Explaining Net Neutrality In A Way Tea Partiers Can Understand

[babylonsister]

Send this to all your teabaggin' friends! :popcorn: :hide:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_08/025194.php

EXPLAINING NET NEUTRALITY IN A WAY TEA PARTIERS CAN UNDERSTAND.... Apparently, Tea Party groups and leaders have been giving net neutrality a look, and they've decided they don't like it.

A coalition that included 35 tea party groups sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Wednesday urging the agency not to boost its authority over broadband providers through a controversial process known as reclassification. <...>

The Virginia Tea Party Patriot Federation was among the groups that signed the letter. Jamie Radtke, the group's chairman, said interest in net neutrality is rising in the tea party movement. <...>

Radke said the tea party opposition to net neutrality stems from concerns over increased government power. "I think the clearest thing is it's an affront to free speech and free markets," she said.

Now, like most of this crowd's positions, that's obviously backwards. In fact, watching the Tea Partiers for a while now, there seems to be one common thread to all of their positions: seemingly well-intentioned, but deeply confused, people let their anti-government zealotry get in the way of reason.

In the case of net neutrality, the whole point of the debate is to prevent service providers from favoring some content and applications over others. In the dispute between consumers (the American public) and providers (corporate media giants), Tea Partiers have chosen to fight for the latter.

These conservatives are convinced this has something to do with free speech. That doesn't make any sense.

Let's put this in a way Tea Partiers can understand. Let's say Mr. and Mrs. Tea Party Zealot love to use the Internet for political activism -- they frequent right-wing websites, send around clips of Hannity and Limbaugh, organize right-wing events, post sycophantic praise on Sarah Palin's website, the works.

But let's say their service provider is a (cue scary music) liberal company, which contributes heavily to Democrats. The media giant that this family pays for Internet access wants to make it easy for customers to access socialist content, send around pictures of Karl Marx, coordinate with the New Black Panther Party, and send money to gay illegal immigrants, but would make it exceedingly difficult to access RedState.com, visit Glenn Beck's activist sites, access Palin's Facebook age, etc.

At that point, Mr. and Mrs. Tea Party Zealot would probably be pretty unhappy. It's not fair, they'd conclude, that some Internet content (which they don't want) is easily accessible, while other content (stuff they do want) is slow and difficult. What they'd prefer is a level playing field, where all content is equally easy to reach.

What they want, in other words, is net neutrality.

—Steve Benen

Related:

Tea party groups out against net neutrality
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8938818

[derby378]

1. They want whatever their corporate masters tell them to want

It's like a real-life version of The Matrix, and folks like you and I are mercifully unplugged from the machine.

[PA Democrat]

2. LOL.. That explanation is priceless.

It really is sad how easily the tea party people are misled.

Recommended and bookmarked.

[fascisthunter]

3. Should have stated that the liberal provider was the only provider

in general, right wingers never purchase anything from companies perceived as liberal.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

4. Too.Stupid.To.Educate.

The positions they hold identify them as too entrenched to be able to reach with logic or reason.

[DevonRex]

5. This goes on FB. Thanks babylonsister. :) K&R nt

[TheKentuckian]

6. Fine point if it can drift through the fog. Unfortunately, I think most are irretrievable

I think we'd all be better off to stop worrying about what the mouth breathing segment thinks and to shove down their throats till they explode and can be dealt with, die and can be ignored, or evolve so they can join the modern world.

[Enthusiast]

7. Yeah. You could show

them and they still wouldn't believe it. Unless it came from Glenn Beck's mouth.