The Internet Has Always Been Free. Why Does John McCain Not Want to Keep It That Way?

In case you don't know what I'm fixing to rant about, it's net neutrality.  In case you don't know what that is, then you should find out, because net neutrality is what makes the Internet the Internet.  Net neutrality is the principle that every connection onto the Internet should behave the same way.  Every connection should be allowed to access every site on the Internet in a free and unrestricted manner.  This is the principle on which the Internet was originally based, and it was never at issue until recently, when a few large corporate Internet service providers started controlling what their users could and couldn't do on the 'net.  This sets a very dangerous precedent.  Imagine if your Internet provider charged you extra for accessing Facebook or Twitter or YouTube.  Imagine if you weren't allowed to access a web site that was critical of your ISP, or if you simply weren't allowed to access web sites for its competitors.  Without net neutrality, all of these things could easily come to pass.

Net neutrality is what enabled the Internet boom of the late 90's.  Net neutrality was simply a given on the Internet until the ISP market distilled into an oligopoly and the big providers decided to game the system in the interest of squeezing out a few more bucks.  The FCC is in the process of implementing regulations that would ensure that net neutrality remains the way of the Internet, as it has traditionally been.  These rules are very simple.  They allow Internet users to access any legal applications and sites that they choose.  They allow Internet providers to implement "reasonable" controls over their network for the purposes of regulating congestion and quality of service, but not for regulating content.  The rules also require ISP's to be transparent about their network regulation practices.  This last point is key-- during the whole Comcast debacle, the company blocked certain peer-to-peer applications but refused to admit to their users that they had done so, even after several of the users produced unquestionable proof.  Imagine if your ISP suddenly decided to block Facebook, and every time you called tech support, they told you that the problem was with the site or with your computer. You can begin to understand the anger that Comcast users felt upon discovering otherwise.

If Internet providers are running out of bandwidth, then there is nothing to prevent them from charging more money to the highest bandwidth consumers.  However, blocking an entire class of Internet applications or sites in an attempt to control bandwidth usage is antithetical to the principles on which the Internet was created.

All well and good, but my old pal John McCain is introducing a bill that would block the FCC's nascent net neutrality regulations.  His reasoning?  That net neutrality will stifle innovation and create economic woes.  Well, if that was true, then why didn't net neutrality stifle innovation and create economic woes in the late 90's?  Here's the kicker-- The McCain bill is called the "Internet Freedom Act."  "Freedom" in this case means "freedom from regulation."

Let me say this once and for all, for the record and the cameras-- freedom from regulation does not equal a free market.  If we eliminate all regulation of industry, then industry's natural tendency is to form monopolies.  This is not a free market economy, and it does not serve the public interest.  The Internet service providers have shown that they are more interested in their own bottom lines than in preserving the last bastion of true capitalism, so it is now up to the government to step in and ensure that the Internet remains a free market.

Talking points:

• Net neutrality does not enable or encourage illegal uses of the Internet, nor does it prevent ISP's from regulating illegal content/sites.
• Net neutrality is the way that the Internet has always worked, until recently.
• Net neutrality does not prevent ISP's from charging as much as they want for bandwidth.
• Net neutrality is not a government takeover of the Internet.  It is the government stepping in to ensure that the Internet continues to work the way it always has.
• Net neutrality guarantees that ISP's cannot enact content controls and then lie to their users about it.

http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed7/idUS348124681720091022

Cable News: Who Watches the Watchers?

It is and always has been the job of news organizations to keep the government honest.  However, in order to keep the government honest, a news organization must itself be honest.  That means admitting its own biases, taking great care to separate facts from opinions, and taking even greater care to ensure that the facts it presents are backed up by hard evidence.  While this article was inspired by the current "feud" between Fox News and the Obama administration, my main purpose here is to highlight what I believe are fundamental problems among all cable news outlets, not just Fox.

