Rick Perry Looks Like an Absolute Fool After Net Neutrality Comments Go Terribly Wrong

Have you ever been in a discussion with someone who was trying to sound intelligent, or like they knew what they were talking about, but it was glaringly obvious that they had no clue what they were saying? The result is usually some incoherent babble that sometimes leaves you unable to respond because you really have no idea what the heck they just said – because it didn’t make any sense.

Ladies and gentlemen I introduce you to Rick Perry’s comments on net neutrality. It’s not every day that someone tries to compare the fight to keep net neutrality with anything from the time period of the Great Depression, because that would make very little sense.

Except that’s exactly what Perry did.

“President Obama’s call to saddle 21st century technology with outdated, unnecessary regulations from the era of the Great Depression is alarming and will stifle innovation and growth,” Perry said.

He’s obviously referring to Obama’s attempt to reclassify the internet as a public utility, so that corporations can’t screw over consumers when it comes to internet access. Let’s think about Perry’s comments for a moment. Just because a law (that’s proven to be successful by the way) is from the 30′s, does that mean it’s suddenly invalid and worthless?

By Perry’s standards of “outdated,” couldn’t we then say our entire Constitution is outdated? After all, it was written in the late-1700′s. You’re telling me the quartering of soldiers during a time of war is a big issue in the 21st century? That’s what our Third Amendment addresses.

But what infuriates me most is how Perry, and others who think like he does, continue to perpetuate this ridiculous idea that the internet as we have known it since its inception has somehow been “stifling toward growth.” What the hell are these idiots even talking about? Net neutrality is about keeping the internet exactly how it’s been since it went mainstream. What ending net neutrality does is it gives the right for internet service providers to determine what sites are given access to what speeds based on who pays the ransoms they’ll demand for better service.

Tea Party Speaks Out Against Net Neutrality, Has No Idea What They’re Talking About

Net Neutrality is one of the most important features of the Internet. With the Internet quickly becoming the backbone of civilization, open and free access for everyone is pertinent for continued survival of the Information Age.

Which is apparently why the Tea Party is against it. The Tea Party group FreedomWorks came out against Net Neutrality on Wednesday, verbally attacking it in a new video after — surprise, surprise — President Obama announced strong support for regulations that require Internet providers like Comcast treat all web traffic equally.

Just to be clear here, the Baggers are now defending Comcast and AT&T.

This also means that, in due course, your Fox-addled Tea Party relatives will be claiming that Net Neutrality is the product of Soviet Germany under Stalin and Hitler.

Iris Somberg, the communications coordinator for FreedomWorks, said in the video that Net Neutrality doesn’t support a “free and open Internet.” According to Somberg, Net Neutrality regulations would prohibit providers from blocking or slowing down access to any websites or online services. Because the ability of corporations to block or slow down service to websites constitutes a “free and open Internet” to these people. I could make remarks comparing this to Nineteen-Eighty-Four, but at this point, I’m almost certain they’ve read it and made the collective decision to one up Orwell.

According to Somberg, this is bad because the “web content isn’t equal“:

The same speed, the same prices, the same access, but all web content isn’t equal. Netflix is not the same as a high school blog, and YouTube certainly isn’t the same as Facebook. They serve very different purposes and they have very different needs.

By dictating that all these sites be treated the same, Net Neutrality makes small companies that don’t take up much bandwidth at all pay more so that big companies can pay less. That’s not the kind of equality the Internet needs.

Nobody took the time to explain how the Internet works to her, did they?

Here’s a better analogy: A dump truck, a bus, and a sports car are not the same thing. But they’re all served by better roads; the better the roads, the better they can all function. Making sure the roads are repaired equally, not just for the bus or the dump truck because the bus or the dump truck can afford to pay more — that’s Net Neutrality. If any Tea Baggers in the audience need me to get out the road rug and the toy cars and trucks to make the analogy more concrete, I can.

She added that “Net neutrality is not a level playing field. It’s an anti-competitive policy that protects the Internet’s biggest companies at the expense of everyone else.”

Now that is some impressive mental gymnastics. Who benefits if Net Neutrality goes away? Certainly no the high school blog, I’ll tell you that right now. Free speech is money, and if you can’t pony up the money to pay for the service, too bad — no freedom for you.

Republicans have also strongly denounced Net Neutrality, just in case you thought FreedumbWorks was somehow alone. And given the fallout from earlier this month, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the year that we buried Net Neutrality. Great job, America. Your choice continues to impress me.

You can watch the video below:

John Oliver on Net Neutrality