This is the tipping point for me, mostly because I am technologically driven. Yes, I was and still am irked by the fact that there are so many misinformed people with recent debates concerning healthcare, torture and the war, to name a few (among a long list of similar items from the last 8-9 years), but this really has dropped things to a new low.
I can understand the ire pertaining certain issues as of recent.
With regards to torture: conservatives tend to feel it was and is necessary because they feel that is the only way we will extract information from the "scary people" (read: terrorists) - it has been done for thousands of years, why become hypocritical all the sudden?
Pertaining the healthcare debate: conservatives, and liberals alike, are in an uproar about the personal mandate, among other things, regarding the new healthcare bill. This is completely understandable - a lot of people don't feel it is necessary to get health insurance as they feel they are healthy, independent (i.e. lacking dependent minors) individuals.
Pertaining warrantless wiretapping: conservatives tend to believe that wiretapping was necessary because if we didn't do it we would not have had the tools to catch the terrorists. This is understandable - how can you determine if a phone call across the world is a terrorist or not?
This is not to say I am conservative with this delcared understanding. I am a hardcore liberal - anti-wiretapping, anti-torture, pro-healthcare reform (or insurance reform, however your fancy), etc. I am just saying I can fully understand the view point from the other side of the spectrum with certain recent issues - the fear is not completely baseless (although in a lot of cases the arguments from this side of the spectrum have been. Can any one say "death panels"?)
However, the recent celebration of recent blow to the FCC from the conservatives regarding net neutrality is the tipping point. How dumb can you be to be anti-net neutrality? How dumb can you be to politicize something that is not a political issue? How dumb can you be to think that, in the lack of regulation (net neutrality), big corporations will not be inclined to overstep their boundaries and become greedy?
Just on a quick side, for those unfamiliar with net neutrality: it is the simple belief that all internet traffic is and was created equal, that every packet that is sent over the internet deserves to be sent to your computer at the same speed with no discrimination, no selectivity and no priority.
So every day I check out Michelle Malkin's website to see what she is crying about (she, and her commenters, give me a good idea of what the far right are thinking about). Today I saw she was cheering the FCC's loss to Comcast concerning net neutrality. Her reasons for celebration were multiple:
- progressives lost
- the potential for less government regulation
- the FCC loss means it won't be able to "sneak" in "dirty" regulations - who wants to live in communist China where the government dictates what we see, agreed? sigh
To her and the rest of the conservative world, it seems like they don't even care about the issue (when they should). Their involvement with this particular issue is that it is nothing more than something progressives want, and if they lose then it is a win for conservatives (as if this standpoint is news in today's political climate). What really gets me is that these people don't seem to understand is that if net neutrality goes down it affects progressives AND CONSERVATIVES alike.
When someone asks me what I think about certain issues I will usually give a hard-liner liberal stance, however I am quick to offer a negative light to certain things. For example if someone asks me "Hey, what do you think about the healthcare bill?" I'll say something along the lines of "Oh America needed this...I am going to be in the healthcare field and I have seen firsthand blah blah...insurance premiums are going up blah blah...too much waste in the system that needed reforming...too many illegal discriminations...blah blah" followed immediately by "but the individual mandate is not good...the lack of a public option is no good...the fact that it will be a while until this stuff takes affect is not good...blah blah". But with net neutrality, I honestly can not, for the life of me, provide a single argument in favor of internet deregulation (anti-net neutrality). I can not see myself ever saying anything that would show favoring the cessation net neutrality. And honestly I can not see how any one in this country could support deregulating the internet, either, especially since everyone uses the internet in a very liberal manner. When was the last time you heard someone say "damn, YouTube has become too powerful, we need to make them pay ISP's so we can even the playing field so other video sites can compete?" I don't think they know that Google is operating YouTube at a loss (as are many sites on the internet).
So Michelle Malkin links to this video that is a primer on why net neutrality is not good. The main argument made by the person as to why we don't need net neutrality (outside the usual "if Al Gore supports it, then it is definitely bad" argument) is that we progressives are made up of a bunch of "hypotheticals" which we say will happen if net neutrality dies, and that this country has never actually seen any of this happen so it is a bunch of crap. Hypotheticals like:
*Well if we lose net neutrality, ISP's will have the ability to block sites that don't fit into their agenda, thereby dictating what websites they want you to visit.
*Well if we lose net neutrality, ISP's will strong arm companies with competing products to make them pay a premium to allow for their content to be delivered with similar speed and/or priority as the information provided by the ISP themselves.
Things like that. Yes, it sounds scary, yes, it has never occurred, but it has never occurred BECAUSE we have government regulations in place. And when it does occur, if it does occur, the company in question incurs governmental wrath (get your $16 from Comcast right here). These ISP's claim they won't do such things, just like the healthcare companies claimed they wouldn't raise premiums, but what is to say they WON'T do such things? Without regulations - nothing!
What these idiots don't seem to realize that, as mentioned earlier, loss of net neutrality will affect conservatives and liberals, alike. So, Ms. Michelle Malkin, you own your own website, michellemalkin.com. And if net neutrality dies and ISP's force you and other website owners to pay a premium to have yours and their content delivered with the same speed and priority as the information that they, the ISP's, prefer to provide their customers, will you pay it? Doubtful. Sure, it may never happen even if net neutrality dies, but just think about the possibility that it does come to pass. This goes for you too, redstate, and you too, generic-conservative-website. You aren't exempt either, Fox News. Comcast has no vested interest in you. If, for example, Comcast buys out NBC and therefore owns the rights to MSNBC and MSNBC.com, Comcast will put MSNBC.com on the fast lane and make you pay for the same access. Disney / ABC (Fox News Light)? You won't be exempt either. Again, if Comcast buys out NBC, it gives them the rights to NBC Sports, and thus NBC Sports.com, allowing them to put NBCSports.com in the fast lane and making you pay to allow ESPN.com to have the same priorities.
There is no rational argument that any sane internet end user like you (the loyal DailyKos reader) or I can make in favor of killing net neutrality. Sure you will get the radicals who will say if we don't kill net neutrality, the government will slip in new regulations that will make us something out of 1984 where the government controls what we can read on the internet. Look at China, right? The problem is that such actions would violate the first amendment and incur the wrath of the courts, something the Chinese don't really care about. Please provide me of an example where the US government is blocking or blocked access to a website where the website didn't involve the distribution of illegal or deplorable material like child porn, murder, rape, anarchist materials, etc. I am waiting...
Until then, make sure to educate people as to the merits of net neutrality, because god knows they won't hear it from their favorite news network...