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"That a Republican-led FCC would err on the side of under-regulating telecommunications companies is about the least surprising outcome you can imagine." That

"That a Republican-led FCC would err on the side of under-regulating telecommunications companies is about the least surprising outcome you can imagine." That is not why this is shocking. This proceeding is shocking because the legal basis for this change is dependent on a false statements about the technology involved. It goes beyond just, "Republicans prefer deregulation," or, "Republicans favor market-based approaches." There is plenty of room and a general need for debates about what policy approaches are best, but there is no room for debate about the answer to technical questions. Engineers and researchers submitted hundreds of comments to the FCC trying to correct the falsehoods presented in the NPRM. The FCC did not simply ignore those comments. The draft rules specifically cite those comments and totally dismiss them as "not persuasive." Only commentary from ISPs was "persuasive" in this proceeding, and the ISPs omitted facts that were inconvenient for them (the point of public commentary is in part to fill in the omissions that lobbyists would obviously make). Sorry, but I do not buy the "what do you expect from Republicans" argument. I expect Republicans to be pro-markets, even pro-big-business; I expect Republicans to favor deregulation. It is not acceptable to pursue that agenda by ignoring expert answers to technical questions, regardless of party affiliation. It is one thing to interpret facts -- for example, the draft rules interpret the fact that edge services can be accessed via ISP networks as ISPs providing a capability to their customers, which is bizarre but within the bounds as far as policy debates go. To simply dismiss facts that are being presented to you by experts, when you have a legal obligation to receive and consider such facts, is another matter entirely. Yes, I expect the party of deregulation to base its policy goals on facts, as interpreted through the lens of a pro-business/pro-markets approach, and not some convenient fantasy.

