Net neutrality: John McCain says no, Glenn Beck sees a Marxist plot — DailyFinance — Well, these two in agreement must mean net neutrality is indeed a good thing.

Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican, introduced a bill late Thursday that would short-circuit the FCC’s ability to enforce its proposed open Internet rules. In a press release, McCain said the new rules will “stifle innovation, in turn slowing our economic turnaround and further depressing an already anemic job market.” McCain is particularly opposed to extending net neutrality to the wireless space, and his bill, the Internet Freedom Act of 2009, comes as opponents of net neutrality launched a furious attack on the FCC and the Obama administration.

Glenn Beck, the popular TV and radio host with 3 million nightly viewers, has blasted net neutrality as a “Marxist” plot by the Obama administration to take over the Internet.




  1. Animby says:

    Thank god Uncle John McCAin is coming to our defense on this net neutrality, thing.

    Despite his professed ignorance of all things internetish and his acknowledged inability to get his head around something as simple as email, he is taking care of us.

    I’m sure he didn’t receive any help at all in the writing of this bill from the telcos. And anyone who thinks dear Uncle John is repaying the $850,000 the telcos gave him in his run at the presidency is probably a conspiracy nut.

    He’s only thinking of us. Thanks, Uncle John.

  2. Hmeyers says:

    @29 “Lib posters are for it because MaCain and Beck are against it … and they have no damn idea what ‘net neutrality’ actually means. Neither do I.”

    Neither does Beck.

    And he’s against it because Obama is for it.

    McCain is against it because … well … he never has used the internet (in part due to war injuries) and he’s old and doesn’t know what a website is, etc. etc.

    This is the problem with Republicans: they think being against something is a plan.

    The “being against everything” plan never did work for the Democrats back in the Gingrich/Clinton or Bush years.

  3. Hmeyers says:

    @30 “hatred for Beck & McCain dominates what should be a dialog while all Republican’s are painted as evil corporate tools ”

    Beck is a populist radio monger looking for ratings by appealing to the lowest common denominator.

    I respect Beck for knowing what is in HIS interest: making $$$.

    I don’t respect the droid army of clones who accepts Beck’s simpleton ideas as their own.

    /p.s. John McCain joined Bob Dole, Walter Mondale and John Kerry as shittiest major party nominees ever.

  4. deowll says:

    I’m afraid Beck is one of those nuts who often doesn’t say what a lot of his enemies claim he says but does say plenty. Unless I hear him say it I don’t take claims on this site as truth.

    The same is now true of Rush. Rush has said a lot of tactless things but to many things he’s been condemned for saying lately were lies by people out to get him and to a degree it worked.

  5. large wooden badger says:

    #29 “net neutrality’ actually means. Neither do I”

    some vintage Rocketboom covered this very well maybe some of you Beck fans can send him the link before we lose youtube

  6. Friendly_ear4u says:

    #31 I totally agree that McCain is corrupt, as is the FCC, Obama, most of the GOP and the Dems. Corruption is everywhere.

    And Beck is and ENTERTAINER by his own words-an opinion show not a journalist.

    But if you think the folk at the FCC are not a part of that corruption? Har!

    Also – AT&T can do what ever it wants with the network they own… as can Comcast – that is fine, you don’t have to buy from them… except for that fact that gov’t got in bed with them and gave them monopoly powers – stifling innovation and advancement.

    Not you want gov’t to solve the problem they caused?

    I got an idea…

    End their involvement and to corporate welfare that stops competition.
    End the really long Patent terms. Make them expire sooner.

    Free up the market – we’d have faster better cheaper internet in months…

    Instead – requiring companies to provide access with lower profits will raise prices and slow advancements.

    Liberty.

    Works every time it is tried.

  7. Hmeyers says:

    @Alfred

    Here is what Net Neutrality is ..

    For years, people like the CEO of AT&T have had the idea that they’d love to charge Google, Vonage (Voice over IP), YouTube for access to the internet over “their pipes”.

    http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/10/5498.ars

    Now the plan that greedy AT&T has works like this:

    1. Charge Google, YouTube, Netflix, etc. for “access to the internet” .. meaning if they don’t pay, they don’t receive any sort of quality. Which is an end run of saying that the consumer has to pay more (Netflix would need to charge more for video streaming).

