Resolved: The United States Federal Government should not enforce Net Neutrality. Lannan13 vs. Redael

[Lannan13]

Greetings Politics and War, this is a match between myself and Redael for Round 1 of the debate tournament. A round will be represented by each argumentative post between the two of us that is outlined bellow. I request that no one posts until Redael posts his 4th and final debate argument. After that you are free to converse about the debate or the topic itself. The two debaters are prohibitted from further debating each other after the debate has concluded unless an ad hom attack occurs between the two respective users. I thank you for your patience and I do hope that this will be a good read for you.

 

Rules
First Round is terms and definitions by Pro and acceptance by Con.
Second Round is for Opening arguments, NO rebuttals.
Third Round is for Rebuttals.

Forth Round is for Rebuttals and conclusion.

My opponent accepts all definitions and waives their right to add resolutional definitions
No trolling.
Burden Of Proof is shared.
No Profanity. 

No "kritiks" of the topic (i.e. arguments that challenge an assumption in the resolution)

 

 

Definitions

United States Federal Government- The United States Federal Government is established by the US Constitution. The Federal Government shares sovereignty over the United Sates with the individual governments of the States of US. The Federal government has three branches: i) the legislature, which is the US Congress, ii) Executive, comprised of the President and Vice president of the US and iii) Judiciary. The US Constitution prescribes a system of separation of powers and ‘checks and balances’ for the smooth functioning of all the three branches of the Federal Government. The US Constitution limits the powers of the Federal Government to the powers assigned to it; all powers not expressly assigned to the Federal Government are reserved to the States or to the local government. [1]

 

Should- must; ought (used to indicate duty, propriety, or expediency) [2]

 

enforce- to put or keep in force; compel obedience to [3]

 

Net Neutrality- the concept that broadband Internet service providers should providenon discriminatory access to Internet content, platforms, etc., and should not manipulate the transfer of data regardless of its source or destination: [4]

 

Sources

1. (http://definitions.uslegal.com/u/united-states-federal-government/) 

2. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/should?s=t) 

3. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/enforce?s=t) 

4. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/provider) 

Edited February 3, 2016 by Lannan13

[Redael]

I accept the debate and defintions, I wont have my opening statement ready until 4ish Central time.

[Lannan13]

I thank my opponent for accepting this debate and I do hope for a good debate. Without further ado, let's move on to the debate. 

 

Contention 1: The Role of the Government

P1.The Government should only act to enforce the Imperatives of Perfect Duties.
P2. Net Neutrality does not meet the standard of a Perfect Duty.
C1: Thus, the Government should not act to enforce Net Neutrality.

""Kant's first formulation of the CI states that you are to “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law... Perfect duties come in the form ‘One mustnever (or always) φ to the fullest extent possible in C’, while imperfect duties, since they enjoin the pursuit of an end, come in the form ‘One must sometimes and to some extent φ in C’" [1]

According to the above we see that Kant establishes two duties of that of the government; Perfect Duties and Imperfect Duties. Perfect Duties are those things of which the government must provide to ensure that the government and that society is fully functional. What are these things you may ask? These things are the simple things ensured under that of the Social Contract that you give up for a Civilized Society. These things are indeed key as we can see that this ensures that of a Minarchy at the minimum. What that means is that the Government is to ensure that the people are safe. Everything else falls into that of the Imperfect Duties. Now note that these things may protect and benefit the public, we can see that if they're not of the Social Contract like ideals that they automatically fall into this category and SHOULD NOT be carried out by the government, but by Private entities. As a matter of fact the net neutrality is actually the exact opposite of a Perfect Duty and is shown to be that of something that the Federal Government should protect against, or at least not do. I'll get more into this in a later contention.

“Any action is right if it can coexist with everyone's freedom in accordance with a universal law, or if on its maxim the freedom of choice of each can coexist with everyone's freedom in accordance with a universal law†[2]

We can see that if the government intervenes on the behalf on the people to infringe on that of an Imperfect duty that they would undermining humanity to achieve their due ends. We can see and must ensure that the Imperfect Duties are carried out by the Private Entites as things like people's health and Private debt is something that is to be delt with by the individual NOT the government. [3] Kant also argues that Rights are not created by the establishment of government. [4] So this furthers that the Net Neutrality is not a right for the people and thus it should not be preformed by the federal government, but instead run by a private company. Net Neutrality is an offspring  of a government trying to enforce a Utilitarian policy on it's policy which is, by definition, an imperfect duty as it goes and shows how the government is interfering in business where the current status quo solves for the issue. [5] This should be left to the market as it will provide a large amount of possibilities and speed up the internet. To put in the old cliche, the government breaks everything it touches, and the internet is no different. 

