So the recent struggles about network neutrality have led me to recognize something I hadn't quite seen before. And that something in turn makes more puzzling the debates that have been raised around network neutrality.
The something to recognize is that in a fundamental sense, fair use (FU) and network neutrality (NN) are the same thing. They are both state enforced limits on the property rights of others. In both cases, the limits are slight --the vast range of uses granted a copyright holder are only slightly restricted by FU; the vast range of uses allowed a network owner are only slightly restricted by NN. And in both cases, the line defining the limits is uncertain. But in both cases, those who support each say that the limits imposed on the property right are necessary for some important social end (admittedly, different in each case), and that the costs of enforcing those limits are outweighed by the benefits of protecting that social end.
So from this perspective, it is easy to understand those who reject FU and NN (who are they?). And it is easy to understand those who embrace FU and NN. What gets difficult is understanding those who embrace one while rejecting the other --at least when that rejection is articulated in terms of "government regulation".
Odd Defense
to say you personally are non-violent and see physical things as only holy and cleansing, so that's it, and it must be true for the whole movement, and every religion?
It seems just too easy to give examples that make this position absurd. Do one person's non-violent beliefs however earnest, mean that the blood PETA protesters throw on women wearing fur is cleansing and holy, and that their intent in throwing it is peace and reconciliation? Burning crosses and white sheets, do they intimidate without cause? -- what about Taliban woman-beating and hand-cutting-off, what about the Pearls' training manuals for evangelical child-beating with sticks, are those ALL physical manifestions of religion you've never seen and can't believe would worry the rest of us? C'mon you can't be THAT clueless about the real world.
Frankly, I'm disgruntled by the Muslim headscarves in western public schools not to mention this new thing Rush or O'Reilly was ranting about yesterday on my car radio, these airport prayer footbaths installed for Muslim cabbies -- he wanted to know when the Catholic holy water stations would be installed so he could cleanse and pray before or after a flight.