"The fact that our numbers are up 30 plus in the news arena on basic cable I'd like to think is a sign that we are just putting what we believe to be the facts out on the table." -- Michael Clemente, Fox Senior Vice President for News

OK, but if that were really a valid argument, then the National Enquirer would be five times more factual than the Wall Street Journal, because five times as many people read it.  It doesn't work that way.  More facts don't generate more ratings, and more ratings don't generate more facts.  Rather, the opposite is usually true.  Sensationalism generates ratings.  All 24-hour news networks are, by their very nature, sensationalistic.  They have too much time to fill and too little hard news, so they blow every little story way too far out of proportion and focus on what they think the viewers want to hear, not on what the viewers need to hear.  The culture of fear that this has created in our society is a topic for another editorial, but the basic point is that cable news is driven by money, not by journalistic integrity.  Like modern-day Howard Beales, the news networks draw more viewers when they say and do outrageous things, not when they report the hard news.  There are no negative inducements to this, no checks and balances to prevent them from airing opinions or false information as facts.

Broadcast networks were once subject to the FCC's "Mayflower Doctrine" (AKA "Fairness Doctrine"), which guaranteed equal time for controversial issues.  The basic reasoning was that the airwaves are a limited public resource, so the government should step in to ensure that no single viewpoint is allowed to dominate them.  However, the rise of cable TV in the 80's largely undermined this scarcity argument, and thus the Fairness Doctrine was abolished by the FCC during the Reagan era.  Broadcasters and cable providers are still required to serve the "public interest", though, and in fact, news programs are a large part of how broadcasters satisfy this requirement.   Cable providers, on the other hand, satisfy the public interest requirement by allocating additional channels for public access or local news.  Cable news networks like CNN, Fox, and MSNBC are not individually subject to the public interest requirement.  It is assumed that, if these networks are achieving sufficient ratings to keep them on the air, then the public is satisfied with them, and they are serving the public interest.

The other major difference between broadcast and cable news is that broadcast news is not designed to attract viewers to a network.  It is designed to retain viewers.  Broadcast news is a public service tantamount to providing free newspapers at a coffee shop.  The coffee shop makes their money on coffee, so if they provide a free newspaper, then there's a good chance that their patrons will have a second cup while reading it.  Similarly, people who tune in to a particular broadcast news program often stick around for that network's primetime programming.  The cable news networks are, on the other hand, like news stands.  News stands make their money on newspapers and magazines, so they're going to put the more expensive, more colorful, more sensationalistic tabloids and magazines up front to draw in the customers.  Similarly, the cable news networks primarily air punditry shows in primetime, not hard news.

“An increasing number of viewers are relying on Fox News for both news and opinion, and the average news consumer can certainly distinguish between the A-section of the newspaper and the editorial page, which is what our programming represents." -- Michael Clemente, Fox Senior Vice President for News

Sure, it's easy to distinguish the editorial page from the A section, because the editorial page usually has "Editorial Page" emblazoned across the top in 100-point Helvetica.  Would it be as easy to separate the news from the op-ed pieces if they were intermingled and written in the same style?  I haven't written a real editorial since the state editorial writing contest my senior year of high school, but even then, I knew that it is the fundamental job of an editorial writer to make sure that the audience knows that the piece is an editorial.  In fact, if the audience cannot discern the editorial nature of the piece after one paragraph, then the writer has failed.  This is where Clemente's analogy breaks down.  The pundits for the major cable news outlets often do not present themselves as editorialists.  They present themselves as investigative journalists who claim to be getting to the bottom of a story.  Could the average, casual watcher of a cable news channel easily identify the pundits from the reporters?  This is particularly difficult when the pundits and the reporters appear on the same shows and even, at times, interview each other.

The other fundamental job of the editorial writer is to present opinions, not facts.  This is a distinction that we teach to elementary school students but one which we seem to have forgotten as adults.  You can't write an op-ed piece claiming that the sky is green or that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11 or that Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen.  These statements can be proven or disproven empirically, and thus they are not opinions.  If you are attempting to disprove something that most people accept as fact, then you are not an editorialist.  You are an investigative journalist.  As soon as you cross the line into investigative journalism, then you are required to present evidence to back up your claims, and you are compelled by the credo of journalistic integrity to be impartial.

This is the major problem with many cable news pundits.  They attempt to hide behind the veil of editorialism, but they present themselves as investigative journalists.  An investigative journalist who displays bias and does not back up his or her claims with evidence is a tabloid journalist, not an editorialist.  Whether or not something actually happened is irrelevant to a tabloid journalist.  All they need is one or two people ("sources") to say that it actually happened.

