California Is Keeping Dumb Net Neutrality Alive. Trump Is Trying to Kill It.

Semi-famous are some World War II Japanese soldiers who were strewn across the Pacific — and didn’t know the war had ended. Some spent subsequent DECADES hiding out — awaiting reality to finally find them.

When it comes to government policy, this is how I often view California. A bunch of soldiers fighting the last wars — that no one told them they had already lost.

California is amazing in the sense that it is cutting-edge in its backward thinking. Like Canada and Western Europe, the Golden State is usually about ten years stupider policy-wise than most of the rest of the United States.

But the rest of the U.S. almost always tags along. Because unfortunately, most of the West knows dumbness when they see it — and they then implement it anyway.

Occasionally, we the Non-Californians figure something out. We ultimately avoid a particular stupid policy. Upon which California was one of the first on — and upon which it stubbornly insists upon being last out.

To wit: I give you Network Neutrality (NN).

Network Neutrality is huge Big Government cronyism for Big Tech. Big Tech is now comprised of the hugest corporations in the history of humanity.

Perhaps hugest of the huge NN giveaways? NN outlaws Big Tech being charged for the MASSIVE bandwidth they use. You and I pay MUCH more to connect to the Internet — so that these HUGE corporations can get their free ride.

But NN is so old and stupid? The entire argument for it is framed as policy protecting these richest companies in human history — from the evil Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

How Big Companies and the Courts Killed Net Neutrality: “The powerful telecom industry did what they always do when the FCC does anything good or important on behalf of consumer: They sued to overturn the rules.”

Except here are the largest of the Big Tech companies and ISP/telecom companies — by Market Cap:

• Apple: $5.0 trillion
• Alphabet (Google): $4.1 trillion
• Amazon: $2.7 trillion
• Verizon: $194.1 billion
• T-Mobile: $178.3 billion
• AT&T: $171.8 billion

So you can see how Big Tech needs Big Gov preferential treatment vis-à-vis the ISPs.

Way back in 2002, when NN was first foisted upon us? The ISPs were larger than the soon-to-be Big Tech companies.

But thanks in large part to Big Gov cronyism like Section 230, zero limits were placed upon how Big Tech abuses our digital data and other government gifts — including the repeatedly attempted NN?

Big Tech exploded outward towards infinity. Inside its Big Gov crony cocoon — insulated from political and economic reality.

DC has spent the last quarter-century ping-ponging NN back and forth. Democrat administrations illegally impose it — without the benefit of Congress and legislation. Republican administrations repeal it. Later, rinse, repeat…

But I, for one, get the sense that NN in DC is now dead. It just now seems too stupid — even for DC.

But California has One-Party rule. It’s been ridiculously Democrat for decades. So they have had ridiculous, unfettered Net Neutrality in place since Sept. 30, 2018. And via legislation and law, no less.

California’s NN law has been very much like the Japanese soldiers still fighting WW II in Guam and the Philippines. Most of the rest of us didn’t realize it existed.

Except people who pay attention to these things? Know the problems California can cause. California is so big, its laws and policies alone can serve as a gravitational pull downward upon the rest of the country.

And California ain't alone in its tilting at NN windmills — though its NN is far and away the most obnoxious.

Four other states — Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Vermont — have NN laws in place. And three other states — New York, New Jersey and Maine — have executive orders and/or contracting rules imposing NN.

Thankfully, the Donald Trump administration is aware of all this. And is making an effort to do something about it.

California Faces Deadline to Gut Net Neutrality Law for $1.86B in Federal Broadband Cash: “The Trump administration is requiring states accepting funds from the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program to exempt participating internet providers from net neutrality rules and rate regulation, and California has a deadline at the end of September to sign the agreement with the National Telecommunications and Information administration.”

You read that correctly. Trump is insisting upon reality from ALL the fifty states….

Trump Admin Demands States Exempt ISPs From Net Neutrality and Price Laws: “The administration claims that net neutrality rules are a form of rate regulation and thus not allowed under the U.S. law that created the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program.”

In point of fact: NN imposed by any of the U.S.’s many governments — other than the federal government? Is illegal, period:

The World Wide Web — is a WORLD Wide Web. So its policymaking — is very obviously the responsibility of the federal government.

The Feds determine U.S. policies — and then go negotiate our network interactions with the many other nations and their networks.

It would be a titanic nightmare mess to have, say, fifty different state-level Net Neutrality or Privacy policies. Much less having counties and cities also imposing Internet policies of their own.

So the Trump administration is using the BEAD tool at hand — to enact broader, better policy.

To which the only reasonable response is: “Yes, please. And thank you.”

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