Bob Frankston's Theory of Bits.

The Internet as Infrastructure by Bob Frankston     +Bob Frankston

I strongly recommend Bob Frankston's thoughts about communications infrastructure (i.e., moving a bit anywhere anyhow). It clarified a whole bunch of issues that has bugged me for years by bringing seemingly diverse concepts into a simpler unified structure. It is a step towards a Grand Unified Theory of Bits.

Once you see things from this perspective, it becomes clear how issues from portable phone numbers to The Supreme Court's rulings on The Seven Words share a deep underlying structure. Understanding this, you can look at SOPA and see how it doomed to fail even if passed. The only lasting result of fully implemented SOPA would be inefficiencies and frustration. The target "pirate" bits would simply route around the obstruction.

His approach to dealing with the frustrations of the FCC is one of pure pragmatism: 

"But at this point the FCC may be too mired in the past. The best hope might be benign neglect rather than working to extend today’s broadband."

Can we persuade Rick Perry that what we need to get rid of is not the Department of Education, but the FCC?

Although Bob mostly enumerates problems and artificial barriers, the underlying tone is that of optimism. There are solutions, and they might be hard to implement in the short term, but he shows that a bit based infrastructure can not only solve most communication problems, but it might in fact be the optimal solution.