Conservative Groups Accuse FCC of Helping Net Neutrality Advocates File Comments

jfruh writes Conservative groups opposed to net neutrality have a beef with the FCC, claiming the commission helped pro-net neutrality advocates file comments on the subject without similarly helping opponents. In other news out of this camp, it turns out American Commitment, an advocacy group with ties to the Republican billionaire Koch brothers, sent out 2.4 million letters to Congress opposing net neutrality but only collected about 814,000 signatures. The group then generated three letters to Congress for each person signing the petition, one letter to each of the signer's two senators and one to each signer's representative.

Comments

Conservatives crying "no fair"?

[kruach aum]

Isn't that their whole ideology, that the world isn't fair?

Re:Conservatives crying "no fair"?

[compro01]

Yes, but it's only supposed to be unfair in their favour. Anything else is "Against God's Will" or "Against the will of the Market".

Re:Conservatives crying "no fair"?

[flintmecha]

Their ideology that the world is perfectly fair how it is, and if you want to change anything, then you hate capitalism and America.

Re:Conservatives crying "no fair"?

[PopeRatzo]

Their ideology that the world is perfectly fair how it is

Correction, how it was. The world was perfectly fair in some mythological world that they believe existed before the liberals and blacks and feminists got hold of it.

Re:Conservatives crying "no fair"?

[jythie]

Unless you are a wealthy company, in which case it is your right to try to change things. It is only unfair when you build tools to give power to the undeserving large groups of poor people rather then reenforce the power of the people who deserve it like rich people.

Why do you think they single out unions so consistently? They do not seem to mind small groups in positions of power leveraging their bargaining position, but somehow when workers get together and say 'hey, we have skills you want so here are our terms' it becomes communist and evil.

Re:Conservatives crying "no fair"?

[Kohath]

The government shouldn't use force based on the pretense it will somehow make things fair. The answer to injustice caused by happenstance isn't another unnecessary, purposefully-committed injustice. Save government force for use against murderers and rapists rather than calling out the stormtroopers when your Netflix is fuzzy.

It doesn't work anyway. Regulatory capture is common. The regulators end up working hand-in-hand with the people they're supposed to be regulating, big companies and lawyers benefit while the public suffers. Look no further than Uber vs. the taxi companies and their government friends.

Re:Conservatives crying "no fair"?

[Solandri]

The Republicans don't oppose NN because of ideology. They oppose it because that is what their big donors want them to do.

No, they oppose Net Neutrality because of ideology. The conservative position isn't that Net Neutrality is bad per se. It's that it's the wrong solution to the problem.

The real problem isn't lack of net neutrality. It's lack of competition due to monopolies granted to the cable and phone companies by local governments. Net Neutrality is just more government regulation to try to solve a problem created by government in the first place. The monopolies were typically granted in exchange for a contractual guarantee that service is provided to low-income neighborhoods, though lately it's become a straight payola scheme with the chosen ISP having to pay the government per household serviced. IMHO the government should never be allowed to "sell" access to its citizens like that - it corrupts not just business but government itself.

Remove the government-granted monopolies and the problem goes away on its own. Why are Korea, Japan, most of Europe, etc. not grappling with this same issue? Because they have true competition in the ISP market. Any ISP which deliberately slows down web traffic as part of an extortion scheme to make web sites pay them hemorrhages customers until they put themselves out of business. Such extortion is only possible when the customers have no viable competitor they can switch to, as is the case when the government grants the ISP a monopoly. That's the free market approach conservatives advocate.

Of course 9 out of the 10 rated responses so far are how conservatives are evil greedy robbers who will kidnap and eat your children. People typically want to cast the issue in a manner which villainizes the opposition, rather than try to really understand the other guy's point of view.

Re:Conservatives crying "no fair"?

[holmstar]

For instance Democrats tend to like big companies with unionized workforces, and pushed through the GM bailout in the face of mostly Republican opposition. For more complicated reasons, the Democrats voted for the bank bailout, while most Republicans opposed it.

Don't kid yourself. The republicans opposed these bailouts because they knew that the democrats would be able to pass them anyway, and they can go to their constituents and say how bad the democrats are for supporting the bail-outs. Completely ignoring the fact that they would have done it as well, if there hadn't been enough democrats to pass it. Nobody, other than some of the tea party members, was going to let those bail-outs fail to pass.

"Conservative group opposes net neutrality"

[Chas]

Nonono. Group of luddite imbeciles opposes net neutrality.

If the libs are for it...

[pr0t0]

then we must be against it! Fire up the astroturfing machine!!!

Like many things based in science or technology, I think the conservatives simply do not understand the call for net neutrality. But they do understand that many people with liberal tendencies are for it, therefore, they must oppose it. I'm (somewhat) convinced that there are people at Fox News or similar conservative outlets that stir up and create controversy where there is none, just to get their base frothing at the mouth...which equals more ad revenue.