dtien 9y ago
>It is not acceptable to pursue that agenda by ignoring expert answers to technical questions, regardless of party affiliation Your entire premise can be rebutted with the policies around climate change. If something as catastrophic and irreversible as climate change can be subject to partisan nonsense, twisting of facts and delegitimization of experts; what makes anyone think that Net Neutrality would be looked upon with logic, facts, and reason. I personally lean towards preserving NN. I hope at some point we can return to some semblance of governance based on facts, logic, and pragmatism rather than ideology.
- Crye 9y ago
  Or, we can accept that ideologies are how we all make the majority of our decisions and then work to create a convincing ideology which combats the systems of power/corruption we're currently dealing with. None of this going to go away with facts and logic. Change never happened because someone spouted a couple damning facts and shamed people with power.
  - dtien 9y ago
    Oh I disagree wholeheartedly. We're in the sh*tshow we are today not because of a lack of ideologies: Libertarian, Conservative, Liberal, Progressive, Evangelical, Green, and on and on... So clearly, there's no lack of 'convincing ideology' for any single individual's belief system and ideals. The problem as I see it, is that the majority of people have retreated into their ideologies and just started tossing grenades and stones behind their respective walls, rather than having dialogue, understanding, and compromising. And if your counter is that we're just lacking an even BETTEREST ideology that somehow rules them all, I think that's fallacy. Ideology is neither the solution, nor the problem. It's the fact that ideologies have become ending points, rather than starting points of discussion. Which leads me back to my original point that we need leaders who will govern by listening to ideas, facts, counterpoints, and making tough compromises and decisions based on that. EDIT: spelling
    - indubitable 9y ago
      I really want to agree with you. And in times past I absolutely would have. But I think something that's become clear over time, worldwide, is that getting incorruptible, good, and objective people into office is not really possible - certainly not on a regular basis. Really it's unclear if such people even actually exist. I think most of us believe our decisions are driven by objective merit, yet we all view most of everybody else as subjectively driven. The latter view is probably the correct one. What we need is systems themselves that take human nature into mind. The founding fathers of the US set out to create this exact sort of system. And they really did. Lacking a super majority, literally a single senator can prevent a political appointment. So on this issue, if the senate really did not want to put into appointee into the FCC who was in favor of dismantling net neutrality - they had that power. When Pai was appointed by Obama in 2012 his views were no secret. The senate could have said no. McConnell could have proposed a new person, Obama formally nominates him, and again the senate could reject. They are under 0 obligation to approve any nominee - ever. Yes, this would be incredibly dysfunctional - but that is precisely how the US government was envisioned. The whole checks and balances thing we learn about in elementary social studies is specifically about preventing something from happening unless there is mass consensus. The founding fathers did not want a huge, powerful democratic government - they wanted a small accountable republic driven to progress only on issues where there was minimal to no opposition. You can even see this in things like the bill of rights. The bill of rights does not, for instance, guarantee you the right to free speech. It says you already inherently have that right - it is inalienable. The bill of rights does not grant you a right - it prevents the government from infringing on your natural rights. In other words the view is that governments cannot grant rights, but they can take them away. A dysfunctional government maximizes the freedom of the people by preventing the infringement of such freedom except in cases such that there is a mass consensus of its merit. The problem is that the doomsday scenario of all of congress falling into one clique happened. Politicians all need money to get elected and stay in office. Corporate donors (and influence) is where that money comes from. And this is where I think the problem is. But I also don't think there's any solution to it. Imagine you take all money out of political campaigns. That don't stop already famous individuals from running for office and their advantage in these cases would be monumental. There are radical ideas like treating political duty the same as jury duty, but I'm unsure how well that would be publicly received. The point here is that I don't think 'just get better politicians' is something that's necessarily workable in the longrun. We need to create systems that readily accept the realities of corruption, cronyism, and general pettiness -- but then operate in a publicly desirable way regardless of this.
oh_sigh 9y ago
Do you have examples of outright falsehoods?
- betterunix2 9y ago
  Among other things, the rules claim that DNS is an integral part of the service ISPs provide. The rules also claim that using a third party server requires unusual configuration on the part of consumers. That is false: an ISP could choose not to provide any DNS service and configure their customers' equipment to use a third party server. (Amazingly enough, DNS is one of the central points in the FCC's argument that ISPs provide an information service.)
  - rijoja 9y ago
    While I suppose if you are in to nitpicking it's technically wrong but it's a generalisation that is excusable. It's not as if they are saying something inexcusably erroneous, like for example that JSON is the protocol used to route packets. In effect I'm pretty certain that the vast majority of ISPs are running their own DNS servers. Making this point rather unimportant. Any other technical inaccuracies?
    - betterunix2 9y ago
      "It's not as if they are saying something inexcusably erroneous, like for example that JSON is the protocol used to route packets." They also suggested the DNS is like a proxy server (in their words, a "gateway") rather than a directory service. Does that count? "Any other technical inaccuracies?" That consumers continue to rely on transparent caching and that caching is a core ISP service. The FCC dismissed comments pointing out that TLS breaks transparent caching on the basis that there are websites that do not use TLS. The order also claims that because people are able to access websites via an ISP network, the ISP provides people with the capability of whatever those websites do (e.g. under the order's reasoning, Verizon is providing me with the capability to have this conversation with you). You can argue that is an opinion and not a fact, but the order does not apply it consistently; for example, it does not assert that a phone company is providing an information service by virtue of its customers' ability to use a dialup ISP. The order claims that by connecting to your ISP's network, you are receiving, "...computer access by multiple users to a computer server...that provides access to the Internet." Maybe that is just how the FCC interprets routers, but again it is not being consistently applied e.g. to the phone system. If you want more, go read the order; the technical analysis is not very long.
