The FCC Spent Last Week Trying To Make Net Neutrality Supporters Seem Unreasonable, Racist & Unhinged
from the ignoring-the-will-of-the-people dept
Last week, we noted how the FCC was inundated with a flood of pro-net neutrality comments after HBO's John Oliver ran another segment on the subject. The FCC will vote to begin dismantling the rules on May 18, so Oliver even went so far as to craft a special URL (www.gofccyourself.com) to make commenting on the FCC proceeding easier. Unsurprisingly, the surge in annoyed consumers wound up temporarily crippling the FCC's website. And when you look at some of the early analysis of the data, it's not particularly hard to see why:
Now if you're a giant telecom mono/duopoly, or any of the thousands of sockpuppets they pay to misleadingly portray net neutrality as an unyielding assault on "freedom," this flood of pro-net neutrality sentiment is obviously a PR problem.
As a result, net neutrality opponents quickly got to work trying to counter the "John Oliver effect" with alternative facts. One, the FCC tried to claim the FCC website didn't choke from a flood of pro-net neutrality supporters, but was the victim of a DDoS attack that just happened to occur at exactly the same time Oliver's segment was airing (a claim security researchers say isn't supported and for which the FCC has yet to offer a shred of evidence).
Another, as-yet-unidentified player began using a bot and a (likely) hacked database of names to flood the agency's website with fake comments against net neutrality. One analysis of the comments filed so far found that 40% of the 1.5 million comments made so far were created by this busy little bot.
But the FCC itself also began engaging in a rather obvious and ham-fisted attempt to make net neutrality supporters seem racist, unstable and unreasonable. By Wednesday, as the "net neutrality support was so massive it broke the FCC's website (again)" narrative was peaking in the press, FCC staffer Matthew Berry began linking on Twitter to news outlets claiming that net neutrality supporters were filling the FCC coffers with racist attacks:
Very sad to see racist, hate-filled attacks against Chairman Pai being submitted to the FCC. https://t.co/sZSJDHKr0F
— Matthew Berry (@matthewberryfcc) May 10, 2017
Berry subsequently highlighted a statement made by the Internet Association (a pro-net neutrality group backed by the likes of Reddit and Netflix) criticizing any racist behavior by commenters:
Great to see @InternetAssn condemning threats and racist attacks against @AjitPaiFCC! https://t.co/DGW9QDzUp0
— Matthew Berry (@matthewberryfcc) May 11, 2017
The news reports being pushed by the FCC (like this one over at the Daily Caller) cling to several misleading narratives. One, that the people watching John Oliver's program were somehow not airing legitimate complaints with Pai's plan to gut all oversight of giant broadband monopolies. Two, that most of these people were hateful, racist, or otherwise horrible people that shouldn't be taken seriously. And three, that the pro side was using misleading "bots" to generate fake support from fake people (despite the fact that only the anti side appears to have used this tactic so far, a story the FCC also appeared eager to bury).
Take this excerpt from the Free Beacon "story" Berry links to:
"John Oliver's "grassroots" activism against Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai is full of bot accounts, fake comments, and death threats against the chairman...an analysis of comments to Pai's Restoring Internet Freedom filing, which Oliver has dubbed "Go FCC yourself," shows thousands of comments using fake names and bots posing as "Jesus Christ," "Michael Jackson," "Homer Simpson," and "Melania Trump."...Over 500 were submitted using Chairman Pai's name, as well as 189 from "Donald Trump" and 8 from "Obama." Eleven submissions used some version of the word "f–k."
If you think about it, the fact that Pai is trying to dismantle consumer protections for one of the most despised industries in America and only eleven people said fuck is actually pretty impressive. Also, for future reference, you don't magically delegitimize people with legitimate complaints just by putting words like activist or grassroots in quotes.
That said, if you dig through the now 1.5 million comments so far, you'll find that the vast, vast majority of the comments from both sides of the debate are entirely civil. Yes, there are the occasional comments from jackasses and racists, but by and large the feedback the FCC is getting sticks to the issues. And again, analysis of the comments so far has found that most of the original comments (comments made not using form letter systems embraced by both sides) are coming from consumers that actively support net neutrality protections.
