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1Mb Broadband Access Becomes Legal Right In Finland
An anonymous reader writes "Starting next July, every person in Finland will have the right to a one-megabit broadband connection, according to the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Finland is the world's first country to create laws guaranteeing broadband access. The Finnish people are also legally guaranteed a 100Mb broadband connection by the end of 2015."
There are many legal rights that you don't need to survive. One of them (in most western countries) is the right to vote. It is a legal right as soon as someone makes a law stating that it is. Simple as that.
Rights are always an imposition on someone else. The right to free speech obliges others to tolerate offensive speech. The right to a fair trial obliges others to provide you with one. The right to bear arms (a popular one with people who advocate arguments such as yours) increases the risks of death from gunshot wounds for other people. The right to own property denies others the use of that property.
The question is whether the rights are worth the imposition.
Yes, the population in America is generally pretty dense, so we tend to lag behind the rest of the world.
There's a difference between excessive meddling in a citizens life and providing for your citizens.
Government doesn't provide for citizens. It forces some citizens to provide for others.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
As an American living in one of the oft talked about rural areas of America with access to only dial up (which gives me a whopping 28.8k connection due to signal quality), or over priced satellite, I am more than ready for something along this line to be adopted here. At a time when more and more information and services are being distributed over the Internet, it gives us rural people a big disadvantage. For example, I work rotating shifts in a factory and would like to go to college to get a degree eventually. Due to my shift work, a physical classroom is out of the question, admissions would laugh me right out if the campus, but an online program through a local and respected school could help me to get to that goal. An online college course is not an option when it takes >30 minutes to load a 10 second video or when you have to split a 50 mb download over 5 nights to get the data. I promise, if the shoe were on the other foot you'd understand where I'm coming from.
Right, just like that self-employed guy who can't afford $2200 a month for $5000 deductible health insurance for his family and his wife gets cancer and loses his home. He's not stuck. He could always rob a liquor store or sell one of his kids.
But he does have options ("sniff").
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's been pretty amazing over the last few months watching Americans demand that the government NOT guarantee them affordable health care.
That's one example. Although I personally think we should get the Government out of the "marriage" business altogether and have civil unions for all couples (hetro and homo). Let the priests dither over what "marriage" is and minimize the governmental involvement in a process which is basically nothing more than an agreement between two consenting adults.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
There's a difference between excessive meddling in a citizens life and providing for your citizens. Government doesn't provide for citizens. It forces some citizens to provide for others.
or you could say, government allows all citizens to provide for each other in an efficient and cost effective manner.
Dear Citizen,
People feeding you are living in the middle of nowhere.
Just starves retards.
Best regards,
The comity of people living in the middle of nowhere.
You're confusing (or are perhaps unaware of) positive and negative "rights"...
No, I'm not the least bit confused. If anything it is you who are confused, or worse... you are deliberately presenting a false argument.
This means that his doctor is his slave, and has to be forced to utilize his knowledge and resources to provide for him.
The moment you break out the term "slave" you lose ALL credibility whatsoever. The doctor is not his slave in any rational sense.
The doctor doesn't have to show up for work. The doctor doesn't even have to be a doctor. The doctor is not a slave. If he doesn't feel like caring for patients he can quit any time he likes.
The ONLY actual forced imposition on anyone is the taxation used to fund these programs. And sure, you can wave your arms all you like about how your a "slave" in your own country because they make you participate in funding the maintenance of the military too, and the police, and the fire department, and water/sewage, and public schools, and highways, and so on... but I'm not having any of it.
I refuse to be drawn into a debate with any idiot who thinks even the basic trappings of society amount to slavery.
They aren't slavery any more than hiring a contractor to do your kitchen is slavery. The fact that he now has an obligation to you doesn't make him a slave. Participating in a society is a social contract, with obligations to maintain and improve that society. That's not slavery.
Its a hyperbolic misapplication of the word to the point of absurdity.