Bye, Bye, Internet

Bye, Bye, Internet

With apologies to Don McLean and for the lack of rhyme, “So, bye, bye Miss Internet Pie,/ Drove my gubmint Chevy to the gubmint Net/ And the Net was dead.”

Just as with the unfair, unconstitutional, so-called government “Fairness Doctrine,” the government is at it again, trying to inhibit free speech: ”The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday voted 3-2 to back Chairman Julius Genachowski’s plan for what is commonly known as ‘net neutrality,’ or rules prohibiting Internet providers from interfering with legal web traffic.”

Opposed by Republicans and supported by Democrats, the FCC changes delighted President Barack Obama who said the FCC’s action will “help preserve the free and open nature of the Internet” by imposing Internet traffic rules.

When Democrats and this president so strongly back such new regulations, it’s a certainty they stink.

Dating to 1949 and dumped in 1987 thanks to an executive order issued by President Ronald Reagan, the Fairness Doctrine required broadcasters to “afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views of public importance,” the Fairness Doctrine failed miserably since it served only to accomplish the precise antithesis of its stated purpose by stifling dissent.

Its abolition opened the door to conservative talk radio, and the rest is history.

Fast forward a quarter century during which time there have been rumblings and grumblings from the Left to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine, all of which rumblings and grumblings thankfully were rejected. Today, however, we have a new danger posed for the First Amendment and for the Democrat powers-that-be, the Internet.

What to do? thought the Left. Why “regulate” it, of course!

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, former staffer for Chuck Schumer and on the Select Committee to investigate Iran-Contra, former tech advisor to the president, and member of the board of CommonSenseMedia.com, is the administration’s point man in the new battle which one wag has described as “a hostile takeover of the Internet by a government agency acting illegally . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3145)