8 ms·

> This vote seems like the best chance of maintaining NN at the national level. Shame, because this vote is incredibly predictable by anyone who has been payin

> This vote seems like the best chance of maintaining NN at the national level. Shame, because this vote is incredibly predictable by anyone who has been paying any attention at all. Republicans are on the bullet train to dismantle and sell off the government to the highest bidders. This vote goes straight down party lines. But, it'll be an easy banner for Dems to hoist in November to rally voters, since it's categorical that Americans do not want this madness from the FCC to continue.

matte_black 9y ago
This is an easy opportunity for Republicans to show they can be bipartisan without actually risking much, given the widespread support there is for Net Neutrality. Later they can attack Democrats for not being more bipartisan on one of their issues.
- JauntyHatAngle 9y ago
  >This is an easy opportunity for Republicans to show they can be bipartisan without actually risking much Except this matters to their donors, and falls in line with the political ideology of current republicans, so why would they go against it?
renlo 9y ago
I thought that was the point the article was positing; it's a symbolic vote to get Republicans on the record for their support of an unpopular position.
- Steltek 9y ago
  I think what people fail to realize is that it's not unpopular enough and not with the right people. For the GOP base, they may disagree wholeheartedly but what are they going to do? Vote for a abortionist gun-grabbing Democrat? For Dems, the best use of these things is barrage the election cycle with negative news about the GOP. Failed policies, bad ideas, myopic leadership. Bad bad bad bad. Suck the energy right out the way the Clinton investigation did in 2016.
  - philovivero 9y ago
    Also, everyone to the right of Antifa have been told Net Neutrality was disguised legislation to censor conservative opinions. Given how completely Twitter, Facebook, Google, et al censor right-leaning political opinions, and they're big pro-NN orgs, it wasn't a hard sell. Unfortunately, NN has become yet another casualty in these weird post-fact times.
    - lurr 9y ago
      > Given how completely Twitter, Facebook, Google, et al censor right-leaning political opinions Right-leaning opinions which violate their TOS. big difference. I'm pro merit based immigration and feel entirely comfortable tweeting that (if I had a twitter, never saw the point).
    - wooter 9y ago
      weird post fact times? heres a CMU taught, Cambridge written paper that concludes: "we never had network neutrality in the past, and I do not believe we should engineer for it in the future either." Its the exact condescension and willful ignorance of intelligent opposition in this thread that so characterizes the left. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~srini/15-744/papers/p49-crowcroft.pdf http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~srini/15-744/papers/p49-crowcroft.pdf
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        We've had net neutrality as official FCC policy with different enforcement mechanisms from 2005 until 2017. Being “CMU taught, Cambridge written” apparently doesn't stop the paper from being blatantly wrong and simple, easily verifiable facts.
        wooter 9y ago
        Absolute nonsense. What mechanisms? The cases of fraud or misrepresentation are just that. Not preemptive regulation like NN.
sumedh 9y ago
> since it's categorical that Americans do not want this madness As an outsider it is kind of amusing when I see lines like "Americans do not want" said by both Democrats and Republicans.
- comicjk 9y ago
  Often these statements are carefully phrased to be correct. For instance, most Americans want to "protect gun rights", and also have "common sense gun laws". These two slogans don't conflict, but the politicians who push them clearly do. In the case of Net Neutrality, a survey which started by giving people pros and cons of net neutrality found 83% support for it, while another which phrased it as "government regulation" found over 50% opposed. I would call this a good argument against government by referendum. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/12/12/this-poll-gave-americans-a-detailed-case-for-and-against-the-fccs-net-neutrality-plan-the-reaction-among-republicans-was-striking/?utm_term=.1ce507f6f525 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/12/12...
  - mrguyorama 9y ago
    I find it a good argument for increasing education funding, especially in the non-STEM fields
- awalton 9y ago
  Luckily in this case I can point to the data the FCC collected themselves. After it's been denoised/despammed, it's almost unitary that legitimate comments supported net neutrality. Of course, the FCC was very quick to completely dismiss the entire data set, and didn't even refer to it in their final decision because it was so filled with bots spamming the list with identical submissions from dead people and even apparently Barack Obama - the very person who asked the FCC to take the strong stance in the first place. But, who would have expected any different from a government this steeped in corruption and controversy. It's okay though. You're an outsider. You can easily miss the nuance of this conversation as it's played out on Hacker News literally every single working day.
- int_19h 9y ago
pdonis 9y ago
> Republicans are on the bullet train to dismantle and sell off the government to the highest bidders. This is equally true of the Democrats; they just have a different set of preferred highest bidders.
- untog 9y ago
  No it is not. Republicans are far more dedicated to the task of destroying government than Democrats are. I agree that some Democratic senators have historically been pretty shitty on the topic of net neutrality but this false equivalence nonsense needs to stop. Republicans will sell off national parks, shut down the EPA and FDA and shut down any banking regulation you put in front of them.
  - meddlepal 9y ago
    I agree that some Republican senators have historically been pretty shitty on the topic of FDA, EPA and banking regulation but this false narrative of all Republicans are evil needs to stop.
    - awalton 9y ago
      > this false narrative of all Republicans are evil needs to stop. Then perhaps they should stop being evil. Republicans should fight the evil within their own party and drive it out. They should ask for the resignation of abusers, and voters should fire the ones that don't resign. Republicans shouldn't throw money behind suspected child molesters. Republicans shouldn't rescind laws that the vast majority of Americans want because Verizon and Comcast filled their coffers. Republicans shouldn't attack various races, religions, and immigrants, and should condemn anyone who does. Republicans should come out strongly against Neo-Nazis rallying and using their political party as a facade. Republicans should stop fighting so hard to stop voters from voting - removing registered voters, gerrymandering and voter suppression laws are categorically anti-American practices and need to stop. Republicans should want to work with the Democrats to come to a healthcare agreement everyone can live with, if they truly find the ACA so reprehensible despite amending over a hundred times and then voting for it. Once the Republicans start acting like a conservative party and not an extremist organization, then maybe we can change the tone of the conversation back to "reaching across the aisle" and being friends despite not agreeing on the tax brackets or which companies get which subsidies. But sadly that's not the state of political discourse in this country in 2018. The "Good" Republicans need to make their voices heard above the wailing of the lunatics currently running the asylum. The "Evil" Republicans need to be removed from office. And we need strong assurances that our democracy won't ever crumble like this again.

