You need to pay for those Ayn Rand Youtubes kids
by digby
Some things are more important than the universal freedom to communicate and learn:
Dear Conservative,
Big government can’t seem to keep its hands off of anything.
The latest insult: President Obama and the Federal Communications Commission are going to take over the Internet on February 26th if we don’t do everything we can do to stop them right now.
A plan deceivingly referred to as “Net Neutrality,” involves declaring the Internet a “public utility” and gives the FCC the power to decide what Internet service providers can charge and how they operate. This is not only a direct attack on the free market, but it will also result in an increase in Internet access fees for millions of consumers in America. It’s a massive tax on the middle class, plain and simple.
The details are complicated but here’s the truth: If “Net Neutrality” is passed, for the first time ever, the Internet will be under the rule of an antiquated regulation designed for land line telephones. President Obama wants to take something that’s working just fine, and tie it up in red tape–sound familiar? We’ve seen this movie before–it’s called ObamaCare.
The FCC plans to vote on Feb. 26th on whether or not the government should take their usual heavy handed approach to controlling the Internet or do the right thing and leave it alone.
I need your help to tell President Obama and the FCC: “Don’t mess with the Internet!”
An unregulated Internet has been the single greatest catalyst in history for individual liberty and free markets on the planet. It has created the greatest revolution since Henry Ford invented the Model T.
Let’s get this straight–technology has progressed because it has been driven by a free and open Internet–not because of DC bureaucrats. This latest attempt to regulate the web threatens to interrupt that positive innovation, set the market back, and kill jobs.
A free, flourishing Internet is as important as anything man has ever created. But those freedoms are under assault.
Please, stand with me and help protect Internet freedom by signing this petition today.
These attempts to regulate the Internet are a direct attack on the freedom of information and an innovative market. The government needs to stay out of the way.
Free markets are worth protecting. Please tell your friends, your families, that there’s nothing neutral about net neutrality. We have to stop this aggressive, invasive, and harmful regulation and we need all the help we can get to do it.
Sincerely,
Senator Rand Paul
Whenever there’s a choice to be made between Big Money being “free” to keep every last penny they touch and average people having the opportunity and the freedom to live a decent life, you know what he will choose. To the libertarian, abstract notions of liberty really just come down to property. That’s all there is. That’s why the words “parents own the children” trips so easily off of Paul’s tongue. He literally can’t see the world in any other way.
Meanwhile, our other defenders of freedom on the right have a cunning plan:
GOP leaders are mounting a multipronged attack on Chairman Tom Wheeler’s rules, which would tighten regulation of Internet service providers to ensure all Web traffic is treated equally. They’ve launched investigations into alleged White House interference in the FCC process, drafted an alternative and weaker net neutrality bill, complained the agency is drawing up plans behind closed doors — and even used net neutrality as a political rallying cry to supporters.
The moves amount to an emerging game plan for how Republicans plan to oppose the net neutrality rules, which have the backing of President Barack Obama. While the FCC’s Democratic majority is expected to approve Wheeler’s proposal at its Feb. 26 meeting, the GOP is doing everything it can to cause a delay — or make the move as politically painful as possible.
“The reason you’re seeing so much activity is because there’s so much fundamentally wrong with what the FCC and the White House is doing to regulate the Internet,” said former Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.), who now serves as honorary co-chairman of Broadband for America, a nonprofit supported by the telecommunications industry. “On substance, there are fundamental problems with this kind of an over-reaching regulatory approach. In terms of process, there are fundamental problems with the way this has been pursued.”
House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) have both announced probes into whether the White House improperly influenced the FCC, which is an independent agency.
Obama inserted himself into the debate last fall, calling on the FCC to regulate broadband like a utility — a tough approach ultimately endorsed by Wheeler. While nothing prevents the president from expressing his views, the question of White House influence over the new rules is catnip for both Chaffetz and Johnson, who are new to their committee leadership posts and eager to seize their oversight roles.
“He’s supposed to be an independent agency,” Johnson said in an interview off the Senate floor Tuesday, referring to Wheeler. “We’re trying to find the communications between himself and the White House, his agency and the White House, to see if this really was an independent act.”
There’s more to their plan, none of which will make much difference. This will end up being decided by the courts. Considering how political that court is, I’d guess they’ll side with the telcoms who want to screw average people. It’s a matter of principle for them.
The grand hall where Sen. Rand Paul spoke on Thursday was festooned with six gold chandeliers, velvet drapes, tapestries commemorating the great conquerors of the world—Magellan, Columbus, Vespucci, Cortez—and covering the majority of the back wall, an enormous American flag.
In what was billed as a “fireside chat” with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington during Lincoln Labs’ Reboot Congress conference at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Paul broached a wide range of topics, including one that he was not too thrilled to talk about—vaccines. There was no fireplace, or visible fire, in the room.
Republicans across the board are racing to court the tech sector—both for its dynamism and its funding—ahead of 2016. Thursday’s conference gave Paul a shot to try and show why he stands apart from the ever-growing pack, and why his brand of libertarian politics has the most to offer Silicon Valley.
When Arrington told Paul he had a question about vaccines, Paul quipped back, “You don’t want to be shushed, do you?” Arrington quickly ingratiated himself. “I loved that, by the way,” he said, referring to Paul’s contentious CNBC interview earlier this month.
He went on to defend his original comments to CNBC, in which he said, “I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.”
“I didn’t allege there is a connection,” Paul said on Thursday. “I said I have heard of people who have said there is a connection.”
Aside from briefly playing Gaffe Police, Arrington stuck to the techno-libertarian talking points of the conference, including the Patriot Act, net neutrality, and bitcoin.
Arrington, a libertarian, asked Paul what he thought about the idea of replacing the U.S. welfare program with a basic income policy that would give a sum of money to every American—an idea that has tantalized both libertarian and left-leaning economists. Paul brushed off the idea.
“I think that we sort of limit ourselves if we’re talking about the minimum we want people to have,” Paul said. “We should minimize what the government does—that’s the nonproductive sector—and we should maximize the productive sector.”
On net neutrality, Paul said the government should not regulate internet service providers as utilities because it stifles innovation. Paul noted that the tunnels in New York City could likely accommodate “hundreds” of cables from different ISPs, which could spur competition.
“The way to fix this and to correct this is to open up competition within those monopolies,” Paul said. “Why grant monopoly licenses?”
When asked how rural conservatives can find common ground with urban liberals, Paul noted that last year, he gave virtually the same speech about privacy at the Conservative Political Action Conference and the University of California at Berkeley. He held that fact up as evidence of a “leave me alone” coalition between Democrats and Republicans.
“There is a unifying belief in personal liberty, whether it’s gun ownership or that your Visa bill shouldn’t be read by the government,” Paul said.
I’m sorry Rand. I’m a hard core civil libertarian but I seriously doubt I’m ever going to join a “leave me alone” coalition that tells half the population they have a right to private ownership of everything but their own body. That just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Neither am I a big fan of letting people die in the street. Just not my thing. But hey, I’m happy to exhort Democrats to join with Senator Paul any time he wants to co-sponsor legislation we can both agree upon. That’s downright democratic.