Dear Friends,
It seems to me, if “net neutrality” was a standard, it would only require a page at most to explain it, it would be open to the public and would actually standardize access for new businesses, since it is over three hundred pages, is not available to the public, even for comment, and passed by the bureaucracy in darkness, shows it is regulation that should have been forcefully condemned by everyone. The unbiased media claim the regulation will force internet providers, like the politically disfavored firm Comcast, to allow all data to go through their networks without bias. Of course, that description only took one sentence. The regulation took over three hundred pages which can only make us ponder what else is in it? Furthermore, the regulation was and is not open to the public for review, so one must wonder, how does the unbiased media know anything at all about it? The government claims the regulation will help protect free speech… by regulating it. Because nothing is as free as when you have to get permission from government to do it. The only entity it seems that was allowed, not only to see the regulation, but change it to suit their needs… was Google. All of which illustrates the point I have made many times in my articles, that regulation is destructive of the market while standardization is helpful.
If the regulation was “neutral,” then why was the largest internet company on the planet, allowed to change it to suit their wants and needs? Proving it is not neutral but biased. Regulation, as I have said before, is by design a means for politically favored companies to avoid competition (crony capitalism), to give politically favored groups a leg up on an otherwise free interaction (state discrimination), protect politicians ambitions (enshrine political power) or to establish a politically favored company’s monopoly. Regulation never goes away it only gets more convoluted and destructive of market interactions as time goes on. Those who pass regulation don’t ever want people to understand what it is really for, so they always couch it in good sounding terms like, neutrality, when nothing could be further from the truth. But then again, truth has nothing to do with politics… does it?
A standard is simple to understand. All standards are this way, a gallon is a fixed amount, a mile is a fixed distance, HDTV is a fixed way of encoding video and sound, etc… A standard applies equally to everyone, and as such, is a benefit to the market. Confucius called it, rectifying terms. Imagine if a gallon was a regulation instead of a standard… How would that work, well a gallon of oil would be different from a gallon of milk which would vary depending on who the buyer was or the seller was. The volume of a gallon of water would vary depending on it’s purity content. The regulation of a gallon would run into the hundreds or thousands of pages of regulation… to protect the interests of politically favored people, groups and companies. Imagine how hard it would be to do business in liquids if that was the case? Every firm would need armies of accountants to comply with the regulation. That net neutrality took over three hundred pages is proof it is a regulation not a standard.
How does the media know… that which we are not allowed to know? Obama has prosecuted and jailed more whistle blowers than every other administration combined. His iron fisted hold on information is legendary. Since that is the case, how is it the unbiased media have information that is not in the public domain? …and are not being hounded for it, like Cheryl Atkinson? The only answer is, they are reporting press briefings on the regulation, and not on the actual content. They are merely parroting the propaganda that those who seek to regulate the internet want them to parrot. If the media took their station as the fourth estate seriously, they would verify the party line independently, that they didn’t, shows they are the willing dupes, or cronies, of nefarious government officials.
In what universe has regulation ever made anything more free? Regulation creates barriers to entry, it increases the cost of doing business, it requires government permission to do business, it crushes firms that are not politically favored and it drives up the cost of products and services. Regulation is the opposite of free, it is designed to regulate that which otherwise would be free! When government decides what you can and cannot say, is that more free or less free? Is an open forum where anyone can say anything they want, more or less free, than one where government permission is required first? When government decides what data is given priority, do you honestly think politically unfavored speech is going to be given equal access? Like the tax free status of Tea party groups under the IRS was protected by regulation?
Lastly, what grows in the dark of night… mold, fungus, bacteria and corruption, that is all. That Net Neutrality was written, passed and now is being implemented, in the dark of night, is proof enough it is corrupt, else the regulations would have been published for anyone to see and comment on. The only one to get a say is the giant internet company Google, and does anyone more than a year old, believe Google would change regulation to benefit it’s customers or competitors? Of course not! The changes Google put in the three hundred page regulation, was to benefit Google, at the cost to the public and it’s competition. Corruption piled upon corruption, and the unbiased media sang the party song, like the good little propagandists they are.
Perhaps standardization of access might be helpful but the debate would have to be open with everyone having a say before we knew. The final standard would have to be simple to understand and public knowledge. To now… the internet has been an open forum for anyone to access and get their message out. In that way the internet has been the most democratizing instrument ever devised by mankind. Now that the door has been opened to regulation, it will be used to protect those in political power, politically favored groups, people and businesses, while smothering the availability of information government doesn’t want out. Very soon there will be calls to license bloggers and internet sites, (if it isn’t already in the regulation), for the benefit of “openness.” Because nothing is more free than when government regulates it. Now that governments, the world over, are regulating the internet… the goose that laid the golden egg is being slaughtered, not for the gold inside, but to keep it from laying any more of those damnable golden eggs.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
