So the Tea Party is Helping Get rid of Net Neutrality...

[Oddball]

*chuckle*...Gubmint....*snert*...ahead of the curve....*chortle*

...Dude, stop it...Yer' killin' me over heah!

 

[RDD_1210]

PFFFFT!

I don't need a media windbag's yammerings for me recognize a pig in a poke when I see it.

But nice invocation of the strawman argument.

so your problem with open access to the internet is... what exactly?

Gubmint intervention ≠ "open access"....There's your first semantic miscalculation.

Actually that's exactly what it means.

Secondly, nearly the entire argument from the "open access" crowd is filled with the same corporate booger men and "yeahbut they could..." mythical straw dog arguments....IOW, it doesn't pass the smell test from square one.

That's the point. We've enjoyed open access to the internet and we'd like to keep it that way. It could happen because it has been proposed. Hence the need for Net Neutrality legislation.

 

[RDD_1210]

*chuckle*...Gubmint....*snert*...ahead of the curve....*chortle*

...Dude, stop it...Yer' killin' me over heah!

If nothing else, this topic exposes you as a world class hypocrite. "Freedom" my ass. You're a corporate suckup who would sell out your own mother if it meant someone could make a dollar off of it.

 

[Oddball]

Oh, please...You snivelers have been going on and on and on and on about "net neutrality" since at least the first term of Chimpola.

In the meantime, the holy grail of "access" has only expanded, Comcast lost the "throttling" lawsuit brought against them -prompting tiered price structures for bandwidth usage- and nary a one of your mythical corporate doomsday prophecies has come to pass.

Hell, Mario Mendoza is a Hall-of-Famer compared to your batting average.

 

[RDD_1210]

Oh, please...You snivelers have been going on and on and on and on about "net neutrality" since at least the first term of Chimpola.

In the meantime, the holy grail of "access" has only expanded, Comcast lost the "throttling" lawsuit brought against them -prompting tiered price structures for bandwidth usage- and nary a one of your mythical corporate doomsday prophecies has come to pass.

Hell, Mario Mendoza is a Hall-of-Famer compared to your batting average.

I'll steal a page from Rabbi's playbook now...

Translation: You give up since your hypocrisy has been fully exposed.

 

[Oddball]

Right...I want politicians, bureaucrats and various other busybody do-gooders to STFU and mind their place, remind you that none of your techno-apocalypse doomsday scenarios have ever come to pass, and that makes me a "corporate suck-up".

How quaint.

 

[ogibillm]

Right...I want politicians, bureaucrats and various other busybody do-gooders to STFU and mind their place, remind you that none of your techno-apocalypse doomsday scenarios have ever come to pass, and that makes me a "corporate suck-up".

How quaint.

here's the thing - you've got no argument except that you think government is bad. please, specifically, how would government enforced net neutrality be a problem? how is maintaining the status quo in this situation bad?

 

[Oddball]

Right...I want politicians, bureaucrats and various other busybody do-gooders to STFU and mind their place, remind you that none of your techno-apocalypse doomsday scenarios have ever come to pass, and that makes me a "corporate suck-up".

How quaint.

here's the thing - you've got no argument except that you think government is bad. please, specifically, how would government enforced net neutrality be a problem? how is maintaining the status quo in this situation bad?

I certainly do have another argument....That the past arguments of the doomsayers and hand-wringers have shown themselves to be utterly baseless...That technology advances and litigation over legislation are getting the job done....Likewise, the claim of my wanting to maintain the status quo is entirely fallacious, as I've pointed out that technological advances render that claim impotent.

OTOH, when do we ever get rid of any bureaucracy once they've completed their mission?...When has any bureaucracy ever gone out of business for shoddy practices, crappy business models (think AMTRAK), negligence, and /or outright criminal malfeasance?...Hell, if past performance is any indicator, they'll fuck things up just to have a "problem" to fix.

Thanks...But I'll stay over here and trust the profit motive and real freedom, over any mirage that bureaucratic aggression claims to provide.

 

[Wacky Quacky]

You're missing the point. It's not users who will have to pay to gain access, it's content providers or businesses who will have to pay to make sure their content shows up. If they don't pay they fall behind the big guys who can pay. Thats where it stops being content is all accessible and consumers decide which is best to the guy with the deepest pockets gets to spread his information the furtherst/easiest. Get it?