 

Contention 2: Unregulated Market is better than a Regulated market for the internet.

 

In the current system, the internet has always been free and open. We can see that Entrapenuers have been free to do as they please and they have set reasonable prises and entry fees for the consumer. We can see that without a great amount of high internet regulation by the federal government that the internet has thrived in the current situation. Without this regulation that this resolution is purposing we can see that the internet has thrived “"due in large part to private investment and market-driven innovation, broadband in America has improved considerably in the last decade. More Americans are online at faster speeds than ever before." [6] So we can see that the net neutrality will kill innovation and it does this by ending and placing a cap on speeding up the internet. [7] This is done by getting rid of the right for providers like Comcast and such to speed up the connection to websites of their cliants and this is something that destroys our very foundation of the Free Market as it does not permit for companies to use this to increase speed as this increasement of speed leads to innovation as the clients clamor for faster and faster internet connection and it’s for this reason alone that the US has the fastest internet in the world, but Net Neutrality is threatening to change all of that. Under Net Neutrality the government will limit how much broadband and brandwith the companies get and this hurts the market, because now the market cannot charge for scarce resources. As economist Milton Friedman argues in his book Capitalism and Freedom, we can see that if we abolish these price controls we permit the market to show us the scarce resources and these resources cost more, but with these controls it limits the company’s fixture to this issue and once again harming the economy.

 

Let’s look at DSL for example. We can see here that when this wasn’t regulated that it spiked in growth and developement, but when regulations occurred it stagnated dramatically, BUT when they were removed it took off. [8] Fiber-Broadband Community, an internet provided in the Great Lakes region reported that under net neutrality that they would be forced to move ALL of their customers to a more expensive plan and this would hurt the business as it would cost them more, but the price for the internet would have to stay the same. Plus they are forced to keep their company running on the same expensive plan which destroys innovation as they no longer are needed to innovate to get the edge in the market since everyone has to provide the same connection plans. [11]

 

Contention 3: Status Quo Antitrust laws solve issue.

 

The main concern now with Net Neutrality issue is that the Internet providers are monopolizing the industry and colluding against the public, but this is simply not so. For 100’s of years the Sherman Anti-Trust Law has been breaking up monopolies all across the country sticking to the issue that Milton Friedman gave in “Capitalism and Freedom†that generally monopolizes are bad, but that of a Public monopoly is worse. What this debate of net neutrality practically is misconcieved as is that the internet providers have that of a bottleneck like connection of the internet and can switch off connection and access to certain sites. Now here’s the kicker, under the current laws under Section 2 of the Sherman Bill we can see that such a practice would be illegal. [9]

So we can clearly see that we do not need more regulation. The FCC commissioner Robert McDowell backed this up by stating that, “in the almost nine years since [net neutrality] fears were first sewn, net regulation lobbyists can point to fewer than a handful of cases of alleged misconduct, out of an infinite number of Internet communications. All those cases were resolved in favor of consumers under current law.†[10]

 

 

 

Sources

1. (http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2012/entries/kant-moral/) 
2. (Lectures and Drafts on Political Philosophy, translated Frederick Rauscher and Kenneth Westphal (in preparation). Relevant contents: "Naturrecht Feyerabend" course lecture, fragments on political philosophy, and drafts of works in political philosophy.)
3. (Johnson, Robert. "Kant's Moral Philosophy." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2012.)
4. (http://www.follesdal.net/ms/Follesdal-2014-Maliks-kant-hr.pdf) 

5. Journal of Private EnteVise, Special Issue, Volume XXII, Volume 2, Spring 2007 Kantian Critique of Antitrust: On Morality and Microsoft

6. (FCC, Connecting America: The National Broadband Plan 19 (Mar. 16, 2010) [http://www.broadband.gov/download-plan/])

7. (http://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/2014/04/25/new-fcc-ruling-kills-net-neutrality-and-broadband-innovation) 

8. Thomas Hazlett and Joshua Wright, The Law and Economics of Net Neutrality (2012)

9. (http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=51) 

10. (In re Preserving the Open Internet Broadband Indus. Practices, 25 FCC Rcd. 17,905 (2010) 

11. Same as source 5. 

[Redael]

Here are my 3 arguments for the enforcement of net neutrality:

 

First reason-Equal internet access means more free speech

 

Net Neutrality is a good thing because it provides equal access to the internet, keeping it a free and open place for all. The internet has revolutionized free speech and the power of public opinion because it has not been controlled by the elite(not trying to Antagonize the elites/the rich, just its best when no group controls people's rights). According to Barack Obama , “there is incredible equality there†and if we charged “different rates to different websites†then free speech will disappear from the Internet.

