Al Franken Getting Salty About Net Neutrality

Senator Al Franken has been a chief advocate for net neutrality, a euphemistic term for regressive wealth redistribution and increased regulation of the internet. As has been the case with so many initiatives favored by the Obama administration, when Congress could not be convinced to pass net neutrality through law, the administration enacted the radical policy change through bureaucratic rule-making.

Internet service providers have defended themselves through the only means available, legal challenge. Franken would deny them their day in court, as reported by the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Sen. Al Franken on Wednesday said he will reach out to his vast network of net neutrality supporters to apply pressure on Republicans after they added a provision in this next year’s budget that guts new net neutrality rules.

The Republican measure, inserted into the budget over the summer, would prevent the Federal Communications Commission from enforcing net neutrality rules until Internet service providers deplete all legal challenges with the commission…

… Franken has been a vocal supporter of net neutrality, which essentially promises that all Internet traffic and speeds are treated equally.

If the notion at work in net neutrality were applied to the physical realm, deliveries would be priced the same no matter how much was delivered, how far, or how quickly. Doing so would mean charging more for smaller packages traveling shorter distances in less time, in order to cover the expense of larger packages traveling further in haste. The effect would be a de facto wealth redistribution from those using less to those using more.

In the case of net neutrality, the beneficiaries are large corporations like Google and Netflix, gaining at the expense of internet customers with lower bandwidth needs. It’s essentially a regressive tax to subsidize big business, something a guy like Franken is supposed to be against.