There was a time, Marlon, when I would have agreed with you. Except that I've been paying attention for a quite a few years... "compromise" is what got us to this. Not galloping, leaps and bounds, unhindered statism, but the exact compromise you are talking about - it ALWAYS goes in one direction. The only "compromise" has been how far and how much. It's the ratchet effect. Sometimes not moving, but NEVER going in the right direction. It has found its way into every detail of every thing. So, no, no more compromising. I'm done. It's now REVERSE. Not compromise on "not as much more" but, NO MORE, and NOW LESS. And if you're (WISPA) not actively acting to accomplish that, then it's actively hindering that action. It's on the wrong side. It's like travelling a road. You're going to go one way... Or the other. There isn't a compromise, if you're not going north, you're going south, if you're not going east, you're going west, and there is no such thing as standing still without being pointed in some direction.
You say that you alone can't do anything. That I can't. I agree. But it has to start...somewhere. If Uncle Sam came running, handing me "free money" I would not take it - and I, personally, have never been personally in as precarious financially as I am now, with no assurance I'll even have a home from one week to the next. It's called "principle", Marlon. I have no right to what other people have worked for, or will work for in the next 50 years ( paying interest on our ocean of debt), and I will not take it. In fact, it has to start with EVERY ONE OF US, not just how we vote, but how we act, how we talk to our neighbors, how we make our decisions, and what ideas we promote. I can't say "I'm for this" and then not live it. It's pure hypocrisy to say "you gotta live with the system". No, you don't. You have the freedom to still say "no". You have the freedom to NOT take CRP or RUS loans, or look for ways to get USF funding, for instance. But, if you're willing to sell the use of your land for the pittance they give you, then you have no claim to saying you're 'with me', because you're not - you're completely willing to agree with, and take money from a program that robs one set of citizens to give money to another, plain and simple. And look how widespread acceptance is among people who would otherwise claim to be small government conservatives. I'm grateful you're now telling them to end USF and other stuff, but you know it's not going away until the Congress makes it go away. But Congress (and whoever is president) isn't going to make it go away until a very large majority of us, the people, demand it. And no such demands are going to happen until we (you, me, and every single other person) have made the case for free markets, economic freedom, freedom to be in business, freedom of innovation, and freedom from political burdens with no redeeming value whatsoever. But we're not there. You're as helpful to the cause as the current president, because you're (and maybe not you, personally, Marlon, this has NEVER been about you in a personal way... My conversations referenced before... were not with you. I've have conversations you don't know about) still willing to take money in opposition to what you claim to think. Until we're not, Marlon, then we're not really believing what we're saying ,and of course, if we're not, we're never going to convince the country it has to change, or face a crisis beyond those of recorded history. Is WISPA making the case, not to just DC, but to the members as well, industry wide, that free markets solve problems? Does the organization actively promote unfettered competition, by its members? Does it make the case that "no subsidies" is, in fact, the only truly viable business and national strategy? If not, then WISPA is still in diametric opposition to me. Does WISPA leadership routinely offer workshops on how individual WISP's can find opportunity to be those free market powerhouses? And why and how you should stand on your own and why you should not get tangled up in trying to get a few dollars in exchange for a lack of autonomy? Going back to CRP, the people who signed up didn't see it in the terms I've posted. Because we're conditioned to not think about it. Because so many of us just see the dollars and don't apply forgotten principles that matter. Look how many millions of people went and borrowed money on a loan guaranteed by our federal government - many of which I'm sure, still claim to be for freedom, for limited government, and so on. Look how it has corrupted us as a people, that we'll now give up almost anything we believe in for a few dollars or other material or monetary benefit. Nothing will change, until we're ready to live by what we think, and start doing so, and that includes our businesses, our financial lives, and every vote we make, and really, truly, stop compromising. You talk about joining and getting elected to leadership. One thing about leadership, is that if those you're leading don't want to go where you're going, you're not leading, you're just exploring space on your own. I stated as clearly as I could, that the issue here, is that the membership is NOT in agreement with me, save for probably a few. And to what end, other than acrimony, would trying to be a strident voice for certain principled things? I said in my previous post, that this isn't nearly as political as some want it to be made out to be. It's more about the realities of business, economics, and management of our own enterprises. We as a nation are incredibly ignorant about how to be the businessmen we want to be (and I put myself in that statement) , and if we learned what we should, whatever political aspects of our lives are impacted, would take care of themselves. I, too, live in a very rural area, and watch the people decry the price supports, controls, subsidies, and then engage in them, because they believe they cannot compete or succeed without them. I read two stories recently, one was of a sizeable business (assets in the billions) that was slowly going bankrupt, which was offered a loan by the federal government. But the CEO turned it down, and instead, announced impending bankruptcy. He chose to own it as failure, rather than throw good money after bad. That's integrity. Another was in the process of borrowing money from the DOE, cash that would be immensely helpful to his company. He cancelled it and announced they'll just struggle through on their own. We CAN live without being bribed, we can say "no". And it's going to take millions of us saying "no", but we can do it and we can turn our industries.. .and country... around it. And it's all about individuals, decisions, and principled choices - not about politics, but about rational choices about the present and future. Maybe I am asking to too much. What little optimism I have left says... I am not. But my time and energy probably best employed elsewhere. