FCC Flooded with Comments Opposing Internet Regulation But Left Claims Victory Anyway
by Phil KerpenFor years we’ve repeatedly heard the falsehood that most Americans want government to regulate the Internet. We’ve also heard that the Left is supposedly miles ahead of the Right when it comes to online organizing and technological expertise. Well, late last week, both of those myths have been exposed.
The Federal Communications Commission asked the public to submit comments on its plan to implement so-called net neutrality regulations that would allow government bureaucrats to tinker with the Internet. The vaunted NetRoots expected to carry the day so much that they simply ignored the facts, claimed victory, and showed themselves to be fools.
It is still hard to understand why we need to regulate something that has been the most successful economic, informational and organizational tool of the past two decades. But no matter. On Thursday, the FCC’s comment period closed and the verdict is in. Limited government and free market activists crushed big government fans on the Left.
Grassroots members of Americans for Prosperity and the Institute for Liberty combined to file more than 32,000 comments urging the FCC not to slow the exponential growth in online technologies that have been a bright spot in our struggling economy. Conversely, Free Press/Save the Internet, proponents of a government-regulated Internet, managed a mere 13,000 comments in favor of government intervention.
But never one to let facts stand in the way of an ideological crusade, Tim Karr from Free Press boasted that “90 percent of the comments submitted come from people who support Net Neutrality.” I guess Mr. Karr thinks comments from free-market activists don’t count.
Mr. Karr attacked me by name and impugned my motives. But I think AFP’s founder David Koch offends many fewer Americans than Free Press founder Robert McChesney.
Free Press’s extremism would be funny except that they have real influence with the FCC.
Fortunately the American people don’t want government’s heavy hand anywhere near their Internet connections, and the Left’s claim to online dominance is over. The sleeping free-market majority has awakened, not just on health care but across the board, including technology policy.
These recent numbers prove we can fight left-wing extremism anywhere it appears.
I will continue to make clear to the American people the extent of the radical ideology that drives the Left’s mission to destroy private ownership in our media and communications system. Mr. Karr, if you think I’m wrong, how about a public debate?
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51 Comments
Even a lot of liberals are against any sort of net regulations. They really dropped the ball on that one!
Thr first
Our government fibbing? Surely you jest.
Just another move the libs ( who support Chavez and Castro), in trying to suppress the rights of Americans. They are so brazen in their moves that it really is stunning.
"…the Left’s claim to online dominance is over."
Isn't this precisely why they want/need the government to step in and skew the playing field and it's rules back in their favor? And good luck getting a public debate with Mr. Kerr about this issue, the only debate that's going to occur will be behind closed locked doors, with an equally closed guest list.
I don't want the heavy hand of government controlling my Internet connection. But I am also not too keen on the heavy hand of corporations controlling my Internet choices either. I am not interested in my ISP being able to change my access rate depending on website, or perhaps block sites altogether. And this is hardly "free market" when one company has a government-blessed monopoly for Cable TV service in my area and another has a government-blessed monopoly on telephone service in my area and those are the two vectors for high-speed Internet.
This is a great victory for America and free speech Phil, thanks to your efforts and that from “Americans for Prosperity”.
I've been following this issue for months now, but until your article here, I wasn't able to find out the results of all your hard work. (By coincidence, I even checked your blog at “Americans for Prosperity” yesterday and there was no new news on the subject). Update time I'd gather.
Outstanding work…well done sir!
Not Over.
Next thing you know they'll regulate the "mommy blogs" or raid the house of internet travel writers. Oh wait.
The left doesn't want freedom. Never did. They cannot wait to have people register their websites content with the government.
Are you all nuts here?
Supporters of the free market, aka the True Capitalists, want net neutrality – Google, Yahoo, Microsoft etc. are all seeking it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality#P...
[...] Read the original post: » FCC Flooded with Comments Opposing Internet Regulation But Left … [...]
The leftist schemers are trying to keep us from telling each other the real truth. Truth doesn't exist in the socialist cabal that is the Obama administration.
Where's my map? I can't figure out if I am in Caracas or Havana. Is this the year we discontinue the title of 'President' to something more appropriate; like 'Chairman'?
[...] Original post: » FCC Flooded with Comments Opposing Internet Regulation But Left … [...]
Why are liberals so hateful of freedom? What makes these fools tick? I stopped trying to be nice to known libs…Treat them like the anti-american jerks they are…They deserve only our contempt…
If the government gets its hands on the Internet you will have to wait 2 days to get on line, it will be closed on holidays and there will be some kind of tax to pay for all the bureaucrats on holiday.
