ReasonedResponse.com

Here's the sad truth about the self-styled consumer groups, the "progressive" think tanks and others pushing the network neutrality agenda:  they could care less about about truth, fairness or neutrality.  They just don't want to lose their status and money.

Because if we really allow a free and competitive market to sort out possible neutrality problems, and empower consumers to think and act for themselves, what do we need those guys for?  Well, nothing.  And that's the crux of the matter.

I don't live and breath the NN debate, nor do I take time away from working on the fuel system of my 1987 Gold Wing Interstate motorcylce worrying about what outrageous blather these guys and their henchmen at FreePress.org and MoveOn.Org will do next.  What they do will be shown as nonsense in coming weeks, but the erratic fuel system on my motorcycle could prevent me from enjoying the skyline of the Blue Ridge Mountains this summer.  One has to have priorities in life.

But I am struck by some of the idiocracies that seem to come almost daily now:

• Google helped to champion the NN debate by proclaiming that no content provider's traffic should recieve special treatment by being moved over special, more reliable networks.  And yet Google does exactly that, using the private Akamai network to move its content.
• NN advocates screamed long and loud -- and demanded immediate FCC action -- over Verizon's initial decision not to carry policitical text messages related to abortion.  The media went ballistic, pundits raised a howl, FCC petitions were launched, etc.  Yet this week, when a UK group sued Google for not allowing their anti-abortion message to be advertised on Google's search engine, no one raised a peep.  Not one.  So much for their  commitment to neutrality.
• One of the foundation stones of the NN movement is that America has fallen behind in broadband deployment (though in truth, the OECD data showing the US in 14th place was based on adoption rates, which are different from deployment rates).  The OECD data was trumpeted by every left-wing, anti-American, anti-broadband web site in the galaxy.  This week, a better and truly independent study that showed the US to be 4th in the world in its broadband infrastructure and getting better every day was announced by the World Economic Forum, and few so-called tech media outlets could be bothered to mention it.  (CNet and the New York Times did, to their credit.  Not much of anyone else.)

There's a political agenda at work here, and a nasty one.  The truth is being ignored, so that "progressive" liberal sites can hold on to what little power they have and can do their best to dismantle and destroy what is universally recognized as the best and most effective broadband infrastructure in the world.

Shame on them.  They do an injustice to those liberals who truly want the best for our nation.  They do an injustice to the thousands of broadband companies and workers who have worked long hours and invested billions of dollars in this country's infrastrucutre.  And they mightily underestimate the intelligence of the Congress, the government employees and the consumers who aren't buying their smoke and mirrors.

And shame on us, for not speaking up against it more often.