[ValintinoV]

This is a very interesting stance for them to take.

Here's the issue at hand: Major Internet services see profit to be made by essentially establishing online "toll roads" to act as a gatekeeper between content providers and the consumers who use those Internet services.

The concept of "Net Neutrality" is that small sites like moonbattery.com should be able to reach readers as easily as large sites like The Huffington Post. The FCC regards this as a tantamount to free speech.

Opponents to Net Neutrality are taking the position that services like AOL and AT&T should be able to charge content providers to reach their subscribers. AOL could decide, for instance, that it will cost $1,000 a month to be able to reach their audience. Huffingtonpost.com would have no problem affording that, but moonbattery.com would instead become unavailable to consumers using AOL.

Why would Tea Partiers support this?

TPM:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2...om.php?ref=fpb

The push toward an Internet regulated by corporations rather than government seems to be a new part of the tea party agenda, with fears mounting that the Obama administration's push for net neutrality is, essentially, the next cap-and-trade, government health care takeover or any of the myriad other socialist plots of the past year and a half.

As The Hill's Sara Jerome reports, "35 Tea Party groups" across the country have joined a coalition of conservative groups calling on the FCC "not to boost its authority over broadband providers through a controversial process known as reclassification." The coalition recently sent a letter to the FCC calling on the government agency to keep its hand off the Internet.

One of the groups who signed the letter was the Fountain Hills Tea Party in Arizona. Like many, many grassroots tea party groups across the country, Fountain Hills has a Ning social networking site, as well as a more traditional homepage, both key to communicating with members. Supporters of net neutrality often suggest that it's smaller sites like these that would suffer the most under the tiered Internet plan ISPs are expected to establish if no government rules require them to treat all Internet traffic equally.

Much like the Netroots movement, the tea party's communication and information dissemination is fueled by online tools. In addition to Ning, tea partiers are avid tweeters, skypers, YouTubers and Facebookers. Yet their seeming embrace of an Internet divvied up and defined by corporate deals puts them at odds with their Internet-savvy colleagues on the left, who have clamored for net neutrality for years.

[karaburatoreror]

Richard, it would seem that these groups who are opposing net neutrality don't understand the issue. This may be another case where their sense of "government, bad" is going to bite them in the ass.