Matt Walsh:
Dear Net Neutrality Proponents,
You dear, sweet buffoons.
I know you’re quite impressed that the Federal Communications Commission just passed a sweeping set of regulations granting themselves control over the Internet. President Barack Obama considers this a glorious victory. Liberals and Democrats across the land are delighted. Even some corners of cyber space — the ones populated by masochists and nincompoops — are cheering loudly, excited to finally be under the jurisdiction of an enormous federal bureaucracy. Hallelujah!
Now, Gullible Americans, I realize that you think you’ve just been once again liberated from the shackles of the free market and whisked away to a fanciful land where Father Government makes sure everything is nice and fair and everyone is sharing their toys like good boys and girls. I know you are under this impression. I mean, I can’t blame you. It’s right there in the title. They call it “Net Neutrality,” for goodness sake! It’s neutral! Neutral means fair! Fair Internet! Who can quibble with a fair Internet! Only big bad corporations and their right wing minions, you think. Fox News and the Koch Brothers and Lex Luthor and other scary names.
The FCC tells us that Net Neutrality will give us a free and open Internet by granting them the power to regulate it under laws that were written 60 years before the Internet existed as a common household service. Consumers need to be protected from the possibility that Internet providers will block traffic to certain sites, or set up paid prioritization systems for consumers or web services who pay more. That’s what this is all about, you think. The FCC is looking out for the little guy again.
Good old FCC, always fighting for truth, justice, and bureaucratic control.
But, see, this is where I need you to stop and think, Gullible Americans. It’s too late now, but I need you to finally try to learn something here. The government is not the knight in shining armor you think it is — even when it’s run by Democrats.
Dig deeper. Don’t accept everything at face value.
The FCC is launching this invasion of the open internet (which already exists) to give us an open internet (which, like I said, already exists) using conjecture as its only basis.
Notice every article about Net Neutrality comes with words like “fears” and “might” and “could.”
The FCC fears that Internet service providers might block traffic and could offer two-tiered service and could do this and might do that and conceivably would do such and such. They aren’t addressing a problem that currently plagues American consumers; only a problem that they insist will probably plague us at some point.
As these ISPs have pointed out, they don’t actually offer paid “fast lanes,” so these regulations are a remedy in need of a sickness. Besides, my internet provider doesn’t charge me for faster service, or offer me a break for slower service, but I’m not sure I see why such an arrangement would be so unbearably evil. Plenty of hotels have a model like this, and I actually rather appreciate it. I can decide what kind of connection fits my needs, and pay accordingly. So what?
Thanks, FCC, but I don’t need your assistance. I’m not a damsel in distress; I’m just a consumer being presented with options.
Yet, in addressing the non-existent problem, the government often (well, always) creates the problem it was ostensibly attempting to solve. In fact, speaking of paid prioritization, did you hear the one about the TV station that was granted an exemption to FCC rules after its executive contributed thousands of dollars to the campaign of a prominent Democrat?
Paid prioritization brought to you by the agency now in charge of getting rid of paid prioritization. By the way, ever hear of lobbyists? Our entire system of government is run by politicians who legislatively prioritize according to who is giving them money. Indeed, Net Neutrality itself was achieved by billionaires like George Soros handing out millions of dollars to the right people and placing proponents on the White House staff. Net Neutrality happened because rich people paid to have it prioritized.
Just as outrageously, Julie Veach at the FCC announced a couple of days ago that Net Neutrality would be would be “sustainable, enforceable rules to preserve and protect the open Internet as a place for innovation and free expression.” Forget about the fact that an agency responsible for handing out millions of dollars in fines for expression it deems inappropriate is now knighting itself as the Protectors of Free Expression. The greater irony is that rules signed into law back when rotary phones were considered innovative are now being hoisted on the Internet in the name of innovation.
Are you laughing yet? Or crying? Or dropping to your knees and begging to be forgiven for your blind ignorance?
Yesterday the FCC head honcho gloated that the rules were passed after an “open and robust process.” Well, we better hope it was open, considering these are the guys now in charge of making the open Internet opener. Except his idea of an “open process” includes refusing to release the plan to the public until it was already voted on and passed by the commission.
