Klavan On The Culture

April 13th, 2009 10:13 am

Get The Manifesto

Someone—Oscar Wilde maybe—is supposed to have said, “It’s not enough for you to succeed, your best friend has to fail,” and that’s why I hate to plug a pal’s book lest you go off and buy it when you could be buying mine. But sometimes these things just can’t be helped.

I’ve been getting some emails and comments in reaction to my Shut Up video telling me I’m wrong about net neutrality. They say it’s not at all a censorship attempt but would make the internet neutral—that’s why it’s called net neutrality, after all. Now, right on the surface of it, this doesn’t make sense, as the internet is already a place where anyone with a keyboard can have a voice.  Any government attempt to mess with it should clearly be viewed with suspicion. It should also be a warning sign that neutrality is supported by Hillary Clinton, MoveOn.org, the New York Times and other enemies of free speech.

But the net neutrality boondoggle is complex enough to fool people and if you really want to understand it, you’ve got to read A Manifesto for Media Freedom by my City Journal editor Brian C. Anderson and Adam D. Thierer. It’s a short but really important handbook that gives you a complete rundown of the various ways the left, and occasionally the right, want to get between you and the first amendment. Since virtually every attempt to silence you has been given some name like Fairness or Neutrality or Reform, and since even people as intelligent and attractive as yourself can occasionally be fooled, this is a volume you should definitely have on your reference shelf.

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2 Comments

1. Professor Guvinoff:

The recent “Shut up” production on PJTV is a masterpiece.

Apr 13, 2009 - 10:37 am 2. Freddy:

Shut Up! [Couldn't resist]

Apr 23, 2009 - 8:20 am

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