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Net Neutrality is a Fancy Term for Internet Socialism
Townhall.com ^ | May 18, 2018 | Marina Medvin

Posted on 05/18/2018 10:21:07 AM PDT by Kaslin

Don’t be fooled by the terminology. Net neutrality isn’t a tech term that will be hard for you to comprehend. You will get it in an instant, I promise. It’s the same old socialism, just rebranded to make it tech-trendy.

There’s nothing neutral about net neutrality. It simply means everyone pays more, for things they need and don’t need, all indiscriminately, like taxes. Net neutrality is just internet socialism. 

People who originally fought for net neutrality were afraid of “unregulated capitalism.” Red flags all over the place. 

Why else did you think Democrats wanted it so badly? 

Senate Democrats just voted to keep their collectivist legacy. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren; all 49 of them voted in favor of keeping net neutrality regulations. Because providers can otherwise dangerously “discriminate” if people pay more or less. “Discriminate” means apportion services based on how much providers are paid. Pay more, get more is terrible discrimination, according to the Democrats. 

Democrat thought process: How dare you ask for the right to pay for better service! How dare you ask to pay less to save some money and not subsidize your neighbor’s internet! Everyone pays the same and gets the same. Government tells you what you need and what you pay.

Democrats argued Wednesday that if we repeal the regulations, the internet as we know it will come to end. Net neutrality didn’t even exist until three years ago when the Democrats passed the rules through the Democrat-controlled FCC. Was anyone feeling that their internet opportunities were hindered before 2015? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? 

Maybe if you couldn’t afford the internet. But you’re not entitled to internet. Just as with everything else, you need to earn your money and pay for it if it’s worth anything to you. Same as any other service.

Democrats disagree with me, they believe everyone is entitled to internet. They used key socialist terminology Wednesday when describing net neutrality: “public good.” That’s the socialist term for entitled. 

The internet is not a commune. The internet is a marketplace. I like to keep my markets free, competitive, innovative and profitable. Socialism inhibits all of that. 

PSA: Keep socialists out of your bank account and out of your internet. 

Learn more: Austin Petersen, Josh Steimle, Jeffrey Eisenach, Alex Epstein



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: 115th; demonrats; internet; netneutrality; trumpfcc
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1 posted on 05/18/2018 10:21:07 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Correct. Especially since nowhere in the Net Neutrality rules does it state that First Amendment free speech rights are protected. If that was part of the Net Neutrality rules, companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter couldn’t deliberately discriminate against Conservatives online because the tech companies’ operations are not only across state lines, but national borders.


2 posted on 05/18/2018 10:25:50 AM PDT by RayChuang88 (FairTax: America's Economic Cure)
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To: Kaslin

If there is one last thing that it would be nice the government kept their stinking hands off of it is the internet.


3 posted on 05/18/2018 10:27:36 AM PDT by z3n
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To: RayChuang88

Private companies aren’t restrained by the first amendment anyway, only the government is.


4 posted on 05/18/2018 10:36:45 AM PDT by Boogieman
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To: Kaslin

Neutrality = equal outcomes forced by the government as the government defines equal outcomes.


5 posted on 05/18/2018 10:42:45 AM PDT by xzins (Retired US Army chaplain. Support our troops by praying for their victory.)
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To: Kaslin

I admit I am confused about NN. The internet is owned by all of us yet, I can’t stand the thought of joining the democrats in their push for NN. I won’t be joining them. Instead, I will be prodding republicans and independents to cut the democrats off at the pass.

Freeways are also paid by us. It seems no internet provider should be charging us tolls to use a public highway.

One thing that internet providers and utilities can do is go and create their own internet through Satellite, Microwave Broadband, Airliners. All of these are proposed and either in planning or already operational.

The dark fiber and the existing internet paid for by us should remain free for any party to access and utilize. Of course, providers that offer add-on services are expected to make a profit similar to businesses that service motorists at freeway offramps.

So I don’t get it except that the democrats want to regulate the internet, to regulate free speech on the internet, and to ultimately tax it.

I actually don’t mind a small tax like say 25 cents a month for internet maintenance by the government. Heck, we pay for freeways at the pump with a federal gas surcharge tax. I would like to see the public internet administered by an agency like the Federal Highway Administration (like an information highway).

Private internets can develop on their own without tapping into the public infrastructure. That’s already been happening in Las Vegas with LV.NET (look them up) and hundreds more like them.

Again, I don’t like that the democrats are out in front on this. This is a campaign issue for them. Republicans need to offer a better way.


6 posted on 05/18/2018 10:51:45 AM PDT by Hostage (Article V)
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To: Hostage

The internet is owned by all of us yet

Sure it is. But you do not own Comcast, Spectrum, Verizon, AT&T. If you can access that part of the internet that belongs to you without then then don’t worry about it.


7 posted on 05/18/2018 11:00:34 AM PDT by FreedomNotSafety
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To: RayChuang88

The First Amendment protects First Amendment free speech rules.


8 posted on 05/18/2018 11:03:07 AM PDT by babble-on
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To: Hostage
The dark fiber and the existing internet paid for by us should remain free for any party to access and utilize

"We" didn't pay for that.

I actually don’t mind a small tax like say 25 cents a month for internet maintenance by the government.

That's a really bad idea. It will eventually become 25 bucks to support a mediocre backbone. Many private companies build out the backbone which is dirt cheap and available almost everywhere. Last mile service providers have some backbone but mainly many miles of coax and fiber that was expensive to install and expensive to upgrade. Most of us deal with that.