How hard FCC staffers like Berry pushed these outlets to carry this narrative isn't clear. But Berry and the FCC's attempt to counter the Oliver effect also involved highlighting a story run by the Independent Journal Review featuring FCC boss Ajit Pai reading some of the mean comments he's been receiving on Twitter:
VIDEO: @AjitPaiFCC reads (and responds to) mean tweets. https://t.co/Lqe9XFtvWH
— Matthew Berry (@matthewberryfcc) May 13, 2017
For whatever reason the original story pulled the video, which is embedded below for your enjoyment:
Now these kinds of segments aren't really new. Countless politicians (including Obama) and celebrities have done similar schticks, where they field unhinged comments from often juvenile and blindly hostile Twitter users. That Pai (who obviously has post-FCC political aspirations) did a similar video isn't a problem in and of itself.
The problem in this particular instance is that outside of some vagaries, the Independent Journal Review doesn't explain why people might be legitimately angry with Pai. After all, this is the guy that's not only killing net neutrality, but recently helped protect prison monopolies, began axing a program that brings broadband to the poor, killed an attempt to bring competition to the cable box, helped axe consumer broadband privacy protections, and is working to eliminate anything even vaguely resembling oversight of growing monopolies like Comcast. All while insisting he's an unwavering champion of the poor.
Pai is disliked right now for entirely legitimate reasons. Yet the mean tweets segment tries very hard to make gutting consumer protections seem "folksy," and the corresponding backlash seem unreasonable. When a few reporters pointed out Pai's mean tweets segment was a bit tone deaf to the legitimacy of the public complaints, Pai advisor Nathan Leamer was quick to insist that critics simply couldn't take a joke:
Do you even humor bro??? https://t.co/A1rwWboVys
— Nathan Leamer (@nathan_leamer) May 13, 2017
Again though, the problem isn't Pai reading mean Tweets. The problem is that the segment doesn't explain why Pai is incredibly unpopular with consumers and the internet in the first place. The problem is also that this segment was obviously part of a larger, overarching attempt to make people with very legitimate grievances seem wholly unhinged and unreasonable. Oliver even went so far as to highlight how cable news channels were pushing the narrative as well, in an expanded bit the show did solely for online viewers (skip to the 3 minute mark if you don't want to watch the whole thing):
As an additional layer of irony, this PR effort was occurring during the FCC's "sunshine" period, an arguably stupid bit of long-standing policy bureaucracy during which the FCC is supposed to pause and "reflect" the will of the public and the facts on the ground.
And the facts on the ground say net neutrality rules protecting consumers from growing monopolies like Comcast have broad, bipartisan public support. It's also a fact that despite his claim of a "deliberate consideration" of all the facts, Ajit Pai has every intention of completely ignoring public will when the agency votes to begin rolling back the rules this Thursday -- after his agency gets done smearing the consumers he's supposed to be protecting as the very worst sort of villains, of course.
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Filed Under: ajit pai, comments, fcc, john oliver, matthew berry, net neutrality, racism
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Many lap it up and regurgitate it without a second thought.
"The news reports being pushed... cling to several misleading narratives. One, that the people ... were somehow not airing legitimate complaints... Two, that most of these people were hateful, racist, or otherwise horrible people..."
This statement could be said about a few pet causes/issues/topics on this site, the hate for anything dealing with the police is one that comes to mind immediately.
It's funny how people can correctly argue a case in one instance, but fail to see it when the shoe is on the other foot. Hypocrisy abounds.
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Perhaps this is the root of the problem, they think he's funny. Their world view is so skewed that they think handing citizens over to be ripped off is a loving caring act.
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this is where Mark Hamil's compendium of Joker Laughs goes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU1PnL99SaU
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This confirms to me there will be censorship on the scale of china's great firewall. Why else would they go this far to attack us?
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I'm assuming that a Bernie Madoff mean tweets video is forthcoming.
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Then again, the chickens were already busy flooding the FCC site.
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If you're some kind of degenerate SJW or a corporate democrat, sure. They only felt like they could pull the racist card because he's not 100% white.
What's next? Terrorism is just a "fact of life"?
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According to the government, not only is it a fact of life, but a required fact of life as they promote more laws and rules that absolutely terrorize the populace.
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I don't get it
Everytime his silly face hits my screen there's a giant banner for Reese's.
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I'm sorry, but since you didn't provide any concrete examples I went with all you did provide, and that's all I found. I can only work with the facts you choose to provide.
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What monopolies?
