
Feds move to block California’s net neutrality law - MrWiffles
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21357013/justice-department-net-neutrality-fcc-law-throttling-isps
======
supernova87a
Sigh, these federal-state-local legal fights over single issues are so
exhausting to see, because they really point to no single coherent strategy
across our country. For so many issues.

Topic A -- certain state governors don't want to be mandated to do something
they don't like that's gaining popular support, and so declare / pass laws
that prevent localities from passing their own mandates (any current topic you
can think of?)

Topic B -- same or other state governors don't want to have federally mandated
rules on another topic, so go against the principle they just used for their
own localities, and say that they cannot be mandated to follow something they
disagree with.

Topic C -- yet another topic comes up where governors want everyone to follow
a certain guideline and not deviate, and insist that every locality _does_
follow top-down legislation, and get upset at other states that don't follow
the rule.

Topic D -- "states should have the right to try their own solutions" and not
be imposed upon by peanut-butter inappropriate federal solutions on things
they disagree with.

Topic E -- "states should follow rules given from the federal government" on
things they do agree with.

I'm sometimes exhausted by this patchwork. And principles that flap in the
wind.

~~~
zozin
That's the whole point of federalism/separation of powers. Our government is
not supposed to be efficient. This fact might not always make sense to those
obsessed with efficiency, such as as programmers, but in this case it's a
feature, not a bug.

Disputes between states and the federal government take years/decades to be
resolved, but I'd rather have our inefficient system over a more efficient one
that is far more prone to being taken over by demagogues and those who seek
ultimate power.

~~~
supernova87a
I understand that aspect of it, and am all in favor. Sometimes the greatest
benefit of our system is that it helps us avoid great folly and disaster,
rather than enabling great sudden advances.

What I can't stand is the principled, yet then flip-flop-on-principles, stands
people take per issue, only to have it switch with the next issue. It's
paralyzing us on important, urgent things that aren't decade-long debates that
should be had.

~~~
dfxm12
You have to understand that "states rights vs federal jurisdiction" is mostly
a useful excuse to try to sell constituents on policy that might be
unpopular/harmful to them or to try to sell judges that something might be
legal (or not).

It's simply not a legitimate concern to most politicians. Look into the voting
records of these flip-floppers. I'm sure you'll find that they more often than
not side with lobbyists rather than the will of their electorate.

~~~
okennedy
I think that's the GP's point. Contradicting previously expressed principles
shows how little the politician truly cares about those principles.
Politicians lying or exaggerating is not surprising, but it's unfortunate that
they don't get called on it by the media and/or public more often.

------
heimatau
Hopefully this won't go far. Federal law is supposed to be a minimum and
States can go more restrictive (i.e. regulation through NN).

~~~
tmaly
has there every been any major rulings on the 10th amendment? I think this
should be the issue here.

~~~
jcranmer
The Tenth Amendment doesn't mean what most of these arguments would have it
mean. The disputes center on the limits of federal power, and here the Tenth
Amendment merely tautologically says that the federal government doesn't have
any power it doesn't have. Because of the Supremacy Clause, the states don't
have any power to overrule the federal government, so the rest of it doesn't
really apply.

It should be noted that the original version of the text said "The powers not
_expressly_ delegated", but this version of text failed to pass Congress. It
was only after deleting that word that the amendment passed. That one word
change is key, since including that word would mean what people in these
arguments want it to mean, so its intentional omission destroys those
arguments.

~~~
tmaly
maybe we need to put that word back in.

------
shmerl
First they moved to strip FCC of its ability to preempt state regulations, and
now they want to sit on two chairs and regulate states? Too bad, they should
have thought about it when their corrupt monopolistic overlords paid them to
repeal federal net neutrality.

States should fight back against this foolery.

------
renewiltord
Dang, guess we don't really have a non-big-government states-rights party any
more.

BTW I'm still mad about Newsom screwing about with his no-IRV-in-California
decree. Not okay, Gavin. Not okay. Leave the decision making to the people
unless something gets ugly.

