I don’t know where this man comes up with this stuff, but his priorities thus far — despite his protestation that his first priority is to create jobs — have been to reduce government to only small enough to control every vagina in the land, and now to remove all impediments to the ability of internet providers to turn the internet into a toll highway. The concept of net neutrality — the state the internet has been in since its inception, whereupon ISPs are not allowed to charge extra for use of certain routes, and that all traffic must be routed equally — is one that should be held sacrosanct to anyone who wishes to benefit from the democracy-enabling powers the internet provides. Speaker John Boehner, representing the Republicans in the freshly-flipped House, has made the following statement.

“Right now, freedom and free expression are under attack by a power structure in Washington populated with regulators who have never set foot inside a radio station or a television studio,” Rep. Boehner said during a speech at the annual National Religious Broadcasters convention.

“We see this threat in how the FCC is creeping further into the free market by trying to regulate the Internet,” the congressman continued. “Network neutrality, they call it. It’s a series of regulations that empower the federal bureaucracy to regulate Internet content and viewpoint discrimination. The rules are written vaguely, of course, to allow the FCC free reign.”

[…]

“There is no compromise or middle ground when it comes to protecting our most basic freedoms,” Rep. Boehner said, adding that the Republican majority in the House was committed to fighting the new regulations.

“We’re also going to do what we can to see that no taxpayer dollars are used to fund these net neutrality rules,” he said.

In December, the FCC passed regulations that prevent service providers from choking certain routes until you pay more to use them. These rules do not go far enough — they open the door for ISPs to apply for rights to create priority routes for pay — but claim that most, if not all, such applications would not pass muster. It is this legislation that Boehner lies bald-facedly about. It is this legislation that keeps the robber barons from your throats. It is imperfect legislation, to be sure, but it is worthwhile legislation nonetheless.

Studios and stations get mentioned, but not the people who would be screwed. Funny, that. The ISPs in the States are trying to meter the internet in such a way that only the rich can use it effectively, and meanwhile, Koreans get unlimited transfer gigabit connections to their doors for ~$27 USD a month. The rationale is that being forced to build infrastructure costs money, and companies like Netflix and Youtube are jeopardizing the very old infrastructure that’s already been built, eating into ISPs’ profits. Cry me a river. If the Koreans can do internet right, and cheap, then you’re doing something wrong.

Meanwhile, what was that nonsense about your priority as speaker being jobs, Boehner? So far you’ve done nothing but push for money grabs for companies, and rights revocation for the people you claim to serve.