I won't say what you should or shouldn't do, but I can give you a few reasons to care:

First, to clarify, it's not innguest's moral problem; it's a quandary at the intersection of ethics and politics. If you care about ethical questions at all, this one's meaty: it tugs at the threads of social organization, sanctioned force, individual liberty, international law, and capitalism.

Second, innguest has rationally advocated a position; that's reason enough for me, at least, to pause and consider.

Third, if you're in the US, you have something directly at stake in this argument. Sure, the politics may already be decided on party lines, favors, and lobbying, but as the citizenry we owe it to ourselves to form a coherent political philosophy to serve as the yardstick informing us just how bad the government's decisions are.

Fourth, there should be a huge bar to clear for any party looking to impose invasive rules on someone else using the hand of government. The folks writing the laws are almost uniformly not subject matter experts; they act in self-interested ways that are well known; any proposal will be highly adulterated by the time it passes; any new law becomes a precedent for the next; and unknown consequences are rife, particularly with rights and the economy. I'd be highly critical of anyone willing to advocate this without deeply considering all facets, including innguest's points.

And finally, while morals are of course subjective, they should at least be held to the standards of justifiability and internal consistency; I don't believe this net neutrality push meets those requirements. If government enforces this on cable companies, can it determine which products Walmart carries, and which go on the prized middle shelves? Maybe it's only for monopolies, though...but then, I have no fewer than 4 choices to get Internet to my house, so it's not a monopoly. Unless it's only service of a particular quality. Who sets the quality requirements? And should the provider really not have the ability to charge more for heavier usage of the pipes? You pass something like this, you better have answered all of those and literally hundreds of others, and guaranteed that in every law where that happens, most of the answers are arbitrary.

I feel the same. Force by any actor for any reason should be a last resort. We have a problem with you promoting it as the "clear solution".

Just think about all the voluntary actions you take throughout the day. Then someone says you must do something different now, or a pay a price. They would need to have a pretty good reason, right?

Because "force" means you're not willing to talk and argue your point. You are advocating that someone can pull a gun to other people's head and make them do what he wants, and this is unsustainable, detestable and immoral.

So you should care because I am advocating a philosophy that is cogent and supporting of a peaceful society, while what you are arguing is the opposite of that.

The Libertarian conceit that theirs is the only moral way to govern, and all the rest of us are amoral scumbags, is a piss-poor way to make a point.

The libertarian view is that pretty much everything is fine as long as everyone involved is participating willingly.

Consider the ramifications: with voluntarism as nearly the only requirement, libertarianism is a substrate for communities to layer additional rules on top as befit their values: socialist communes, gun-free zones, drug markets, shared libraries, required weapons training, a Greek-style local democracy, whatever. Two communities can be diametrically opposed in their values, sharing only the common tenet that everyone participates voluntarily.

Of course it's impossible to pull off: can kids born in each community be considered voluntary participants? Can someone revoke their rights for the rest of their life with the stroke of a pen? How does someone traveling through these places even keep track of the laws (we see this with states already)? Lots of difficult/impossible/senseless questions arise. But it's a thought experiment: absent religious considerations, is there a more moral system that allowing everyone to voluntarily interact with others in only those ways that are mutually beneficial?

Those details aside, if allowing as many people to craft their life experiences as voluntarily as possible is of merit, investing great power in a central power governing over 300 million people is an extremely poor way to achieve it.

I'd like to point out that you have ascribed to me some sense of scorn towards others, and that you have insulted my approach to argumentation, but that that does not constitute a refutation and does not address the points I'm making.

You're right, I didn't. The main thing I wanted to know about your original post is why your morals are relevant to my opinions, and you didn't answer that, but just repeated the standard annoying Libertarian line that libertarianism is the only moral political philosophy.

> why your morals are relevant to my opinions

Please show an excerpt where I imply that my morals are relevant to your opinions.

When I say 'I have a moral problem with your willingness to "force" someone to do something' I mean 'I can refute it on moral grounds'. The refutation being, forcing someone/a monopoly/a group of people/a corporation to act against its incentives is perverse (it minimizes freedom) and especially so when there are alternatives that are not perverse and that maximize freedom, which is competition.

I think you're overcomplicating this.