wwweston 9y ago
> I expect Republicans to be pro-markets, even pro-big-business; I expect Republicans to favor deregulation. It is not acceptable to pursue that agenda by ignoring expert answers to technical questions, regardless of party affiliation. It is one thing to interpret facts... to simply dismiss facts that are being presented to you by experts, when you have a legal obligation to receive and consider such facts, is another matter entirely. From where I sit, the particular observation you're making about how policy has been treated when it comes to Net Neutrality issues looks exactly like how the Republican party behaves generally. Whether it's about net neutrality, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, climate change, stimulative effects of tax policy, health care -- it sure looks like many Republican positions are primarily arrived at and founded in the profit and power aspirations of a narrow constituency rather than observation and study, and that "deregulation" and "market-based" approaches are primarily invoked as tools or even just fig leaves where they appear useful. Net Neutrality just happens to be one example where the audience here is predominately familiar enough with the relevant practical issues that it's easy to see.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  On the other hand, you have the Democrats, whose default position seems to be "we want to do whatever the Republicans do, except only half as much." Who appointed Ajit Pai to the FCC in the first place?
  - tzs 9y ago
    > Who appointed Ajit Pai to the FCC in the first place? The FCC by law cannot have more than three commissioners from the same party. The sitting President therefore finds himself in the position of having to appoint up to two commissioners who are NOT from his own party. I don't think that there is any actual requirement for how the President picks such nominees--so a Democratic President needing to appoint a non-Democrat could in theory choose someone from some left-leaning non-Democrat party like the Green party, and a Republican President could choose someone from a right-leaning non-Republican party, such as the Libertarian party. In practice, though, what Presidents of both parties usually (always?) have done is ask other party leadership [1] for a name, and then the President nominates that person. When the nominee comes up for confirmation in the Senate, generally the Senators from each party pretty much automatically vote to confirm the nominees from the other party unless there is something that actually disqualifies them. They don't vote no just because they disagree on ideological grounds. So yes, Obama originally put Pai on the FCC, but you can't really read anything into that as far as Democrat positions goes. Pai was the choice of Republican leadership for one of the two seats that could not go to a Democrat. People are too focused on Pai here. Getting rid of net neutrality is in the freaking GOP party platform. By winning the White House, Republicans won a majority on the FCC. It didn't matter which existing Republican commissioner they elevated to the chairmanship (Pai or O'Reilly) or if they made their new, third guy chair (Carr). Whoever they picked was going to do this. [1] Usually whoever leads the other party in the Senate, I believe.
chiaro 9y ago
>That is not why this is shocking. This proceeding is shocking because the legal basis for this change is dependent on a false statements about the technology involved. It goes beyond just, "Republicans prefer deregulation," or, "Republicans favor market-based approaches." There is plenty of room and a general need for debates about what policy approaches are best, but there is no room for debate about the answer to technical questions. Haha. Try working in education or, gasp, environmental science, if you think that the contestability of simple facts is shocking.
- justaman 9y ago
  One could argue that the democrats have an anti-science view on gender. The newest argument from the far left is that there are no physiological differences between man and woman. Biology says otherwise. The best thing you can do is realize everyone is an idiot and think for yourself rather than the party.
  - crummy 9y ago
    There's a large difference between the Democrats and the far left.
  - dclowd9901 9y ago
    No, the science said there’s no physiological difference between the male and female _brain_. Big difference there, chief.
  - betterunix2 9y ago
    There is no doubt that Democrats sometimes ignore facts and expert opinions. That is a normal part of the political process. The problem is that in recent months Republicans seem to always ignore the facts being presented to them. That is beyond "politics as usual" and is dangerous and destructive to our country.
  - TimJRobinson 9y ago
    Which Democrat/s said this? A blog / site claiming to be far left != Democrats. Saying those in government believe what the some member of the general public believes is not a logical train of thought.
nv-vn 9y ago
Whether there are mistakes in the official documents doesn't change anything about the policy. They weren't persuaded because they didn't receive a persuasive argument about why net neutrality is supposed to help. That doesn't mean they weren't persuaded that some of the "facts" were wrong, it means that they weren't persuaded in terms of opinions. The arguments of the ISP are obviously biased and that should surprise nobody. I think it's pretty reasonable to assume the same thing about tech companies. Is e.g. Netflix unbiased when the net neutrality question pretty much came up in regards to Netflix? You would have to be insane to claim that Netflix (or Google, or Facebook, or Reddit) aren't supporting this (at least to some extent) for the sake of increasing their own profit margins. The Right is arguing for a free market economy and decreased regulation not because they are "going against the facts." There is no fact stating that "net neutrality is necessary for the world to function" or "internet is a human right" or whatever. All of these things are opinions. You have the opinion that net neutrality is needed, but there is no fact backing that statement. > It is not acceptable to pursue that agenda by ignoring expert answers to technical questions Here's what you're missing: they don't oppose net neutrality because of what the ISPs said about it. They oppose it because it is a regulation that limits the free market. There is no fact or fiction to this opinion, it's like saying "because there's facts to show that speech can hurt people, free speech should be restricted." I agree that speech can hurt someone, but I disagree that it should be restricted. Does that mean I'm fighting the facts here?
- betterunix2 9y ago
  "That doesn't mean they weren't persuaded that some of the "facts" were wrong" Why did they repeat the false statements from the NPRM in the final draft is that is true? Why did they dismiss comments correcting falsehoods in the NPRM as not persuasive? "it means that they weren't persuaded in terms of opinions" I am not talking about opinions. I am talking about the details of core Internet technologies like IP, DHCP, DNS, etc. The rule change was based on an argument that ISPs meet the legal definition of an "information service." To make that argument the FCC's NPRM and the final draft make several false statements about the technical details of the Internet. Whether or not net neutrality regulation is proper is a different matter. This order actually removes net neutrality requirements as a side effect. What the order actually does is change the FCC's official legal classification of broadband Internet service from "telecommunications service" to "information service." The 2015 rule change also involved changing ISP classification, in response to a successful court challenge to earlier net neutrality regulations that were based on the "information service" classification. Basically, the courts determined that an "information service" cannot be subject to net neutrality rules, because that is a "common carrier" requirement that can only be imposed on a "telecommunication service." "they don't oppose net neutrality because of what the ISPs said about it" Maybe so, but in terms of the technical details this entire order is predicated on, the FCC for the most part cites the comments of ISPs as the truth, and dismisses everything else.
