Hmm. Are conservatives for or against this?
The government exists in part to provide a neutral enforcer of contracts, to protect private ownership rights, and to maintain order.
When I decide I would like to own a phone, I shop around, and when I pick the one I want, I enter into a binding contract with the person (company) who manufactured the phone. I don’t have to buy the phone, but as part of the contract to buy the phone, I make an agreement not to do certain things with that phone.
So, is it wrong for the government to help the company by making me live up to the contractual arrangement?
Or is the concept of freedom and liberty such a guiding factor that, once I have the phone in my hand, my right to do whatever I want outweighs my obligation to live up to the terms of the contract I signed?
Remember, if I hadn’t signed that contract, the previous owner of the phone would not give me possession of the phone — it was their choice when they had ownership, and my choice whether to accept the arrangement.
As a matter of personal preference, I think it sucks that I can’t buy a phone and then use it on different services. But I also don’t expect that I can just hook my Verizon router into the comcast cable line and expect it to work.
Yes. Because this is a matter of civil law. What is being objected to is that increasingly, government is changing this to a criminal matter, which it has no business doing.