Still not seeing difference between what you're describing and what's happening on cable, or anything else in the world (even politics for that matter). But for some reason you've decided to hold the internet upon a loftier pedestal and want government to step in this time. Should we push for Billboard Neutrality? The same issue plagues billboards that plague the internet, whoever can pay more gets their message out better. Then there's Bumper Sticker Neutrality, Mailed Out Store Advertisement Neutrality, NASCAR Sponsor Neutrality, ect.

What makes the internet different from the rest of the world?

Do you really need me to explain the difference between billboards and the internet? Really? Do you understand the role that the internet plays in our world and the increasing importance it has each and every day? The fact that you are comparing the power and importance of the internet to billboards, bumper stickers, etc.. tells me either you're incredibly naive or incredibly stubborn.

The importance of the internet is to make communication and information gathering easier, nothing more. Even without the internet you would be able to find all the knowledge in the world, provided you knew where to look and didn't mind putting in the leg work. There is nothing so special about the internet that we need a government watch group hovering over it and protecting it from the very people who own the bandwidth.

My point of listing billboards and bumper stickers was to try and make you realize how crazy your argument sounds, I suppose it's my fault for assuming it would work with an ideologue. You're trying deny a basic fundamental of the world, you get more if you give more. But you only care about it in this instance because it's a big bad boogeyman corporation that's involved. If an internet provider wants to deny access to a certain site then it's their right, as the owners of those lines, to do so. Don't like it? Switch to a different provider.

Even if a provider ever did this, do you honestly think the internet community would just sit back and accept it? They'll start hosting sites within sites, just so people can get around the restriction and view the content anyways.

 

[edjax1952]

You'd think that someone who had a picture of themselves sitting at a computer would understand how Net Neutrality and the internet worked. Guess not.

What is it that makes you think I do not understand? I do understand that putting the government in charge of something that the private market, engenuity, and American resolve should be taking care of is NOT a good thing.

Put in charge? Right there says enough about your understanding. Net Neutrality says that no one can hinder access, not private business, not government.

If the government has the authority to say that no-one can hinder internet access, then that is not being in charge of (regulating) the activity and evolution of the internet? Will the government decide what activities do hinder access and what activities do not?

If we allow the Government to stifle the evolution of natural events, we give up the ability to influence that evolution as a body of people. I have more faith in how the masses react to natural events than I have faith that the federal government can protect us from harm those natural event may bring about.

I speak of this in a post on my blog in WordPress about the difference in equal justice vs social justice. Give it a read and let me know what you think about it.

Social justice is based on the idea that a group of people are entitled to certain treatment or resources due to circu
mstances other than what the general population experiences. It usually involves taking resources, provided by someone else, and providing them to the group of people. It also involves allowing for different treatment or rights when a group of people do not have access to liberties, rights or resources due to a disadvantaged position in society. It requires government to dictate conditions in order to regulate private affairs and gain “equality” for the disadvantaged group of people. ...Credit to Wikipedia on "Social Justice"

Social justice is the very thing the founding fathers fought against when they formed our nation. This is the reason they wrote the first ten amendments to The Constitution. The intent of the “Bill of Rights” was to provide all citizens with protection from government dictate or intrusion in certain parts of our lives.

 

[Foxfyre]

Right...I want politicians, bureaucrats and various other busybody do-gooders to STFU and mind their place, remind you that none of your techno-apocalypse doomsday scenarios have ever come to pass, and that makes me a "corporate suck-up".

How quaint.

here's the thing - you've got no argument except that you think government is bad. please, specifically, how would government enforced net neutrality be a problem? how is maintaining the status quo in this situation bad?

The question wasn't addressed to me but I'm going to answer it.

It is bad because there is no such thing as 'neutrality' when it comes to government. There is nobody in government (or anywhere else) smart enough to define the term when it comes to the internet or any other complex issue. And there is far too much opportunity to be self serving and use government power to enhance one's own power, prestige, influence, and personal fortune and sort of 'overlook' any questionable activity by one's friends and beneficiaries and overreact if it is somebody resented or unliked.

