Remains of the Day: SaveTheInternet Rebuts Post's Net Neutrality Editorial

08:00 PM Jun 12, 2006

The Post editorialized today against net neutrality, and SaveTheInternet promptly responded so that the likes of me don't have to. But since I came all this way, let me just add one tangential point: the Post editorial, like the telco talking points, makes predictable recourse to the facile libertarian schtick that's been such a reliable stalking horse of regress these many years: "the government ... should not burden the Internet with preemptive legislation."

The current net neutrality fight is an outgrowth of previous government action, notably a 2002 FCC ruling (itself a reversal of previous policy) gifting broadband providers with a favorable regulatory classification. [background]

There is in truth -- as is so often the case in these fairy tales of laissez-faire -- no "non-regulatory" or "non-burdening" position. Someone's going to find their activities constrained relative to what they'd like to do, an ownership claim they're asserting diminished; at stake are who, how, and to what end. "Don't regulate" makes a particularly absurd position on a question of Internet architecture, whose origins in state investment and control are well-known. But this is, after all, the Post, loyal manservant of neoliberal shibboleths.

Meanwhile, with the Senate looming, Talking Points Memo is tallying where the votes line up.

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