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Re: What monopolies?
Cable's growing monopoly over the last mile means less competition. Less competition means more attempts to creatively abuse this lack of competition, which is what net neutrality infractions are.
"Those are driven by local governments and deals between cable companies, none of this will change."
Most local franchises are now state level franchises. And blindly deregulating a captive, uncompetitive market doesn't magically fix any of this. Sensible, reasonable government policies to improve competition do. But because the local, state, and federal government is blindly loyal to campaign contributions to a grotesque degree, you're right in the fact that change doesn't happen until other problems are fixed.
"It seems to be the case that Title II creates more monopolies by making it harder for new ISPs to compete with established ISPs who already have the market locked down."
Says who? I've written about this industry for 20 years and see nothing to support that.
"Since they all must offer the exact same service under Net Neutrality where is the competition besides speed/price?"
Who says they have to offer the exact same service? This also isn't supported. There's a million ways to compete when the playing field is even.
"New ISPs will not have this luxury and must develop their infrastructure under far more strict rules."
The rules don't restrict upstart ISPs in the slightest. And as we note about three times a week, the idea that Title II stifled investment is an unsupported canard. That's a load of nonsense being pushed by telecom sector folks that want zero accountability as they abuse captive markets.
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Re: What monopolies?
as for the monopoly part of it, look at AT&T, they have literally taken BILLIONS of USD for the purpose of expanding their network into low-income areas... only to ... well... take the money and run with it, not doing what they promised, and then when someone wants a better service than what AT&T provides and/or at a more reasonable pricing, AT&T said "nope, you have to pay US ludicrous amounts of money for substandard services."
you will also note, that AT&T/Comcast/Etc. have ONLY developed better services when competition have arrived in those locations, and yet, only in a "select few testing areas" and not say, the entire city of Chattanooga.
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The point you seem to be ignoring, maybe because it's easier than thinking for yourself, is that you are painting with a rather large brush.
You ask "So you're ok with the police murdering, raping and stealing from innocent people without consequence?" like you've made some salient point or snarky retort.
I say you are part of the problem. Based on your question I can assume that ALL cops murder, steal, and rape.
I may be wrong, but I think there used to be a name for that kind of thinking... Bigot comes to mind, but hey what do I know, right?
I'm sorry, but since you didn't provide any concrete examples I went with all you did provide, and that's all I found. I can only work with the facts you choose to provide.
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Re: What monopolies?
Because the provide cable and Internet access, their is a conflict of interest between providing a neutral Internet access and protecting their cable TV business. Have you not noticed that net neutrality became an issue when cord cutting started to become a noticeable phenomenon. The cable companies wish to manipulate data caps,, charging structures aso as to protect their cable TV business..
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Re: What monopolies?
In a large swath of this country, one of the few major cable companies in the United States is the only provider of Internet access. That gives the company a much broader amount of leverage over just who it can serve (and how much it can charge for service) when compared to an area with multiple available ISPs competing against one another.
Moreover, the cable companies know that their biggest moneymaker—cable television service—is facing eventual extinction at the hands of Internet video. By controlling Internet access, preferably without oversight in regards to Net Neutrality, those companies have the ability to “push” consumers toward Internet video options owned by or friendly towards those companies. If I could access Hulu in a flash but would need to wait several minutes for Netflix or YouTube access, why would I use anything but Hulu?
What makes this worse: If the market is captive and no competition exists, the companies will see no reason to expand or develop new infrastructure. Why would they need to spend any extra money capturing what they already have with improved service and faster speeds?
Cable companies know that they have the power in this situation. Any breakage of their monopolies in the places where they exist would result in a loss of that power. The companies can and will do anything to keep it—even if it means making their opponents look like unhinged racist fuckheads when those people are nothing of the sort.
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All that matters is that the chambers of congress gets the message from you stuck in their mind when they read a report that otherwise would seem like an utter humiliation of your opinion.
Btw. I love the bit about the campaign being "astroturf" and using too fowl language. Generally astroturfing is a faked popular movement created by sponsoring people to articulate an opinion that catches on so as to create an easily spread simple and one-sided narrative. Racism, infantility and other bad behaviour is the worst way to do that and specifically not a sign of a prepackaged opinion. Oh, the irony of spaghetti critique. While some of it will stick to the wall, it is often quite visible what has happened by the mess on the ground...
