When Political Discourse Goes Insane

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about the move to end net neutrality. The first thing to understand is that net neutrality is not what it sounds like it should be. There are valid arguments to be made both for and against net neutrality. That debate would be welcome and informative–the current debate is useless.

The article reports:

Net neutrality activists left signs at Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai’s house Saturday, telling his children that their father was an “evil” man who “murdered” democracy.

The cardboard signs list Pai’s children by name, telling them that “you don’t have to be evil.” Pai’s leadership of the FCC has been fraught with criticism due to his rejection of net neutrality policies advocated by former President Barack Obama’s administration. The FCC announced last week that it plans to role back net neutrality rules, triggering protests outside the Pai family’s home for the second time this year.

Private homes need to be off limits for protests. The man’s children do not need to be afraid because their father is making a change to Internet regulations.

The article explains part of the argument to end the regulation:

Obama-era neutrality rules would have legally prevented internet service providers (ISPs) such as Comcast from discriminating against certain types of traffic. These regulations would effectively prevent ISPs from providing faster internet to higher-paying customers.

For an extended period of time, the FCC hosted an online forum for the public to submit comments and thoughts on net neutrality rules. While the whole process was an attempt at bureaucratic democracy, it ended up as sort of a mess due to the appearance of hundreds of thousands of fake posts from all parts of the world, including so many duplicates, and thus of highly unlikely authenticity. 

When in doubt, the free market is always the better idea.