goalieca 9y ago
> what do you expect from Republicans Disclaimer: I am a canadian citizen. What I expect from republicans is the opposite of evidence based policy making. None of their policies are supported or motivated by evidence. Pick one from taxes to gun control to sex education.
- betterunix2 9y ago
  All politicians occasionally lie about the facts; that is the nature of politics. Yet it was not that long ago that Democrats and Republicans were equally likely to base their policy proposals on (actual) evidence. The decline has been happening for a long time, but in the past decade Republicans have completely abandoned the idea of interpreting (actual) facts from a conservative perspective and have instead come to rely only on "alternative facts" (I believe in Canada you would say "fantasies" but I am not Canadian). Put another way, I like to remind people that it is possible to be an intelligent conservative, despite the image the Republican party has been projecting lately.
  - bonesss 9y ago
    > Put another way, I like to remind people that it is possible to be an intelligent conservative, despite the image the Republican party has been projecting lately. It's an inevitable truth, with half the country on "either side", that any given side will have a bevy of smart, reasonable, sane people... It's high time to start distinguishing the corporatists, the fascists, and outright liars from "conservatism". At the same time: with the crusade against reality, common sense, and collective action on long term problems the GOP has wholeheartedly embraced since the 90s (along with the media barons), I think it's high time we remembered that before the 90s we had liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats who weren't afraid of those labels. The problem isn't that conservatives are "dumb" or "crazy". The problem is that smart conservatives haven't put the GOPs feet to the fire, or changed party affiliation en masse, or primaried the teapartiers to a degree that the tribalism FOX News fosters is offset.
  - mcantelon 9y ago
    Both parties are irrational, but about different things. Both largely shaft their base and serve different segments of the oligarchy.
mnm1 9y ago
That's a silly expectation for a party that denies science whenever it's inconvenient. Climate change, the war on drugs, abortion, and more are all examples of this. This is the party of anti-intellectualism and anti-science, yet somehow you expect them to treat the Internet differently?
- emmelaich 9y ago
  Most of drug, abortion policy is due to values, not science. You're corrupting the notion of science to say otherwise.
  - scotty79 9y ago
    Are you saying that it's good to base drug and abortion policies on values even though science indicates that those value based policies do more societal harm than good? Is it a good policy to harm people as long as you are faithful to some set of values?
    - peoplewindow 9y ago
      Science can't really measure 'societal harm', it's not a well defined concept. The moment government delegates what 'societal harm' and 'societal benefit' mean to a bunch of self-proclaimed scientists they've effectively given up on democracy and delegated to a dictatorship of doctorates. But history shows us that having a PhD is hardly a magic talisman against dangerous or delusional thinking.
      - scotty79 9y ago
        Ok. What about the cases when value based policies have scientifically measurable effects exactly opposite to stated also value based goals of the policy? I.e. to reduce teen pregnancies we create policy of abstinence only sex education. You can measure that this policy causes exactly opposite effect yet value based lawmakers cling to it. As for scientific inability to objectively define societal harm... That's what's beautiful in science. You can define it any way you like and then measure how well policy causes the effects fulfilling the definition. You can define it as "less people addicted" or "less addicts homeless" or "less addicts without steady jobs" or "less people jailed for non violent crime" or "less violent crime". Definitions are plenty. But if you ignore any measurements by any definitions and make laws just based on your values then you are doing favor to noone.
ace_of_spades 9y ago
So what you are saying is that the republican party in its current form is unvotable. I agree. Even people holding dear republican aligned beliefs should take note and realize that the party is not able to act aligned with their own interest. I guess partisanship might simply be a huge problem because democrats can‘t recognize republicans as republicans any more - still because there are only 2 relevant parties - republicans don‘t see an alternative to the GOP and still go for the „in theory better aligned“ party. That should give any American pause to think and highlight the importance of choice when it comes to politics. Why not create a new republican party?
- mcantelon 9y ago
  >Why not create a new republican party? The system is heavily weighted in favor of the duopoly (televised debates, etc.). Fixing that might increase the odds a third party would be able to be a genuine contender, rather than simply splitting one side's vote.
tehwalrus 9y ago
> To simply dismiss facts that are being presented to you by experts, when you have a legal obligation to receive and consider such facts, is another matter entirely. That makes it sound like you can sue the FCC for not meeting their legal obligations here. Is that viable?
- joshumax 9y ago
  If I'm interpreting you correctly, you can totally sue the FCC for matters like this, and in fact, people are doing just that. [1] 1: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/state-attorneys-general-line-up-to-sue-fcc-over-net-neutrality-repeal/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/state-attorneys-...
  - tehwalrus 9y ago
    Marvellous! :)
Al-Khwarizmi 9y ago
The party of deregulation cannot base its policy goals on facts, by definition. Because the idea that regulations and government intervention are universally bad and all sectors should be deregulated is a dogma that has been disproven by facts many times. So any party with that ideology goes against facts. For example, in healthcare, it's more than proven by countless studies that countries that provide universal healthcare not only provide better healthcare by almost any metric, but also spend much less in it than e.g. the US. So anyone that defends the broad idea that government intervention is bad goes against facts, period (as does someone that defends the idea that it's always good, of course - the only position compatible with facts is that some sectors may need more regulation and some may need less, on a case-by-case basis, with some individual cases arguable).