"I went back to my days 40 years ago, when I was on the Nixon White House staff, and I think I see some of the same early steps that I saw then." -- Senator Lamar Alexander.  Alexander went on to refer to the White House's stance as "classifying people who disagree with you as your enemies."

The issue is not whether a news organization disagrees with the White House.  The issue is whether said news organization is using misinformation to support its disagreement.  This goes back to the difference between fact and opinion.  "I disagree with the president's policies, and here's why" is an opinion.  "The president is a socialist muslim" or "the president is a fascist terrorist" is not an opinion.  An opinion is a subjective statement.  It is something that cannot be argued empirically, because it speaks to a personal preference or a personal experience.  A fact is objective.  It is something that can be proven ... or disproven.  The problem is that, if it is disproven, it is no longer a fact.  It is misinformation, and those who knowingly represent misinformation as facts in order to further an agenda are not journalists.  They are propagandists.  Plus, here's the third thing that they taught us in high school editorial writing:  never engage in personal attacks or name calling.  If someone wants to disagree with the president's policies, that's fine, but as soon as they start accusing the president of un-American activities, they had better be prepared to back that up.  That goes for any president, not just the ones I voted for.

"The other thing I don't get is why the mainstream media, which, frankly, would go absolutely nuts if George Bush had singled out MSNBC and said, you know, Nobody follow them, they're not really a news organization, and we're going to boycott -- I mean, all my friends in the 1st Amendment crowd would be up in arms" -- Susan Estrich, Fox Political Analyst

Free speech is a right.  An audience is a privilege.  Also, the First Amendment does not protect libel or slander.  The White House is not trying to silence Fox News.  What they are trying to do is shame them into doing a better job of fact checking.  Perhaps the Bush administration did not go after MSNBC because their viewership was so low.  The Bush White House certainly did, however, react to the spate of documentaries that came out in 2004 that were critical of the administration.  For the record, I think that some of Michael Moore's claims against the Bush White House were equally as egregious as some of the claims Fox News has made against the Obama White House.  The difference is that Moore never claimed to be "fair and balanced", nor was he ever given a primetime show on MSNBC.  I don't recall any liberal parents pulling their kids out of school so they didn't have to hear Bush's speech.  Bush received 1/4 as many death threats as Obama.  If anyone talked of secession or questioned Bush's citizenship or religion during his administration, it certainly was not aired on national TV.

I will defend to the death the right of Fox News to say whatever they want, but as long as they call themselves a "news" channel, I will also hold them to the same standards of journalistic integrity to which I hold any other hard news outlet.  That means clearly delineating op-ed pieces from hard news.  That means fact checking sources.  Same goes for you, MSNBC.

I don't think re-instating the Mayflower Doctrine as law, as some have proposed, is the answer to this.  One of the reasons why that doctrine was repealed was that it caused broadcasters to avoid controversial issues altogether.  This is not what we want.  However, I do believe that any cable network that claims to be an outlet for news should be subject to the FCC's public interest requirement, and a network's fulfillment of this requirement should be measured against the pre-Reagan "trusteeship" model rather than by market success.  I also believe that FactCheck.org or another independent, non-partisan organization should certify news programs based on their fact checking record.

Apparently They Forgot the Part About "Indivisible"

Rick Perry's comments about secession were careless and irresponsible, but Rick Perry will be Rick Perry, I guess (adios, mofo.)  However, perhaps it was naive of me not to realize that there is now a whole organized secessionist movement in this state, complete with its own web site and radio station.

Wow.  Really?

What kills me is that I'm imagining that most of these same people screamed "treason" when Gregory Lee Johnson burned the American flag in Dallas in 1984.  I'm imagining that most of these same people screamed "God Bless America" and were the first in line to buy a flag when the twin towers fell in 2001.  I'm imagining the cries of "USA!" from their living rooms as they watched the green, ghostly streaks from the infrared cameras trained on the Baghdad night sky.  I guess they expect Texans to wrap ourselves in the flag, get behind the President, support the troops, and ask God to bless our nation as long as the Republicans control Washington, but as soon as the nation fairly elects a Democrat, now we're expected to pee on the flag and stock up on ammo in preparation for the inevitable bloody revolution?