Re:If the libs are for it...

[meta-monkey]

That was my thought. I don't even understand why the Koch brothers care. They don't have a dog in this fight. Why on earth go to the trouble of opposing net neutrality? I wonder if they walk around city parks slapping ice cream out of little kids' hands. It's not like they want the ice cream for themselves, they just don't want anybody else enjoying their treats.

The whole thing also flies in the face of the usual conservative talking points, that they're pro small business. Well, you eliminate net neutrality and new, small, innovative players who can't afford to pay for the "fast lane" suffer. There is no idealogical reason for conservatives to oppose net neutrality. It's simply a knee jerk reaction, libs are for it so we must be against it!

Re:If the libs are for it...

[Archangel Michael]

I would consider myself on the "Conservative" side of things, however, I am a Libertarian through and through.

On the one side, I oppose government defining anything for the private sector. The lines between regulation, and over regulation is too blurry.

On the other side, I oppose government sanctioned monopolies creating artificial scarcity to raise prices and dominate market places.

Being a geek, I fully understand the concept of net neutrality. I've seen the stats of Comcast vs Netflix et al and what happens when Comcast DELIBERATELY hinders Netflix packets on their network.

The real issue is there is LACK of choice at the local level (last mile) for high speed internet, due to local municipalities having franchise agreements with Comcast (or others), limiting real choice of network.

Fixing this at the national (federal) or even state level is just going to end up being a boon for politicians and lawyers, and that is really the last thing we need. What we need to do is start working on the last mile issue, providing REAL market choice for the consumer. And until we as people realize that legislating everything is not really a solution, things like this WILL continue to be an issue.

Re:If the libs are for it...

[Archangel Michael]

"People like the Kochs are really after control and consolidation of power. "

And you think Soros, Nancy and Harry and Barack are not ? They only want to "help" people.

Robber barons

[korbulon]

Is basically what these people are - or want to be. Reading the wikipedia article on the subject ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... ), it's hard to distinguish the behavior of the current conservative groups in question and the unscrupulous landowners who lived along the Rhine:

"They hindered commerce by imposing unauthorized tolls and tariffs and at times by sometimes ransoming or hijacking the goods outright..."

Free market my ass: the real goal of all these crony capitalist "conservatives" is rent-seeking (man, that's another good article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...)

Re:Robber barons

[silfen]

Free market my ass: the real goal of all these crony capitalist "conservatives" is rent-seeking

Rent seeking involves passing legislation and regulations restricting the free market to favor your business. Net neutrality is a restriction on the free market. And which of the Koch's businesses would benefit from this? How is opposing net neutrality "rent seeking"?

Oh, there are rent seekers involved in this: the super wealthy like Soros and Buffett, who have bought big stakes in companies like Verizon and donate massive amounts of money to Democrats. You can bet that whatever "net neutrality" rules the FCC will come up with will benefit them a great deal.

Re:Math is hard?

[BasilBrush]

You get people to sign a petition, and you send a letter in each person's name to each of their representatives. Sometimes they send one to the POTUS as well. The summary seems to be implying that there's something dishonest about this

There is. It's fraudulent. A petition is a petition, it doesn't give a right to pretend to be that person and post letters in their name. Even if the petition signer ticks a box to say it's OK, as it's misrepresenting the degree to which someone cares. There's a big difference in commitment to an opinion between filling out a web form and actually writing a posting a letter.

if true, it's dishonest whether it's the Koch brothers or Earth Defense Alliance.

Who?

Look there is no balanced six of one, half a dozen of the other. The Koch brothers are a constant threat to democracy. There crimes against humanity occur daily.

Re:Math is hard?

[msauve]

" It's fraudulent."

Certainly not. Do you think they're fooling, or even trying to fool anyone into thinking those letters were written and mailed by individuals? Nope. When some congresscritter's office gets mailbags of nearly identical letters, in nearly identical envelopes, they know they didn't come from individuals.

"Look there is no balanced six of one, half a dozen of the other. "

Never mind. You're obviously blinded by partisanship, and unable to think rationally.

Yay! Koch scaremongering!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's all Dems got.

Re:More /. bias

[Anonymous Coward]

... better solution would be to break up these government created monopolies and allow for competition in the markets.

Care to name any conservative groups with your solution above as part of their platform? I'd really like to send them a check. Thanks!

814.000 signatures...

[cloud.pt]

Are we really supposed to believe 814.000 Americans signed a petition to prevent them from using their internet as they see fit? Never mind the fact the triplicated the single signature purpose, this is flat out unbelievable.

Conservatives and hearing the people

[Dimwit]

For a group that just loves to scream "democracy!" and "republic!" they sure don't want the wrong sort of people having a say in their government, what with fighint tooth and nail to reduce early voting, vote-by-mail, and now, apparently, making it harder to file opinions with government agencies.