly rich" is arbitrary. Many people in the world and this country consider a person making $100k plus as "very rich".
5. We may not be genius saints, but we do have some principals, such as an innate sense of fairness. We do not take from other what we would not have them take from us if our positions were reversed. You don't have to assume that you will be rich someday to see that taking from them what they have earned is wrong.
6. Big or small government does not invariably benefit the poor with regard to property or anything else. Those who are for small government would probably argue that it hurts the poor more often than it helps.
7. There are many, such as myself, who do not think that they will ever be rich. However, I do not believe that makes me a failure, and I do not begrudge those who will be rich. So long as they have behaved legally and hopefully ethically, their success is deserved. The fact that some may not behave ethically is not justification to take from them all.
8. You may think the middle class is being "fooled", but I think you give them too little credit. You believe they are being fooled because otherwise they would agree with your beliefs. Yet a reasonable person can see flaws with your beliefs, as I have enumerated. You may want to argue over the points, but they are at least debatable. They don't require anyone be "fooled" to believe them.

If your viewpoint really is that the middle and lower class should rise up and take from the rich because they have that power and it would benefit them (they have license to do so in a democracy), then I find your sig pretty ironic.

I wish I had mod points for you. Unfortunately, many people will read it and then go ahead and rationalize anyway. Already, one of my siblings has claimed that all these people are "stealing" their wealth. Though his evidence of this is no doubt anecdotal at best. That said, objective discussion on this subject is difficult. It is easy to lie to each other and oneself about what is deserved and hard to accept that some may be more talented or just plain lucky.

Let his family sell them on the free market, of course. What are you, some kind of communist?

On what do you base this conclusion? How much is "almost never"? What should we do when one does occur? Is it possible to understand the set of circumstances under which they occur? If so, should we use that understanding to try and prevent them from occurring?

You say that the free market is the reason AIG has been able to cause all kinds of trouble and in the same breath mention the big government bailout that kept them afloat. In this case, the market gave a solution to the problem but regulators stepped in and stopped it.

I don't think the pure free market can solve all problems (no one does, that is a straw man). But your shit stinks just as much. Stop making straw men, reactionary decisions, and appeals to emotion ("rape and pillage") and start making rational arguments.

This thread is ridiculous and a borderline straw man. Anyone who has taken econ 101 knows that the pure free market can lead to monopolies and inefficiencies due to externalities (among other things).

The problem I see is that legislators cause a problem in the free market through legislation (i.e. they are largely responsible for the local monopolies now held by the telecoms), and the way they want to fix it is to push through legislation that doesn't touch the root problem. Instead they should tackle the problem of what caused these monopolies and attack that. Net neutrality is a band-aid, albeit perhaps a necessary one.