but her brother, james otis, had been very active in the revolutionary cause, the resistance cause in the 1760s. and then he went insane. and unlike most women, mercy otis warren had been highly educated. she was educated with a private tutor along with her brother, and she kind of stepped in his place. and she began writing plays and be poems and political tracts that attacked british tyranny. and they were actually published in newspapers in massachusetts, and they were circulated throughout the colonies. and so she, she was really important, i guess you'd say, instigator in the coming of the revolution. interestingly enough, too, she wrote a three-volume history of the american revolution that was publish inside 1805. she was a friend of abigail adams and of john adams, and john adams actually encouraged her authorship, encouraged her

venture into history. and so she is someone that i think, again, has been forgotten, but at the time was well known to americans because she was so instrumental in promoting the revolutionary cause. and on the front of your book is this painting, drawing? >> guest: yeah. it's a painting from the early 19th century. it's a folk painting. and it's really an idealized vision of a woman. and she's holding -- this is from the war of 1812 era -- and she's holding an american flag. and on top of that is what you call a liberty cap, and that is a very famous symbol of liberty. and in her hand is an olive branch. and she's dressed not in classical garb which was often typical when women were used as symbols or as iconography. but she was dress inside the period costume of the time, and

she's obviously a symbol of peace, a symbol of liberty. and women were very often used in just that way. women, columbia, the image that's on the capitol is an image of a woman. and so women were very often invoked as the most visible symbols of the early american republic. >> host: we've been talking with professor rosemarie zagarri of george mason university. this is her newest book, "revolutionary backlash: women in politics in the early american republic," and just recently reissued is her book, "the politics of size: representation in the u.s. 1776-1850." >> and now, an interview from george mason university. >> host: professor tom hazlett, what's net neutrality? >> guest: it's a series of regulations on broadband internet providers that limit

what your service provider provides you access to the internet presumably with high-speed service can cowith business models models and pric. so the idea of the net neutrality rules is to limit the reach or scope of your local transport network that hooks you up, takes you to the internet in terms of your data traffic and allow you, the customer, to access any kind of application or content without the discretion of the broadband provider involved. so it's, basically, rules or regulations that limit the business models and packaging of your local broadband company. >> host: well, in december 2010 fcc commissioner michael copps said allowing gigantic corporations to exercise unfettered control over americans' access to the internet not only creates risks to technological innovation and economic growth, but it poses a real threat to freedom of speech

and the future of our democracy. do you agree with his statement? >> guest: very little of it. in fact, the unfettered market that he references is the market that has created what the fcc itself calls an open internet. that is to say we haven't had net neutrality rules until quite recently, and these rules were applied, crafted and applied by the federal communications commission in late december of 2010. and, indeed, they haven't even gone into effect yet. so for the argument that we are saving the open internet by applying, in essence, a new regime is really a non sequitur. that is to say we have developed great dine niche and protection -- dynamism in terms of applications by having a world in which all kinds of companies whether they be transport or backbone or application providers can try out innovative business models

and cut all kinds of business deals to try to see what works and what's most efficient. so that's really the regime we've had, and if you want to protect that, you want to extend it in the future, in my opinion, rather than impose a different regime. >> host: but what about fcc commissioner copps' point that we're turning over a lot of the control of the internet to large corporations such as comcast, etc. >> guest: right. well, we're not turning over control, okay? is to the extent that these gatekeepers as they're called somewhat pejoratively have the ability to squelch consumer interests, that's the system we've got. it's not that we're turning over control, that's the system that's developed. it's actually been quite progressive and innovative in terms of encouraging competition and investment in these very networks that now, essentially, take about 70% of u.s. households to the internet at fairly high speeds. indeed, there has been a complaint, the first complaint filed under the net neutrality

rules was not against a giant telecommunications operator or a large-scale u.s. cable operator, it was against a rather small u.s. mobile carrier called metro pcs. and, indeed, they have a very one would think innovative, low-cost, discounted program for people who want to get unlimited data, e-mail, voice, text on mobile networks nationwide. metro pcs offers you to do this and for $40 a month unlimit chd does not allow on that network video streaming. the network doesn't support it. however, they did work out a deal with google, the owner of youtube, to allow their customers to get unlimited youtube videos. well, that is discrimination under the fc cnet neutrality rules, perhaps -- we don't know yet because the complaint has not been adjudicated.

