The Patriot Post® · Obamanet, Er, Net Neutrality

During Barack Obama’s seventh State of the Union Address Tuesday evening, he’ll reveal his plans to “protect” the Internet through “net neutrality” – to address a largely manufactured crisis with, naturally, government control and regulation.

After transforming America with ObamaCare – changing the full-time work week to 30 hours, increasing the amount of “out-of-pocket” cash expenses due to astronomical deductibles, and the most infamous of BIG Lies that “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan” – heed this warning: More transformation is on the way.

Enter, Obamanet, otherwise known as “net neutrality.”

The manufactured crisis exists in the contrived priority of some web content over other content. In language that Al Sharpton would be proud of, the University of California Berkeley opines [emphasis added]: “Without a net neutral stance in what is carried over their pipes (referring to internet carriers such as AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, etc.), network providers can choose to discriminate and decide how fast data will be transmitted and at what quality.”

Never mind that some consumers pay for a premium plan to access unlimited bandwidth to meet the needs for high-end volume and quality, while the average consumer chooses to pay for a service adequate to meet their needs.

In the world of the Left, it is “discrimination” unless equal service is available to every user of the Internet at the exact same price. It’s “discrimination” if, say, medical records are prioritized over your Facebook status update. It’s “discrimination” if you choose a less expensive Internet service to meet your user needs while a major content carrier pays more for use and for the extra bandwidth required to deliver that voluminous digital content.

The only thing left to do, according to the same folks who want the government to pick our doctors and to make sure a single male is carrying insurance that pays for gynecological visits, is for the federal government to regulate the Internet to make sure we pay the exact same price for the exact same access.

Former Obama fundraiser and appointed Federal Communications Commission Chief Tom Wheeler has signaled he’s prepared to move forward with Obama’s “solution” to this horrific “discrimination” that most of us call consumerism through massive expansion of powers over Internet access.

The simplest way to explain Obama’s plan is that he wants to turn the Internet into a government-controlled and regulated utility, like telephone landlines. The Internet service to your wireless smartphones, hand-held devices, laptop computers and to the corporate giant in your region would be classified under Title II of the Communications Act as a telecommunications service.

This “Communications Act” was passed in June 1934. Yep, that would be more than 80 years ago. The scope of the law was to dramatically change the manner in which telephone and radio communications were regulated. Simply, services defined as Title I were information services and would be regulated with a less-heavy hand while the Title II services, such as telephone, would be deemed utilities and would be subject to stricter rules and oversight.

The Republican-led Congress was opposed to this action … last month. Now, however, there seems to be pressure building for a legislative “remedy” to this ginned-up discrimination. There is political merit to offering a conservative solution so as to take away the imperial Obama’s practice of circumventing Congress. But the GOP seems in danger of merely rubber-stamping Obama’s plan.

In short, Obama and his money-man-turned-FCC-boss want to “free” the Internet through regulation and to define Internet access according to 1934 rules. And they say conservatives want to turn back the clock.