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Comment by exabrial | Hacker News Reader

Can we stop making this into a partisan issue please? The Democrats are not scot-free in this matter.

Can we stop making silly false equivalences please? Net neutrality was in place with the last administration left, now it's going to be gutted.

It's not partisan to say that the current administration is gutting net neutrality. It's also not partisan to point out that the Republican members of the FCC are the ones who have been fighting it for the past 8 years.

On some issues, national-level Democrats are absolutely better than the Republicans. This is one of those issues.

How about we demand accountability? That is more important than protecting a political party from criticism.

We also need to stop thinking down logical chains of "well if I accept criticism of this decision, than that means criticizing my side, which weakens that side, so maybe I shouldn't try to hold my party accountable." That's an excessively partisan way to deal with these things.

We can't not criticize the party in power that's doing things just because the other party might have done some things too at some point.

Also, love to see what Democrats have done on this so I can complain to my Democratic congresspeople. Please share!

Refusing to collaborate with the Republicans: http://www.thewrap.com/democrats-and-republicans-battle-over...

The "my way or the highway" attitude is something that both parties suffer from. Whoever wins changes every 4 years. Whoever loses stays the same: The people

Your link does not support your contention that they're refusing to collaborate with Republicans. In fact, your link describes them talking about the loopholes in the proposed legislation. This would seem to actually be cooperation in improving the legislation.

>Congressional Democrats and Republicans offered widespread agreement Wednesday that the time has finally come for the government to step in and take action to preserve net neutrality. Then again, they disagreed strongly on the shape that protection should take.

I have yet to see party-based Republican support for solid net-neutrality proposals. I have seen some proposals using the name "net neutrality" that in fact undermined it deeply.

If you give me some examples of this "my way or the highway" that's something I can push back on my congress people with.

It matters who we vote for, "the people" don't lose equally no matter who is in office. This "all politicians are bad" thing comes up frequently when criticizing them, but it's simply not true that all politicians are equal, and it's not an excuse fro their bad behavior. The difference between the Pai and Wheeler are clear and stark. And that's not to say that Pai is innately evil, he still could do some good for the internet, and some of the things he says I agree with. Wheeler was intensely criticized as a shill for cable companies when he entered, however he turned out not to be one in the least. Was it our criticism that had an effect? Who knows, but by calling him out as a former lobbyist, people were at least aware of what was going on.

Perhaps if we publicly shame Pai for his bad behavior we'll see the same thing. Let's forget whether we are a D or an R, lets focus on the policies. That's what non-partisanship is.

And that's exactly close minded thought process at the root of the problem. You don't even consider the fact there's another method: let elected members of Congress decide. The problem with wheeler and Pai is that they don't report to us, the people.

No, I did consider that congress decide, when I read the news article you linked about it. Any evidence that I didn't consider it? Any evidence that I'm "close-minded"? Or further, any evidence for your original contention, that was unsupported? Or have you just silently admitted that there's no stonewalling, and gone on to other accusations?

But considering that Pai is also acting, his actions must also be considered.

This is a partisan issue. The pro big biz republicans love to tear down any regulation.

The democrats aren't that much better, but at least you had a guy running the FCC that wanted to keep net neutrality going.

Now, any of those ideas & discussions are completely dead. So, yes, this is very much a partisan issue.

I agree that generally making an issue partisan can make it difficult to discuss without dragging in other tangential topics and positions. What in particular about the submission do you think is specifically partisan? Pai is the one with an admittedly anti-net neutrality agenda, and was selected by Trump. Including those details in the article is adding objective context.

It's the trend of the articles I'm seeing about this topic. The toxic partisan language is creeping in and soon the uneducated blue/red masses will entrench themselves in a permanent stalemate unless we agree to be objective about it immediately.

So do I read you right that there's nothing you can point to in this particular article? If it's there, taking that into account is important. However, bringing up partisan politics yourself makes it difficult for those of us that would like to discuss issues in a non-partisan manner. Regardless of party, there are plenty of people, particularly here on HN, who are in favor of net neutrality.

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