matte_black 9y ago

This is an easy opportunity for Republicans to show they can be bipartisan without actually risking much, given the widespread support there is for Net Neutrality. Later they can attack Democrats for not being more bipartisan on one of their issues.

JauntyHatAngle 9y ago
>This is an easy opportunity for Republicans to show they can be bipartisan without actually risking much Except this matters to their donors, and falls in line with the political ideology of current republicans, so why would they go against it?

renlo 9y ago

I thought that was the point the article was positing; it's a symbolic vote to get Republicans on the record for their support of an unpopular position.

Steltek 9y ago
I think what people fail to realize is that it's not unpopular enough and not with the right people. For the GOP base, they may disagree wholeheartedly but what are they going to do? Vote for a abortionist gun-grabbing Democrat? For Dems, the best use of these things is barrage the election cycle with negative news about the GOP. Failed policies, bad ideas, myopic leadership. Bad bad bad bad. Suck the energy right out the way the Clinton investigation did in 2016.
- philovivero 9y ago
  Also, everyone to the right of Antifa have been told Net Neutrality was disguised legislation to censor conservative opinions. Given how completely Twitter, Facebook, Google, et al censor right-leaning political opinions, and they're big pro-NN orgs, it wasn't a hard sell. Unfortunately, NN has become yet another casualty in these weird post-fact times.
  - lurr 9y ago
    > Given how completely Twitter, Facebook, Google, et al censor right-leaning political opinions Right-leaning opinions which violate their TOS. big difference. I'm pro merit based immigration and feel entirely comfortable tweeting that (if I had a twitter, never saw the point).
  - wooter 9y ago
    weird post fact times? heres a CMU taught, Cambridge written paper that concludes: "we never had network neutrality in the past, and I do not believe we should engineer for it in the future either." Its the exact condescension and willful ignorance of intelligent opposition in this thread that so characterizes the left. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~srini/15-744/papers/p49-crowcroft.pdf http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~srini/15-744/papers/p49-crowcroft.pdf
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      We've had net neutrality as official FCC policy with different enforcement mechanisms from 2005 until 2017. Being “CMU taught, Cambridge written” apparently doesn't stop the paper from being blatantly wrong and simple, easily verifiable facts.
      - wooter 9y ago
        Absolute nonsense. What mechanisms? The cases of fraud or misrepresentation are just that. Not preemptive regulation like NN.

