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Technology Stocks : MSFT Internet Explorer vs. NSCP Navigator -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (23697)	11/29/1999 11:35:00 AM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

Gerald, I should "never mind" this post, as it gets sort of political, and sad experience has taught me that debating politics on SI is even more ridiculous than debating Reggie. But it's a slow news day, this thread is still relatively dead, and I will try to tread carefully. First of all, what exactly would you call a "left liberal PAC"? The standard bogeyman of the right is union PACs, and I can't imagine Microsoft, at the corporate, charitable, or individual level, giving much money there. I don't think union PACs are likely to take much of a position one way or the other on antitrust, either. I'm sure educational organizations get a lot of charitable money, I'd guess environmental orgs get a fair amount of individual money, but those are even less likely than unions to take much of a stand on antitrust vis a vis Microsoft. On the business lobbying level (where, I'd guess, most of the money is, and which is hardly a left-liberal thing under any theory I know of) , there's the issue of Microsoft versus the rest of the world. Microsoft is big and has a lot of money, but they'll have a hard time outspending the rest of the business world. And they haven't exactly made a lot of friends they can join forces with. If Microsoft can kick Intel and IBM around, who's going to join forces with them to to say Microsoft needs a freer hand to strongarm people? Finally, why do you think Microsoft employees are particularly "left liberal"? My personal, long term observations on political debate within the internet/usenet culture, anyway, is that computer types tend to skew way more libertarian than the general population, and I don't think Microsoft's culture is one that draws a disproportionate number of bleeding heart types. Cheers, Dan. PS: on I kind of lost interest when he (or someone he agreed with, I forget which) compared Clinton's gun control policies to those of the Nazis. Funny thing, there's this old usenet maxim that says a debate is officially over when the first Nazi/Hitler ref is made, or something like that. My sad experience is that on SI, that's about the level where political debates start and stay, not where they end. I don't know if that's a reflection of the general decline in political civility or just a local phenomena, but as I said at the beginning, that level of debate is even more ridiculous than debating Reggie, and a lot less fun to boot.