I believe most people’s concern is the kind of nefarious censorship you describe towards the end of your post. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind paying a little more as long as the rates are being dictated by the market and not the gubmint. Except for defense and other essential services, I don’t see why the gubmint should be involved in the commercial side of the net at all.

It’s fairly analogous to the dilemma we have in Alabama of needing to re-write our Constitution. The old one is full of racist language and out-dated crap and truly needs a re-write. However, conservatives are afraid that if it’s attempted, it will open up a can of worms and what comes out will be full of leftist canards and socialists nostrums which got included by hook or crook.

The same goes for the internet. Liberals are now shocked, shocked to discover that porn can be found on the internet. So naturally, guardians of traditional morality that they are, they want the power to “control” such content. However, since they have not given a hoot in hell about porn in other media, indeed, they have championed it (falsely of course) as being protected by the first amendment, it’s not much of a stretch to believe they have ulterior motives for wanting control.

Like stifling the free wheeling debate which often shows them for the rank charlatans they are, like curbing the avg Joe’s ability to fact check their propaganda a la Dan Rather’s doctored documents and generally regain the power to shape the debate to their liking. Until the advent of the net, these clowns had virtually total control of mass electronic media since the fifties and they really didn’t like having to share the limelight or the influence with a bunch of bloggers in pajamas.

This is the reason we cannot let them lull everyone asleep with claims that only technical changes are at issue or that it’s too complex for the avg citizen to understand so just let them handle the details. It is so much more than that.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” — Thomas Jefferson (also attributed variously to other authors)

It becomes challenging because the Internet is a sort of “commons” to which most users buy “access” (at a particular data rate) and expect their use (within that rate) to be unlimited. In general, however, the price of access does not cover the full use of the perceived level of access purchased. Hence, most internet offerings specify that users will receive “up to” a certain data rate with the level actually received dependent on such things as the number and type of users accessing the commons at any given time. The issue becomes even more convoluted because different providers own different pieces of the networks used when email is sent or web sites accessed or data exchanged and the technology used is NOT as simple as the old point-to-point connection of the old phone company (which allowed end to end control of the communication. Sorry… that’s probably more information than most of you want or need.

Personally, I’m not sure whether I favor “Net Neutrality” or not. On the one hand, it does seem likely to diminish the willingness of telecommunications firms to invest in infrastructure if they can’t leverage their ROI by controlling and getting some profit from the content users access. OTOH, I definitely don’t want the information/content or users I am able to access controlled (whether by denial of access or slowing of transfer rates by) either a private company (say AT&T) or a government-owned PTT (say BT or any other national company).

I lack sufficiently Solomonic wisdom to have a solution but, hopefully, my post will shed a bit of light on what really is a complex issue.

And this babe was the TOP ECONOMIC ADVISOR to John McCain in 2008.

www.Chuck Devore.com

supposedly the ethics committee is investigating 30 current congress people and the report somehow made it to the washington post

so who are 30 congress people? I can think of a lot

You get an army of nerds mad at you and it’s all over.