I'm not sure I even agree with the premise. Politics and "discourse" around it, especially by common people, has always been crass. It's just that those common people have a megaphone now that the internet exists.
I don't disagree with your feeling about this, but just to clarify:
The domain gofccyourself.com was set up by John Oliver's show, "Last Week Tonight," and their modus is to use humor to draw attention to tedious but important issues.
* 55957 comments with "The unprecedented regulatory power the Obama Administration imposed on the internet is smothering innovation, damaging the American economy and obstructing job creation. ..."
* 13649 comments with: "I was outraged by the Obama/Wheeler FCC's decision to reclassify the Internet as a regulated \"public utility\" under a Depression-era law written for the old Ma Bell telephone monopoly. ..."
There are a bunch of repeated pro net neutrality comments, but they tend to be variances of "I support strong net neutrality backed by Title II oversight of ISPs."
There are 263512 unique comments, and 14859 comments repeated twice, 4318 comments repeated thrice.
The new admin is generally against regulations that restrict business. Net Neutrality is one of these. Whether you think that is legit is up to you. But don't fall into the trap of thinking the other side is disingenuous and evil.
Oh, but they are. Otherwise they wouldn't endanger lives with their health care shutdown while talking so much about pro-life, or threaten to shut down the legal marijuana business in the states that legalised it (which also serves as a convenient example to show how little they actually care about 'states' rights')
If you lack the intellectual capacity to consider the motives of the other side believing that a freer healthcare market is a superior means to save lives (a notion backed by history and economic theory), then you have completely discredited yourself with regards to speaking about political topics.
Just call me stupid and skip the intellectual hyperbole =) That aside, I'm pro Affordable Healthcare Act. It's getting better and smoothing out. Like any venture it has to work out some kinks, which takes time. In very specific instances, one party can claim superiority to the other, through the lens of history. Both parties, however, have very checkered and dubious pasts. Not recognizing that and judging an evolving political party based on a single issue may, in your words, prove my intellectual capacity but it also puts us in a situation like we see at this very time. I do not watch the news with a smile on my face, like the intellectually deficient subhuman creature you seem to profess me to be =) Now, I have to go play with my puzzle. It's a 14 piecer I haven't quite figured out yet, but I'm close. Only 8 pieces to go. I'm nearly 1/2 way there!
All I have heard in favor of removing net neutrality is "it's a regulation, and regulation is bad."
Of course, this argument falls to pieces very quickly no matter what angle I try to think of it from.
As far as I can tell, there really is no legitimate argument. I like to think that I can consider any perspective on an issue, and understand why someone might disagree with me. In most cases, I can do that, but removing privacy and net neutrality rules are two subjects where I have been completely unable to do so.
I don't like to give up, and jump to the conclusion that my perspective is the only plausible one. I want to make it clear that I haven't given up on listening for the other side of the story, but thus far, I haven't heard a peep of it. I hate to say it, but there likely isn't one.
Because new administration is very pro monopoly, and therefore they are scaling down anti-trust limitations. Net neutrality is just one of them. TL;DR: they pretend to be pro free market, but in essence they are against strong competition.
Also corruption. Monopolists pay them a lot, and play the dumb "don't regulate, the invisible hand of the market will fix all" card which simply doesn't apply in monopolized cases.
Is the 2012 appointment of Ajit Pai, who will gut net neutrality and return the Internet back to the people, the greatest accomplishment of the Obama administration?
You're right. It was 2011 when SOPA/PIPA were being considered. The internet is almost exactly the same as it was then. The biggest internet businesses and ISPs from then are the biggest that exist now. Other stuff related to the internet has happened in the interim (Snowden leaks, for example), but that's not super relevant in this context. The same companies that stand to profit from changes to net neutrality now are the same as in 2011.
As dire as the situation in Washington may seem now, democracy hasn't fallen. We as the citizenry haven't lost any power we had back then. If anything, we have more now given the surge in online activism (that also leads to real life activism more readily, at least from my perspective).
> As dire as the situation in Washington may seem now, democracy hasn't fallen. We as the citizenry haven't lost any power we had back then. If anything, we have more now given the surge in online activism (that also leads to real life activism more readily, at least from my perspective).
Ehhh let's not assume the future is alright quite yet. The prez did just fire the guy investigating his campaign's links to a foreign adversary.
I'm not saying there aren't issues now, or that everything will be fine, but as it stands now it's not like we've lost any of our rights as citizens in the past 6 years. We can still protest, vote, conscientiously object to laws, so on.
Throwing up our hands and saying, "Welp, the world is different now. Nothing we can do," is exactly the mindset that will lead to the loss of our ability to have an impact on government.
Agreed. Tough to put into words how I feel about the situation. Ostensibly, no rights lost, but everyone in the WH is doing their darndest to make that happen.
It is this kind of thinking that will get us in trouble. Once you stop fighting they win. Make enough noise and they have to listen. They still don't listen make them hear with your votes. Never stop fighting for what you believe in!
For those who do not want to save Net Neutrality and would rather the FCC stay out of regulating ISPs, here is a website to find details to contact your representative:
