The free market is not functioning for internet access in the US. There is no regulatory escape from the reality of who owns the infrastructure. Nationalize the infrastructure and see G.E./TW/Verizon go ballistic. But nationalizing the US internet will have consequences that reach such things as pornography, counter-culture teachings and writings, shared media files from musicians, footage or evidence of a police-state, whistle-blower access to the internet. All of that would now be under the purview of the FCC. I think that idea sucks.
Even Adam Smith argued for regulation of the free market. the Libertarians don't like to be reminded of that, but there it is. It's also important to note that telecoms operate as natural monopolies which necessarily expose them to regulation. And, much like making credible threats to the life of the President over a phone line is not protected speech, not everything on the Internet would be protected speech (clearly, it isn't now). However, much like spending five hours a day on phone sex lines isn't illegal, spending five hours a day surfing redtube wouldn't be illegal. Regulation isn't oppression. Oppression is oppression. Oppression should be fought at every turn, but it shouldn't be conflated with regulation. Although one can be used to advance the other, it's important to object to the actuality of oppression rather than the potential for oppression, particularly when there are many real-world benefits to regulation. You think Chick-fil-A-Net is gonna let you surf AdultFriendFinder? Not unless the FCC compels them to.
Most Libertarians have not actually, read "The Wealth Of Nations", and would probably not like most of what it said in relation to their opinions. The DEFINITELY wouldn't like this one, for example: - I never realized Smith was so Pro-Union. They'd also hate this one: Or this: and that's just from the wikipedia article. Edit: I should, of course, point out that Libertarians in America (who we're discussing at this point) are not really libertarians - They're surrealists."We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate [...] Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy till the moment of execution; and when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do without resistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard of by other people". In contrast, when workers combine, "the masters [...] never cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, and the rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity against the combination of servants, labourers, and journeymen."
The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state. The expense of government to the individuals of a great nation is like the expense of management to the joint tenants of a great estate, who are all obliged to contribute in proportion to their respective interests in the estate. In the observation or neglect of this maxim consists what is called the equality or inequality of taxation.
The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.