No, I'm certain that's an appropriate analogy. The internet does exist. I've watched them lay fibre in the ground. It was also on public ground, which I pay for with tax money. The ISPs have an agreement with the government to use this land.

Think of this, you are parked in your parking lot and need to go to the grocery store. To do this, you need a means to access the road, which this parking provides. You back your car out and drive onto a publicly funded road at 30mph to the grocery store, ending in their parking lot. You get your groceries and go back onto the public roads and then back to your private parking lot.

The next week, you decide to do the same errand. However, now the owner of the parking lot says you can only drive 1mph to that grocery store because the property management company doesn't like that grocery store. Alternatively you can go to this other grocery store at 30mph because they paid the company for the privelage. Under no circumstance though, are you allowed to go to the farmes market or any other locally run grocery stores.

Does this not seem problematic to you? I see it as a grave problem and one the shouldn't be allowed to occur. Alternatively, you could do the same scenario with the telephone/cellular phone system and equate it to not being able t talk to some people and only having fuzzy reception with people that aren't on our 'hot list' or corporate sponsors of your phone company.

You have missed the point entirely. Corporartions such as ISPs hold localized monopolies, where in many cases the only available ISP is your only option to accessing the internet. Another submitter pointed to the false visual effect of multiple ISPs being present when all of them ran through AT&T an were subject to AT&T's policies.

ISPs are not a platform for accessing the internet. They are only a means of access, just as the network lines themselves.

Think of an ISP as a properrty management company that owns the parkinglot you park in every day. Do they get to tell you where you are able go or how fast you can get there?

You are confusing a destination with a means to access. The means to access in your example is the road which is paid for by tax payers and accessible to all. Using your example, think of the ISP as a property management company that owns your parking lot that you park in. Do they get to tell you how fast you get to drive to the print shop or that you can no longer go to the print shop?

What's it like to read a compelling hypocrisy claim only to be able to apply a literal meaning to this situation rather than an analogous intent?

It's clear that corporations get a pass an are able to do whatever they want in this country with little consequence. Most in fact build into their budgets, money they expect to have to pay out in fines for violating regulations they don't want to observe. These fines are the equivalent to a late movie fine or a late book for these companies leaving them basically to do what they wish, the country be damned.

It is entirely obvious this is a civil rights issue. Not one of race or gender or age, but one of every persons right to expression without oppression from the corporatations obsessetion to controlling this country.

Because in this case, the government contibuted a great deal of your tax money to building the network structure that stretches across the nation today. if we paid for it as a country then the first amendment applies fully and reduces an ISP fom being a 'platform'' to being a means to access the platform.

Haven't they milked this train for everything its worth to the point of detriment already?

10 years later...

SEE STAR WARS RELEASED AS ITS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE IN HOLODECK CINAMEGA! EXPERIENCE THE ACTION!

Wait, that might actually be cool...

They don't mean over the course of 20 years. They meant when comparing the year 2002 to the year 1960, an extra 1 billion gallons was needed to compensate for the increased weight of the passengers. Thats quit a bit and would mean that 12 billion gallons would have been burned in 2006 instead of 13 billion.

YES! Porn is still legal.