In the cinematic classic “The Princess Bride,” Inigo Montoya utters the now oft-repeated “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Uber-Left government-media outfit Free Press is highly practiced in this disingenuous art. Their name is one shining example. It sounds good, but when you find out for what they actually stand – not so much.
And they use “Net Neutrality” one way publicly to engender support for the already heinous policy – but their ultimate intent with it is something drastically different, and dramatically worse.
Free Press’ presented Net Neutrality persona sounds benign and innocuous.
When we log on to the Internet via our computer or smartphone, we take a lot for granted. We assume we’ll be able to access any website or use any application we want, whenever we want, at the fastest speed, whether it’s a corporate site or a friend’s blog. We assume we can use any service we like — watch online videos, update our Facebook status, read the news — any time we choose, on any device we choose. What makes all these assumptions possible is a principle called Net Neutrality.
But there are a lot of things Free Press isn’t telling you.
Net Neutrality is socialism for the Internet – it guarantees everyone equal amounts of nothing. It is the government mandating that everything on the World Wide Web be delivered at the exact same speed. As with all things government – the Veterans Administration debacle being the latest terrible example – that speed is S…L…O…W.
Net Neutrality is a “solution” desperately running around in search of a problem. All of the nightmare scenarios Free Press and their fellow proponents put forward are hypothetical – they aren’t actually occurring. And they haven’t occurred. And they won’t occur – because the free market dictates that they won’t. (Netflix is currently claiming Net Neutrality violations – but they too are mis-defining it, and have been proven to be faking the evidence.)
The Internet has since its commercial inception been a virtually regulation-free zone. As a result of this government-less-ness, the Web has exploded into the free speech-free market Xanadu we all know and love.
The government doesn’t have a regulatory hook in the Web – so it can’t begin reeling it in. And that drives Free Press crazy. So they weave their Net Neutrality fairy tale – we need the government to save us from…this unbelievably amazing Internet? Really?
Free Press wants the government to reel in the private sector Web – because they don’t want there to be a private sector Web. How do we know this? Because Free Press’s co-founder said so.
Meet Robert McChesney – avowed Marxist and college professor (please pardon the redundancy).
Avowed Marxist? McChesney writes for and was editor of Monthly Review – about which he wrote:
“Although Monthly Review has a current circulation of 8,500 – and has never seen its circulation rise much above the 12,000 mark – it is one of the most important Marxist publications in the world, let alone the United States.”
In Monthly Review and elsewhere, McChesney has written things like:
“There is no real answer but to remove brick by brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles.”
And:
“Any serious effort to reform the media system would have to necessarily be part of a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system itself.”
So it comes as no surprise that Free Press co-founder McChesney also says this:
“At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies. We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.”
How very Hugo Chavez of them.
So what McChesney and his Free Press want is to “remove brick by brick the capitalist (Internet) system itself” and “overthrow” “the media capitalists” and “divest them from control.”
Leaving us with government as our sole Internet Service Provider (ISP) – single-payer government Internet. How’s that system working for veterans’ health care?
All of which is not exactly the innocuous Net Neutrality that Free Press has been selling, now is it?
Inigo Montoya – call your office.
Editor’s Note: This first appeared in Human Events.