Net Neutrality Is Marxist?

[Steven Alligood]

On 04/13/2010 09:56 AM, Lonnie Olson wrote:
>
> We have 2 real hopes for these problems.
> 1. Municipal owned/run Fiber to the home (Utopia,iProvo)
> 2. Net Neutrality legislation to protect us in this current state of
> limited competition.
>    

As soon as everyone starts believing that they cannot or will not do 
without something, they have already lost and the companies win.  They 
do everything they can to get people to believe that they have no 
options; they then turn to the government and get them to regulate 
something that the free market could have dealt with if people didn't 
believe that they had no choice.

Example.  Cable TV.  People got to the point that they believed that 
they could not live without their cable television, and rather than 
voting with their wallets and either doing without or accepting the 
realities of a free market, they turned to the government and got it 
regulated.  Which, in the long run, got it to be more expensive.  Now, 
the cable companies cannot raise their prices other than set amounts on 
set schedules (which they will always do, it is now sanctioned to raise 
their prices at certain times, and they can blame the government for 
it).  They can also impose fees to cover their regulatory expenses, 
meaning the consumer is the one that pays more for the expense of the 
government saying they cannot charge more.  It's a loosing battle.

Ever been in a city where the cable company keeps changing?  It's part 
of the big trade game the cable companies do now because of regulation.  
Also, a lot of the cost of the cable TV is imposed by the government 
(did you know that they pay almost as much in license fees to use radio 
frequencies in a private spectrum network as those same frequencies cost 
to license in the open airwaves? Thanks, FCC)

Government regulation, in general, is bad and looses a little more of 
our freedoms each and every time it happens.  It eliminates the benefits 
of the free market, and costs more money to do so.  All because people 
get in their heads that they cannot do without the service.

And yes, if it's your job, then pick a place to live that has acceptable 
service.  You still have options; don't whine just because you chose to 
live in a remote location to lower your cost of living, then found that 
you missed something you do not want to live without.  It all comes to 
what is important to you; just don't think that your poor choices should 
have to force government regulations on the rest of us.

-Steve

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/pkcs7-signature
Size: 5515 bytes
Desc: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
Url : http://plug.org/pipermail/plug/attachments/20100413/6b879934/attachment.bin