

The Tea Party Hates Net Neutrality Because It’s An ‘Affront’ To Free Speech. - edw519
http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/13/the-tea-party-hates-net-neutrality-because-its-an-affront-to-free-speech-umm/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo

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tptacek
Why would this surprise anyone? The "tea-party" people are independent-minded
socially and economically conservative Gingrich-style limited-government
Republicans. (I'm not one of those, but those aren't epithets; those words
describe many of my friends).

People who fall into that region of the Nolan Chart tend towards the
conviction that the markets are private concerns, and that regulation is a
cure worse than any conceivable disease.

I should add that while I'm a "big government leftist" on those charts, even I
have reservations about net neutrality _as a government policy issue_. It
looks like a slippery slope to me.

~~~
hga
Agreed; I'm a economic libertarian, otherwise a paleocon, except I break with
both in "foreign policy"/"defense". And I clearly see the net neutrally
problem, most easily explained with the conflict of interest between a telecom
company that has it's own TV offerings vs. you using them as a dumb pipe for a
la carte offerings they don't get any additional money for.

All that said, I find it extraordinarily difficult to imagine much if any good
coming out of proactive government policy; as SamAtt notes, we don't even have
to resort to theory to find examples of AngloSaxon (i.e. the most like ours)
governments abusing this sort of power.

OpieCunningham's analysis ignores the inconvenient fact that a company or
cabal of them can do only so much to me; the government(s) over me can
imprison or kill me. And it's largely through government power that they've
limited my choices (e.g. if I were to compete with them by setting up a WISP,
to whom do have to get spectrum from? That said, they do generally present a
nasty problem as the only source of back haul.)

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teilo
First of all, the "tea party" has no specific position on anything, because
there is no such thing as the "tea party" as an organization, with a charter,
platform, etc. It is a diffuse movement with no centralized structure of any
sort.

It is certain that those who identify themselves as tea-partiers certainly
tend to have a lot in common - including a belief in the free market, a
political outlook tending towards libetarianism, or lacking that, at least a
strict constructionist understanding of the Constitution.

But beyond that, you will find a huge variety of opinions among the group.
Some are pro Iraq war, some anti-war entirely. Some are pro death penalty,
others opposed to it under all circumstances. I think you will find the same
on net neutrality.

I generally identify with the group, but I am adamant that net neutrality must
be maintained to _protect_ free speech.

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OpieCunningham
This is just one example of the missing reality in the tea party/libertarian
philosophy. As others have pointed out, it comes down to whether you believe
government or corporations are better suited to ensure free speech. On the one
hand you ostensibly have democratic voting power to ensure government does
what you want (ensure free speech) and on the other you have your wallet to
ensure corporations do what you want.

The reality is that the wallet approach breaks down quickly in numerous
scenarios. In this particular scenario, effective competition is nearly
impossible due to the infrastructure costs associated with network
connectivity. If you don't like the behavior of one of the half dozen
providers, there is little incentive for any of the others to operate in a way
that you do like. With little to no capability to "start your own" 4G
provider, the half dozen corporations are under no pressure to ensure your
free speech or provide access to free speech.

There are numerous flaws with the power of voting, but none of them compare to
the flaw in effective corporate monopolies via massive infrastructure costs.

~~~
abrown28
the power of the wallet is more effective. Barriers to entry change over time.
Costs go down or disappear all together.

power of the vote works for a while until the citizen votes enough power to
the government then the only effective way to lower barriers and change things
is through large scale blood letting.

