> Title II (read it, it has a lot of baggage) is feared for a variety of reasons and "Net Neutrality" as a term is so confused that I heard someone argue with a straight face that it would be the Fairness Doctrine[1] for the internet.

Some conservatives seem to believe net neutrality was always about the Fairness Doctrine for reasons that escape even me [1]. I think they tend to hear "neutrality" and stop listening at that point, ignoring the real threat of tiered cable TV-like impositions on Internet services.

I think at this point it might be necessary to abandon neutrality efforts (in name at least) and fight for legislation that would serve to specifically to protect the openness of the Internet. I myself am not especially crazy about pushing for reclassification. And I don't really trust the government to do the right thing at this point. Bills that start off as generally good ideas have a tendency to grow in scope sometimes using language that conflicts with their original intent. The idealist in me would argue for political reform first, then worry about the Internet.

[1] Disclosure: I'm a conservative.

The person I was listening to was not a conservative and pretty much embodied the nightmare a lot of conservatives have about "Net Neutrality". The simpler explanation is that a lot of conservatives really don't trust the FCC to be fair about anything and Title II does give quite a bit of power. It grates me as a small government conservative (for some definition of all those words) that I cannot find a simple example legislation dealing with peering and traffic shaping that would keep Comcast / Verizon from using a natural monopoly to change what buying internet bandwidth means.

> The person I was listening to was not a conservative and pretty much embodied the nightmare a lot of conservatives have about "Net Neutrality".

To be fair, that didn't seem clear, but I might've misread your post! Regardless, I do know of a few conservative hosts who have most claimed net neutrality and the fairness doctrine are analogues. Fairness doctrine has been used as a right-of-center zeitgeist for some time (and rightfully so, IMO), but that the current state of net neutrality is beginning to frighten people who don't identify as conservative is a good thing. The problem I have with it, for instance, is similar to your reasoning: It proposes stricter regulations that might transform government-enforced "neutrality" into something far worse than the present alternative. Of course, I'm supportive of the idea that something needs to be done to prevent anti-competitive practices--I just don't think I agree with the current propositions. (At the very least, the bittorrent fiasco with Comcast is suggestive that highly unpopular actions can be reversed if enough people are willing to push back; it just isn't guaranteed and public complacency/apathy works against those of us who wish to do the right thing... then again, when doesn't it?)

> It grates me as a small government conservative (for some definition of all those words) that I cannot find a simple example legislation dealing with peering and traffic shaping that would keep Comcast / Verizon from using a natural monopoly to change what buying internet bandwidth means.

I definitely agree. I think this is a problem that's endemic to government. There are few good reasons why legislation should be more than a dozen pages--and certainly not multiple thousand pages--and all too often reasonable legislation makes it through almost entirely disassociated from the problem it was originally intended to solve. Simple problems are conflated into things that become unsolvable simply on the merit that everyone wants a proverbial piece of pie. But no one actually wants to prepare it.