Far better to enforce the anti trust laws already on the books and let the free market determine the going rates for anything. We need to start removing a whole lot of inappropriate power from the Federal government. We sure as hell don't want to give it any more.

 

[ogibillm]

Right...I want politicians, bureaucrats and various other busybody do-gooders to STFU and mind their place, remind you that none of your techno-apocalypse doomsday scenarios have ever come to pass, and that makes me a "corporate suck-up".

How quaint.

here's the thing - you've got no argument except that you think government is bad. please, specifically, how would government enforced net neutrality be a problem? how is maintaining the status quo in this situation bad?

The question wasn't addressed to me but I'm going to answer it.

It is bad because there is no such thing as 'neutrality' when it comes to government. There is nobody in government (or anywhere else) smart enough to define the term when it comes to the internet or any other complex issue. And there is far too much opportunity to be self serving and use government power to enhance one's own power, prestige, influence, and personal fortune and sort of 'overlook' any questionable activity by one's friends and beneficiaries and overreact if it is somebody resented or unliked.

Far better to enforce the anti trust laws already on the books and let the free market determine the going rates for anything. We need to start removing a whole lot of inappropriate power from the Federal government. We sure as hell don't want to give it any more.

uh... it's easy to define neutrality in this instance. internet access is to be unrestricted by the ip. they don't get to throttle based on the content requested.

if nobody wants to do that - fine. it'll be a useless law on the books. won't be the first.

but when you can't visit youtube because timewarner wants to send you to their videosharing site instead... well that's when you'll want net neutrality.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Private business should be able to do what it wants within the law.

The market will decide who actually gets the business.

Example : Let's say internet company A says it is going to charge company Z $100.00 per hour of internet and internet company B says hey we will only charge you $10.00 per month for your internet, who do you think is going to get the business?

Government is not the answer, the market does a great job of keeping business in check not the government, the government favors big business, the market supports the best service at the best price.

The market only works until the cartels and monopolies take control. Then they may as well be called another government.

That is absolutely correct. It is virtually impossible to get data sent from point A to point B in this country without it traveling on an AT&T fiber or router at some point along the way. AT&T will use packet discrimination to only allow I-Phones running on AT&T network or any AT&T subscribers data packets to move at the fastest speed. They would quickly put all other cellular companies, ISP's, telecoms, Google Android, Skype & VOIP out of business becoming an even larger monopoly.

Not only will AT&T monopolize every form of communication & charge you more for it. They will restrict access to certain content, business & political affiliations who are not acting in AT&T's best interest.

That would violate existing federal law.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Pragmatism is the answer, not the blind adherence to one dogma or another. The above may have been true in 1800 but not today. Go with what works, be it government or private.

So far it works without the government. Being pragmatic therefore means keeping the government out of it.

Ummm, didn't the link in the OP say that the FCC was currently involved in regulating the operation of the internet to ensure net neutrality?
And the Tea Party is working to remove the FCC's authority?
Isn't that the whole basis of this thread?

No.

From the OP link.

A federal court ruled the FCC did not have authority over the issue this year, opening the door for Verizon and Google to cut side deals among themselves, and the agency must now decide whether or not to try and reassert control while lawmakers debate whether to intervene as well.

The article obviously put a negative spin on it, but the fact remains that the FCC does not regulate the internet. Congress specifically refused to give them the authority, and their repeated attempts to create it out of laws that apply to other things has repeatedly been struck down.

In other words, what you see today exists without government regulation, and it works. Being pragmatic I want to keep it working, and therefore insist that the government stay out of it.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

End net neutraility and the internet becomes a very one sided propaganda tool of the corporations that dominate internet traffic.

It does not surprise me that the TP tools are cozying up to the corporations seeking to end net nuetraility.

The net neutrality we have exists precisely because the government has no say in what we see. Why do you feel a need to fix it?

 

[JakeStarkey]

So much for the claims they're different. That's a bit disappointing.

Tea Party Allies With Telecom Industry to Dump Net Neutrality

So dumping Net Neutrality and letting corps charge more for one site than another is congruent with what they preach, how?