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Stay classy FCC, stay classy
As an additional layer of irony, this PR effort was occurring during the FCC's "sunshine" period, an arguably stupid bit of long-standing policy bureaucracy during which the FCC is supposed to pause and "reflect" the will of the public and the facts on the ground.
"We're going to take advantage of this break, which is theoretically in place for us to consider what the public wants and has the happy side-effect of keeping the public from sending us comments in order to highlight how stupid we think the portion of the public that disagrees with what we already plan to do is."
Yeah, they're not even pretending that they give a damn about what the public wants.
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It's not a "left" or "right" issue. No one wants net neutrality dismantled except for a few corporations and people who stand to make a lot of money from it being dismantled.
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Keep trying to discredit me for your failures, though. It only proves my point further.
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Re: Re: What monopolies?
This is exactly my point, it's treating the symptoms of the monopoly but they still have a monopoly. The local governments still have special deals with the legacy ISPs and those will not change. Their powerful market position and connections in the FCC and with those in government writing the regulations will not change.
"Says who? I've written about this industry for 20 years and see nothing to support that. "
I can think of many examples. If a new ISP wants to offer some service to use AI to prioritize legitimate traffic over spam. If an ISP wants to frontload your web content for faster browsing on slow connections. Offering free or discount services is also perfectly legitimate and has happened in all sectors of tech for decades. Regulatory capture is real. If a law will hurt ISPs they have the connections to make sure it will hurt smaller ISPs that aren't as well connected or lack the funds to comply even more. It happens with nearly every regulation so how is Net Neutrality somehow the exception?
"The rules don't restrict upstart ISPs in the slightest."
You telling me upstart ISPs aren't bound by Net Neutrality rules? I've never seen such an exception for smaller or newer ISPs.
"And as we note about three times a week, the idea that Title II stifled investment is an unsupported canard."
Nice strawman, this was never part of my argument. I was talking about Net Neutrality and our current IPS monopolies and how it does nothing to address that very real issue.
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Re: Re: Re: Facts of Life
Terrorism *is* a (sad) fact of life. A few Christians go nuts every year (sandy hook, columbine, etc) and kill some (maybe 100) people every year.
Meanwhile:
30,000+ die anually on our roads, another
30,000+ die of drug overdoses....
10,000 are shot by other people, (perhaps 700 by cops, 150 or so are cops themselves)
20,000 kill themselves with firearms.
Now, tell me, which fact of life might be most important to address more constructively?
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It's a standard derailment strategy used when supporters of an unpopular position, don't wish to argue that position.
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They are utterly oblivious to market monopoly power, and how a completely unrestricted market magnifies the power of the haves and disenfranchises the have-nots.
They live in an Ayn Rand wet-dream-world.
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Zero "Fucks" Given
Net neutrality is vitally important to the well-being of the Internet as a medium of information exchange and NOT what your office has recently misrepresented it to be. The very title, "Restoring Internet Freedom," is highly disingenuous, since the intent of the proposed action is the very opposite of freedom. Mr. Pai is either receiving exceedingly poor counsel on the issue of net neutrality, or he has personally elected intentionally to disregard the interests of the overwhelming majority of private citizens of the United States. Continue with this current course, and the Trump administration and Mr. Pai will pay a heavy price for that misbehavior in the currency of increased disregard, distrust, and scorn by the American public.
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THANK YOU
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Re: Re: Re: What monopolies?
"Since they all must offer the exact same service under Net Neutrality where is the competition besides speed/price?"
was any better? Really?
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Re: Zero "Fucks" Given
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I note that you don't deny erecting a pathetic strawman, only complain that someone else is utilising the same dishonest tactic (who exactly that is remains a mystery).
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It is, especially in major cities. Has been for a long time, actually, in a lot of the world. We just got on with life, though. It's only since the US pissed its pants over one particular attack that certain groups of terrorists noticed how effective it was if targeted properly. People do seem to go out of their way to pretend that only one group is committing such acts, interestingly, but it's neither new nor a risk of living in a major city that's worth changing your entire life over.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Facts of Life
Terrorism - we must restrict freedoms to keep us safe because of the scary people (only Muslims, the Christian and other terrorists are always mentally ill, "lone wolves", etc. and never representative of any group).
Gun deaths - we don't care how many people die, you can't take away my freedoms!
