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Comment by paule89 | Hacker News Reader

Is it just my techbubble, but how can such a law come through, if the general public opposes it so much? I mean how corrupt or ignorant have you to be to not notice this.

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>how can such a law come through, if the general public opposes it so much?

It's not a law, it's a decision made by a federal regulatory agency. Only Congress can enact laws. The FCC commissioners are appointed by the president, so they're more like a branch of the executive branch than anything else. Congress can overrule them, but they're unlikely to do so under the current makeup, because:

>how corrupt or ignorant have you to be

The Republican Party is plumbing new depths of corruption and ignorance by the hour. Nothing would surprise me at this point.

Except it was a Republican who tried to move a NN type law through, and it was the Democrats who only wanted to move forward with the common carrier designation.

https://morningconsult.com/2017/01/23/thune-net-neutrality-r...

Net neutrality itself "not a law, it's a decision made by a federal regulatory agency". It's a government regulation of 2011 (with questionable authority) and now it's lessened in a rather mild way.

The problem is that there is no law because Congress is bought and paid for and hence never makes laws that disadvantage corporate interests. The FCC was attempting to paper over the lack of law. That attempt only succeeded with the support of the executive branch, which has now removed said support.

Which is how Trump is/was able to do so much. Obama was ruling by executive fiat. If congress (Democrats) was doing its job, it would have passed laws. Executive Orders are not laws and can be instantly reversed. Democrats were just as happy has republicans to have their dictator in power, make your bed and lie in it.

In my memory congress has been controlled by Republicans for most of recent history. When there was Democrat control, the president was a Republican. So there hasn't been a period of time when you can "blame" Democrats for the lack of legislation passed for the benefit of the population rather than big money. This is why for example the ACA had to be rushed, in the time between Obama being elected and Republicans gaining control in Congress.

Both houses of Congress had a Democrat majority for Obama's first two years in office.

They had plenty of time to do a lot of things in those two years.

These things are not to be decided by majority. For example, you cannot vote up to take someone's lawful property, even if the general public supports this (which, I'm sure, it may be induced to, as we can see with this issue).

I think people need reminding that we are a republic, not a democracy. Regardless of what you think of this Net Neutrality rule change, this is how things work in a republic.

Net Neutrality repeal was very popular among deceased Americans.

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