There are four things I've not seen discussed by the politicians in this dispute, neither refuted by its supporters nor used as talking points by those opposing net neutrality.

1) If my ISP sends the cost of bandwidth over to Google and my ISP has to compete with other ISPs, it may give them a competative opportunity to cut my rates with Google picking up the difference. So it could mean lower rates for me. IE - It shifts some of the bandwidth costs from the consumer to Google and Micro$oft.

The issue here is that most carriers live in an oligopoly or monopoly environment where there is no real competition to keep them from charging both the content providers and the content receivers. Also, they are free to charge whatever they want from Google, regardless of how much actual traffic Google originates. Regulation is necessary because the telecom companies don't live in a real free market.

2) The primary people fighting for net neutrality are not people nor even small business but rather gigantic multi-billion dollar corporations like Micro$oft, Google, eBay, etc. Using the "follow the money" logic, that implies that those companies are the ones who will be footing most of the bill if net neutrality does not get enacted. The whole thing smells to me like a scam to line the pockets of the big corporations by scaring consumers into thinking that those big corporations are on their side. It is worth noting that a large amount of government regulation of business, possibly even most of it, is supported by business. For example, domestic gun makers supported gun control in the 20th century because it made it harder to import firearms (ie-their foreign competition was partially shut down). Cable companies lobbied when they got started for regulated government protected local monopolies figuring that it's better to be a monopoly even if you are regulated than to worry about competitors out-inovating you. Another common reason large businesses like Google and Micro$oft support government regulation of industry is because they know it will make it harder for small business (like Lusternia!) to compete in the market. Whenever any company lobbies for regulation of the industry, this should be an immediate red flag: it is without fail always for alterior reasons, never because they care about you.
That's not true - Google and Microsoft are cited as supporters of net neutrality because they're high profile. But the savetheinternet.com campaign is supported by several companies of all sizes, and every single major consumer protection association in the US. Net neutrality would create an even playing field for everyone. A tiered internet would allow Google or MSN to fight over who has faster access - Regardless of what consumers want. It would similarly allow WoW to pay in order to be faster than other similar MMOs. And nothing is stopping the telcos from charging nearly everyone something.

While no one who knows me well would consider me a leftist nor a conservative, that paragraph does sound pretty lefty. Yet most of the support for net neutrality comes from the left. I find it ironic that leftists are the ones behind this! Basically some fairly unregulated big multi-billion dollar trans-national corporations have used vague egalitarian utopian buzzwords to slander other less big and more heavily regulated corporations. The end result is it feels like Micro$oft and Google are supporting the little guy even though it's probably just the opposite. To those politicians on the left: do you realize you are doing Micro$oft's bidding for the interest of their profit?
The telcos were created by the government in an artificial environment where they suffer no competition whatsoever. That's why they have to be regulated; there's no real free market to keep them in check. And speaking of free markets, since when is the left supposed to support deregulation?

3) Some technologies may be stifled by this. For example, if your IP packet will cost the same amount to deliver regardless of if it is high or low priority and no matter what its size and how many routes it hops through... What incentive is there to develop technology for flagging your most important packets as higher priority than low packets? To develop smarter routing software that finds the most cost effective, efficient route? Or to develop software that uses less bandwidth chatter or compresses data on a wire better? All of that would be a benefit for consumers. There may be some nominal incentive to develop those technologies, but a fiscal incentive would very likely take things further.
There's nothing wrong with discriminating packages based on service - The reason net neutrality is called for is that telcos are planning on discriminating based on origin or destination.
4) Spammers consume insane amounts of bandwidth. Would not having net neutrality make sending spam much more expensive for the spammers?? If so, I'm 100% against net neutrality. Spammers need to die die die die die!!!!
Not at all. Spam hasn't been stopped by the current policy (Spam generating hosts are blacklisted and people stop peering to them). It wouldn't be stopped by a policy that may or may not slow down the messages they send from arriving to a consumer's mail servers (Which, by the way, are almost always completely unrelated to the consumer and located elsewhere. Spammers wouldn't need to pay, unless the telcos start arbitrarily dropping packets that don't pay - for everyone who sends smtp or pop packets through their network, of course, not just spamemers). If anything, this would make getting your email from smaller webmail services (That aren't paying their protection fee) slower.

The issue here is that most carriers live in an oligopoly or monopoly environment where there is no real competition to keep them from charging both the content providers and the content receivers. Also, they are free to charge whatever they want from Google, regardless of how much actual traffic Google originates. Regulation is necessary because the telecom companies don't live in a real free market.

Politicians are usually briefed on probable questions though and have a fairly good rundown of what needs to be said. I'd hate to see Question Time (the time in parliament over here in Aus where people throw questions back and forth across the Floor of Parliament) where politicians answered off the cuff.

I understand the message he is trying to portray and I'm not even attempting to address the argument at all, just the failings of the politician. I know that is a fallacy in critical thought and argument, but it irks me when a politician fails to communicate a message.

Oh well thats just niave then.

He's been speaking like this for the past, what? 40 years now?

It's naive for me to expect a politician to be able to communicate his or her message clearly? There aren't many other professions where I would consider communication to be a higher priority. The people of his generation might understand him, that's fine, but he represents more than just retirees. Even if I don't agree with a politican I expect them to be able to string a coherant argument together.

It's naive for me to expect a politician to be able to communicate his or her message clearly? There aren't many other professions where I would consider communication to be a higher priority. The people of his generation might understand him, that's fine, but he represents more than just retirees. Even if I don't agree with a politican I expect them to be able to string a coherant argument together.

rather than choking it off and having it shrivel into yet another corporate playground that's too expensive for anyone in the lower middle class or below.

You mean the same way TV, Radio, and the Telephones are a coporate playground?

TV and Telephones? Yes. Radio? No. When was the last time you saw someone broadcasting a TV show out of their basement? That's what dissapears when net neutrality dissapears; the little people who can't afford to pay the extra fees. People like, say, bloggers, or the guy who runs Seventh Sanctum. I shouldn't need a corporate sponsorship to have my own website.

EDIT:

Also, you missed out on the real point of that sentance. The expense. Television and telephones are dramatically less useful the poorer you are. It's bad enough that there's differences between dial-up and DSL, and again between DSL and cable, without the poor being cut completely out of the picture.

I've actually seen more TV shows run out of basements than I have heard of radio shows. We have a special channel in my area called "public access TV", but Radio, I only hear coorprate stations.

For Australia, that's totall true. We have one company that owns all the physical lines, wires, fibres, whatever you want to call it. All of them. The company was originally 100% owned by the people/government, but as of now the government is trying to sell off its last controlling share and hand it totally over to the private market. Not a situation I'd like to see.

Yes...

Just look at Joe Biden, Byrd, Thurmen when he was around. If you watch senate meetings (sadly I do) you might be impressed with how many of those people can't string a sentence together, let alone an argument where they know what they are talking about,

Roark, I truly don't care if I get cheaper internet access from it. If you make content providers pay more, instead of content consumers, you end up vastly restricting who can provide content.