Sometimes, the "true capitalists," having cashed in, take the "for me, but not for thee" position.
Interesting reading:
http://www.heartland.org/custom/semod_policybot/p...
The arch-monopolists Microsoft and Google support free markets?
LOLOLOLOL!!!!
I'll oppose net neutrality when the telcos and cable companies give up their quasi-governmental powers of eminent domain, and remove their cables that pass through my private property.
I'm not a cable subscriber, so why should I allow their cables to pass through my property rent-free?
Why should I respect the utility company's property rights when they don't respect mine?
Some basic network neutrality rules for wireline broadband services are a reasonable tradeoff in return for the special privileges they enjoy with their easements through the public right-of-way and everyone's private property.
The wireless companies are a different situation. They are not physically intruding on my private property, so I'm not in favor of network neutrality for wireless service providers.
You literally have many other choices than a Cable Company, depending on what all you are running. Everything, including VOIP can be done over my net card from Verizon. The price is now comparable to cable or phone wire based DSL.
But if Congress would stop looking for Steroids in baseball or a play off scheme for college football. Get busy fixing Government Motors (they even blew selling Saturn to Penske). They may have time to work on the monopolies that really matter, cable companies and Government poorly functioning monopolies. Those include Fannie & Freddie, Amtrak, Post Office, FCC, FAA (still waiting on the ok for their new computer system), Fed, and then they can close the Depatment of Treasury, Education, Energy and Health and Human Services.
The government should get out of the running things business. The only thing they should be allowed to do is keep us safe and enforce out laws. Eric Holder won't even do that against the Black Panthers blocking polling places, filmed and not followed up on.
I think you missed, the attitude, opening late, can not get fired. Oh sorry that is the Post Office!
But you miss the benefits of government, we could let ACORN run it!
and then they could outsource it to India.
You have a right to free speech. The left just doesn't want anyone to be able to hear you.
They LOVE freedom. For them.
Liberals only believe in Personal Freedom and Freedom of Speech for Liberals…….
IF YOU'RE NOT A LIBERAL…..THEN IT'S OFF TO THE OVENS FOR YOU.
STUPID LIBTARDS…….are going to get us all killed.
Since when did the will of the people become important? The government does what it wants. Shut up and take it.
Mission creep. Net neutrality may seem like a relatively small concession, but it opens the door for govt control. Once you have the bureaucracy in place and people are being paid to manage and regulate, that is exactly what they will do to an ever increasing degree. As with everything the govt dips their hands into, little by little they increase their control over it until it is no longer recognizable as what it started out to be. As it stands now the US is way behind much of the world in internet bandwidth, access and speed because the govt kills fair market competition by granting monopolies to providers. It may start out innocent enough…but then it always does.
I still don't believe that this will become the first country taken over by Marxist and then they leave!
They just do not do business that way.
“Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” – Ronald Reagan
[...] FCC Flooded With Comments Opposing Internet Regulation But Left Claims Victory Anyway [...]
I liken Tim Karr's response to Baghdad Bob's: "They [the Americans] are not even with in 100 miles of Baghdad. They are not in any place. They hold no place in Iraq. This is an illusion … they are trying to sell to the others an illusion."
of course they support it, it's not their network. they want the people who build, maintain, and pay for them to not have any say over how they're run. the reason they want it is so they can start offering all kinds of new content and products over the web. and conveniently for them, they aren't the ones who have to spend billions of dollars to upgrade and expand the networks in order to accommodate all that new data.
[...] » FCC Flooded With Comments Opposing Internet Regulation But Left DanStlMo – January 17th, 2010 at 11:58 pm. If the government gets its hands on the Interne… [...]
it`s the same with: http://versu.ro/l.john.a-957.html
When Republicans take over all 3 branches of Gov I hope they put Dick Cheney in charge of the FCC AND make him the Czar in charge of Death Panels. Can the NeoLibs not even see this coming? As much as they hated George W, do they really want someone like say…Sarah Palin taking over all these government expansion policies in 3 years?
What comes around goes around!
"Net neutrality" is something desirous across the political spectrum and has nothing to do with the "fairness doctrine" – there seems to be some confusion here. Read the wikipedia enty for net neutrality.
As above, net neutrality is not the same as the fairness doctrine, and isn't a liberal stalking horse. Just because BoingBoing likes it, and Comcast doesn't, does not mean that it is a left v right issue… Net neutrality is a complicated topic, with some good arguments on both sides.
