[luso_brazilian]

The part of the Net Neutrality debate that is so often disregarded (and probably the reason conservatives oppose it vehemently) is that it gives FCC (an unelected body of government, part of the executive branch) power to legislate.

Not passing judgement or touching the merit of the whole subject but it is a very consistent position of the right in the United States to oppose regulation passed down by unelected officials of the executive branch instead of legislation created and approved by the legislative body through their elected representatives.

It is a similar phenomenon to the one occurring in Europe with its maximum exponent being the Brexit process, also motivated in a lot of ways by the perceived interference in the day to day life of the British by regulations passed down by unelected officials of the European Union instead of legislation created and approved by the local legislative bodies through their elected representatives.

In America, opposing FCC mandating net neutrality through regulation is akin to other similar rejections of "legislation by the executive":

- DEA or Department of Health legislating controlled substances

- FAA legislating personal drones

- FCC legislating TV language and obscenity

- ATF legislating gun ownership, possession and storage

- Treasury Secretary legislating penalties for failure to enroll in government approved healthcare (Obamacare "Tax Penalty")

It is all part of the same phenomenon, people pushing back against what they perceive as a federal overreach in areas that deny people proper representation in contesting the regulations imposed.

Trump got elected on that exact platform by the detractors of such overreach and it is only natural that he is going to follow the desire of his electoral constituency.

[hristov]

It is completely normal and accepted for various agencies to make rules within the confines of the laws that have empowered them. It is in fact necessary considering how complex our society is. Congress cannot possibly control everything.

If congress has power to pass certain laws, they have power to relegate some of such authority to a governing body. If the FCC's rules are in accordance with the laws that empowered it, then there is nothing wrong.

And no Trump never said he is against net neutrality. If he did that, he might have lost the election -- net neutrality is very popular.

[crdoconnor]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/53260835850816716...

"Obama’s attack on the internet is another top down power grab. Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media."

[kyledrake]

Clearly he understands what net neutrality is. I'm so glad he took to Twitter to show everyone his strong opinion on the thing he understands.

Repealing net neutrality is far more likely to shut down his alt-right nightmare sites as they fall under the cost margins of eyeball ISPs artificially inflating their peering costs (turns out playing out your Slytherin LARP fantasies in the real world doesn't provide the same revenue as companies like NBC can get).

[ScottBurson]

Yikes! So he doesn't actually know what Net Neutrality is. He's come out against the AT&T/TW merger. Maybe at some point he'll realize that NN is also an attempt to fight excessive concentrations of power in media companies.

Personally I would give up NN if we could separate transport from content completely and have real competition among ISPs.

[hristov]

He tweeted that four days after the election. Again, I was correct to say that removing net neutrality was not part of his election platform.

[crdoconnor]

"He never said he was against net neutrality" is what you said.

[qb45]

> If congress has power to pass certain laws, they have power to relegate some of such authority to a governing body. If the FCC's rules are in accordance with the laws that empowered it, then there is nothing wrong.

Yes, and people who don't like these regulations have the power to vote politicians who would revoke this authority. Your argument is unlikely to convince anyone. Especially people who are concerned that governments regulate too much, as parent states.

[Tempest1981]

If only we could make line-item choices with our vote...

[angersock]

> It is completely normal and accepted for various agencies to make rules within the confines of the laws that have empowered them. It is in fact necessary considering how complex our society is. Congress cannot possibly control everything.

You are ignoring the obvious possibilities of letting local or state government legislate those things, or simply not legislating them.

[cmurf]

There is essentially zero complaining about the FAA's quasi-legislative power. All of the regulatory agencies have quasi-legislative, executive, judicial activity. This is not new. If conservatives don't like what the FCC or FAA are doing, its about businesses complaining to them directly. It has nothing to do with conservative ideology being reluctant with the nature of regulatory agencies.

The FAA regulates kites. So of course they can regulate drones, personal or commercial.

[nickff]

Depends on the philosophical basis of their conservative or libertarian beliefs. Many conservatives have had fundamental issues with the administrative state, since they first opposed it in Prussia. Many of the problems which they have with the administrative state have to do with the incentives of the administrators, and the broad, arbitrary power delegated to the regulators.

[Daishiman]

I have yet to hear a single argument that stems from that philosophical basis that does not turn out to be suspiciously aligned with corporate interests.

[nickff]

I could say the same of opposing viewpoints being aligned with statist (or union) interests.

[cmurf]

No those viewpoints can be traced back to old school liberalism where power comes from the individual, and individual citizens delegate a revocable portion of that power to form a government to do things on their behalf. And in this case it's competition law (anti-trust), and consumer protection.

If you want to argue Liberalism as an ideology has a component of statism attached, fine, but so does Conservatism. From Conservatism we got the 1st and 2nd constituions, and Liberalism became the more dominant of the two ideologies since the 14th amendment (and I'd say right now we might be looking at a regression but a. that's biased, and b. it's unproven, that part will take a while).

[hx87]

Certainly true of the libertarian right, but not of the social conservative right, who have been rather inconsistent in opposing "FCC legislating TV language and obscenity" and "DEA or Department of Health legislating controlled substances".

[briandear]

As a self-identified member of the libertarian right I absolutely agree. I get into this debate with so-called Conservatives frequently: smaller government and less regulation means marriage equality (at the state level,) the dismantling of the DEA (leaving it to states to make their own rules,) and the elimination of the Dept. of Education (leaving that to states as well,) among many other things. It also calls for overturning Roe v. Wade (but not for the reasons the social-right wants but because it's really a 10th Amendment issue.)