    2. Screw the little guy. The little guy with an internet based business wouldn’t have the cash to pay for premium traffic rights to his site, so it would receive low priority and get 2nd citizen status.

    It isn’t enough for the big ISPs like AT&T and Comcast to have a horde of customers and cash, but now they want to milk them.

    Net Neutrality makes the AT&T’s grand vision of favoritism towards giant corporations by charging them for access illegal (meanwhile denying quality internet access to small corps for not being able to pay at the troll bridge).

    Long story short:

    Net Neutrality protects small businesses and consumers from predatory schemes and visions that companies like AT&T have to turn the internet into a private toll-booth.

  8. Hmeyers says:

    @ Friendly_ear4u

    What AT&T, Comcast and pals would like to do to the internet is the equivalent of taking the public roads, privatizing them and allowing companies to turn them all into toll roads.

    Net Neutrality protects against AT&T and their buds turning the internet into a toll road paid for by site owners.

    Without Net Neutrality, eventually Dvorak.org and other small sites would have to “pay the piper” for access to them, where the piper is AT&T or the other monopoly internet providers.

  9. Glenn E. says:

    Well if the major Telcos and ISPs have anything to say about it (and enough cash), they’ll get exactly what they want thru the “Bills for Bucks” US Congress. It’s just a matter of how much lobbying and bribery. Not if they can be bought, or which party will hold out for Neutrality. The Democrats can be bought off, as easily as the Republicans.

  10. Glenn E. says:

    Ya know, the Internet itself is responsible for interfering with Free Enterprise, and causing a loss of jobs. Before the Gov’t turned its private research network, between colleges, military contractors, and the Pentagon, over for general public use. There was a thriving and growing business of Email services, via various private local network systems. Anything from CompuServe and Prodigy. To small local, “Mom & Pop” systems, that routed email across the country, over the phone lines. Avoiding long distance charges, whenever possible.

    Not only did this piss off the Telcos. It must have irked the NSA and CIA something awful, because they couldn’t spy on all those diverse lines of digital communication. But if it were all part of one huge network, that they were already plugged into, Bingo! So gov’t dumped their DARPA net onto the public, without any restrictions of it’s use. And this killed all those private, back road networks, we once paid to use.

    And the Telcos signed on to provide public connectivity to the backbone of the Internet. Thus helping to make up for the Long Distance fees they had been losing. Nobody complained that it was unfair to all the smaller network owners, that got put out of business by this move. Of course this lead to greater use of the continuous bandwidth now available.

  11. Greg Allen says:

    Follow the big corporate money and you’ll know the conservative position on an issue.

    Why any average working Ameican would be a conservative is beyond me.

  12. Glenn E. says:

    I’m in doubt that this backlash against Net Neutrality really has anything to do with making more profits from restricting bandwidth to content competitors. It’s just an excuse, the public can buy into. It might really be about thwarting the use of VPNs, in the near future. Because these are most likely to prevent the govt spying on everyone. If the Telcos can throttle whomever they please. You can bet they’ll soon throttle VPNs they’re not providing as a premium service. And expect their own VPNs to be compromised. Because the govt won’t give them a license to operate, without it. Just as Cellphone service providers must give gov’t monitoring access, or the FCC refuses them a license.

    http://www.cnet.com/topic-news/calea.html
    http://cnet.com/topic-news/calea.html
    http://www.cnet.com/topic-news/calea.html

    one of those should work.

  13. qb says:

    Alfred1 said “I respect Beck (and McCain) enough to keep a watchful eye on this event”

    Of fuck you, seriously. Let’s keep two populists, who lead from the back, to keep an eye on things. Wow, that’s leadership and freedom.

    Come on Alfred1, show some kahunas dude.

  14. qb says:

    Oops, did I use my outside voice?

  15. qb says:

    Sorry I got distracted by moronic comments. Most people are good people and will do the right thing. You can’t use the internet to shape people’s behavior, or pay ISP’s to do your bidding.

    Sorry Beck and McCain, I don’t need old white guys telling me how my internet is supposed to work. When I go to India, I don’t get traffic shaping – but I do when I go to America. I guess my email is subversive.