So perhaps you are confused about "highways" and backbone which are cheap and ubiquitous and "local private roads" and last mile service which is not. You mention LV.Net but they are mainly wireless. Wireless changes everything, and many people have several wireless options but are too greedy and selfish to appreciate it (they want netflix over fiber).

In short, it ain't broken. Taking over the last mile, the goal of NN, is going to stunt the rollout of ubiquitous wireless e.g. low orbit satellite.

9 posted on 05/18/2018 11:04:00 AM PDT by palmer (...if we do not have strong families and strong values, then we will be weak and we will not survive)
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To: FreedomNotSafety

Net Neutrality = Internet Freedom.

The alternative is corporate rent-seeking by the wireline owners, and they are well on their way already.


10 posted on 05/18/2018 11:04:11 AM PDT by babble-on
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To: babble-on

NN enables rent seeking. It is a direct pipeline to regulating the net as a utility. Which means lib control over speech. Research a thing called the Fairness Doctrine. That is what this is about. Not getting all you can stream Netflix for cheap.


11 posted on 05/18/2018 11:21:02 AM PDT by FreedomNotSafety
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To: Hostage

If you believe that the Internet is owned by all of you (i.e taxpayers), you do not understand how the internet is organized, built, maintained or operated.

The internet “highway” is NOT paid for by the government. It IS paid for by the Internet Service Providers who buy the links (and pay for the links and maintain the links and operate the links) between themselves and other internet service providers.

Why should internet provider go and build a second version of what they have already paid for?

You the taxpayer, dont own any dark fiber unless the government (city, county, state, feds) purchased the fiber, installed the fiber and pays for the right of way for fiber. All other dark fiber is OWNED by the company, usually a telecom or ISP that paid to have it installed. If you want the tax payers to have / own an internet service, then it is the government that can go out and build their own private ISP. As an example, see https://www.fcgov.com/broadband/


12 posted on 05/18/2018 11:32:17 AM PDT by taxcontrol (Stupid should hurt)
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To: palmer

I hear you but don’t believe a small internet tax will climb 100-fold as you suggest. Like gas taxes, such taxes would be regulated. Gas taxes have never even approached 5-fold let alone 100-fold. I think that part of the argument is safe.

Your other points are confusing. Wireless microwave broadband is faster than fiber and price competitive. Here where I live there’s a private startup called Wave offering gig plus speeds at prices less than Comcast Xfinity fiber.

So I don’t get what you’re saying.

If what I’m missing is that democrats want to control everything via some NN basis, then yes, NN has got to go. Still I’d like to see rural areas and underserved get hi-speed internet, especially digital schools and digital home schoolers. That can happen with wireless.


13 posted on 05/18/2018 11:32:59 AM PDT by Hostage (Article V)
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To: taxcontrol

The original internet was funded by taxes. Since then, you are right. When a private company invests in it’s own infrastructure, it has a right to make its own terms. But the internet is global, so every private company has to interface with other infrastructure at some point.


14 posted on 05/18/2018 11:39:20 AM PDT by Hostage (Article V)
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To: FreedomNotSafety

I admit I don’t know where the public and private boundaries of the internet are, even when focused on the backbone.


15 posted on 05/18/2018 11:41:40 AM PDT by Hostage (Article V)
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To: Kaslin

Net Neutrality is a scheme by movie addicts to make net users in general pay for their downloads. It is the attitude of tax consumers i.e. welfare bums.


16 posted on 05/18/2018 11:44:07 AM PDT by arthurus (sS5)
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To: Hostage

It is a maze. But NN is about a lib power grab and speech control. Thats is all. Why did O seek to change it? Was there something wrong with the Net 3 years ago the required the gove to intervene?


17 posted on 05/18/2018 11:44:13 AM PDT by FreedomNotSafety
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To: Kaslin

Also, the term “neutrality” is a phony. Big tech will still be able to discriminate against conservatives. And it takes the side of the bandwith-hogging internet giants against the telecom giants — nothing neutral about that.


18 posted on 05/18/2018 12:30:55 PM PDT by Socon-Econ
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To: Hostage

The “original” Internet was a series of private links, provided by telecom providers that connected multiple institutions, mostly colleges together. When the operations and maintenance of these links became burdensome to these institutions, the job was “off loaded” to private companies called internet service providers. That is part of the strength and resiliency of the internet.

No one person owns or even CAN own, the internet. It’s original purpose (long exceeded) was a DARPA project to provide a resilient communications infrastructure in the event of a nuclear war. When the shift happened to the ISP model, the internet became far more of a co-op than a utility.


19 posted on 05/18/2018 1:13:20 PM PDT by taxcontrol (Stupid should hurt)
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To: Hostage
What I am saying is those new wireless options go poof if the government (meaning class action lawyers) decide that netfliix users were slowed down by some "unfair" or "non-neutral" provider. Ignoring the fact that 99% of streaming video is part of the cultural rot, it is streaming video and only streaming video that is throttled to save bandwidth. There is no other way to censor or be non-neutral about internet content. It is for the same reason that the Chinese can't censor the internet even though they try mightily and shoot people who disobey in the head.

Gas taxes have never even approached 5-fold let alone 100-fold

Gas tax increasing from one cent to 18.4 cents (24.4 cents on diesel) is more than 5 fold. Now the nationwide average including state tax is over 50 cents.

20 posted on 05/18/2018 1:56:31 PM PDT by palmer (...if we do not have strong families and strong values, then we will be weak and we will not survive)
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