The point is to leave things as they are. Too many people involved in this fight are saying that legislation is not the issue. The issue is that we need to legally define what being on the net is. Is it a transactional activity or is it an civil activity?

This is not about people forcing you to be anywhere. This is about fighting to allow unrestricted access to this new medium to present and future netizens.

There I was -- being clever and trying to talk to JJ about the insanity of compulsory schooling and "volunteer" work that is required of public school students and how that isn't what I want for the internet or my children -- anything that is "compulsory" losing all attraction for some of us. . . and I completely misled you. Sigh. . .

And now you are saying, if I understand you correctly, that we need legislation to ensure that what has been going on on the Internet continues to go on.

And JJ is wondering (right, JJ?) why we need legislation or regulation of something that seems to work really well the more we leave it alone, from a regulatory stance.

Netizens, yes, very important. DailyKos and all that. I'm all for it. And the red sites too. Why not. The more the merrier.

But why do I need my legislators to tell me how to blog?

All I feel like I really need it my legislators to stop being in the pockets of big telecoms and for the legislators to tell the telecoms to leave the internet functioning the way it is.

But that involves legislation and that's an opportunity for somebody to make some point or other and grandstand and, in the meantime, most of us have no clue what's going on and will just be informed what the new rules are later on.

Which is fine. I don't need to know how the car works. I don't care how the car works. I am annoyed with anyone who suggests I need to learn how the car works.

Right up until the time someone suggests my son go die in some desert for oil . . . then, I'm going to be mighty pissed that somebody didn't figure out how to make cars work better. On something other than blood and oil.

So, on a less ranty note, I'm going to be pissed if any of these bad things -- slow or no service -- happen to the internet. But, you know, Liza, I haven't been too impressed with how government agencies and bureaucrats have managed things lately so my ability to have faith them keeping the internet free is limited, too.

I'm no "free market" fan. But clunky bureacrats? Is that really better? Is it even needed?

Maybe it is. Maybe I have so little understanding of the technical side of this. . . maybe it's like regulations about clean air. Seems obvious to me that factories and cars and power plants should not pollute. But they do unless they are required not to.

But then you get some pol in office who wants to redefine what "clean air" is and I am back at feeling like everyone is saying they are for "net neutrality" but they've all defined it differently.

You sense my confusion?

Although I have to say I would lean more toward having some statute or other than spells out what telecoms are not allowed to do rather than just saying "internet, continue on as always" and having the telecoms say "well, nobody said we couldn't."

Is that the issue? Stopping something that hasn't ever been a problem before. Maybe something that is bigger than we can stop individually . . .

Nance

choosing up sides between Big Government and Big Business, I mean and then divvying up the spoils the way we've done with Big Education.

Just once -- could this be the start of something big? -- I want a "consumer" side that's for the actual self-governing people and our collective but uncompromised wisdom about our own choices and controls, regardless of what Borg-like entities think we should submit ourselves to in return for their "protections."

So I guess I'm for civil rather than transactional frames, then? -- with a big dose of the First Amendment applied so that it's a civil liberty but not a legislative entitlement, which becomes another pork barrel party with citizens picking up the whole tab but eating scraps in the alley, while the corporate execs and politicians chow down inside.

Does that position give me yet another reason to focus on the Supreme Court rather than competing legislative carving knives? (Sorry Nance, couldn't resist one teeny, tiny analogy . . .)