dtien 9y ago

>It is not acceptable to pursue that agenda by ignoring expert answers to technical questions, regardless of party affiliation Your entire premise can be rebutted with the policies around climate change. If something as catastrophic and irreversible as climate change can be subject to partisan nonsense, twisting of facts and delegitimization of experts; what makes anyone think that Net Neutrality would be looked upon with logic, facts, and reason. I personally lean towards preserving NN. I hope at some point we can return to some semblance of governance based on facts, logic, and pragmatism rather than ideology.

Crye 9y ago
Or, we can accept that ideologies are how we all make the majority of our decisions and then work to create a convincing ideology which combats the systems of power/corruption we're currently dealing with. None of this going to go away with facts and logic. Change never happened because someone spouted a couple damning facts and shamed people with power.
- dtien 9y ago
  Oh I disagree wholeheartedly. We're in the sh*tshow we are today not because of a lack of ideologies: Libertarian, Conservative, Liberal, Progressive, Evangelical, Green, and on and on... So clearly, there's no lack of 'convincing ideology' for any single individual's belief system and ideals. The problem as I see it, is that the majority of people have retreated into their ideologies and just started tossing grenades and stones behind their respective walls, rather than having dialogue, understanding, and compromising. And if your counter is that we're just lacking an even BETTEREST ideology that somehow rules them all, I think that's fallacy. Ideology is neither the solution, nor the problem. It's the fact that ideologies have become ending points, rather than starting points of discussion. Which leads me back to my original point that we need leaders who will govern by listening to ideas, facts, counterpoints, and making tough compromises and decisions based on that. EDIT: spelling
  - indubitable 9y ago
    I really want to agree with you. And in times past I absolutely would have. But I think something that's become clear over time, worldwide, is that getting incorruptible, good, and objective people into office is not really possible - certainly not on a regular basis. Really it's unclear if such people even actually exist. I think most of us believe our decisions are driven by objective merit, yet we all view most of everybody else as subjectively driven. The latter view is probably the correct one. What we need is systems themselves that take human nature into mind. The founding fathers of the US set out to create this exact sort of system. And they really did. Lacking a super majority, literally a single senator can prevent a political appointment. So on this issue, if the senate really did not want to put into appointee into the FCC who was in favor of dismantling net neutrality - they had that power. When Pai was appointed by Obama in 2012 his views were no secret. The senate could have said no. McConnell could have proposed a new person, Obama formally nominates him, and again the senate could reject. They are under 0 obligation to approve any nominee - ever. Yes, this would be incredibly dysfunctional - but that is precisely how the US government was envisioned. The whole checks and balances thing we learn about in elementary social studies is specifically about preventing something from happening unless there is mass consensus. The founding fathers did not want a huge, powerful democratic government - they wanted a small accountable republic driven to progress only on issues where there was minimal to no opposition. You can even see this in things like the bill of rights. The bill of rights does not, for instance, guarantee you the right to free speech. It says you already inherently have that right - it is inalienable. The bill of rights does not grant you a right - it prevents the government from infringing on your natural rights. In other words the view is that governments cannot grant rights, but they can take them away. A dysfunctional government maximizes the freedom of the people by preventing the infringement of such freedom except in cases such that there is a mass consensus of its merit. The problem is that the doomsday scenario of all of congress falling into one clique happened. Politicians all need money to get elected and stay in office. Corporate donors (and influence) is where that money comes from. And this is where I think the problem is. But I also don't think there's any solution to it. Imagine you take all money out of political campaigns. That don't stop already famous individuals from running for office and their advantage in these cases would be monumental. There are radical ideas like treating political duty the same as jury duty, but I'm unsure how well that would be publicly received. The point here is that I don't think 'just get better politicians' is something that's necessarily workable in the longrun. We need to create systems that readily accept the realities of corruption, cronyism, and general pettiness -- but then operate in a publicly desirable way regardless of this.