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Neofast, Inc, Making internet easy 541-969-8200 509-386-4589 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From: Marlon K. Schafer (509-982-2181) Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2012 12:07 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] It's been a ride... Some up, some down. Since you are talking about me Mark I'll chime in here a bit too. As I've said before. You and I mostly agree. Government is, with precious few exceptions, the enemy of the people. Government and far to many that work in it are just plain evil. Or maybe arrogant but in the end that causes them to do evil things to the regular folk of the country. WISPA is an association of or membership. The members are encouraged to run for leadership positions every year (half the board is up for election every year). There is no restriction on who can run for the board other than they have to be a member in good standing. There are a few other things that we ask of our candidates but they don't generally apply to the people here (no one I know of is sitting in jail right now :-). WISPA was formed to help protect our industry. Mostly from the government. That's why we are so focused and spend most of our money on FCC and legislative issues. We've actually been pretty successful here. We've had good success on favorable rules changes, gotten additional spectrum and we've stopped quite a few bad ideas from coming to fruition. I remember getting into it with you on the idea of reporting on the 477. You called me a traitor. Perhaps that fits but I think of myself as more of a realist. The 477 is there. We can't make it go away. In fact, much to my chagrin, it's work with the stupid broadband map. Tell you what though. They ARE there. They DO exist. And your competition is going to be government funded, or not, based at least in part on what the map shows. If you refuse to place yourself on the map, that's your choice. A foolish choice that's bad for you AND the rest of the industry, but your choice to make none the less. I live in farm country. Everyone out here gets government money for something. Crop failures, CRP programs, price supports etc. It sucks. Government money is poison. But so is NO money. It's like salt in many ways. Too much will kill you just as dead as too little. Here's a current example. We have bought out some of the CRP my family has. We run off road motorbike races on the ground. Now it's up for renewal. But the Fish and Wildlife department is refusing to allow the renewal because we need a buffer zone around the track. One that's probably bigger than the 49 acres of crp will support. Dad's still looking into it. Dad's PISSED off though. He didn't enter into any contracts with Fish and Game, why are they involved with this issue at all???? It's ALL private property. But, since it's rented to the government we have to live by it's rules. The bike races bring 10s of thousands or dollars into our local economy. Probably closer to 100k. But that doesn't matter to the dickheads at Fish and Game. They are more worried about the fish that don't exist in the middle of a field and the game birds that might be harmed in some way. I guess birds and deer can't hear a dirt bike coming soon enough to get out of the way. Wanna know the funniest part of all this? Dad plants habitat and birds because he loves that kind of stuff. That doesn't matter to Fish and Game though. They still want the races stopped. Or he has to give up over $2500 per year in revenue from the CRP payments on that ground. More than he'd make farming it (that's the reason for CRP in the first place). So a guy is stuck. The government controls (in one way or another) the prices farmers can charge for their crops, chemical use etc. and therefore the revenue that a farmer can generate. They then offer a program that will pay the farmer more money for the use of his poor ground and set the rules for it's use (basically nothing). Then they change the rules as time goes on, making them more and more restrictive. Eventually out here people tend to eventually give up and sell the ground to the government. MOST of the water ways are now owned by the state. I could go on, but everyone here has a similar story to tell. Look at the recent thread about the idiotic OSHA rules. Who's going to let anyone put a fall restraint system on their home? If you have a habit of falling off roofs, go get a desk job! In the end though. You and I, alone, can't fix any of this. We can't control anything. We have to band together into groups. And those groups have to compromise. Those groups also have to deal with reality as it exists while they try to enact their ultimate goals. WISPA did tell the FCC to eliminate USF, CAF or any other subsidies. We told them to just let the market deal with the issues. We knew ahead of time that they'd reject that stance though. So we also suggested alternative plans and mechanisms that would do the least harm to our industry, communities and country. Your problem Mark is that you don't understand the compromise part. It's funny though, we all do it every day. We walk on different sides of the hall. We use different urinals. We turn our music down in at night. Life is always a compromise. Many of them well and truly suck. But they are what they are. A person can sit there and refuse to move when he's in the crosswalk. It's his right to be there. But when that truck and trailer blows through the intersection at 60mph you'll still be dead as a doornail. Sometimes it's a good idea to have a plan B. Yeah, sometimes plan B is getting shot in the foot. But that's better than plan A (getting shot in the head). When the bag guy tells you he's going to shoot you no matter what telling him to pound sand isn't going to be very effective. At least if you get shot in the foot eventually you can try to go after the SOB!!!! I hope that someday you'll understand what reality is Mark. There's the perfect world then there's the one we're stuck with. I wish you'd climb off of your high horse and volunteer to go to DC and meet the people back there. They aren't all bad, but often their hands are tied too. Whining to us, or worse sticking your head firmly in the sand, is no substitute for working to make it better. Join the committees, run for the board etc. Talk is talk, but it takes action to fix things. Laters, marlon
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