By the way before I get downvoted for my views, I am merely pointing out that actual conservatism is a position of Federalism rather than a position on a particular agendas of certain groups.

That means a government should be closer to the people it obsensibly represents and decision should be made at the lowest level until such time as it affects a higher level. For example, if California wants to legalize heroin, that's for California to decide -- it has no practical effect on people in Louisiana.

The problem with many social conservatives is that they are intellectually inconsistent -- you can't call for government to enforce what 'you' want but then call for smaller government when it comes to what 'they' want.

It's a question of the scope of government and at what level government ought to be acting -- it really isn't about specific issues but the bigger question of "Is this the role of the Federal government."

[rayiner]

That makes it seem like federalism is a procedural issue orthogonal to any particular substantive policies. But the US is, Constitutionally, an economic free trade zone. As a result, states cannot use the most potent economic tools to ensure enforcement of their laws. Even if the majority of people would prefer to have environmental or worker protection laws, a minority of people in a few states can create a nationwide race to the bottom.

As a practical matter, saying that some issue is the proper domain of the states is equivalent to saying it can't be effectively regulated at all.

And it's not like the framers were unaware of that dynamic. They empowered the federal government to regulate interstate commerce precisely as a foil to the prohibition on states to do so.

[mstodd]

No, saying that an issue is for the states to decide is simply acknowledging that US citizens are individuals, and they know better than the Federal government what they want. Regulation at the Federal level removes choice and freedom.

[rayiner]

You can't enforce many regulations at the state level, even if people want them, because the Constitution forbids discriminating against out of state commerce or citizens. If Californians wanted to have single payer health care, their system would be very susceptible to abuse because people should could cross the border when they got sick. Then Arizonans get the best of both worlds--they don't have to raise taxes to pay for healthcare, but they can still get the service if they need it. Same thing with environmental regulations. Even if everyone in California voted to have environmental regulations, that just creates an opening for goods manufactured in environmentally harmful ways in Arizona to undercut California goods in price.

Citizens don't really have the freedom to choose on issues like that unless they have the freedom to close their markets to people who do not play along. The Constitution takes away that freedom.

[mch82]

> [California legislation] has no practical effect on people in Louisiana

People underestimate the side effects of state-level or city-level legislation. Due to the size of the California economy the laws in California absolutely have practical effects on people in Louisiana. This is why national and international laws and agreements matter.

For example, environmental regulations on automobiles (this interview transcript is obviously one example and needs to be evaluated in the context of alternative information, but I think it's adequate to demonstrate the point that interactions between states are significant to a degree that dismissing them is risky): http://e360.yale.edu/feature/californias_clean_car_rules_hel...

[mstodd]

Aristotle said that a city should only be as large as to encompass everyone that could hear the sound of a ram's horn or trumpet. Beyond that, you weren't part of the city or it's governance. Seems like a good rule which would prevent taking money from Florida and giving it to Alaska.

[mch82]

Aristotle [1] lived in a world with less than 200 million people [2].

Florida isn't giving money to anyone [3].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Past_populati...

[3]: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-st...

[badsock]

You chose a bunch of politicized examples.

How about the USDA inspecting meat to prevent shady companies from passing off improperly stored meat as safe? Or the Department of Housing making sure that people don't add lead to paint without it being labeled as such?

[fib739mbbh]

Do you trust five unelected FCC commissioners, who are quite technically incompetent, to regulate the internet for 330 million Americans? Frankly, I'm quite weary.

[clort]

The FCC commissioners are appointed by the elected president. Stating that they are unelected seems disingenuous to me, as it is diverting from the fact that they are doing their work on behalf of the elected official.

[CalChris]

FCC commissioners are also confirmed by the United States Senate.

[nbb]

You should probably get more sleep.

[CalChris]

> The part of the Net Neutrality debate that is so often disregarded (and probably the reason conservatives oppose it vehemently) is that it gives FCC (an unelected body of government, part of the executive branch) power to legislate.

Completely wrong. It gives to the FCC the authority to write rules. In fact, Congress cannot delegate its legislative authority to the Executive branch short of a Constitutional amendment. They tried that with the line item veto and Clinton but it was struck down in the Courts.

Rules and laws are very different. Here is a primer:

https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/basics-regulatory-proce...

And BTW, the United States population is about 320M and the GDP is about $18T. Shit's complicated. The idea that Congress should write every rule is blithering populist nonsense.

[bansheehash]

Going by the argument of opposing regulation/"interference" by unelected officials, conservatives could claim that the FDA (also an unelected body of government, part of the executive branch) frequently oversteps its bounds when it bans substances and products found to be harmful. How is a harmful product supposed to be taken off the market - wait for legislation from Congress while the product remains freely available?

I think delegation of authority is inevitable in a complicated administrative system.

[moomin]

You're right, that's the argument. It ignores the fact that the position makes no sense. In the UK, most laws are made by civil servants, under the direction of ministers, within the mandate of parliament. Under Brexit, this function will grow, not shrink.

Stephen Phillips, a prominent and heavily Brexit-supporting Conservative, appears to have figured out that Brexit means a huge increase in executive power, not a reduction. He's resigned from the party. Sadly, he appears to be alone.

In practical terms, the amount of legislation a modern country needs is far in excess of what its elected bodies can deliver. The question isn't if someone other than the body should be legislating, it's who, and with what oversight.

[guelo]

I don't get your point. We all know Trump is anti regulation. So everybody that thinks net neutrality is a good idea is worried.

Personally, I think hardline ideologically driven policies leads to disaster. But it looks like that's what we're going to get.