oh_sigh 9y ago

Do you have examples of outright falsehoods?

betterunix2 9y ago
Among other things, the rules claim that DNS is an integral part of the service ISPs provide. The rules also claim that using a third party server requires unusual configuration on the part of consumers. That is false: an ISP could choose not to provide any DNS service and configure their customers' equipment to use a third party server. (Amazingly enough, DNS is one of the central points in the FCC's argument that ISPs provide an information service.)
- rijoja 9y ago
  While I suppose if you are in to nitpicking it's technically wrong but it's a generalisation that is excusable. It's not as if they are saying something inexcusably erroneous, like for example that JSON is the protocol used to route packets. In effect I'm pretty certain that the vast majority of ISPs are running their own DNS servers. Making this point rather unimportant. Any other technical inaccuracies?
  - betterunix2 9y ago
    "It's not as if they are saying something inexcusably erroneous, like for example that JSON is the protocol used to route packets." They also suggested the DNS is like a proxy server (in their words, a "gateway") rather than a directory service. Does that count? "Any other technical inaccuracies?" That consumers continue to rely on transparent caching and that caching is a core ISP service. The FCC dismissed comments pointing out that TLS breaks transparent caching on the basis that there are websites that do not use TLS. The order also claims that because people are able to access websites via an ISP network, the ISP provides people with the capability of whatever those websites do (e.g. under the order's reasoning, Verizon is providing me with the capability to have this conversation with you). You can argue that is an opinion and not a fact, but the order does not apply it consistently; for example, it does not assert that a phone company is providing an information service by virtue of its customers' ability to use a dialup ISP. The order claims that by connecting to your ISP's network, you are receiving, "...computer access by multiple users to a computer server...that provides access to the Internet." Maybe that is just how the FCC interprets routers, but again it is not being consistently applied e.g. to the phone system. If you want more, go read the order; the technical analysis is not very long.

wwweston 9y ago

> I expect Republicans to be pro-markets, even pro-big-business; I expect Republicans to favor deregulation. It is not acceptable to pursue that agenda by ignoring expert answers to technical questions, regardless of party affiliation. It is one thing to interpret facts... to simply dismiss facts that are being presented to you by experts, when you have a legal obligation to receive and consider such facts, is another matter entirely. From where I sit, the particular observation you're making about how policy has been treated when it comes to Net Neutrality issues looks exactly like how the Republican party behaves generally. Whether it's about net neutrality, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, climate change, stimulative effects of tax policy, health care -- it sure looks like many Republican positions are primarily arrived at and founded in the profit and power aspirations of a narrow constituency rather than observation and study, and that "deregulation" and "market-based" approaches are primarily invoked as tools or even just fig leaves where they appear useful. Net Neutrality just happens to be one example where the audience here is predominately familiar enough with the relevant practical issues that it's easy to see.

emodendroket 9y ago
On the other hand, you have the Democrats, whose default position seems to be "we want to do whatever the Republicans do, except only half as much." Who appointed Ajit Pai to the FCC in the first place?
- tzs 9y ago
  > Who appointed Ajit Pai to the FCC in the first place? The FCC by law cannot have more than three commissioners from the same party. The sitting President therefore finds himself in the position of having to appoint up to two commissioners who are NOT from his own party. I don't think that there is any actual requirement for how the President picks such nominees--so a Democratic President needing to appoint a non-Democrat could in theory choose someone from some left-leaning non-Democrat party like the Green party, and a Republican President could choose someone from a right-leaning non-Republican party, such as the Libertarian party. In practice, though, what Presidents of both parties usually (always?) have done is ask other party leadership [1] for a name, and then the President nominates that person. When the nominee comes up for confirmation in the Senate, generally the Senators from each party pretty much automatically vote to confirm the nominees from the other party unless there is something that actually disqualifies them. They don't vote no just because they disagree on ideological grounds. So yes, Obama originally put Pai on the FCC, but you can't really read anything into that as far as Democrat positions goes. Pai was the choice of Republican leadership for one of the two seats that could not go to a Democrat. People are too focused on Pai here. Getting rid of net neutrality is in the freaking GOP party platform. By winning the White House, Republicans won a majority on the FCC. It didn't matter which existing Republican commissioner they elevated to the chairmanship (Pai or O'Reilly) or if they made their new, third guy chair (Carr). Whoever they picked was going to do this. [1] Usually whoever leads the other party in the Senate, I believe.

