While I don't doubt the legitimacy of the death threats, I can't help but to think Pai is taking advantage of the situation in order to fashion himself as a martyr figure, especially in the eyes of Trump's hyper-reactive base.
When you're a public official who intentionally and gleefully ignores the people you're paid to represent, I guess you shouldn't be surprised when those people get extremely angry with you. You chose to ignore them to enrich yourself at the detriment of an entire nation... And now you want us to feel sorry that someone posted a sign in front of your house? HAH!
According to dictionary.com, a martyr doesn't strictly have to die. A martyr "endures great suffering on behalf of any belief, principle, or cause". His argument makes perfect sense and I agree with it.
While this may very well be true, I encourage everyone to consider deeply whether you think this to be likely because of the specifics of the situation, or because you disagree with Ajit Pai's policies.
Also in the future, be consistently skeptical when you hear news stories about people you are sympathetic to also saying they've been experiencing tons of death threats or harassment online.
Such threats have to be taken with a grain of salt. Daniel Tosh famously gets thousands of death threats, all from fans. Anyone who has run a website or had a clip go viral has received such threats. Many a cop or prosecutor has still gone to work after receiving much more personal and specific threats. I interviewed for an internship once where I was asked point blank whether I would be able to work the day after some angry person screamed such a threat at me in court. For a controversial federal official to take pathetic online threats as a real danger, absent any actual evidence, is at best a convenient reason to avoid an appearance. At worst, it's plain cowardice.
While I understand and agree with you, I feel it's important to note that death threats are never okay, even if (and especially if) "everyone gets them"
> The best sort of way to think about this is to imagine Ajit Pai as some sort of Feudal Lord appointed head of the Internet by a King.
Except that's not at all what's happening here. You're just telling yourself this so you can rationalize punching the guy.
> But no - we live in a Democracy!
Exactly. The next step is for Congress to pass a bill re: net neutrality, which is quite possible, and probably the better option anyways. No punching necessary.
When you accept behaviour like this, you set the standard not only for your political allies, but your political opponents too. That is good for nobody.
I think the best sort of way to think is that world is interesting place where rules valley geeks like get repealed, politicians they support lose election, and the most violent thing they are able to do is probably demolishing a mission style burrito.
You only make him into a victim/martyr and delegitimize your side when you give into stuff like this. You don't like the result of the democratic process, fix it.
What happens when the other side decides threatening violence is justified because they can make analogies too and worse they feel under threat? What happens when people who don't have a limit go from threat to action?
A nazi posed no threat when they were being accepted in Germany, until suddenly they had enough power to start killing people with no consequence. Anyone who is currently a Nazi, KKK member, etc knows that is the inevitable conclusion to following their ideas down the rabbit hole and will be complacent if they ever think they can get away with it. The murderer in Charlottesville spent the day being hyped up before plowing his car into dozens of people.
Nazism is discredited. There is essentially no chance that Nazism will take over America.
There is a chance, may a certainty that some of these Nazis will hurt people. But people of all political strips do that. You'd have to punch environmentalists because of eco-terrorists, etc.
Attacking people because their ideas are dangerous is a mockery of free speech.
Even if you don't care about freedom of speech, escalating violence is still a stupid choice. The Nazis will punch back harder, as they've already done. Violence begets violence.
> A nazi posed no threat when they were being accepted in Germany, until suddenly
That is not historically accurate at all. The nazis rose to a measure of acceptance in Germany in large part because of political violence on the left.
> The nazis rose to a measure of acceptance in Germany in large part because of political violence on the left.
That’s inaccurate. It's true that a background level of political violence across the spectrum that started prior to the Nazis even existing was a factor in both the development of Nazi
ideology and methods and in why a solid anti-Nazi coalition was unable to form (and perhaps also a factor in why the ban on the Nazis based in part on their political violence was unable to be maintained politically), but this wasn't uniquely a characteristic of the left.
Net neutrality is lovely but if people think this is the biggest problem we have coming out of the Trump administration then they really need to consider their priorities.
"Recently there's been quite a bit of conversation about my plan to restore internet freedom."
Tom Wheeler certainly wasn't a paragon of courage and clarity before he started to feel the pressure to reclassify ISPs under Title II. But before that, I sure don't remember him taking his opponents' own language like "internet freedom" and brazenly applying it to his own position.
Threats to hurt someone are always out of line. Did you read that the recent source of the swatting attack that killed the poor innocent person walking out of his house also is apparently the guy who called in the bomb threat before the vote for network neutrality at the fcc [1].
There are sadly people out there who could hurt any public official. He and everyone should be safe, but I also think he doesn't want to face a very very angry public about his joyous destruction of n.n.
Are they really though? Violence, and the threat of it, is literally what keeps society together at all, and what enforces all of our laws.
Kind of sad to read this thread and see everyone sitting on their high horse thinking they are amazing people for being non-violent while this guy gets away with what is probably worse than murder. When did humanity ever reach such a pathetic state where we let people just walk over us like this?
You think Reddit posts and Hackernews posts are going to ever change anything? These people are probably just laughing at us twiddling our thumbs pretending to actually do something.
Not in favor of death threats, but if you are a public official and you do something so unpopular without a clear moral agenda (such as equal rights in the 60s) that it results in the vast majority of the people you ought to represent being so outraged that some threaten your life, maybe you ought to reexamine your policy choices.
Vast majority of your friends and like-minded people does not imply a “vast majority”. The sad reality is the actual vast majority of people don’t have a clue what Net Neutrality means, or what is implied by its repeal.
So as far as net neutrality goes: it's very vague, in favor of companies like Netflix that want cheap peering(?) at the expense of ISPs (which are acquiring each other, getting huge similar to before Bell was broken up). It's a corporation vs corporation fight
Why aren't ISPs public utilities? These technologies were developed using tax payer money at DARPA, or in government sanctioned monopolies like Bell Labs
I would be interested to hear more about the relationship between South Korea's subsidy of internet and the rise of starcraft and the high tech service economy there
Weak. The person or people issuing death threats are idiots, but my guess is that Pai seized upon a probably-not-credible threat as an excuse to avoid being utterly humiliated in a public forum. Accountability is not his style.
It definitely could be. But FCC commissioner doesn’t get a security detail. And if you go to local police they aren’t going to fly people around to protect you, they’ll just tell you to lie low.
In his situation, would you risk your life at a big public event?
