Originally Posted by constitutionalist
Sounds great, except for one problem: much of our government already is corrupt, so this already exits the realm of theory. On to your point of corrupted unions (at least labor unions), there is no question these have proven easily corruptible as well. In fact, the long, incestuous trail of quid pro quo between labor union bosses and government officials goes back well over a century and it's dirty; very dirty. But we're not talking a labor union here. Consumer advocacy unions are quite something else and have had a much better track record, partly because of better transparency brought about by greater accountability (unlike the government and labor unions, contributions and membership is voluntary).
Another problem with government telling ISPs what to do with their networks is that government officials, often corrupt, self-interested government officials have agendas far from altruistic ones; and when altruistic, far from well-informed (a fact amplified by the total lack of private sector experience within this current administration, as well as some others before it). That's not to say I don't think there should be any regulation; I just think you and I might disagree where that line should fall. Certainly, wherever Comcast acts in an anti-competitive manner by blocking access to Direct TV, there is reason for intervention. In fact, there are already laws on the books for that and even better, Direct TV, if it feels injured, has a team of lawyers to battle it out in civil court - thus the consumer wins. The best way to deal with Comcast and bit torrent is not for the government to say it can't block bittorrent. Rather, it's for consumers to pull together and begin throwing their weight around. If even 20 percent of Comcast users said, "alright, we've had enough and we're leaving, early term fee or not", Comcast would sit up. As it is now in the first place, no one knows if any more than a tiny handful of people were truly harmed by Comcast practices and Comcast doesn't respect its customers but simply sends its lawyers out to find the latest loophole in government regulation knowing it will likely take years for those loopholes to be fixed, especially as Comcast, the effective new owner of NBC - a network quite friendly to the current government - greases palms and hosts fancy luncheons inside the Beltway.
But of course in the case of Comcast, one also wonders how many people were really "harmed" by its practice. While my sympathies absolutely lie with those who wish to be free to use bit torrent, I have to say, I bet it was a tiny number of customers, who, thanks to the free market system, have the choice of which broadband provider they prefer to use (or in certain rural areas, where Comcast is the only broadband provider, may have to wait, but I doubt anyone is going to die in the meantime). The point is, if enough people demand a service, someone will sell it and make it available. Unfortunately, big government and it's endless string of yesteryear regulations kills the ability of the market to respond in this manner.
In the meantime, you already have politically-motivated government types (and of course, the problem is that is redundant), expressing that they would like to use Net Neutrality as an open door through which to regulate certain types of political speech on the internet at the same time that several top FCC officials have also called for regulation of political blogs and news sites, restricting editorials and forcing them to advocate views with which they are not sympathetic in order to be permitted to advocate their own. And then there is the FEC, which is looking into whether political blogs and news sites can be censored and fined for supporting views, policies, and candidates during an election year. In all, we have three separate bureaucracies advocating policies that would likely give Vladimir Putin a controlgasm. A slippery slope, to be sure, but again not theory but something already happening.
|