Breitbart.com contributor Seton Motley is one of the right's loudest critics of net neutrality -- or, at least, what he thinks is net neutrality. He wrote a piece yesterday excoriating various and sundry “leftists” (the word “leftist” is used 16 times throughout) who want to use net neutrality to “make it as difficult as possible for continued private Internet investment” and “leave government as the nation's sole Internet provider.”

That certainly sounds terrible. It also bears zero resemblance to the regulatory structure put in place by the FCC's Open Internet order, which established net neutrality policies for internet service providers. The regulations prevent ISPs from acting as gatekeepers, restricting consumer access to legal online content. They grant the government none of the draconian powers Motley envisions.

Instead of grappling with the actual regulatory policy, Motley's warnings of the net neutrality apocalypse are based on this 2009 quote from Free Press co-founder Robert McChesney:

At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies. We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.

Shadowboxing with a single three-years-stale quote from an academic is far, far easier than delving into complicated policy -- which is probably why Motley has made a habit of doing it. This quote from McChesney has served a long, distinguished career as Motley's net neutrality bop bag. 

He's used it over and over and over, the same quote, again and again. And he's particularly fond of the “how do we know this?” construction to set up McChesney's quote as revelatory of one of net neutrality's various secret, nefarious goals.

Here he is on July 9:

How do we know this?  Robert McChesney, one of the founding fathers of the Media Marxist movement, said so:

“At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies. We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.”

And again in August 2011:

So as to under false pretenses assassinate the character of the private Internet sector. So as to ultimately assassinate the private Internet sector.

How do we know this? Because Robert McChesney, the Godfather of the Media Marxist “reformers” - whose bidding the FCC is subserviently doing - has said so:

"(T)he ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control."

And again in May 2011:

Net Neutrality will kill tech sector investment (and by the way, the tech sector requires huge coin to grow).

How do we know this? Because Robert McChesney - the Godfather of the Media Marxist movement - says that's the point:

"(T)he ultimate goal (of Net Neutrality) is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control."

Meanwhile, there's an actual federal regulation on the books that he's shown little interest in taking on. Funny, that.