Has anyone, aside from the Swiss, ever stood up for his or her neutrality? No one ever says, "I feel very strongly about neutrality," because, well, neutrality is inherently neutral and is not something people tend to get worked up about. Perhaps that's why, even though Google, Microsoft, the Christian Coalition, and MoveOn.org have all spoken out in favor of "network neutrality," most people still don't have a clue, let alone a care, that—courtesy of some bills making their way through Congress—the beloved internet may soon undergo some drastic and terrible changes. Language is a powerful tool.

Columbia Law professor Tim Wu had his heart in the right place when he coined the deficient term, as proponents of this tired phrase think that network providers should give equal treatment and accessibility to all content on the internet, i.e., they should be neutral (Wikipedia). (Wu gives a pretty good explanation in Slate of what will happen if the Bells and cable companies—who want to make money by giving preferential treatment to some data—win.) Unfortunately, Wu must have missed the memo on "message framing." That's understandable, though, as the Democrats never got it, either. It has long been known by cognitive linguists that the Right has got it right when it comes to framing.

Message framing is the idea that language (called surface frames) can be used to tap into deep systems of values and principles (called deep frames) which are physically in the brain and are used by all people to reason about and understand the world. The end goal of message framing is to clearly state the ideals and values that underlie an opinion. Conservatives often use framing to get their message and moral world views to the public. By discussing taxes as burdens that must be removed from the pained citizen (by referring to "tax relief") and deciding that the only solution to our country's "immigration problem" is to change the immigration process, they use language to limit and confine our discussions. If you need relief from taxes, they can never be viewed as investments in the common infrastructure for future generations. Supporters of the burden (progressives) are villains, while fighters of the hardship (conservatives) are heroes. Referring to the immigration problem tells us that the problem is immigrants and the solution is to change immigration. Other options—such as reforming businesses that hire illegal immigrants or challenging foreign policy and trade practices that drive citizens out of their home countries—are taken off the table as potential solutions.

Though supporters of free and equal internet aptly named their bill the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act, this is not enough. A quick Google search yields 42,800,000 results for "net neutrality" while the true name of the bill only gives 227,000 results (an overwhelming difference, even if this is a very rough way to estimate a phrase's popularity), meaning the language being used to discuss this issue, regardless of how it is actually named, is the vacant term "net neutrality."

No person will ever feel impassioned about neutrality. Rather, what we should understand and what we should start talking about are the values of freedom, equality, and fairness that are at stake. This is an issue that concerns the freedom of speech, the freedom to access information, the freedom to disseminate information, and the freedom to compete in the marketplace of ideas. This is about fairness, independence, choice, and openness. Let me try that again: Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom! Your rights are being threatened and this is a big deal. Though the language of neutrality may prevent you from standing up and screaming, the real issue—your freedom—should have you yelling around the world. (For now, we can still do that on the internet!) Screw net neutrality. Let's Save The Internet and start advocating for Internet Freedom.

Jessica Thierman is a cognitive science student at UC Berkeley and is an intern at George Lakoff's Rockridge Institute. These are her views and not necessarily those of the institute.