Americans fear government interference in their lives. It is a staple of contemporary politics. Moderate libertarianism has solidified itself in the recesses of American ideology.
This is probably why 74 Congressional democrats have signed a letter opposing net neutrality. They claim this is a fight against censorship. This is the liberal camp stepping back and deciding to oppose big government. This is a fight for the personal rights of Americans.
These things might be true if net neutrality actually was a policy encouraging censorship, but it isn’t. It is a policy opposing Internet censorship.
Net neutrality has emerged as the most widely misunderstood issue in politics. The average American sees it as the FCC sticking its nose further into our lives, a place where it doesn’t belong. Hogwash.
Net neutrality gives the FCC the power to regulate the ability of Internet service providers to dictate the online activities of their broadband customers. Stated more simply, net neutrality attempts to prevent censorship.
The letter that democrats signed specifically opposes the FCC’s intention to revise the Communications Act.
They want to reclassify broadband service in a way that allows them to enforce non-discrimination rules that would allow them to prevent providers such as Comcast from doing things like blocking information about their competitors.
They would be able to prevent Comcast from levying additional costs on their customers for using certain popular sites such as Facebook, Reddit or Twitter.
This letter isn’t an example of the democrats stepping up and fighting the good fight against censorship. It is an example of them once again wavering in the face of the incredibly effective republican spin machine.
It is an example of their inability to overcome the power of Fox News to make the American people think policies accomplish the opposite of what they accomplish in reality. It is yet another example of them backing down from a major lobby, this time that of telecommunications companies.
Information should be readily available and free of confinements. Remember, the Internet wasn’t born in the marketplace. It was the brainchild of research scientists at public universities who were using government funding to quickly share data.
ISPs emerged as a service to allow consumers to connect to this network of free information. It is only recently that these companies have attempted to redefine themselves as providing an information service, as opposed to a telecommunications service, in an attempt to dictate what is available.
ISPs no longer want their product to be viewed as a portal to information.
They want to claim that their product is the information itself. They want to claim that the information posted on the Internet for anyone and everybody to view actually belongs to them. They want to charge you extra money every month just to view Wikipedia, not because they created that website, but because they say so. And because the Democratic Party is too cowardly to say no.
In fact, the democrats will instead encourage it as a means of political expediency. They would rather let the spin machine win this one, instead of appealing to the senses of the American people. I’m serious. However, I think Americans might have some sense.
The Internet belongs to no one, and it certainly doesn’t belong to ISPs. Don’t allow Comcast to kidnap information and ransom out certain bits of it for extra monthly charges.
One of the democrats who signed the letter was Rep. Kurt Schrader of Oregon. Appeal to his senses. Encourage him to save our Internet from corporate interference.
– Rob Mink is an Oregon State U. junior in political science.