 

Second reason: Net Neutrality is good for competition

 

Without Protection of Net Neutrality , a company like Netflix or Hulu plus will be required to pay more to deliver their shows to consumers. companies offering free video content(i.e YouTube Channels, Twitch streams, etc.), will have to wait in line behind Larger companies to stream. No matter how good the content is, consumers won’t sit around for many ‘buffering’ pauses.

 

Third reason-If the content companies have to pay more, Buyers have to pay more

 

Companies will have to pay more to deliver their content, which means they will have to charge more for there content. That cost will trickle down to the consumer because the increase in spending requires an increase in costs . The market effect won’t balance the costs, because companies trying to compete with cheaper offers won’t be able to stream at as high a speed.

Edited February 3, 2016 by Redael

[Captain_Vietnam]

all buisnesses should be broken up and nationalized. government provide internet via public sector

[Redael]

all buisnesses should be broken up and nationalized. government provide internet via public sector

This is between me and lannan, your comment will not be debated.

[Lannan13]

I thank my opponent for his patience in waiting for me to respond to his arguments. 

 

Rebuttal 1: Free Speech

 

My opponent brings up a good argument, but the issue of it is the 'Why?' factor. His argument has no impact, meaning that if we continue with the status quo nothing bad will occur. I'm not saying free speech restriction is good, but the point is with no impact, the argument doesn't really stand. For the sake of debate, I will continue on the argument. 

 

My opponent brings up this argument and does not bring up how it restricts free speech or promotes it. He simply quotes President Barack Obama on the matter. My opponent hasn't provided a ground work for this argument and there's no way that we actually know why he's arguing this since there's no impact as well as no rational thought from my opponent on how it promotes free speech or if it's restricted at all. 

 

Though when it comes to the argumentation here, we can see that the free market solves. The consumer gets what they pay for and if they want change then they just simply have to pay for a change. Once they get enough people demanding a change in the product then the market has to adjust for the demand. Throughout history, businesses have been doing this. You don't see big name businesses selling Typewriters anymore, do you? With that in all reality, we can see that if we continue trusting in the free market vs. government regulation, the free market could take care of itself and there will be less government regulation involved. 

 

Rebuttal 2(3): Net Neutrality and Competition

 

I have added my opponent's 3 contention to this one, as it is the impact to the 2 contention. Though for this set of arguments, all I have to do is show that net neutrality ends up harming the consumer with costs and I could win this argument by turning it around on my opponent. 

 

Former Congressional FCC chairman who now runs National Cable and Telecommunications Association, Michael Powell, showed that Net Neutrality backfires. [1]This is due to the fact that these major sites, like Facebook, Google, At&T etc... all pay a great deal of money to get fast speed and high priority and this restricts that. Since all of these companies will have the same access, these websites are increasing their broadband. Instead of the costs going to the cable industry, it actually trickles down to the consumers and their own customers. Another issue is without these ISPs charging for a Pay-per model, they will not be able to raise the same amount of money that they have been before. This will lead to the ISPs cutting back and the internet will actually become slower in the long run. [2]

 

Sources

1. (http://www.techtimes.com/articles/36593/20150302/why-net-neutrality-cost-money.htm)

2. (https://stratechery.com/2014/netflix-net-neutrality/)  

Edited February 5, 2016 by Lannan13

[Arthur James]

actually businessman are more powerful than government which can drive politics today...(especially property empire)
Nationalized? sure, many Commonwealth business are all through "nationalized" government.

[Captain_Vietnam]

actually businessman are more powerful than government which can drive politics today...(especially property empire)

Nationalized? sure, many Commonwealth business are all through "nationalized" government.

united states has government fund big buisnesses. 

 

government needs to make buisness public sector

[Seryozha Nikanor]

H Rebuttal 1 man Lannan1 you are corporate shill jesus. I dont care if this is a debate. It does not restrict freedom of speech. it only resricts the freedom of companies to screw a customer.

Edited February 5, 2016 by Seryozha Nikanor

[Lannan13]

H Rebuttal 1 man Lannan1 you are corporate shill jesus. I dont care if this is a debate. It does not restrict freedom of speech. it only resricts the freedom of companies to screw a customer.

I'm not advertising anything though.

