Net neutrality honesty
Last night, I wrote a post about how net neutrality advocates never admit to what they are really after. Rather than explain that they want the government to seize control of private property, they just tell people that they just want the internet to be “fair.” As such, I believe that much of the support they claim is comprised of people who don’t understand what net neutrality actually is.
To help prove my point, a net neutrality advocate commented on my post. In his response to my post about how net neutrality advocates refuse to address the private property question, he ignored everything I said about government and property. Instead, he just said that net neutrality is about the “free marketplace of ideas” and “choice” and “freedom from corporate restrictions.” How? What do those things mean? Do they ever explain?
There are a few things in his comment that I want to respond to:
He wrote:
… His reply was an analogy that was much better than yours, comparing the internet to a highway instead of a vitamin pill and saying access shouldn’t be limited to only 12-wheelers or in this case, websites with multi-million dollar budgets.
First of all, I never compared the internet to a vitamin pill. I used the vitamin pill case as a way to explain the difference between someone saying you should do something as opposed to saying the government should make someone do something. I brought it up only to explain this idea in a way that people might understand better than computer networks.
But as for the analogy he attributes to Mike Huckabee, it was “The Internet is a highway and we don’t restrict highways to 18-wheelers… if it’s a car, an SUV, or a truck, you use the same highway.” and can be read on the poster’s website. Comparing the internet to a highway in that way has a problem. Highways are built with tax dollars, but the internet is built with private dollars. A better analogy would be to compare the internet to a private racetrack, and net neutrality advocates to whiners who don’t think it’s fair that the racetrack owner gets to decide who rides on the track.
But Net Neutrality isn’t about the government telling Comcast and other ISPs what to do. It’s about telling them what NOT to do.
What is the difference between telling Comcast what it can’t do and what it has to do? The two are the same. The government is still telling private individuals what can be done with their own property.
What they want to do could eventually lead to the internet being like radio or cable television where everyone can see content, but not everyone can post content.
This is a great example of how net neutrality advocates throw out fantasy scenarios and claim that net neutrality is the only way to stop them from happening. Let’s just think about this for a second. What would any internet surfer do if his ISP put restrictions on his ability to post content on the internet. The surfer would move to another ISP. Any ISP that dares to restrict its customers will not be able to sustain itself for very long.
But let’s think about it even more. How would an ISP stop individuals from posting content on the internet, even if it wanted to? Like, how could Comcast stop me from writing this post? They never explain.
And as a Republican, I believe net neutrality is essential to maintaining and building upon the free marketplace of goods and ideas. It’s about choice for the surfer and it’s about freedom from corporate restrictions for the artists, webmasters, and bloggers.
What does any of this mean? I’ll explain what is meant by “corporate restrictions.” Corporate restrictions means a corporation’s right to control what is done with its own property. When a corporation exercises its property rights, net neutrality advocates say that you are being restricted. Restricted from what, access to someone else’s property?
But like I said in the first post, this is how net neutrality advocates argue their position. They won’t have an honest debate about the principle issues involved. They just want to trick people into agreeing to something they don’t understand.
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5 Responses to “Net neutrality honesty”
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What frustrates me more than people who disagree with me are people who can’t bring themselves to respect other people’s opinions. Anyway, since you think you shot down each of my points one by one, I figured I would return the favor.
That’s exactly the problem. Net Neutrality advocates want to make sure EVERYONE is allowed to ride on the track. Like an amusement park, everyone pays about $40-60 dollars to get in every month, but once you’re in, you can ride whatever you want, be it the go-karts or your favorite website. Only on the internet, you don’t have to wait in line.
You seem pretty young so you may not have kids. But would you be okay with it if your neighbor decided to rent out a couple extra rooms to child molesters? What if he wanted to put a mote around his property filled with piranha? I’m fine with the government setting up some restrictions to protect the community. There’s a limit and we should be careful.
If there was competition, I would agree completely. But right now I have two choices for my internet connection. Comcast or dial-up. As a result, I’m paying over $120 for my combined cable and internet bill. Most Americans are in this same situation. Comcast virtually has a monopoly on many of us. If comcast abolishes net neutrality, I literally have no choice but to deal with it.
Some people do have choice, but Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T are all pushing anti-net neutrality legislation in congress and letting congressmen get cozy in their pockets.
