The “special case” thing is a little perplexing, though. My ISP is also my phone company. Are phone companies Title II common carriers or not? Why would it make sense to regulate one part of a company’s service but not a very similar other part of their service? It does not make sense and does not seem very much like a “special case”.
Sure. Of course, this a different kind of special case, one that fashions an exception based on desirable outcome rather than process.
But that’s perfectly defensible. I absolutely understand someone saying, in effect, “This is not the preferred path, but in this case, with no other path readily apparent, the benefit outweighs the harm of transgressing my preferred norm.”
I just don’t agree, but that’s why we don’t share agreement on the proper roles fo government and the weight assigned to retaining the norms associated with those roles.
But again, I’m not sure I understand your objection with the process. The process by which Congress granted the FCC this power, and the FCC used it. That seems to be the proper role of government. If you want an agency to have some power, make sure that the lawfully elected representatives of the country pass laws to give that agency some power.
And they did. And the FCC used it. You seem to be against the process simply because you disagree with the outcome. Which is exactly what you tell others in other threads about certain topics. It just seems strange to me to see **you **saying it in this instance. And it is doubly strange to me since you still haven’t provided any “good things” that come from reversing the FCC decision other than the already mentioned “less regulation”.
No!!
No, and no again.
The proper role of government is not discovered simply by assessing the breadth of a grant of power and whether the wielder of that power exceeded it.
We vest, for example, broad discretionary powers in law enforcement officers. We do not expect them to exercise those powers wrongly, but at the same time we can’t limit those powers without crippling police usefulness in keeping order.
“The proper role of government,” includes an understanding of the fact that government must generally use its expansive power in limited ways, even though it’s necessary to possess broad powers.
So then you would agree that the FCC used its expansive power in limited ways by not subjecting the ISPs to the full range of regulations that would normally result from Title II status?
Yes, that’s a true statement, in the sense that it contains no explicitly false claims.
But it’s also an incomplete statement, because they created the situation by using their expansive power in an expansive way first, creating a permanent watermark, and only then used their expansive power in a limited way by pinky-swearing not to subject the ISPs to the full range of regulations that would normally result from Title II status.
By “first” do you mean in an earlier paragraph of the same document? If they had pinky-swore at the beginning of the document, and then in later paragraphs, they created a permanent watermark, you would be fine with that?
No.
The timing is not as dispositive as the relative strength of the two maneuvers – thus my characterizing one of the steps as a “pinky swear,” rather than anything more substantial.
The first was a rule change covered by the APA; the latter was a non-binding statement of intent subject to easy future revision or removal.
It has to be noted here that Bricker is also ignoring that the courts were very helpful in telling the FCC that they should reach for title II. Point is that even the courts understood that the FCC was actually sandbagging themselves by just relying on tittle I.
Of course with a new administration the new umpires are completely biased against using the rules properly.
And the first was a rule change subject to easy future revision or removal as well. I know that because it was easily removed over the objections of a majority of consumers.
You may call it “easy,” but it was in fact more difficult than reversing the “forbearance,” would have been. Specifically, there was an APA-required notice and comment period.
Correct?
I don’t get this, as noted already the comment period for the just made dropping of the rules was corrupted, very likely by the companies that wanted the regulation removed; of course, as I noted before, ignoring this makes it easy to continue to ignore the forest for the legal trees.
I’m not sure if there was or not. If there was, then I expect that the review of the comments went as well as the review of the grievances filed on the government’s grievance-filing website.
It’s amusing to me that someone would think that an FCC chairman who was against the rule change even when it happened would somehow be swayed by “comments”
So yeah, it seems pretty easy to me.
Again, while it may seem “pretty easy,” it’s factually more difficult than changing forbearance. Changing forbearance does not require the development and publication of a Regulatory Plan or Unified Agenda, the drafting and publication of an ANPRM, or the creation of an agency docket that will serve as a factual record in case of judicial review of the rulemaking. Did you consider those steps in determining the relative ease of the two?
The current chairman and Republican appointees at the FCC do not care about comments, and on top of that they are not willing to check evidence that the comment period was corrupted before the last vote that dropped the rules.
AFAIK, It was not only people that supported the rules before around 2014-2015, but experts and consumer advocates, It is mostly by having people that are willing to ignore the advice of the experts and even the opinion of most of the people is that we are in this situation.
I did, because I don’t consider something that is “tedious” as “hard”
Something “hard”, to me, would be actually convincing other people, like the populace, or Congress, to go along with what you want to do. Doing something by fiat, and then ginning up some paperwork does not fit my definition of “hard”
I suspect that if the FCC had decided to start actually enforcing other rules after they said they wouldn’t, there would be no end of shit they would get from the ISPs. And once the ISPs got to Congress, there would be no end of shit the FCC would get from Congress. Thus, the FCC would need to explain why they were now enforcing rules they said they wouldn’t and convince the ISPs, Congress, and the populace on why they were doing that.
I consider that much harder than drafting some paperwork and disregarding anyone who said anything different.
OK, then I guess we’ll agree to disagree about how to compare two actions to determine which one is easier; you stick with your approach and enjoy.
LOL, ok then. It’s easier for me anyway 
…so a question for Bricker: is the process of Senate overruling the FCC and reinstating “Net Neutrality” part of the proper role of government? Is this a special case? Why or why not?