Posted on 07/14/2006 11:35:50 AM PDT by bstein80
Beltway Fever has infected the national leaders of the Christian Coalition, and the latest bout of illness has them standing with the ACLU, MoveOn.org, U.S. PIRG, SEIU and the Progressive Democrats of America in support of Net neutrality regulation.
Sadly, this is not the first time leadership at the Christian Coalition of America has sided with the forces of big government and against good sense and the rest of the conservative movement.
In 2003, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley--also my friend and former House colleague--attempted to pass a voter referendum to broadly raise state taxes. The usual suspects--public employee unions and newspaper editorial boards--all applauded the effort to hike taxes by more than a billion dollars a year. Among those in the cheering section was the national Christian Coalition, which loudly supported this tax increase on Alabama families.
Fortunately, John Giles and the Alabama chapter of the Christian Coalition courageously broke with the national chapter and worked to defeat the tax increase. Together, we won the debate and turned out conservative voters, who soundly defeated the higher tax plan at the polls. Even better, without the tax increase, Alabama's government today is enjoying record budget surpluses, and Riley is running for re-election on a tax cut platform.
One would think that the Alabama experience would give the Washington, D.C., staff of the Christian Coalition, and their president, Roberta Combs, a measure of pause, but they keep getting it wrong. They continue their sit-in with the far-left activist group MoveOn in support of the Clinton-Markey effort to dramatically expand federal control over the Internet.
The national Christian Coalition's logic on this issue is puzzling. While the organization strongly supports imposing federal indecency rules on speech on cable and satellite networks, they now claim a "free speech" rationale for supporting government control over the Internet.
Assuming that free speech is in fact what they are interested in, they should oppose Net neutrality. Secure private-property rights and consumer choice will guarantee continued free speech on the Internet, not increasing the power of federal regulators and Washington lobbyists, as Net neutrality regulations would.
Just as the national Christian Coalition was wrong when it embraced the Left's position that raising taxes was the solution to Alabama's fiscal crunch, they too are wrong in agreeing with the Left that government regulation is the answer to a free and dynamic Internet.
Net neutrality mandates threaten the very diversity of Internet options and the innovation Christian Coalition members rely upon. Indeed, why is the Christian Coalition supporting a federal law that would force Internet service providers (ISPs) to treat pornography the same as family-friendly content?
Like the rest of America, religious and social conservatives will benefit from greater competition and more choices. The marketplace provides options like family-friendly ISPs and parental controls. Government regulatory solutions would treat "all content equal" and impose a one-size-fits-all approach. This may be good for MoveOn members, but it is not in the interest of individual liberty or key activists in the conservative movement like Christian Coalition members.
It is no surprise that every other conservative or free-market group that has spoken out on telecommunications policy has come to the same conclusion: Increasing federal regulation of the Internet will reduce choice, growth and innovation. Among those standing opposite the national Christian Coalition on this issue are the Heritage Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Progress & Freedom Foundation, and my own organization, FreedomWorks.
In the end, I do not want to make too much of the Christian Coalition's support for Net neutrality, because it does not really matter outside of the liberal blogosphere. In this instance, it is fortunate that the Christian Coalition of America's president does not even speak for most the of the grassroots activists who traditionally make up the Christian Coalition.
On-the-ground chapters in the states continue to distance themselves from the Washington, D.C., leadership. The influential Iowa chapter in March this year went so far as to publicly disavow any relationship with the national Christian Coalition and even changed its name to the Iowa Christian Alliance.
The national Christian Coalition was once an important part of the movement that helped bring conservative, limited government ideas to majority status in America. Today, the shell organization that remains is too often simply another Washington, D.C., voice calling for bigger government.
Its support for Net neutrality is erratic, misguided and at odds with every serious conservative organization on this issue. The Christian Coalition's endorsement should not be allowed to provide "bipartisan" cover for the left-wing assembly currently attempting to expand federal control over the Internet.
-- Dick Armey is chairman of FreedomWorks.org, a conservative political group that fights for lower taxes, less government and more freedom. He is the former House Majority Leader from Texas.
Network neutrality policy should be determined by local franchise authorities for their local utilities, not by the feds. That is the correct solution for true conservatives.
Any regulation will be used to stifle Christianity and Judaism.
Period.
...not by the feds.
----
You are right - but we have a cancerous federal government that is becoming more and more socialistic and wanting to control more of our lives and rights.
Jefferson, Madison, Franklin and Adams are all crying out from the grave as they watch Washington, DC, in action.
I can't believe this.
I think that it is the people representatives who have become more socialistic and want ing to control more of our lives and rights. It begins with groups like M.A.D.D. Who use the logic "if it saves just one life it will have been worth it." Your congress-critter(s) want to show you that "I did ____ for you, so reelect me". They feel like they have do do something while they are in session. Which to their minds it is to enact new laws. They should be looking at the usefulness of old laws and seek modification or repeal. But no that's not how they work....never have, never will.
Because utilities like the telephone company and cable company have quasi-governmental powers such as eminent domain. Traditional free enterprise businesses do not have those powers. It's reasonable that local franchise authorities should be able to set some minimum standards for service in return for those companies using the public right-of-way and everyone's private property for their wirelines. Hope that explains it.
>...we have a cancerous federal government that is becoming more and more socialistic and wanting to control more of our lives and rights.<
Why limit that description to the federal level? My state is not only socialistic, but has even shown signs of evolving into a police state in my county.
The same guys keep getting re-elected since computers came on the scene. I am not complaining about computers, except that they can so easily be programmed. Now vote by mail has become the method where I live, and I'm sorry, but I vastly prefer the precinct ballot box, and the old fashioned way to count the votes. All the new innovations bring a laxity which allows voter fraud in spades.
Anyone else read "Votescam: The Stealing of America",by James and Kenneth Collier?
This is a state's rights issue. The feds should simply leave network neutrality policy to state and local governments. You handle the local utilities in your state, and we'll handle ours. We don't need federal interference in everyone's local issues.
Why is the Christian Coalition taking these stands? Just my guess, but "follow the money." They have been broke and in debt for years. It wouldn't surprise if they are getting subsidies for this. Several former employees have complained about Roberta Combs. The article is right when it says that it is now just a shell of what it once was.
The network is global, but telephone and cable companies are local.
And you mention "state and local governments." Both can't have the power, so which is it? State or local?
So what? That is for the state and local governments to work out. Your state may have it one way, and my state can have it a different way.
The federal government screws up a lot of things, but in this particular case I'd rather have it making decisions than the yokels on my city council.
Yokels? Face it - you are a bleeding-heart liberal on this issue. Why don't you just work on your city council problem instead of forcing the entire country to surrender local control to the feds?
Its working and the govt can't stand somethign that is working. Must change it.
"The network is global, but telephone and cable companies are local."
Not really, the network goes from point A to point B usually within a local region. it does have connectivity to a bunch of other segments.
Every other part of the telecommunications world is regulated by the states, why is the internet going to be different?
And wireless wirelines?
The competing network neutrality bills in Congress, pro and con, share one characteristic - they all preempt local control. They are all a federal power-grab.
What we need is a federal law that tells the FCC to defer to the states on this issue.
If they're using unlicensed frequencies, the wireless companies should be free to set their own neutrality policies without any federal, state or local intervention at all. Same for dial-up Internet on PSTN.
For wireless networks using licensed frequencies, that would be appropriate place for federal network neutrality regulation, because radio waves don't conform to political boundaries.
No franchise authority is going to expressly prohibit network neutrality. They would either require it or allow the franchisee to set it's own policy. The wireline companies can satisfy the requirements of multiple jurisdictions without any technical or legal problems.
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