It’s all about “net neutrality” and “fairness” after all, isn’t it?
First, from CNet.com, then a personal experience about the internet:
Obama: Regulate broadband Internet like a utility so it ‘works for everyone’
by Don Reisinger and Roger Cheng
President Obama calls for tighter rules from the FCC — leaving a little bit of wiggle room — in an effort to preserve a “free and open Internet.”
President Obama urged the US government to adopt tighter regulations on broadband service in an effort to preserve “a free and open Internet.”
In a statement released Monday, Obama called on the Federal Communications Commission to enforce the principle of treating all Internet traffic the same way, known in shorthand as Net neutrality. That means treating broadband services like utilities, the president said, so that Internet service providers would be unable “to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas.”
As everyone knows, if you want to promote innovation, new thinking, improve technology, the first thing you do with an idea or a service is throttle it to death. Yeah. That’s the ticket.
Some of the major broadband providers have already spoken out against the plan. “Reclassification under Title II, which for the first time would apply 1930s-era utility regulation to the Internet, would be a radical reversal of course that would in and of itself threaten great harm to an open Internet, competition and innovation,” Verizon said in an e-mailed statement.
“To attempt to impose a full-blown Title II regime now, when the classification of cable broadband has always been as an information service, would reverse nearly a decade of precedent, including findings by the Supreme Court that this classification was proper,” David Cohen, executive vice president at Comcast, said in a statement.
But wait; the good part’s coming.
At the crux of the debate over Net neutrality is Title II of the Telecommunications Act. The section, which is more than 100 pages long, regulates how common carriers must conduct business across all forms of communication in order to act “in the public interest.” Net neutrality supporters say that the language is vague and could be used to sidestep a free and open Internet and give ISPs the opportunity to sign deals with Internet companies that would provide for prioritization of traffic.
There we go; the proper buzzphrase is finally out there: “in the public interest.”
Just what is “in the public interest”?
Up until just a few years ago, television stations couldn’t air an editorial unless the “other side” was provided equal time. This was the “Fairness Doctrine” (see a common thread emerging here?), started in 1949 and rescinded in 1987. It was decided the “Fairness Doctrine” wasn’t. And I completely concur. There was never a “Fairness Doctrine” levied upon any portion of the press, so why broadcast media?
Just what is “in the public interest”? The FCC via Obama’s regime could capriciously decide one day, buttressed by an Imperial Obaka EO, that the “public interest” in terms of the internet could best be determined by a “fair” and “equal” number of blogs, or podcasts, or a larger number of Liberal instead of Conservative editorials. Or bloggers could, as was possibly theorized, be “licensed” and their views tracked, monitored, recorded, stored, taxed or subpoenaed not unlike Lois Lerner’s IRS or Houston Mayor Annise Parker.
Let’s get down to additional brass tacks. Leftist radio and television has, for the most part, been an abject failure. This has been proven time and again with Leftist talk show hosts who are no more, along with the Leftist radio network Air America which is not just moribund but erased from the planet. CNN and MSNBC are being beaten by the Weather Channel. Conservatives have none of their philosophies or leanings supported by federal tax dollars as NPR does.
People vote just not by the ballot box but with their feet and their checkbooks as well. But because the free market base isn’t there for Leftist networks and opinions, some persons wanted to bring back the “Fairness Doctrine.” Some like, oh, say, Dennis Kucinich. This, to me, smacks of the “Fairness Doctrine” re-introduced solely for the control to be acquired therefrom. And trust me, with regard to Mr Obaka, it is always about control.
[Don’t confuse the Fairness Doctrine — which dealt with “controversial opinions” — with the Equal Time Rule, which dealt with political candidates.]
Here’s another little tidbit for the Libertarians amongst you: whatever the government regulates, taxes and throttles, it also can control. As in: shut down. What, question for you, is one of the “first things” Leftists want to do to millions of people around this nation? That’s correct: remove many of your First Amendment liberties under the guise of “hate speech” or “fear speech” or “Leftist Bullshit Buzzphrase of the Week speech.” Where is speech still relatively free? Oh yes, correct; the internet. You may not like the speech; your ox may get gored now and then, but you’re bigger than that, aren’t you? Apparently, Leftists are not. They’d rather the Chinese model of the internet, or that of North Korea, Cuba or Venezuela.
Finally, my own little experience with what “Net Neutrality” truly is.
I was speaking to my neighbor a few weeks ago, and the topic of TV via phone lines instead of satellite came up. Our internet service is already provided via phone lines in the community. We reached the topic of internet speeds and his sucked. So did my female neighbor’s. My internet speeds, frankly, are faster than my wife’s in the Sacramento Valley. Why? Because I pay for the highest speed, that’s why — and my neighbors don’t. Therefore it’s inherently “unfair” that my speeds are superior to theirs. There needs to be “equality.” Or, “Net Neutrality.”
I wrote this back in 2008:
It is the clear and immediate intent of the Demorats, Leftists and Socialists to remove your ability to blog, speak and write fairly and/or hold opinions about events occurring in the United States, in order to keep people more completely in the dark and, moreover, to suppress objection to their agendas and power machinations.
There you have it.
BZ