[Seryozha Nikanor]

Anyone who supports getting rid of net neutrality is a shill period.

[Lannan13]

Anyone who supports getting rid of net neutrality is a shill period.

That's a Composition fallacy, so nice try. That's like me saying that since you make horrendous arguments that everyone in Rose is stupid. This isn't true though as we all know there are high intellects in your alliance, but you get the point I'm trying to make. 

[Redael]

Rebuttal 1-The role of government

One of the roles of government should be protecting citizens rights, including free speech. Freedom of speech is a perfect duty, theirfore net neutrality is a perfect duty.

Rebuttal 2-

You claim the Internet shouldn't be regulated, but when the large companies start regulating what we can do how is that diffrent from government regulation. It will not kill internet innovation. If anything it will hurt innovation as small business can't showcase the innovations, as nobody will see them, beacuse they're looking at the stuff from large Corporations. At is point you may be saying, but Redael don't you normally defend the Coroporations. Too that I say yes, but they should not have the power to effectively destroy smaller competitors. Take a website I found called rabble.tv, I saw an ad then continued using, as I thought it was pretty cool. However, it is a small 'social network' where users get to provide live commentary over TV events. I'm using this as an example, and in no way promoting it, too say that if there was no net neutrality, the Internet connection to the site will be slowed, beacuse there two small to compete with larger companies, and Rabble would likely crash. This could apply to any small business, but I needed an example.

Rebuttal 3-

With competition what I Meant was smaller companies, like the example i used called rabbletv, Couldn't compete with other companies, and large companies that had the money, could slowly monopolize their services, beacuse no other business is paying as much.

[aaaaddd22]

[Peter Quill]

actually businessman are more powerful than government which can drive politics today...(especially property empire)

Nationalized? sure, many Commonwealth business are all through "nationalized" government.

 

united states has government fund big buisnesses. 

 

government needs to make buisness public sector

 

Anyone who supports getting rid of net neutrality is a shill period.

 

Please wait until the end of the debate before posting comments.

[Captain_Vietnam]

Please wait until the end of the debate before posting comments.

like yourself

[Lannan13]

like yourself

Look at the Pot calling the kettle black.

[Lannan13]

This is my final argument in this debate. I thank my opponent for having patience on allowing me to take my time due to some inconviences that I had. Without further ado, let's get on with the show.

 

Contention 1: Role of the Government

 

Here my opponent violates Hume's Law, also known as the is-ought fallacy. This occurs when my opponent states that since gov should protect rights then they should protect speech, hence they should enact net neutrality. This argument falls under this fallacy and must be discarded. 

 

Contention 2: Unregulated Markets

 

My opponent is making different claims, He is claiming that since the market regulates itself then why doesn't the gov regulate it. That's like saying since you brush your teeth, a government agent can come in and do it so they know your teeth are clean. An actual plan from Vermon Supreme's Presidential platform. To harm my opponent's own argument is that he claims that market regulation and government regulation is the same, hence all the harms from a business regulated market apply to a government ran market. My opponent's own argument refutes itself. Finishing this argument off we can see that the rabbletv example does not apply. Why? My opponent is using speculation which there is many contingencies that could occur here that really disprove this argument for my opponent. 

 

Contention 3: Status quo solves

 

Again my opponent is merely speculating and has not provided any evidence that this occurs.  All points extended.

 

With that I thank you and please vote Pro!

Edited February 7, 2016 by Lannan13

[Redael]

Rebuttal 1 actually it hurts free speech-

If the customers demand a change, then ISPs can make up for the cost by charging more to other companies to get premium speed. And if the only way to for the people to Boycot to demand a change would be to not use the Internet. While us usally support the free market, it is less than the rights of the people

Rebuttal 2- it's hurts competition

You claim internet speed is getting slower, when statically it's getting faster, and as technology improves Internet speed will improve, or at least cancel out the negative effects. Who cares if the money is going to the websites not the ISPs, if the website is forced to improve itself the money should go to website not the ISP

please vote con, if you do I'll be your best friend

[Lannan13]

That's the debate. The judging may commence and the debate is open to the floor.

[Dimitri Valko]

Redael's argument was surprisingly great, so he has my vote.

[Peter Quill]

Redael's argument was surprisingly great, so he has my vote.

I concur with Dimitri here. While his arguments are not as thoroughly researched as Lannan13's, I like the fact that he uses simple logic. 

So, he gets my vote.

[durmij]

I'll weigh in before update

[Nadir Aminu]

My vote would have to go to Redael as well.