chiaro 9y ago

>That is not why this is shocking. This proceeding is shocking because the legal basis for this change is dependent on a false statements about the technology involved. It goes beyond just, "Republicans prefer deregulation," or, "Republicans favor market-based approaches." There is plenty of room and a general need for debates about what policy approaches are best, but there is no room for debate about the answer to technical questions. Haha. Try working in education or, gasp, environmental science, if you think that the contestability of simple facts is shocking.

justaman 9y ago
One could argue that the democrats have an anti-science view on gender. The newest argument from the far left is that there are no physiological differences between man and woman. Biology says otherwise. The best thing you can do is realize everyone is an idiot and think for yourself rather than the party.
- crummy 9y ago
  There's a large difference between the Democrats and the far left.
- dclowd9901 9y ago
  No, the science said there’s no physiological difference between the male and female _brain_. Big difference there, chief.
- betterunix2 9y ago
  There is no doubt that Democrats sometimes ignore facts and expert opinions. That is a normal part of the political process. The problem is that in recent months Republicans seem to always ignore the facts being presented to them. That is beyond "politics as usual" and is dangerous and destructive to our country.
- TimJRobinson 9y ago
  Which Democrat/s said this? A blog / site claiming to be far left != Democrats. Saying those in government believe what the some member of the general public believes is not a logical train of thought.

nv-vn 9y ago

Whether there are mistakes in the official documents doesn't change anything about the policy. They weren't persuaded because they didn't receive a persuasive argument about why net neutrality is supposed to help. That doesn't mean they weren't persuaded that some of the "facts" were wrong, it means that they weren't persuaded in terms of opinions. The arguments of the ISP are obviously biased and that should surprise nobody. I think it's pretty reasonable to assume the same thing about tech companies. Is e.g. Netflix unbiased when the net neutrality question pretty much came up in regards to Netflix? You would have to be insane to claim that Netflix (or Google, or Facebook, or Reddit) aren't supporting this (at least to some extent) for the sake of increasing their own profit margins. The Right is arguing for a free market economy and decreased regulation not because they are "going against the facts." There is no fact stating that "net neutrality is necessary for the world to function" or "internet is a human right" or whatever. All of these things are opinions. You have the opinion that net neutrality is needed, but there is no fact backing that statement. > It is not acceptable to pursue that agenda by ignoring expert answers to technical questions Here's what you're missing: they don't oppose net neutrality because of what the ISPs said about it. They oppose it because it is a regulation that limits the free market. There is no fact or fiction to this opinion, it's like saying "because there's facts to show that speech can hurt people, free speech should be restricted." I agree that speech can hurt someone, but I disagree that it should be restricted. Does that mean I'm fighting the facts here?

betterunix2 9y ago
"That doesn't mean they weren't persuaded that some of the "facts" were wrong" Why did they repeat the false statements from the NPRM in the final draft is that is true? Why did they dismiss comments correcting falsehoods in the NPRM as not persuasive? "it means that they weren't persuaded in terms of opinions" I am not talking about opinions. I am talking about the details of core Internet technologies like IP, DHCP, DNS, etc. The rule change was based on an argument that ISPs meet the legal definition of an "information service." To make that argument the FCC's NPRM and the final draft make several false statements about the technical details of the Internet. Whether or not net neutrality regulation is proper is a different matter. This order actually removes net neutrality requirements as a side effect. What the order actually does is change the FCC's official legal classification of broadband Internet service from "telecommunications service" to "information service." The 2015 rule change also involved changing ISP classification, in response to a successful court challenge to earlier net neutrality regulations that were based on the "information service" classification. Basically, the courts determined that an "information service" cannot be subject to net neutrality rules, because that is a "common carrier" requirement that can only be imposed on a "telecommunication service." "they don't oppose net neutrality because of what the ISPs said about it" Maybe so, but in terms of the technical details this entire order is predicated on, the FCC for the most part cites the comments of ISPs as the truth, and dismisses everything else.

goalieca 9y ago

> what do you expect from Republicans Disclaimer: I am a canadian citizen. What I expect from republicans is the opposite of evidence based policy making. None of their policies are supported or motivated by evidence. Pick one from taxes to gun control to sex education.