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Re: Re: Re: What monopolies?
Those are not close to ideal parameters for a market and makes an already rather opaque market (caps, 0-rating, existing bundling etc.) even harder for customers to navigate.
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Freedom is not the freedom of everyone to purchase his own monopoly.
But your "internet should be free" obviously means exactly that, so yes, we accuse you being a stooge for supporting the "freedom to exploit everyone else"
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Consumer protections didn't come about on a whim. There is a clear issue trying to be clouded by corrupt or misled people.
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Re: Re: Zero "Fucks" Given
Wow! The falsity of that premise combined with the vacant appeal to "higher authorities" suggest a very narrow exposure to the real world of human interactions at all levels of abstraction. A simple observation that discounts the premise follows from the fact that our form of government guarantees our freedoms by coercing our compliance with the law under threat of punishment.
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And / Or - It's always the inanimate weapon's fault, and not the fault of the person using it. Ban the inanimate object! Pay no mind to mental health of the person who decided that killing 30 random people was an acceptable outlet for their grievances. That will fix our societal problems!
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Don't know about Wendy but for me at least I see 'Indian [nearly unreadable pile of text that might be 'Inventing'] Email' with the last word having a line through it.
Didn't get it the first time around as I figured it was a goof in formatting, but reading it again and what I'm guessing you meant to write gets you a Funny vote for that one.
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But keep up the denial, and we will keep winning.
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/jan/25/cokie-roberts/have-democrats-los t-900-seats-state-legislatures-o/
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But your guess was correct, it was intended to be funny, not so much serious.
Here's my original again; just pretend that the hyphens extend through the words:
"They just can't stand the thought of a brown-skinned Indian --inventing--email-- running the FCC."
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The fake's the more honest of the two...
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Do you not see the problem there? I get you have a point about why you think regulation is good. i get it, you get off on regulation, that's swell, but that does not change the meaning of the word freedom. really i feel like even you can comprehend that.
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Re: Re: Re: Zero "Fucks" Given
You can Google these basics terms. Is that an appeal to an authority, basic fucking English?
Again, in all seriousness, you are the worst.
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I'm conservative.
You have a right to be as horrible as you like but please note, other people's views may differ. Deal with it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Facts of Life
"Pay no mind to mental health of the person who decided that killing 30 random people was an acceptable outlet for their grievances"
False dichotomies are idiotic, but they do seem to be the way that people obsessed with certain toys go to. I don't know of anyone saying that mental health should be ignored (except, perhaps, when it's suggested that people should not own a gun if they are found to be unstable - that one really annoys people who think they shouldn't have to prove their sanity before owning another toy).
I do, however, know of plenty of people who think that mental healthcare really needs to be improved in the US, while simultaneously believing that easily giving people with those kinds of issues a device that allows them to easily kill lots of people is a bad idea.
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Let's try something slightly different, then, to explain what's being said.
There's a famous saying, in many forms, one of which is: "Your freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose."
Or to put it another way, "My freedom does not include the freedom to punch you in the face."
In almost exactly the same way, "My freedom does not include the freedom to obtain a monopoly over something that you need."
This is not the same as "freedom is not freedom".
More generically:
This reasoning holds for many values of X, including acts of violence, and also including monopolistic behavior.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Facts of Life
Well, to be fair, there's justifiable logic behind that one.
The problem with having to prove your sanity in order to own a gun (aside from any difficulties with "proving a negative", in the form of "not insane") is that it establishes a gatekeeper - and one based on a fuzzy, non-obvious criterion, which could and can be determined arbitrarily by whoever has been given the power to decide.
Once that's been done, eventually there will be cases where someone is declared "not sufficiently sane", specifically so as to deny that person the right to own a gun, not on any legitimate basis but simply because the people in the right positions don't like that person. And once you've been labeled as mentally unstable, it's difficult to persuasively argue against it, without the help of someone who has not been so labeled.
The sane and principled people arguing against a sanity requirement for gun ownership are, or at least IMO should be, doing so as an outgrowth of that logic - however subconsciously understood it may be. (Which is not to say that there are not people arguing against it for other reasons! There are certainly (metaphorical!) crazies in the gun-rights/gun-control debate, without question.)
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After Gamergate, "BernieBros", did they come up with a dismissive name for net neutrality commenters yet? OliverBots or something?
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