ALEC: legislative “fiat by email forward”

I've heard ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) described as a “bill mill,” but I like John Oliver's description even better:  “fiat by email forward.”

While Congress is paralyzed, “laws are being passed at a breakneck rate at the state level; for every piece of federal legislation that gets passed, more than a hundred state laws go on the books....What's more, how is it that these venues for hyper-local arguments from various fiefdoms so often seem to tread the same pieces of legislation?"  [from the linked article]

That's exactly what I've always wondered, or more specifically, wondered why the public isn't more alarmed by this.  It's bad enough when congressional Republicans march in lockstep.  But when dozens of seemingly disparate states — “fifty individual experiments in democracy” — are passing the same boilerplate legislation in unison, it should be a red flag for anyone who's paying attention.

John Oliver describes ALEC as: 

“...a sort of shadow government for state legislatures, pushing the same agenda in state capitols across the country...the group is a coalition of conservative politicians and corporate interests that shares drafts of state legislation, in a system that should probably be dubbed 'fiat by email forward,' to advance the same laws across the country.”

Come on voters, pay attention damn it.

“Net Neutrality” vs. “Preventing Cable Company Fuckery”

No wonder the term “Net Neutrality” never gained any traction with the public.  John Oliver says the boring sleep-inducing words “Net Neutrality” should be replaced with “Preventing Cable Company Fuckery.”

He says this is a vital issue affecting all of us, but unfortunately “Net Neutrality” is “the only two words in the English language promising more boredom than ‘featuring Sting.’”

“Essentially it [net neutrality] means that all data has to be treated equally, no matter who created it. It’s why the Internet is a weirdly level playing field.  Start-ups can supplant established brands. That’s how Facebook supplanted MySpace, which supplanted Friendster, which supplanted actually having any friends. Do you remember physically having friends? It was awful. You couldn’t tap people’s faces to make them go away.”

And:

“The Internet is currently not broken, and the FCC is taking steps to fix that...What’s being proposed is so egregious, activists and corporations have been forced onto the same side. That’s basically Lex Luthor knocking on Superman’s apartment door and going, ‘listen, I know we have our differences, but we have got to get rid of that asshole in apartment 3B.  He’s too loud, Supe, he’s too loud.’”

And he pointed out that FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler was previously the cable industry's top lobbyist.

“Yes. The guy who used to run the cable industry’s lobbying arm is now running the agency tasked with regulating it. That is the equivalent of needing a babysitter and hiring a dingo.”

So remember:  if the response you're looking for is a vacant-eyed auto-pilot “Huh,” say “Net Neutrality.”  If you want people to be properly fired up and outraged over their own Internet access, put it in terms of “Preventing Cable Company Fuckery.”