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Posted on 10/20/2009 4:09:02 PM PDT by yoe
Advocates of imposing "network neutrality" say it's necessary to ensure a "free" and "open" Internet and rescue the public from nefarious corporations that "control" technology.
Few proposals in Washington have been sold employing such deceptive language -- and that's saying something. But few public policy ideas can boast the unashamedly socialist pedigree of net neutrality.
The modern Internet is a creation of the free market, which has brought about a revolution in communication, free speech, education, and commerce. New Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski apparently doesn't like that. He stated last month the way Internet service providers manage their networks -- in response to millions of individual consumer choices -- is not sufficiently "fair," "open" or "free."
The chairman's remedy is to claim for the FCC the power to decide how every bit of data is transferred from the Web to every personal computer and handheld device in the nation. This is exactly what the radical founders of the net neutrality movement had in mind.
The concept can be traced to an iconoclastic figure, Richard Stallman, a self-described software freedom activist who introduced the term "copyleft" in the mid-1980s. In his 2002 essay "Free Software, Free Society," Stallman fiercely attacks the idea that intellectual property rights are one of the keystones of individual liberty, so important that patents and copyrights are affirmatively protected in the body of the Constitution.
According to Stallman, "we are not required to agree with the Constitution or the Supreme Court. [At one time, they both condoned slavery.]" Like slavery, he says, copyright law is "a radical right-wing assumption rather than a traditionally recognized one." Rebuking those who might find a Marxist flavor in his call for a "digital commons," Stallman turns the tables, writing: "If we are to judge views by their resemblance to Russian Communism, it is the software owners who are the Communists."
Eben Moglen's 2003 treatise The dotCommunist Manifesto is more honest about the thinking behind net neutrality -- it's sprinkled throughout with the language of communism's great and bloody revolutionaries. The people must "struggle" to "wrest from the bourgeoisie, by degrees, the shared patrimony of humankind" that has been "stolen from us under the guise of 'intellectual property.' "
How does one bring this about? The professor of law and legal history at Columbia University would start with the "abolition of all forms of private property in ideas."
Most bold and radical of the neutralists is Robert W. McChesney, founder of Free Press -- the leading advocacy group in Washington pushing for net neutrality. In an August interview with a Canadian Marxist online publication called the Bullet, McChesney rejoices that net neutrality can finally bring about the Marxist "revolution."
"At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies," McChesney said. "We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control."
He's right: Net neutrality divests control over the Internet from the private sector to the government. And in typical Marxist fashion, innocuous words -- the language of neutralism and liberty -- cloak an agenda that would crush freedom.
That's the agenda President Obama's FCC is pushing.
James G. Lakely is co-director of the Center on the Digital Economy for the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank. His policy study, "Neutralism: The Strange Philosophy Behind the Movement for Net Neutrality," can be found at www.heartland.org.
"FCC's Diversity Czar: Mark Lloyd: 'White People' Need to be Forced to 'Step Down' 'So Someone Else Can Have Power'
America is under siege. Every assumption, every basic fundamental right is under attack. The very premise of America, individual rights, is being destroyed. You won't like what comes after America.
Net neutrality is part of the larger shift to "change" America from our founding principles of unalienable property rights, a free market system and a constitutional republic, toward Marxism.
Please send this article to your list so they are informed and can attack with knowledge.....America is being OVERTHROWN.
and the hits just keep a comin
I thought real Net Neutrality was "bits are bits," that is you can charge me for bandwidth but not discriminate on the source of the bits.
I guess an example would be a Cable provider slowing down traffic from sites that let you see their programs online without using their DVR service.
Maybe the objection is to the hijacking of Net Neutrality for their own lefty agenda and if that's the case then yes I am opposed.
Is it true that the Christian Coalition is supporting Net Neutrality??? If so why????
“…to ensure a "free" and "open" Internet…”
To ensure freedom we will oppress the beliefs and actions of those we disagree!
…those that do not know history are willing to accept another nice sounding story, as they wonder down that road to hell paved with good intentions.
You bet I will! Thanks and Please help keep this in the forefront - all Freepers need to attack this threat head on.
A chicken in every pot and the internet in every household. All paid for by the taxpayer and run by gubment!
Mark Lloyd will use this regardless of what the true meaning was, he will use this to stop all opposition to the Obama vision of America. It is a silencer of free speech. Why does Obama have so many Communists and other anti-Americans close to him? It is obvious, he truly thinks America should not be a free nation....that is one of the reasons.
Three things:
One, without Stallman, there would be no GNU/Linux.
Two, individual property rights are a good thing, but unlimited copyrights and patents (de jure monopolies) are not so good. That's why they are supposed to be limited to only certain types of information and granted for only certain periods of time.
Three, "net neutrality" is simply a maintenance of the present situation with regards to the Internet's architecture, that is, transit providers agree to pass each other's network traffic without preference or prejudice. Right now, folks running servers pay bandwidth charges, and so do individuals and businesses that access those servers. Without net neutrality, many ISPs have figured that they can introduce what is effectively variable-rate tolling on their networks as a means of extracting additional revenue from either server operators or end users. There is absolutely nothing wrong with "net neutrality" on principle; and yes, Obama's implementation of "net neutrality" could be full of Marxist booby traps.
Agreed.
I can think of nothing that will lose BHO more of his own base than restricted, government controlled internet access.
I can think of nothing that will inflame BHO’s opposition more than attempting to gag communications.
Sow the wind geniuses, sow the wind.
Is there a place to find these rules? I remember reading the 6 principles the rules were to be based on. I realize that the implementation could twist things, but I’m not sure why I should be imposed to rules that set out to achieve this:
1) Consumers are entitled to access whatever lawful internet content they want.
2) Consumers are entitled to run whatever applications and services they want, subject to the needs of law enforcement.
3) Consumers can connect to networks whatever legal devices they want, so long as they do not harm them.
4) Consumers are entitled to competition between networks, applications, services and content providers.
5) Service providers are not allowed to discriminate between applications, services and content outside of reasonable network management.
6) Service providers must be transparent about the network management practices they use.
Today’s Glenn Beck’s show on Fox News network addresses Obama’s agenda concerning “Net Neutrality” .
Very likely the biggest understatement of the year. Mark Lloyd explains it himself, "Whites have had 'it' too long".
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