[governance] FW: TP: city government exercising policy on Google Applications / consumer rights / Consumer Protection Act / trial period

Fri Jul 15 04:33:33 EDT 2011

I am afraid we cannot go further if we still try to cut&paste rules that
were designed hundreds of years ago to the world we now live in. Internet
governance and intangibles taxation require the creation (or the
mobiilization) of a meta-structure, above the national levels... And for me,
it needs to be a UN-type agency.

I agree we cannot move forward to address these governance issues by cutting
ans pasting  from rules and philosophies that were designed for a world in
which the concept of a borderless world and death of distance were
completely alien. I am not certain whether it should be a UN Agency as the
UN itself is made up of governments. I do know that if we examine the social
contract theory where citizens choose to give up part of their rights to a
sovereign.

In this instance, the things that we will have to think about is whether
citizens should withdraw their rights and give it to another sovereign?
Should their be a distinction between the types and categories of citizens
such as one for entities, nation states and ordinary citizens? How should
power be balanced?

Is democracy really a democracy, that is the power of the vote separate and
divorced from economic strings? We know that in a real world, the power that
the economic strings can create and sway change.
On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 8:05 PM, Philippe Blanchard <
philippe.blanchard at me.com> wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> I also think that we have somehow deviated from our initial discussions and
> objectives...
> Lateral thinking and hyperlinking can bring new opportunities but I am less
> "sensitive" to the current development of this thread and it is time for me
> to drop-off.
>
> Many thanks to you all for this enlightening discussion....
>
> Kind regards,
> Philippe
>
> On Jul 15, 2011, at 3:45 AM, Thomas Lowenhaupt wrote:
>
> As an advocate for public interest city-TLDs I was delighted to see this
> "tax" thread start. While it seems to have drifted from Taiwan to Canada, it
> has been illuminating and much appreciated. Not sure if it's appropriate to
> "fan" in here, but I just have to say thank you, especially to Paul,
> Michael, Kerry, and Parminder. And to Roland, Roxana, Daniel, Norbert,
> McTim, Philippe, Salanieta, Jean-Louis, Sonigitu, Avri, Lee and of course
> Milton.
>
> Really great conversation.
>
> Tom
>
> On 7/14/2011 8:57 PM, Paul Lehto wrote:
>
> On 7/14/11, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  in my limited
> observation [CIRA] would seem to me by most conventional standards to be at
> least reasonably "democratic".
>
>  I'm published in the area of political theorists of democracy, so
> perhaps I'm not clear.  Here's something I hope is ultra-succinct
> relatively speaking, and shows why I'm not off base.
>
> The very definition of democracy in modern times is rule by the people
> (self-government), based on one person/one vote and universal suffrage
> (all adults voting).
>
> The very definition of aristocracy, as Montesquieu (one of the most
> famous political theorists of the world since the 1700s, a Frenchman)
> wrote, is rule by less than all the people.  (I.e. Rule by some
> fraction of all the people, especially rule by an elite.)
>
> Now Mike, when you point to a subset of the people affected by CIRA
> (domain registrants) and note that they can be voting members if they
> wish, but ignore the mere user who is also governed to some extent by
> CIRA, and then call that exclusion "reasonably democratic", you're
> really saying that a largish aristocracy is "reasonably democratic."
>
> But no user encountering .ca domains and affected by the TLD policy
> but who can not vote on policy like domain registrants or on directors
> like Mike Gurstein or Kerry Brown would ever call a structure like
> CIRA "reasonably democratic."  (Not if they took the subject of CIRA's
> authority seriously, yet couldn't vote on it.)  Such a person would
> say they have no vote, complain they are disfranchised using their own
> words for that, and note somehow that they are basically ruled by
> domain registrants and CIRA who do have votes and say.  CIRA and these
> domain registrant members are the superiors of internet users (who
> have no say) and this aspect is not "reasonably democratic."
>
> There's lots of room and even necessity for compromise in the vast
> majority of political issues, but not on the most fundamental issues
> like democracy (or not), or freedom (or not) or whether or not you or
> I should have a vote on things affecting us.
>
> It's a simple definitional reality:  Because aristocracies by
> definition are rule by less than all the people affected by laws, if
> you take the fundamental parts of democracy like who can vote on a
> piecemeal basis, and thereby give the vote to less than all the
> people, you have, by definition the very essence of aristocracy, not
> democracy.
>
> To call this piecemeal aristocratic outcome "reasonably democratic"
> because some affected can vote (registrants) and some affected can not
> vote (users) is to put way too kind a gloss on the undemocratic and
> aristocratic nature of any system that allows one big or small class
> to vote, and denies another big class, like internet users, the right
> to vote.  That's the CIRA model.
>
> All the happy talk about multistakeholderism hides the ugly realities
> of denying voices and votes to classes of people, while often giving
> voices and votes even to some non-humans and non-voters, like
> corporations.
>
> The purpose of the Truman quote, and the purpose of *Truman's*
> invocation of Hitler, is to show that we do not want efficiency unless
> we agree on the process's end result or goal.  If the train is headed
> down the wrong track, no rational person wants efficiency!  That
> efficiency just sends us faster and further down the wrong track.
>
> Nothing personal, as I said before, was intended by any of my
> comments.  But Kerry Brown has taken offense nevertheless.  I am sorry
> he has done so.  But I do not think there is any way out of a
> conclusion that CIRA is a form of aristocracy, not democracy, and
> because I believe that Kerry Brown believes in democracy, but probably
> never went through analysis like the above, the implication that the
> restructuring of CIRA in the way it is, is causing him to be
> participating in a form of non-democratic corporate governance is not
> just a charge that has a certain sting to it, but an unavoidable
> conclusion once one knows the basic difference between aristocracy as
> being rule by less than all the people....
>
> Paul Lehto, J.D.
>
> P.S. I fully understand the distinction you try to make with ex
> officio members. If you re-read my message, I recall clearly intending
> to draft that message to say these ex officio members had an enhanced
> "voice" or right to be "heard" -- which they do have by speaking at
> meetings and being recognized much more so than an average audience
> member.  I did not say or mean to imply that ex officio members had a
> formal vote, by definition they do not.  I was pointing to yet another
> difference in relative political power, not on the level of actual
> votes since ex officio members don't have them, but on the level of
> who has access to time at meetings to get their ideas out, if they
> wish to do so.  Clearly, ex officio members have a privileged status
> with respect to that.  That is basically why they are ex officio to
> begin with -- to hear from them based on prior experience, status,
> etc.  So, while I think a careful reading of my text would be clear, I
> do see how one could mistakenly conclude that I misunderstood the role
> of ex officio board members.
>
> I was appointed in the past as parliamentarian for an annual bar
> association business meeting attended by most of the Supreme Court and
> in which many of the states' best lawyers argued over various motions
> and measures.  I only mention that to hopefully put to rest any
> inference that I don't completely understand what an ex officio member
> is, they are common in bar association membership organizations in
> various states.
>
> Paul R Lehto, J.D.
> P.O. Box 1
> Ishpeming, MI  49849lehto.paul at gmail.com906-204-4026 (cell)
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-- 
Sala

"Stillness in the midst of the noise".
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