Net Neutrality: It's on the loose!
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Don't you just love regulating corporations?

Net Neutrality is a great issue for progressives. For the last few months its become an increasingly big deal here in D.C. Now, those great characters over at Talking Points Memo are doing a tally of the positions of various members of Congress, just as they did for Social Security Privatization. The New Republic just came out with a pro-Net Neutrality editorial. And today CAP will be hosting King of Net Neutrality Larry Lessig for a lecture on the future of the interweb.

You should also check out a good run-down of the issue by Ezra Klein (American Prospect writer, "health care guy," raconteur) published in the prestigious journal, Campus Progress.

This strikes me as one of those big issues that will affect almost everything we do, from politics to finance to procrastinating at work (don't tell my bosses, but 90% of my day is spent at YouTube. You think they'd exist if they had to pay out the nose for bandwidth? Nuh-uh.) It's also a great way for us to embody the progressive philosophy of activist government protecting the little guy against the excesses of too much capitalism.

So, get in touch with your Senators about the bill, and tell them to vote for neutrality. And if their position isn't up at Talking Points Memo yet, be sure to find out what it is and let Josh and the gang know.

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Is there an actual argument here...
By Superduperficial Jun 16th 2006 at 3:06 pm EDT
...Other than selfishness if the other party involved is a corporation?

The National Review's editorial against net neutrality strikes me as one of the better pieces written on the topic.

Link

An unthinking preference for regulation of anyone finding new ways to make a profit isn't terribly "progressive".
Re: Is there an actual argument here...
By TimFernholz Jun 19th 2006 at 10:20 am EDT
Of course there is. The corporation thing is a joke; after all, corporations aren't evil, they're amoral. If you take a look at the various articles linked to in the original post, you'll note that the dangers of deregulating the internet is that it will destroy its egalitarian spirit: Only those wealthy enough to pay bandwith fees will be able to produce and access content. And that's a danger to democracy: What if a partisan of any stripe controls the a large portion of internet access? We've already seen how politics has been negatively affected by media consolidation in 2004, with the distribution of anti-Kerry propaganda as news by one prominent cable T.V. company. So yes, there're arguments, and good ones. The internet is a public resource that shouldn't be sold out for the sole reason of more profits for corporations: is there any other reason that we should oppose net neutrality?
  
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