~~~
lwf
IRV == "instant runoff voting"?

~~~
renewiltord
Yes, sir. Only the grandfathered dudes (SF, Oakland, Berkeley, San Leandro,
Palm Desert) get to keep theirs.

[https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-
content/uploads/2019/10/SB-212-Vet...](https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-
content/uploads/2019/10/SB-212-Veto-Message.pdf)

Sorry to take this off-topic. I'll stop here. The connection was that I don't
generally like the bigger admin divisions stopping the smaller admin divisions
from doing things like this.

------
abvdasker
It seems absurd that the DOJ is using the FCC's argument that it didn't have
the authority to regulate ISPs to prevent states from regulating ISPs. If they
don't have the authority to regulate, how do they have the authority to stop
regulation?

I think the answer is pretty obviously not some kind of reasonable legal
argument, but simply that the corporations which _really_ run the Trump FCC
and DOJ do not want Net Neutrality regulations. Comcast's bottom line doesn't
care about rational legal arguments.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
The moneybags needs to stop meddling in policy. The only reason why they ever
meddle is to increase their own heft.

------
dependenttypes
Does net neutrality make it illegal to throttle ssh/bittorrent traffic?

------
wtracy
Who wants to bankroll me if I go create a rural ISP somewhere (probably
Nevada/Utah/Arizona, where regulation is lax), become a local hero for
providing broadband communication where the incumbents won't, then
throttle/censor Fox/Breitbart (maybe requiring a "premium subscription" for
access) and tell everyone who complains, "Hey, it's legal!"

Think maybe we could actually get the Republicans on board with net
neutrality?

~~~
epistasis
Current Republican ideology is not about a set of principles, it's about power
and partisanship. For example, when in power, change budgets to cause massive
deficit spending, when out of power, complain about the deficit being bad.

No Republicans there will even understand the point your trying to make, or at
best they will think you are foolish. After 40 years of demonization of
political opponents, it's all about "with us or against us."

~~~
sJ646U9k6c6gME9
> After 40 years of demonization of political opponents, it's all about "with
> us or against us."

This isn't a uniquely Republican point of view, nor is it as prevalent among
the Republican voter base as you imply.

Have you lived up north recently? Specifically the so-called "tech hubs" are
filled with vile and judgemental people who will stop at nothing in the
pursuit of groupthink and monoculture.

~~~
epistasis
When it comes to the political issue that I hold most dear, housing, I will
say that most liberals and lefties lose their supposed values when it's close
to home. NIMBY opposition to apartments and multi family housing is a shared
value, and it's only the Republicans in these areas who speak about their
honest opinions, where as liberals will invent all sorts of reasons to justify
their aesthetic preference, and ignore the chance for greater economic,
environmental, and racial justice in their own neighborhoods.

However, when it comes to rural areas, areas that don't even have leftists but
may have a few liberals, my experience is that the anti-lib stance is the
overriding view, along with being pro-gun, pro-God (at least in theory), and
pro-fossil fuel. It's a cultural war more than a political war, in-tribe
versus out-of-tribe. For Democrats, the culture war does not extend to
swapping values on the national stage depending on who is in power, it only
seems to be loca control of housing.

------
jdkfkror
Net neutrality needs to go.

Why should I, as a private ISP company, be forced to pass through racist
content, russian disinformation or anti vaxxer propaganda? If YouTube is
allowed to block content, why aren't ISP's also allowed? We need to call out
companies who tollerate hate speech.

You can always start your own ISP if you fancy those kinds of content.

~~~
lykr0n
You can't just go out and start an ISP.

That's like saying I can go out and start my own bank or make my own payment
processor.

~~~
borski
I agree with your sentiment (that you shouldn't _have_ to), but you actually
can do these things. People have started banks and payment processors, and
competed successfully with the bigger ones; Stripe is a great example, as is
Simple.

[https://startyourownisp.com](https://startyourownisp.com)

~~~
RangerScience
AFAIK Simple is not a bank, it's a (better) UI/UX wrapper around "bank", and
they've changed the underlying provider at least once since I've been using
them.

~~~
borski
Fair, but nevertheless: [https://www.americanbanker.com/list/new-banks-this-
year](https://www.americanbanker.com/list/new-banks-this-year)

