Free-Market Internet: Liberalism's Greatest Threat

When I first heard about the concept, I was generally supportive.  Whether I'm paying for a 6 Mb/s connection or a 26 Mb/s connection connection, I should be able to use my connection as I see fit.  Whether that means tracking every change on the The Drudge Report, browsing LOLcats, or streaming TV from Hulu to my heart's content shouldn't be a part of the equation.  It seemed "Net Neutrality" intended only to affirm what exactly it is we're buying from our ISP: internet service.  Unfortunately, all was not as it seemed.

Many have speculated that "Net Neutrality" is more about control than achieving greater internet freedom.  After looking into the legislation, it's clear Net Neutrality would more likely become "the fairness doctrine for the Internet."  As the Heritage Foundation reported, the FCC recently declared the digital age has produced a "democratic shortfall," and that we needed new "'public media entities' that will serve 'as both a filter to reduce information overload and a megaphone to give voice to the unheard.'"  In other words, the market just isn't good enough.

No one can deny that the left has traditionally been more technologically literate than their Conservative counterparts.  This was still evident during the 2008 election cycle.  Conservative sites have only just begun to crack into the internet market.  But given the dramatic rise of the Conservative blogoshpere, Democrats are afraid they will inevitably lose this market just as they lost talk radio.  In the realm of ideas, Liberals just can't compete—that was a major reason why Air America, the Progressive radio experiment, ended in bankruptcy earlier this year.

So, under the auspices of "fairness" and "diversity," the FCC, a big government behemoth, will act as a megaphone to give voice to the Left and a filter for the information overload from Breibart's cadre of "Big" sites.  Of course, after the recent court ruling, none of this can happen unless Congress grants the FCC specific authority to regulate the internet.  Hopefully they will not concede.  We've already got too much government in our lives, and as it stands, my internet is working just fine.