That's rich! Read the Wikipedia entry for unbiased information on Net Neutrality.
To say that Net Neutrality has "nothing to do" with the fairness doctrine demolishes your cred. Politely suggesting that we're all confused is infuriating. Sending folks to Wikipedia finished you off.
No sale.
Fight Net Neutrality with all you got, people.
I love how people now think of it as "the network" when in reality it's a few dozen big networks and hundreds of smaller networks, all agreeing to route each other's packets across net boundaries. The problem will come, if there is no true net neutrality, when Verizon decides it wants to charge more for Comcast's packets than Comcast is willing to pay, and they decide to block each other. Once you can't get to a big chunk of the other sites on a particular backbone or network, then the value of Internet connectivity drops to zero. And lest someone accuses me of naivete, I've been on "the Internet" since 1989, and ran my own web-hosting company in the late 90's. Also, the person who claimed upthread about there being lots of alternatives for ISPs, that's true in cities and suburbs, but once you get out into real rural areas you run out of alternatives quickly.
Be careful what you wish for, you're liable to get it, good and hard. Get ready for Internet balkanization like you wouldn't believe, back to the days of AOL vs Compuserve et.al. where nets don't talk to each other.
If you think a ratio of 32:13 in comments makes for a victory you had better think again. The Progressives would flush those comments with nary a blush.
The concept of "net neutrality" pertains to internet traffic at the lowest levels, mostly tcp/udp. The idea is that we don't want isps to be able to selectively diminish service or block certain protocols. For instance, Comcast angered a bunch of us a couple of years ago by blocking bittorrent (which I use for downloading Linux and FreeBSD distributions). Many of us would like the FCC to block them from doing that.
To analogize in terms you might understand better, imagine if Verizon suddenly decided that you couldn't call Sprint phones, or, perhaps you could but the audio quality would be lower.
Now think of it this way. I have Comcast as my ISP, but I use another provider for VOIP. Comcast has their own VOIP service. They could conceivably diminish my service as an incentive for me to buy their service.
Net neutrality is simple – I pay for a pipe, I get to use it as I please.
As I said, this is unrelated to the fairness doctrine. It's possible that some people might be attempting to confuse the two, perhaps to build more support for bringing a fairness doctrine to the internet, but I'm not aware of it if so.
Being a libertarian, I'd prefer the market to sort it out. Unfortunately, market forces are weak due to lack of competition.
Anyway, main point: net neutrality is desirous and unrelated to political leanings.
I've just done a search and I see that a lot of people are confused over this, not just Mr. McKim above. Wow.
Unrelated, folks. Sorry that you're confused, but, you are. Try here for a good start:
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/2768
If You Hate the Fairness Doctrine, You Should Love Net Neutrality
Dude, I am not confused. (Nor am I condescending.) A tip: Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they are confused.
You say: "For instance, Comcast angered a bunch of us a couple of years ago…"
Yes. And the situation was resolved. And it was some time ago. And the examples of abuse or poor service are so few and far between (and the resolution to each problem so satisfactory) that the argument for government intervention is exceedingly weak.
I take issue with your contention that NN is "desirous." (I also take issue that htere isn't enough competition out there. There's never been more. And it's going to increase.
Brian,
Yes! LOL! Wikpedia did do her/him in!
Fight the Marxists!
When this happens that is when I will get off the internet for good, and go back to doing things the old fashioned way, wrting checks, using typewriters.
The very wealthy investment bankers (stemming from the Rothchilds), already own all the major newspapers, radio stations cable & sattelite companies and television stations so that they can have complete control over what "news" or programing you hear & don't hear (get the dvd Orwell Rolls in His Grave), and Google How The Rothchilds (who are the owners and creators of The Federal Reserve) Stole America. Educate yourselves about whats really going on before the internet is also OWNED by a monopoly corporation financed by these investment bankers who already have penetrated our government, and wish to rule the world and own you!
Can you provide more information on this? take care
To "wldbil" if you really exist, you have a right to say what you want and so do I; you and your fellow idiots are truly sad and ignorant. Do you really think if the FCC starts any regulation of the internet that you will be able to also express your opinions? That is almost as silly as Obama thinking he will get to be "King of the World" if he keeps pushing his insane programs on this country. Think about it!!!!!!
You speak the Truth!! Kudo's
To wldbil, my apologies, I misread and thought you made the slam on fox news
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