[governance] Four legs good, two legs bad

[Veni Markovski]

Milton,

the fact that the IGP publications have proposed something, doesn't
make it a rule. You say something important, although in brackets. The
keywords here are "we hope". There is untranslatable word game in
Bulgarian for that matter "we hope", but I will try to make it
politically correct:

Yes, we all hope on different issues, and hopefully the civil society
hopes for the same important items. However, the road to Hell is paved
with good intentions, too, as we all know.

I understand that for you, as a University professor, this is a highly
philosophical question. You believe in your cause, which makes you a
believer. Your belief has nothing to do with the actual cause, that
may be good or not so good.

You talk about George Orwell, but again that's a philosophical,
theoretical question.

Let me ask you: since you talk about models, and governments being
good, why not give us an example of governments that have solved the
problems with the IG? But solved with full participation of all multi
stakeholders, through bottom-up processes, in the interest of all
society, and with keeping privacy protected.

thanks in advance for your concrete contribution.

On 12/8/06, Milton Mueller <mueller at syr.edu> wrote:
>
> This whole debate about government is getting silly.
>
> IGP publications have proposed that ICANN be formally accountable to
> the rule of law (law being governmental, last time I looked); and that
> the world's governments negotiate a framework convention to codify in a
> binding fashion certain principles regarding the Internet (principles
> which, we hope, will preserve and protect its freedoms rather than
> undermine them).
>
> So rather than getting caught in an Orwellian chant that governments
> are two-legged and therefore intrinsically bad, to be answered by
> equally uninteresting bleating that they are four-legged and therefore
> intrinsically good, it might be better to talk about what you want the
> governments to do, what you don't want them to do, what institutional
> mechanisms might be deployed, and what checks and balances might exist
> to counter the obvious tendency of states to wield power in ways that
> benefit themselves or certain clients at the expense of the public
> (especially in international arenas where there is no electorate, no
> real rule of law, very little enforcability and very weak
> accountability)
>
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