Please Help Defend Highway Neutrality

(Disclaimer: Just in case, for the irony-impaired, this isn't about concrete and macadam roadways.)

The Trump administration is proposing major, highly disruptive changes to the way we access and use the highway system. Currently everybody on the roads has the same speed limit and anybody can go anywhere (with a few exceptions for safety); this is called highway neutrality. The Trump administration plans to replace highway neutrality with highway bias.

Under the proposed "highway bias" rules, your Highway Service Provider (HSP) and the HSP of your destination (and possibly even other HSPs that happen to be involved along the way) will be able to physically restrict your car's speed going to your destination or even completely prevent your access to certain destinations, depending on any criteria that the HSPs want to use. In practice, this will mean that you and/or your destinations will have to pay off all the HSPs, or your maximum speed on the highway might be as slow as 5 mph (or even 1 mph) instead of the posted speed limit. Your HSP could even completely prevent you from going to political or religious places at any speed if the places you want to go are not in favor with your billionaire HSP's billionaire CEO's opinions.

How will this work? Suppose you want to go shopping at Big Box Inc. Since Big Box Inc. is a giant billionaire corporation, it will easily be able to pay off all the HSPs to allow anybody to travel at normal speeds to shop at Big Box; shopping at Big Box won't seem to be any different than it is now. On the other hand, if you want to shop at your local independent hardware store, which isn't big enough to have paid off every HSP, you may not be able to go faster than 10 mph to get there.

Suppose you want to buy some craft supplies. You could go across town to the local beads and yarn shop or you could go to Some Billionaire's Hobby Shoppe. Some Billionaire's Hobby Shoppe has paid off all the HSPs, so you can go there at 55 or 65 mph, but you'll be limited to 3 mph to go to the local bead shop.

Suppose you want to play golf. You could go to Small Town Golf Resort (getting there at 4 mph the whole way) or you could drive down to Mor On Lago at the posted speed limit.

Suppose you want to go over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house for Thanksgiving. If Grandma hasn't paid off your HSP, you better leave three days earlier than you do now if you want to get there on T-day.

If your HSP's CEO doesn't like your choice of political or religious destinations, you might not be able to get there, ever, at any speed. Your HSP might allow full speed access to WingnutFeverDreams.com and completely forbid you to go to DemocraticUnderground.com, or vice versa. You might have full speed access or no access at all to Love Everybody or to Nazi Pedophiles For Jesus. If your HSP's CEO hates gays, you might be forbidden to go to Metroplitan Community Church. If your HSP's CEO hates liberals or conservatives, you might be forbidden to go to your local left wing or right wing bookstore.

And so far we're just beginning to get to the really weird parts of this Highway Bias proposal.

Now suppose when you go to either Big Box Inc. or Entertaining Little Diversions, whenever you enter or leave their parking lot, they dump 40 gallons of advertisements onto your passenger seat. If even one of those advertisers hasn't paid off all the HSPs, then your whole trip may be slowed to the speed of that advertiser. You can only go at the speed of the slowest advertiser that they dumped on you.

Suppose you want to take a cross country vacation trip to Yellowstone National Park. Well, if Yellowstone hasn't paid off all the HSPs, you better plan on a lonnnngggg vacation. If every hotel or restaurant that you stop at along the way hasn't paid off all the HSPs, better make that a three-month vacation to have two days at Yellowstone.

Suppose you want to go to a coffee shop across town where the workers are unionized. If your HSP's CEO is a notorious union-buster, your speed to the unionized coffee shop might be 0 mph.

Suppose you want to send a thank-you letter to Grandma for a Christmas gift she gave you. If Grandma hasn't paid off all the HSPs, that Christmas thank-you letter might get there by Easter.

Highway Neutrality or Highway Bias? Highway Bias will destroy the highway system as we know it. Highway Bias is, short term, nothing but a money grab by billionaire HSPs and, longer term, a scheme to give right wing billionaires mind control, thought control, and opinion control over the whole society.