  16. Glenn Beck is stealing Boss Hogg’s audience; he is not creating new fans. In fact, he is the Democrat’s secret weapon because the more his insane homicidal rants are seen on television, the more regular Americans are disgusted and turn away from the GOP.

    Beck is only popular amongst the conservative sheeple; you know, the poor angry white racists who are terrified of change and hate the fact we have a black president. Smart people ignore him.

    Just like Boss Hogg, Beck is a druggie and an alcoholic slime bag getting rich fanning the flames of hatred. Conservative talk radio shills don’t actually produce anything so they are not the entrepreneurs they profess to admire. Rather, they are parasitic vampire squids clamped on the face of humanity sucking out reason and excreting hate, ignorance, and intolerance.

    Like maggots, slugs, and cockroaches, conservatives squirm and hide when illuminated by the bright light of reason and thoughtfulness.

    Peer into a conservative’s skull and you will see (and smell) a miasma of putrid rotting idiocy and hate.

  17. qb says:

    Re: the picture

    “A pretty girl who naked is, Is worth a thousand statues”

    ee cummings

  18. uniquelycool says:

    “Net Neutrality” was a horrible name to pick kinda like … “Global Warming”. Ask an average person on the street what Net Neutrality means and they won’t have a clue

  19. Animby says:

    # 46 qb said, “Come on Alfred1, show some kahunas dude.”

    Cojones, anyone?

    Kahunas are Hawaiian shamans (shamen?)

    Sorry, qb. I did enjoy your posts, though.

  20. LibertyLover says:

    #38, Bingo.

  21. ECA says:

    The USA consumer pays more for basic access tot he internet then any other country.

    Only 1 backbone. OWNED by the telco.

    Why not create another backbone?? WHO made/built/paid for the original?? YOU PAID FOR IT. And it took 50-70 years.

    Is the INTERNET, really a NET?? nope. Its like a ball of string with a few Knots in it to connect each of the pieces.

    remember, CORPS pay for nothing. it comes from your pocket, be it, the Gov or a corp. The GOV will probably do it ALLOT cheaper/quicker/.. and build it to MAX spec. and upgradable.

    Main problem with MOST of the tech?? there are advancements that could kill the Telco.
    WE COULD take 2 fiber cables to EVERY HOME and …
    Supply power
    Cable TV with channels from around the world.
    Internet access to 100mbps
    Wireless access by AREA of the town, not 100 feet away.
    Mini Cell tower on each home, insted of a GIANT tower every 5 miles.

    With just THESE options/upgrades, we are hitting the power/cellphone/TV/satellite/Telco/internet industries. Even tho 1/2 of ALL these companies are already OWNED by the same group(or didnt you know that).

    If we are going to regulate, LETS force them to UPGRADE the whole system.
    If NOT..then lets tell the GOV. to UPGRADE the system, then FORCE the corps to PAY us for it.
    Either way, WE/You and me, are going to be ALLOT poorer..

  22. Don Ho says:

    @58

    What’s the matter Alfred? Now you got something against Hawaiian shaman?

    No wonder you’ve never got leid.

  23. Flip Wilson says:

    John McCain — ‘Tech Troglodyte’ And Top Recipient Of Telecom Cash — Unveils Bill To Block Net Neutrality

    http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/24/mccain-internet-freedom/

    Last night on Rachel Maddow’s show, Boing Boing co-editor Xeni Jardin explained the problem with McCain’s legislation:
    Telecoms, Internet service providers — they already have a kind of monopoly. The idea here [with net neturality] is to prevent them from abusing that monopoly. … They want freedom all right. They want to find new ways to charge us more money. […]
    Whenever there’s a fight on the Internet, it’s always good to side with the geeks who built the Internet, rather than the fat-cat telecom lobbyists.

  24. Dirk Thundernuts says:

    She could sit in a mud puddle and fart and I would eat the bubbles.

  25. LibertyLover says:

    Isn’t that Willow from Buffy?

  26. Animby says:

    #60 FTW

  27. Phydeau says:

    If you want to pay Comcast more for videos streamed from Netflix compared to videos streamed from Comcast, then by all means, vote against net neutrality.


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