sumedh 9y ago

> since it's categorical that Americans do not want this madness As an outsider it is kind of amusing when I see lines like "Americans do not want" said by both Democrats and Republicans.

comicjk 9y ago
Often these statements are carefully phrased to be correct. For instance, most Americans want to "protect gun rights", and also have "common sense gun laws". These two slogans don't conflict, but the politicians who push them clearly do. In the case of Net Neutrality, a survey which started by giving people pros and cons of net neutrality found 83% support for it, while another which phrased it as "government regulation" found over 50% opposed. I would call this a good argument against government by referendum. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/12/12/this-poll-gave-americans-a-detailed-case-for-and-against-the-fccs-net-neutrality-plan-the-reaction-among-republicans-was-striking/?utm_term=.1ce507f6f525 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/12/12...
- mrguyorama 9y ago
  I find it a good argument for increasing education funding, especially in the non-STEM fields
awalton 9y ago
Luckily in this case I can point to the data the FCC collected themselves. After it's been denoised/despammed, it's almost unitary that legitimate comments supported net neutrality. Of course, the FCC was very quick to completely dismiss the entire data set, and didn't even refer to it in their final decision because it was so filled with bots spamming the list with identical submissions from dead people and even apparently Barack Obama - the very person who asked the FCC to take the strong stance in the first place. But, who would have expected any different from a government this steeped in corruption and controversy. It's okay though. You're an outsider. You can easily miss the nuance of this conversation as it's played out on Hacker News literally every single working day.
int_19h 9y ago

pdonis 9y ago

> Republicans are on the bullet train to dismantle and sell off the government to the highest bidders. This is equally true of the Democrats; they just have a different set of preferred highest bidders.

untog 9y ago
No it is not. Republicans are far more dedicated to the task of destroying government than Democrats are. I agree that some Democratic senators have historically been pretty shitty on the topic of net neutrality but this false equivalence nonsense needs to stop. Republicans will sell off national parks, shut down the EPA and FDA and shut down any banking regulation you put in front of them.
- meddlepal 9y ago
  I agree that some Republican senators have historically been pretty shitty on the topic of FDA, EPA and banking regulation but this false narrative of all Republicans are evil needs to stop.
  - awalton 9y ago
    > this false narrative of all Republicans are evil needs to stop. Then perhaps they should stop being evil. Republicans should fight the evil within their own party and drive it out. They should ask for the resignation of abusers, and voters should fire the ones that don't resign. Republicans shouldn't throw money behind suspected child molesters. Republicans shouldn't rescind laws that the vast majority of Americans want because Verizon and Comcast filled their coffers. Republicans shouldn't attack various races, religions, and immigrants, and should condemn anyone who does. Republicans should come out strongly against Neo-Nazis rallying and using their political party as a facade. Republicans should stop fighting so hard to stop voters from voting - removing registered voters, gerrymandering and voter suppression laws are categorically anti-American practices and need to stop. Republicans should want to work with the Democrats to come to a healthcare agreement everyone can live with, if they truly find the ACA so reprehensible despite amending over a hundred times and then voting for it. Once the Republicans start acting like a conservative party and not an extremist organization, then maybe we can change the tone of the conversation back to "reaching across the aisle" and being friends despite not agreeing on the tax brackets or which companies get which subsidies. But sadly that's not the state of political discourse in this country in 2018. The "Good" Republicans need to make their voices heard above the wailing of the lunatics currently running the asylum. The "Evil" Republicans need to be removed from office. And we need strong assurances that our democracy won't ever crumble like this again.