Hey, I have something important to talk about — if you’re so inclined, please share this with your friends and encourage them to do the same.
What I want to talk about is Net Neutrality. I know you’ve heard about it before, that you’ve probably heard the talking points and I don’t need to explain what it is or how important it is.
But what I want to say is that it is time to get involved. Here’s a website, I’m sure there are many, that offer some form of signature, petition, or even number to call: https://www.battleforthenet.com/?from=banner and I strongly recommend that you do.
The internet is still in its infancy, it is still immature and we are still discovering just how it can be used. We are just beginning to understand how we can relate to it, draw value from it, and use it to explore ourselves and others in real and intimate ways.
But even more importantly it is it a place of freedom and equality of information, where anyone and everyone has a say and a place where the value of their words is more important than their social or political status. It is a place where I can listen to and talk to everyone around the world. It is a place I can have a dinner and conversation with someone in Turkey and I don’t think many people stop to realize just how amazing and how valuable this truly is and how much it IS worth fighting for.
I know many people are resigned, they don’t believe their vote matters. They don’t believe they can invoke change. That like the Benjamin in Animal Farm “a symbol of intelligentsia that during the times of revolution and its aftermath is very much aware about what is going on, but does nothing about it.” And I can hardly argue that considering the state the United States is in now.
But what I can argue is that if we don’t try, we will always lose. The only way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat is to try. That only way to win, is to believe that we can, even if we can’t. Because if we aren’t always looking for victory, we will never find it.
And when we win, it’ll set a precedent to invoke change in other areas. It’ll give us courage to stand up to the indignities we are constantly faced due to our sex, sexuality, class, and race. That is why this is so god damn important, because it is all interrelated.
And why is that?
Let me quote the United State Declaration of Independence, “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Those are the unalienable rights given to us, from which governments are created to protect. The segregation of the internet and the coercion of corporate entities is a vast and unforgivable denial of one of our most basic tenets: Liberty. Whereas you can make arguments for the invisible hand in regard to class and social mobility issues in a capitalist society with a quickly disappearing middle class, you can’t deny internet as the one great tool of equality that allows people the potential to live their life with liberty and specifically to pursuit happiness in a very real way.
The internet is a public service, like roads, quintessential to maintaining our unalienable rights. Our Government who is made up by and for the people, who are the bum of the people, as Joe Pesci so eloquently said in With Honors, are the people we need to talk to now. They are the people we need to remind of our social liberty and freedom and right to it. The internet is more than cat videos, it is more flamewars, it is more than entertainment, it is pure and free information and it is our future.
Addendum: You can go here to make an official comment: http://www.fcc.gov/comments by clicking on 14-28. Comments can be as simple as your desire for an open and free internet – that you want internet carriers to be classified as common carriers.
Spiritual Humanism 