4 ms·

The worst thing that ever happened was liberals wrapping their arms around Net Neutrality and claiming it as “their” issue. This immediately caused a knee jerk

The worst thing that ever happened was liberals wrapping their arms around Net Neutrality and claiming it as “their” issue. This immediately caused a knee jerk reaction in conservatives who will oppose anything liberals will support and thus the coalition to repeal Net Neutrality was born and ultimately triumphed.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
devwastaken 8y ago
I think that's a very partisan way of looking at a complex issue. 'liberals wrapping their arms around net neutrality' is not why net neutrality is being repealed, and not why the coalition to repeal Net Neutrailty was created. You can look towards the significant amount of contributions to various politicians and individuals in government that have come from ISP's and see quite a clear picture of the source of NN being repealed.
- tphan 8y ago
  I just want to raise a couple of points. It's not necessarily always true that corporate donations are simply to bribe politicians into doing their bidding (which is what I took away when I read your commend). Companies will give money to politicians who are already aligned with their interests. I watched a video once which tried to address the idea that Ted Cruz was being bribed by Comcast. Once of the arguments put forward was, sure, he may have received donations from some Comcast employees. However we shouldn't conflate that to mean Comcast was paying him money. Other politicians like Hillary and Bernie also would have received donations from Comcast employees. Also, opponents of Net Neutrality actually do make some good points against the role of government in regulating the internet. Here's a debate where Nick Gillespie (a libertarian) and Michael Katz argue against Mitchell Baker and Tom Wheeler on whether NN is good. By the end of the debate, Nick and Michael are able to convince more people to consider opposing NN than to support: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAJabAjoK08 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAJabAjoK08
  - devwastaken 8y ago
    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7xwknx/republican-members-of-congress-fcc-letter https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7xwknx/republican... The difference between giving money to change alignment, and 'already being aligned', is appearances. It's still money being sent, and that absolutely influences the individual being funded. It's a complete conflict of interest, and especially in this case it's an absurd amount of money being sent to many politicians, not just one. I think there are some good points against NN. Such as the FTC's role in investigating unfair practices. But the FTC is always playing catch-up when it comes to the myriad of bad practices ISP's get up to. With the repeal of NN there has been no real replacement to prevent the ISP monopolies from being unfair, as they have done in the past. I generally side with libertarian arguments and that markets can do a better job. But in the U.S, we have monopalies. ISP's grew under non-NN rules, and there are significant anti-competative practices to blame rather than the easy one of 'regulation'.
erikpukinskis 8y ago
Is this what politics has come to? If liberals want conservatives to help with an important issue, they have to pretend to be against it so conservatives won’t have a tantrum? Maybe. Stealth liberalism.
Faark 8y ago
I'm from a country with a reasonable voting system that allows more than two parties to exist. This allows more than two political idea clusters to oppose each other. This might surprise US citizens, but the big parties here don't have polar opposite positions on every issue. Quite the opposite, but once the become similar a voter can actually choose smaller competing party without hurting his own position. It disturbs me how rarely US citizens criticize their FPTP voting system, even though I understand how hard it would be to get rid of it (only FPTP winners could get rid of it). But still it seems so dangerous, especially now where people more than ever can live their own media environment without common consensus. Anything but FPTP.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

devwastaken 8y ago

I think that's a very partisan way of looking at a complex issue. 'liberals wrapping their arms around net neutrality' is not why net neutrality is being repealed, and not why the coalition to repeal Net Neutrailty was created. You can look towards the significant amount of contributions to various politicians and individuals in government that have come from ISP's and see quite a clear picture of the source of NN being repealed.

tphan 8y ago
I just want to raise a couple of points. It's not necessarily always true that corporate donations are simply to bribe politicians into doing their bidding (which is what I took away when I read your commend). Companies will give money to politicians who are already aligned with their interests. I watched a video once which tried to address the idea that Ted Cruz was being bribed by Comcast. Once of the arguments put forward was, sure, he may have received donations from some Comcast employees. However we shouldn't conflate that to mean Comcast was paying him money. Other politicians like Hillary and Bernie also would have received donations from Comcast employees. Also, opponents of Net Neutrality actually do make some good points against the role of government in regulating the internet. Here's a debate where Nick Gillespie (a libertarian) and Michael Katz argue against Mitchell Baker and Tom Wheeler on whether NN is good. By the end of the debate, Nick and Michael are able to convince more people to consider opposing NN than to support: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAJabAjoK08 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAJabAjoK08
- devwastaken 8y ago
  https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7xwknx/republican-members-of-congress-fcc-letter https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7xwknx/republican... The difference between giving money to change alignment, and 'already being aligned', is appearances. It's still money being sent, and that absolutely influences the individual being funded. It's a complete conflict of interest, and especially in this case it's an absurd amount of money being sent to many politicians, not just one. I think there are some good points against NN. Such as the FTC's role in investigating unfair practices. But the FTC is always playing catch-up when it comes to the myriad of bad practices ISP's get up to. With the repeal of NN there has been no real replacement to prevent the ISP monopolies from being unfair, as they have done in the past. I generally side with libertarian arguments and that markets can do a better job. But in the U.S, we have monopalies. ISP's grew under non-NN rules, and there are significant anti-competative practices to blame rather than the easy one of 'regulation'.

erikpukinskis 8y ago

Is this what politics has come to? If liberals want conservatives to help with an important issue, they have to pretend to be against it so conservatives won’t have a tantrum? Maybe. Stealth liberalism.

Faark 8y ago

I'm from a country with a reasonable voting system that allows more than two parties to exist. This allows more than two political idea clusters to oppose each other. This might surprise US citizens, but the big parties here don't have polar opposite positions on every issue. Quite the opposite, but once the become similar a voter can actually choose smaller competing party without hurting his own position. It disturbs me how rarely US citizens criticize their FPTP voting system, even though I understand how hard it would be to get rid of it (only FPTP winners could get rid of it). But still it seems so dangerous, especially now where people more than ever can live their own media environment without common consensus. Anything but FPTP.