That's not the way it works, folks.  California and New York didn't start bandying about the "S word" when Bush was elected, even though many of them undoubtedly felt just as disenfranchised by Bush's policies as some Texans feel about Obama's.  However, let's be clear about two things:  (1) no one has raised our taxes yet, and (2) Texas is far from being a solid red state.  It is the pinnacle of hubris for these secessionists-- as well as Perry-- to believe that Texas speaks with one voice and that they are that voice.  Perry was re-elected with 38% of the vote (1.7 million votes)-- hardly a mandate, to be sure.  Meanwhile, 3.5 million Texans (44% of those who voted last November) voted for Obama.

Texas is a vast land with many diverse cultures and ethnicities.  We have mountains, canyons, tall forests, plains, deserts, the biggest of cities, and the smallest of towns.   Despite our huge areas of open space, most of which are privately owned, nearly 90% of Texans live in urban areas.  This is a larger percentage of urban population than even New York!  Texas is a land that defies categorization, a state with at least four distinct regional accents, a state in which less than 50% of the population is Caucasian.  How could any one person or group claim to have their finger on the pulse of our whole state?

But let's entertain, for a moment, the prospect of making Texas a sovereign nation again.  The U.S. military consists of 1.5 to 3 million men and women, depending on whether or not you count the reserves.  Assuming Texas could muster a proportional number of men and women to serve in its armed forces, the Texas army would still be outnumbered by the Mexican army.  Perhaps the secessionists would rather relive the Alamo than remember it.

On paper, Texas produces approximately the same GDP per capita as the U.S. average.  However, how much of our economy hinges on free trade with the other states?  How much would Texas' economy suffer from the inevitable war for secession or even a war with Mexico?  How much of Texas' population would simply leave if Texas were allowed to secede?  I'm imagining millions, and you can count me among them.  How much additional expense would Texas incur if it no longer was able to rely on the federal government for military protection, highway funds, etc.?  Think for a moment where the technology behind U.S. defense is produced:  mostly not in Texas.  Texas has one of the lowest tax rates in the Union, but ironically, the Fair Tax folks would find that their taxes would probably have to increase if Texas were to stand on its own.

Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, as the saying goes.  We've been down this road before.  The two major reasons why the Republic of Texas voted to become a state were:  (a) military protection against Mexico, and (b) the U.S. agreed to assume Texas' huge national debt.  Despite what Perry and others would have us believe, there was no "right to secede" included in our annexation resolution.  The only special provision included in this resolution was one that would allow Texas to split into as many as five states if it so chose.  This has intriguing possibilities, but it's a far cry from secession.  Actually, maybe we should just take advantage of our right to form a new state, give the secessionists their own chunk of the desert somewhere, and see how well they fare on their own.  The reality TV rights alone would be worth millions.

No state has the "right" to secede.  Texas, like every other state, is an integral and symbiotic part of the United State of America.  Talk of secession is an insult to the many brave men and women who died for this nation and our flag and "the republic for which it stands ... INDIVISIBLE."  Talk of secession is also an insult to the many brave men and women who would die trying to maintain the integrity of the nation If Texas tried to secede, as well as an insult to the many families who would be torn apart by civil war.  It's an insult to those of us who still believe in America and what America can do.  I was born and raised here.  How dare someone tell me that I can't be both a Texan and an American?

So, are y'all still going to want to secede if a Republican gets elected in 2012?  I bet not.

from the Big Book of Bachelor Recipes, p. 92: Cheesy Veggie Casserole

Ingredients:

• 1 thing of frozen veggies
• 1 1/2 things of pasteurized process cheese food

Combine ingredients in salad bowl from yesterday.  Cover.  Nuke it until it glows.  Play drum solo from "Tom Sawyer" on counter top.  Remove dish from microwave.  Nearly drop it because it's frickin' hot and you forgot to use oven mitts.  Eat directly from bowl while watching last night's "Squidbillies."

from the Big Book of Bachelor Recipes, p. 137: Hickory Smoked Tuna Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 thing of hickory smoked tuna
• 1 thing of salad

Combine ingredients in big bowl.  Toss vigorously.  Serve.