OK, let's parse Cruz's column for a moment. I'm skipping parts, because it's long, but feel free to fill in the gaps if you feel I've missed something.
Never before has it been so easy to turn an idea into a business. With a simple Internet connection, some ingenuity and a lot of hard work, anyone today can create a new service or app or start selling products nationwide.
Irrelevant to net neutrality. An app is not an ISP.
In the past, such a person would have to know the right people and raise substantial start-up capital to get a brick-and-mortar store running.
As opposed to an internet service provider, which is apparently free to start up.
First, we must abandon the idea of further taxing Internet access and sales. At this very moment, online retailers face an enormous threat because Washington may pass a massive, new Internet sales tax during the next two months, in the lame-duck session of Congress. As the hashtag puts it, #NoNetTax.
Literally nothing to do with net neutrality. I agree with him on this instance, but it has zero to do with the discussion here.
Second, we should dismiss all plans to give nations hostile to human rights and democracy more influence over Internet policy.
Literally nothing to do with net neutrality.
Third, we must promote growth in the technological sector, a consistent bright spot for the U.S. economy. But we won’t realize more of that dynamic growth unless we keep the Internet free from the kind of unnecessary regulation that is strangling our health-care, energy and banking industries.
And one of the biggest regulatory threats to the Internet is “net neutrality.”
In short, net neutrality is Obamacare for the Internet. It would put the government in charge of determining Internet pricing, terms of service and what types of products and services can be delivered, leading to fewer choices, fewer opportunities and higher prices.
Emphasis mine. Ted Cruz has no idea what net neutrality is. What he claims here is not it.
What net neutrality actually is has been explained multiple times in the thread.
President Obama this week came out aggressively for net neutrality and turning the Internet into a public utility. Some in the online community have embraced this call, thinking that cheaper prices would result. But when has that worked? Government-regulated utilities invariably destroy innovation and freedom. Which is more innovative, the U.S. Postal Service or Facebook and Twitter? Which is better for consumers, city taxi commissions or Uber and Lyft?
Well, here's a boatload of bull****.
The Postal Service certainly isn't innovative NOW, but it was 100-plus years before Mark Zuckerberg's was a glimmer in his father's eye. What's better for consumers, taxis or uber? Wait until an Uber driver plows into a bridge abutment with no insurance. Ted Cruz, who I guaran-goddamn-tee has never taken Uber or Lyft in the short part of his life that they've existed, is the last person to be lecturing us on them.
That said, it's been stated multiple times in the thread that the desire for net neutrality is not automatically lockstep agreement with the idea of running the internet like a utility. There are other ways to accomplish that goal. Read and learn, don't just take this asshole's words as gospel.
If the federal government seizes the power to regulate Internet pricing and goods and services, the regulations will never end.
Again, NOT WHAT NET NEUTRALITY IS.
Fourth, we must recognize that our constitutional rights are digital rights, too. In 2012, those who care about Internet freedom were shocked as bills such as the Stop Online Piracy and Protect IP acts, which would regulate speech on the Internet under the guise of protecting property rights, started gaining popularity in Washington. Thankfully, online activists were quick to mobilize to protect their free-speech rights. But we must remain vigilant. Intellectual property must be defended, but any threat to quell speech on the Internet must be treated seriously and subsequently defeated.
A well-intentioned if not likely focus-group provided rant against SOPA, but a nice sentiment and one I agree with. Again, NOTHING TO DO WITH NET NEUTRALITY.
The topic of the thread is Cruz's tweet:
... and Franken's response to it, which is correct -- NN is not remotely comparable to Obamacare, and Ted Cruz doesn't know dick about the subject. That's it.