On Government’s Use of Force, and Net Neutrality

Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/320 sec, f/4.5, ISO 400 —
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Rock-Garden Detail

Tenjuan Temple (天授庵), Kyoto Japan

A thought process:

I like cookies.

I love free cookies.

Gee, it would sure be nice if cookies were always free, don't you think?

The government should compel, by force of law, bakeries to give cookies away for free!!

At what point do you think the thought process crossed the line? If you like cookies, I bet you agree with #2 and #3, so why
not agree with #4? Why not compel bakeries to give cookies away?

By their very definition, laws and regulations compel people to act a certain way, whether they like
it or not. It removes their right to do as they please. This is often a good
thing; I'm glad that society removed your right to take my car whenever you feel like it, for example. But as
the cookie example shows, forcing someone else to do something that benefits you is not always what a
good and just society calls for. We show restraint and consideration in where we invoke
government power unto others, as at the same time we expect restraint and consideration in government's intrusion into our own
lives (especially if we make the occasional batch of cookies ourselves).

So, when contemplating laws and regulations (and taxes, for that matter), where society will use force to compel behavior, it's
not enough to ask “Do I like this idea?”, or
“Would it be good if everyone did this?” or “Will more people benefit than be harmed?”.

No, you must also ask “Is this
sufficiently compelling to force it upon people who don't share my opinion?”

So that brings me to the subject of net neutrality, and the many
discussions of it I've seen.

First let me say that this blog post is not an argument for or against net neutrality. However, this blog post is
an argument against discussions that don't consider whether it's compelling enough to require under threat of force.

Take, for example, the occasionally-funny comic “The
Oatmeal”, and his article on net
neutrality, where he talks about all the bad things internet service providers could and would do if left unregulated. He gets a bit melodramatic, but his points are completely valid.

It's as if he's talking about what would happen if restaurants could set their own prices for food. He'd
make the valid point that since some dishes would cost more than others, you'd be faced with the unpleasant task of
considering price when making your selection, instead of just being able to choose based upon your current mood. Or, he'd
correctly point out, every dish in a particular restaurant might be priced too high for you to afford,
so you'd be effectively barred from eating there! This would be really unpleasant! The answer, he would then point out
obviously, is to require restaurants to set all meals to a single government-mandated price.
There, problem solved!

Why isn't there a law requiring this? The vast majority of humans would benefit from this... only the
restaurants (which are not even people!) would have their rights taken away. That seems to be a small
price to pay for such widespread benefit, no? No. That's not how a just society works. The idea that all food is priced equally might be nice on the surface, but not enough to compel people to do
it if they don't want.

The restaurant business is very different from the ISP business, so the analogy goes only so far; the salient point is that any
discussion of a law/regulation/tax should include the recognition that it's the application of force by the government to restrict
others. The end result might be just what society needs, but it shouldn't be done without recognizing that it's being done.

So, when discussing the use of force to require internet service providers to run their business in a
particular way, please also discuss whether it's good and right for society to use force in that way.

Maybe that discussion will end up with “yes” for any number of reasons, or “no”, but at this point I've never seen the
discussion actually happen.

Even Seth Godin, who has long been a bastion of common-sense insight in a
sea of misdirection, in his comments on net
neutrality looks only at how some individuals might be hurt if net neutrality is lost, completely failing to consider how
society might be hurt if it uses its force without due consideration.