From the start, the ISPs were categorized under Title I. They were moved to Title for the express purpose of imposing regulations.
The problem is that Title II carries with it a bunch of other rules, which the FCC pinky-swore to not actually enforce, unless they changed their minds later.
Ok, thanks for clarifying. For my part, this isn’t how I interpreted the thrust of your OP or the majority of your posts up to this point.
(my bold)
I interpreted the “this” in the above to be about the rules of NN, not the mechanism. Specifically, that you were okay with the repeal of those rules. Further, in the second paragraph where you contemplate that it is a potentially good thing, it’s a bit vague on what you’re identifying if it’s not the same thing that is being discussed in the previous paragraph. If it was the mechanism you were intending to discuss, then okay but it wasn’t at all clear from most of the posts up to this point.
That doesn’t answer my question, though. Would it have better to modify Title I or create a Title I-a for ISPs instead of moving them to Title II?
Yes: it would have been better to create a legal framework for ISP regulation.
It WAS about the rules – ALL the rules, not just the subset of rules that the FCC pledged to enforce to further the current specific goal. Because all those rule were in play based on the choice of mechanism.
From my post 548.
The FCC reclassified ISPs in 2015.
The term net neutrality was coined in 2002.
What do you think the definition of the term was in the thirteen years between the term entering popular discourse, and the FCC’s ruling?
…so net neutrality is a United States only concept, characterized only by how it is defined by US lawmakers?
I would suggest your US centric definition of net neutrality is flawed and makes no sense. Net neutrality is a principle independent of legal status, defined quite simply here:
No matter what the US federal government or its agencies decide to do, the principle of net neutrality remains unchanged.
…no they are not.
Everybody talking about net neutrality are talking about the principle of net neutrality. The regulations that were imposed under Title II were in aid of the principles of net neutrality, but not net neutrality itself.
We have traffic laws in the name of public safety, so fewer of us are rendered into highway hamburger. Now, somebody may claim that allowing a Cadillac Elpuerco to go ninety while my VW bus is only allowed to go sixty…they may try to claim that would be “public safety”. Probably that would involve a complex set of legalistic rationalizations. Just guessing.
(No, I don’t actually have a VW bus, but I did have one! Up until the Great Duct Tape Famine of '84. And it would too go sixty MPH! Skinny hippies and a good tail wind…)
There must be some name for the airy, completely divorced from reality theoretical framework in which the regulations don’t exist except as lofty principles, but I’m not sure what that word might be.
Suffice to say that my reaction is: if, as a matter of fact, everyone was simply talking about the lofty principle of net neutrality without a care in their heads for the way these regulations were imposed, and what other consequences might have come inot being as a result of that imposition. . . .
. . . then I guess that’s actually about what I should expect from liberals. Fair enough.
Dude, you are so in the weeds on this one.
If you cannot recognize that the majority of posters here are simply seeing the forest for the trees, you can’t blame that on stupid liberals not understanding your detailed insights on regulatory processes.
Folks here are simply saying that isn’t their top concern.
…holy shit what an amazing response.
What kind of a strawman is this?
Regulations do exist and I never claimed that regulations don’t exist. But when we talk about net neutrality of course we are talking about the principle of net neutrality, and not a specific regulation.
More straw.
This is your thread. This is a great debate framed around the words that you posted in your OP. Everybody else is using words as they are commonly used. Both liberals and conservatives in this thread (with the exception of you) are using “net neutrality” in the same way. That you have conflated “net neutrality” and “title II” doesn’t point to a problem with “liberals”. “Everybody else” haven’t gotten things wrong. As has been pointed out since the beginning: you simply do not understand what net neutrality is.
And this is another thing entirely. I’m reminded of something you said in another thread about healthcare.
And I can’t help but think that this is actually the debate you want to have. Net neutrality is actually of no consequence to you. Because you are so indifferent to the concept of net neutrality that you conflate the principle with the regulation.
So if this is the debate you want to have, then have at it.
What are the consequences that the American people should have expected from what the FCC did in 2015?
To be fair, the consequences are that the next president could decide to undo everyhting the previous did, no matter the wisdom of the move, and reverse the protections that are put into place.
OTOH, the consequences of not doing somethign in 2015 is that the ISP’s would continue to push for content regulation to their own advantage, as they will be doing again here shortly.
Were I someone in Bricker’s shoes, where I find that using executive functions to take care of a problem that the vast majority of the population of the United States wants taken care of, but upon which congress refuses to act, I would be blaming congress for their inaction, rather than the Obama administration for doing what it could to address a problem that needed fixed.
It is like blaming the little dutch boy for sticking his finger in the dyke, when he should have lobbied the town council to start a proposal to look into the feasibility of hiring contractors to assess the repairs needed to protect the town from the flood.
Come on, man, really? It’s clear almost your entire argument is based on your own personal definition of NN, and not one that literally every other poster in this thread is using, and when called on it, you make some childish remark about “liberals”?
What a waste of time.
This is so emblematic of what I oppose about the liberal thought process it should be framed.
We have a process for making law.
If you don’t get the results you want from that process, you should not say to yourself, “Well, then I’ll get it from some other source. Maybe the executive can apply some standard that doesn’t really fit. Maybe the courts will rule what I want to actually constitute a constitutional right, and I’ll get it that way! As long as I get what I want, how I get it is irrelevant.”
Please, stop and think how dangerous this is. Surely you can see that if nothing else, others can apply the same tactic when they control the courts, or the White House.
But even that doesn’t seem to bother you overmuch. You simply announce that NOW, the Executive action is illegitimate, and the courts are activist, ruling against you as they do. The only metric of legitimacy is achieving the desired result, it seems.
I firmly believe that in a representative democracy, my idea of right results is not always THE right result. I disfavor abortion; not once have I said the state doesn’t have the legitimate power to permit it. For this debate, the fact that Congress doesn’t act has to mean something other than, “Well, then we’ll get what we want some other way!”
PLEASE. See what I am saying. If Congress won’t act, by all means, criticize Congress, work against Congressional reps that aren’t on board. But don’t valorize this crazy concept that some less legitimate route just had to be taken, because it was The Right Thing To Do.
You live in a representative democracy. Your Right Thing is not everyone’s. You don’t help the democracy by end-running its institutions to get your desired results.
My entire argument is based on the net neutrality rules framework. Somehow, “Net Neutrality,” was transformed into a school of philosophical thought when I was reading FCC rules. I have no idea how that happened.
Do you mean the process that you yourself admitted enabled the FCC to reclassify ISPs as Title II? If you have a problem with the FCC using this power, then you should probably take it up with Congress to repeal that power.
(1) Easy reversal by FCC in 2017.
(2) Future reliance on agency application of broad frameworks to ill-suited problems.
(3) Frustration and anger when public accepts media misframing of issue.
Because you are wrong? 
Can you also cite where you got that quote of the definition of NN that you thought was correct?