http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/books/review/Leonhardt-t.h...
More important than shelter, food and energy? We draw a line as to what the government should provide/subsidize/control and what the private sector provides in those sectors.
The information they carry is, like journalism, a 4th estate to democracy.
If the 4th estate is a check on government, why would we want the government to decide what constituted it? Please don't conflate a first amendment issue with this conflict between content providers and ISPs.
I'm sorry I wasn't more clear. You are right: the analogy breaks down on the level of mechanism of preservation.
I attempted to be more general. Specifically: Journalism is a check on public and private coercion, but the mechanism is free speech. Common Carrier regulation is a check on (largely) private coercion. The mechanism is monopoly prevention (originally monopoly rejection, via AT&T breakup).
Except with the government it's radically worse. They have the guns, and the legal 'right' (might) to spy on you and criminalize what you do if they see fit - or you know, use your porn habits to blackmail you as the NSA chief suggested doing. They also already substantially control education in countless ways.
So a violent central government that likes to murder innocent people by the thousands overseas, with a rising police state domestically with military weapons given to them by the Feds, and a mentality to wage perpetual war, and spy on all citizens and acquire all information they can in any way they can without any regard for the Constitution or privacy ... and you want to give them more power over the biggest free speech platform in world history - oh yeah, this is going to end real well.