Someone said if these people got their way that a corporatacracy would ensue and we'd all be screwed. Hmmm. Looks like they were right.

So, you guys get to yell "Hooray! We got less government!" while opening the door for MSN to charge more for visiting a Conservative site than a Liberal one. Brilliant.

Go ahead. Tell me how less government is ALWAYS a good thing...

The Tea Party claims to want more freedom, freedom from government, but all they are doing is trading freedom from government in exchange for being ruled by private industry. Getting rid of net neutrality is one of THE biggest freedom losses possible and these idiots are on-board.

Yeah, they're for freedom all right, freedom for business to do what they want and when they want.

Business will support the Tea Party in return for Tea Party permission for government to fleece us all. This is corporatism, pioneered by Mussolini and developed by Hitler.

The Tea Party favors economic fascism. Some in the party suffer race hatred, and we know where that leads.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

End net neutraility and the internet becomes a very one sided propaganda tool of the corporations that dominate internet traffic.

It does not surprise me that the TP tools are cozying up to the corporations seeking to end net nuetraility.

Whoa there Big Fellow.

Net Neutrality is a set of laws that regulates the Net, is it not? Ending net Nuetrality means leaving it as it is.




Net Neutrality

A Note to Google Users on Net Neutrality:
The Internet as we know it is facing a serious threat. There's a debate heating up in Washington, DC on something called "net neutrality" – and it's a debate that's so important Google is asking you to get involved. We're asking you to take action to protect Internet freedom.

In the next few days, the House of Representatives is going to vote on a bill that would fundamentally alter the Internet. That bill, and one that may come up for a key vote in the Senate in the next few weeks, would give the big phone and cable companies the power to pick and choose what you will be able to see and do on the Internet.

Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody – no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional – has equal access. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all Internet access, want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build a two-tiered system and block the on-ramps for those who can't pay.

Creativity, innovation and a free and open marketplace are all at stake in this fight. Please call your representative (202-224-3121) and let your voice be heard.

Thanks for your time, your concern and your support.

Eric Schmidt

This post shows you don't understand the topic. You contradicted yourself as that Google link you posted supports Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality is keeping things the way they are now. Not the other way around.

Exactly.

Keep things the way they are no, with no government regualtion.

Thanks for agreeing with everyone here who opposes letting the government regulate the internet, even if you thought you were disagreeing

 

[Quantum Windbag]

This post shows you don't understand the topic. You contradicted yourself as that Google link you posted supports Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality is keeping things the way they are now. Not the other way around.

this is the problem with many 'conservatives' and net neutrality. they don't understand it, but have been told by sean and rush and beck that it's bad - and so they believe it.

Funny how someone who thinks the FCC regulates the internet is saying I do not understand the issues.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

You'd think that someone who had a picture of themselves sitting at a computer would understand how Net Neutrality and the internet worked. Guess not.

What is it that makes you think I do not understand? I do understand that putting the government in charge of something that the private market, engenuity, and American resolve should be taking care of is NOT a good thing.

Put in charge? Right there says enough about your understanding. Net Neutrality says that no one can hinder access, not private business, not government.

Right now the only actually hindering of access is coming from the government. How is giving the government more power going to prevent them from further hindering access?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Right...I want politicians, bureaucrats and various other busybody do-gooders to STFU and mind their place, remind you that none of your techno-apocalypse doomsday scenarios have ever come to pass, and that makes me a "corporate suck-up".

How quaint.

here's the thing - you've got no argument except that you think government is bad. please, specifically, how would government enforced net neutrality be a problem? how is maintaining the status quo in this situation bad?

You want specifics? Seriously? Do you honestly think it will be a challenge to show that the government will end up making things worse if they get involved?

How about the government shutting down legal foreign sites because rich corporations and lobbying groups don't like them?

Rojadirecta Sues US Government, Homeland Security & ICE Over Domain Seizure | Techdirt

U.S. Faces Legal Challenge to Internet-Domain Seizures | Threat Level | Wired.com

Under current government theory they could shut down this message board if someone mentions the name of a site that might break the law, or any link from this site leads to a site that links to a site that links to an illegal site. Is that really the attitude you want regulating your internet access?