I suggest writing this down and tacking it to your wall. And keep in mind, this will not happen the day after the telco’s have their way in congress and the FCC.
After several years of limiting the speed of websites that don’t pay the fee to get on the faster web, surfers will simply stop going to the slower sites and instead focusing on the faster, graphics and video rich sites. With the extra speed, these websites will become like “interactive TV channels” that let you check and send e-mails, play games, and chat with instant messages. While I admit, the concept does sound cool, it shouldn’t come at the expense of a person’s ability to post content to the net.
And this is how people who like paying outrageous cable bills argue their position. They won’t give serious consideration about the lasting effect their ignorance can have on the rest of us and try to humiliate the person trying to have an honest debate. Usually that’s a trait of Democrats, so if there was any doubt before, that’s how I know you’re wrong about this.
Just thought I’d return the favor.
www.ktracy.com
When I say that I want an honest debate on an issue, I mean that I want to debate the essential points. If the debate moves from the essential points to anything else, then the subject of the debate has changed.
On the issue of net neutrality, the essential point is property rights. Does an individual have the right to own property? If so, does an individual have a right to control what is done with his property?
I consider private property to be the essential point because the questions I asked above have to be answered before we can talk about net neutrality. If the answer to those question is yes, people do have the right to own property and control what is done with their property, then any talk about net neutrality stops. ISP’s own their lines, so they get to control them. However, if the answer is no, people don’t have a right to own or control what is done with their property, then net neutrality can be discussed (along with practically any other idea people can think of).
Net neutrality advocates will never address the issue of private property when they try to convince others to join their cause, and that’s why I do not believe they willing to discuss the subject honestly.
Your response to my racetrack analogy is a good illustration. You wrote:
Whose track? The track that is privately-owned by another individual. When you say that you want to make sure everyone is allowed to ride the track, you omit the fact that someone else owns it. You never address ownership or control at all, and just leave it to be assumed that you (and others) should have a say in who rides.
Net neutrality advocates treat “the internet” in the same way you treat “the track.” They never talk about what the internet is made of, who owns the lines that your data goes through, and why the government should force those individuals to give up their private property for the sake of your data.
You also wrote:
You only get to ride whatever you want IF that’s what the amusement park offers and if you accept their offer. Amusement parks offer people the right to enter their property for a fee, and you have the right to accept or reject their offer. For any transaction to occur between you and the park, both parties must give their consent. This type of setup respects the individual rights of each side to decide what they want to do with their own lives and property.
ISPs work the same. They offer you a way to connect to the internet, and your only option is to accept or reject their offer. If you accept their offer you get to use their property, but only under the terms they offer. If an ISP gives you bad service, slows down your connection speeds, or prevents you from posting content to the internet, then their offer is not very good and you should leave. However, under no circumstances do you suddenly gain the right to force them to them to give you anything, in the same way that you would never have the right to force your way onto the amusement park without buying a ticket.
Private property addressed:
As with most things, you’re allowed to own private property, but the government can tell you what to not do with it.
Guns: you can have them. But you can’t shoot people with it who don’t pay a fee.
Land: you can own 20 acres of land in dry plains of California, but you can’t set them on fire if your neighbors refuse to pay you money.
Heck, you can’t even NOT mow your lawn in some communities.
The government sometimes needs to protect the welfare of individuals by making laws, limiting you to what you do on and with private property. This is an example of such a situation.
I’m with Darren on this one and to remind everyone, I work with Hands Off the Internet on this issue.
So we should enact preemptive regulations like those proposed on Dorgan-Snowe that would severely restrict how the internet operates . . . based solely on hypothetical scenarios from groups like save the internet? I have yet to see or hear one net neutrality supporter argue that the current laws and regulations we have are insufficient to deal with any of the baseless claims such as blocking access to sites or extorting money for a site to operate.
As David Farber (”godfather of the internet”) and Michael Katz (Chief Economist at the FCC during the Clinton Administration) note,
“Public policy should intervene where anti-competitive actions can be identified and the cure will not be worse than the disease. Policymakers must tread carefully, however, because it can be difficult, if not impossible, to determine in advance whether a particular practice promotes or harms competition. Antitrust law generally takes a case-by-case approach under which private parties or public agencies can challenge business practices and the courts require proof of harm to competition before declaring a practice illegal. This is a sound approach that has served our economy well.”
Thanks.
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