betterunix2 9y ago
All politicians occasionally lie about the facts; that is the nature of politics. Yet it was not that long ago that Democrats and Republicans were equally likely to base their policy proposals on (actual) evidence. The decline has been happening for a long time, but in the past decade Republicans have completely abandoned the idea of interpreting (actual) facts from a conservative perspective and have instead come to rely only on "alternative facts" (I believe in Canada you would say "fantasies" but I am not Canadian). Put another way, I like to remind people that it is possible to be an intelligent conservative, despite the image the Republican party has been projecting lately.
- bonesss 9y ago
  > Put another way, I like to remind people that it is possible to be an intelligent conservative, despite the image the Republican party has been projecting lately. It's an inevitable truth, with half the country on "either side", that any given side will have a bevy of smart, reasonable, sane people... It's high time to start distinguishing the corporatists, the fascists, and outright liars from "conservatism". At the same time: with the crusade against reality, common sense, and collective action on long term problems the GOP has wholeheartedly embraced since the 90s (along with the media barons), I think it's high time we remembered that before the 90s we had liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats who weren't afraid of those labels. The problem isn't that conservatives are "dumb" or "crazy". The problem is that smart conservatives haven't put the GOPs feet to the fire, or changed party affiliation en masse, or primaried the teapartiers to a degree that the tribalism FOX News fosters is offset.
- mcantelon 9y ago
  Both parties are irrational, but about different things. Both largely shaft their base and serve different segments of the oligarchy.

mnm1 9y ago

That's a silly expectation for a party that denies science whenever it's inconvenient. Climate change, the war on drugs, abortion, and more are all examples of this. This is the party of anti-intellectualism and anti-science, yet somehow you expect them to treat the Internet differently?

emmelaich 9y ago
Most of drug, abortion policy is due to values, not science. You're corrupting the notion of science to say otherwise.
- scotty79 9y ago
  Are you saying that it's good to base drug and abortion policies on values even though science indicates that those value based policies do more societal harm than good? Is it a good policy to harm people as long as you are faithful to some set of values?
  - peoplewindow 9y ago
    Science can't really measure 'societal harm', it's not a well defined concept. The moment government delegates what 'societal harm' and 'societal benefit' mean to a bunch of self-proclaimed scientists they've effectively given up on democracy and delegated to a dictatorship of doctorates. But history shows us that having a PhD is hardly a magic talisman against dangerous or delusional thinking.
    - scotty79 9y ago
      Ok. What about the cases when value based policies have scientifically measurable effects exactly opposite to stated also value based goals of the policy? I.e. to reduce teen pregnancies we create policy of abstinence only sex education. You can measure that this policy causes exactly opposite effect yet value based lawmakers cling to it. As for scientific inability to objectively define societal harm... That's what's beautiful in science. You can define it any way you like and then measure how well policy causes the effects fulfilling the definition. You can define it as "less people addicted" or "less addicts homeless" or "less addicts without steady jobs" or "less people jailed for non violent crime" or "less violent crime". Definitions are plenty. But if you ignore any measurements by any definitions and make laws just based on your values then you are doing favor to noone.

ace_of_spades 9y ago

So what you are saying is that the republican party in its current form is unvotable. I agree. Even people holding dear republican aligned beliefs should take note and realize that the party is not able to act aligned with their own interest. I guess partisanship might simply be a huge problem because democrats can‘t recognize republicans as republicans any more - still because there are only 2 relevant parties - republicans don‘t see an alternative to the GOP and still go for the „in theory better aligned“ party. That should give any American pause to think and highlight the importance of choice when it comes to politics. Why not create a new republican party?

mcantelon 9y ago
>Why not create a new republican party? The system is heavily weighted in favor of the duopoly (televised debates, etc.). Fixing that might increase the odds a third party would be able to be a genuine contender, rather than simply splitting one side's vote.

tehwalrus 9y ago

> To simply dismiss facts that are being presented to you by experts, when you have a legal obligation to receive and consider such facts, is another matter entirely. That makes it sound like you can sue the FCC for not meeting their legal obligations here. Is that viable?

joshumax 9y ago
If I'm interpreting you correctly, you can totally sue the FCC for matters like this, and in fact, people are doing just that. [1] 1: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/state-attorneys-general-line-up-to-sue-fcc-over-net-neutrality-repeal/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/state-attorneys-...
- tehwalrus 9y ago
  Marvellous! :)

Al-Khwarizmi 9y ago

The party of deregulation cannot base its policy goals on facts, by definition. Because the idea that regulations and government intervention are universally bad and all sectors should be deregulated is a dogma that has been disproven by facts many times. So any party with that ideology goes against facts. For example, in healthcare, it's more than proven by countless studies that countries that provide universal healthcare not only provide better healthcare by almost any metric, but also spend much less in it than e.g. the US. So anyone that defends the broad idea that government intervention is bad goes against facts, period (as does someone that defends the idea that it's always good, of course - the only position compatible with facts is that some sectors may need more regulation and some may need less, on a case-by-case basis, with some individual cases arguable).