although i will say in the fcc order they specifically single out this type of business model as potentially hazardous and discriminatory, so they virtually invited this complaint. it wasn't against one of the large operators that one would think, the big corporations. this was a mobile operator that's trying to compete. it had at that time eight million customers, one-well ofth the size of verizon, for example, and discounting service for customers who don't want to pay higher prices. so that was actually an option in the marketplace that was, i think, by any pressure very pro-consumer, but it's now run afoul of the net neutrality rules. so that's the problem, in fact, in regulating the internet. >> tom hazlett is a professor of economics, and he's director of the information economy project at the law school. what is the information economy project? >> >> guest: well, we're an academic program that tries to use the tools of law and

economics in the academic world to analyze public policy issues in the information sector. and we have academic studies, conferences and lectures by noted academics, business people and innovators in the telecommunications and media worlds. >> host: and you have also written about cable tv and public policy. >> guest: yes. >> host: this is your newest book just coming out, "the fallacy of net neutrality." is this a republican/democrat issue? supporting or opposing net neutrality? >> guest: well, you know, in some respects you could make an argument, certainly, i think network neutrality became part of the democratic party platform a few years ago. but certainly the democratic party is split on it. there's significant members of congress who are democrats who are generally very hostile to net neutrality.

and, you know, the republicans are probably more unified on that, but certainly some of the policies that now result in net neutrality actually began under the bush administration, the last bush administration with voluntary guidelines that are very similar to the net neutrality rules we have today. so there has been some republican support and some democratic opposition. >> host: what's the economic harm that could come to a comcast or a verizon over net neutrality? >> guest: yeah. or a metro pcs. right, all the firms competing in the market place. and it's not just the isps, the internet service providers, it's the firms that are providing applications because they depend on the infrastructure built by the isps to have better, broader coverage and upgrade at higher speeds. so the direct threat is that, in fact, the regulatory overhang that is imposed by net neutrality will, in fact, discourage investment incentives. and so you'll get less dynamism.

if you have less opportunity as a, as a network to engage in innovation and different kinds of pricing packages, you may, in fact, have diminished incentives to build out. and, in fact, there's very strong evidence that in the past when the federal communications commission had what are called open access regulations on telecommunications providers that provide dsl, digital subscriber line services, which is competing with cable modems for the high-speed internet action services in the residential market, that these dsl services that were regulated under open access actually did have stunt in growth. and then when the fcc lifted those rules in 2003, 2005 and a couple of very important deregulatory moves, in fact, dsl deployment in the united states significantly shot up relative to cable modem growth and adjusted for other factors. so there really is strong evidence that these kinds of

regulatory interventions can be very, very negative. i also point out that fiber to the home which is the most advanced high-speed sort of service is now available in little more than 20 million households by the latest data. fiber to the home could not be built in the united states, essentially, until there was a very explicit deregulation. that is to say there would be no sharing obligations, no access requirements, nothing like open access or network neutrality. and then finally in late 2004 when that regulatory determination was made, you finally got buildout of significant parts of the u.s. with fiber to the home. that's a very high-speed service, it's very expensive to build. and so the economics have not prudent person out very well -- proven out very well, but that's an investment that is in place, so a lot of people have access to ultra fast broadband as a result, and that would not have taken place under a regulatory regime that does what net

neutrality hopes to accomplish. >> host: professor hazlett, why does google see advantage in the network neutrality rules as put forth by the fcc? >> guest: right. well, as a policy matter google does argue for network neutrality, and they've argued for it for some time. there's some question as to how vigorously they've pursued it in the past few years, they've backed off, they've tried to make deals that would provide a watered-down version of net neutrality, actually, but google's argument certainly is that they are an edge content providers, and they're certainly a very successful one. they have products that are very popular, very valuable to internet users. and so their fear is that if they are not allowed to get access to mobile -- excuse me, to fixed or mobile broadband network customers without the screen of the broadband isp in

place, they may be cutting deals with them or their competitors, that they might lessen their market position. that might be a less preferred business model for google. the other side is google's engaged in what's called a non-neutral business model. so if you're looking at the clearwire market, clearwire's a broadband service provider. wireless, that uses very advanced so-called 4g, fourth generation technology, that's partly owned by google. and google has participated in, for example, putting google search as the default search engine on handsets that are distributed to clearwire customers. that's certainly a violation of net neutrality. in fact, the most important business event in the entire history of google according to some of the good biographies of the company that are out was may 1, 2002, when google search before it went public and before it had significant cash in the bank paid aol, america online,

the largest isp in the country at that time -- a company at that time according to the federal trade commission with market power -- they paid to, essentially, displace the previous default search engine on the start-up page for aol users and become the default search. and this was, this was tremendously important to get access to immediately another 30 million customers as the home page search engine. and they paid for that. there was a business deal. that's, that's not neutral. and that's the sort of thing that net neutrality may disrupt at this point in time. now, that may cut against other entrants into the market as google was in 2002, really an entrant into the market. so i don't know if google feels that it's an incumbent and upstart entrants might use some of those tactics against it, or it fears isps for maybe combining or integrating into their, you know, direct competition with google search. but i actually disagree with