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Broadband Rights & the Killer App of 1900
newscloud writes "Tech writer Glenn Fleishman compares the arguments against affordable, high speed, broadband Internet access in each home to arguments made against providing for common access to electricity in 1900 e.g. '...electric light is not a necessity for every member of the community. It is not the business of any one to see that I use electricity, or gas, or oil in my house, or even that I use any form of artificial light at all.' Says Fleishman, 'Electricity should go to people who had money, not hooked up willy-nilly to everyone ... Like electricity, the notion of whether broadband is an inherent right and necessity of every citizen is up for grabs in the US. Sweden and Finland have already answered the question: It's a birthright.'"
The killer app was stereoscopic pictures of women showing their ankles.
The thing about electricity is that people couldn't see that it would service more than just lights. But there were a few people out there (like Edison's lab and Tesla) that could see innumerable uses awaiting. The people just couldn't comprehend it or were rightfully dubious. I mean, traveling scam artists were well known to people at the time (probably even far before) just look at what Mark Twain was writing a decade before.
If we follow through with this analogy the solution is simple, you merely need to tell us about and convince us that the "inalienable right to broadband" will indeed herald a new era of empowerment--or at least will be easily worth the cost it's going to take getting an infrastructure up that will cover the nation. Unless you have some WAN technology I don't know about or are accepting the issues of broadband over power, I think it's hard to convince someone that a traditional infrastructure covering--say--all of the Ozarks is going to be worth a whole lot more than the few towns and cities in it that are already covered. And you'd be out of your mind to ask a taxpayer in the farmlands to subsidize via tax dollars some infrastructure their not going to gain anything from.
My work here is dung.
Let market forces decide who gets it. Forcing buildouts to the far corners of rural America will just inflate everyone else's prices.
...but this is not Soviet Russia.
In Soviet Russia, broadband comes to you
Seems to be some folks attitude to universal healthcare too.
It's a good job that these people usually get overridden in the end.
Broadband is for the people that will make the Bells Rich. the Bells will let the rest of us rot.
And its the FCC's Call.
Birthright? WTF? Don't call it that, you dumbass - next thing you know the Government pricks will be confiscating more of our earnings to provide our "birhtright". Jesus, you people...
I have a serious problem with the government spending my tax dollars on rural broadband lines, and then still enabling the dumb cable companies to monopolize and charge whatever they want for internet service.
If we are paying for the infrastructure, we should own it, and we should be able to share it. Sure, there will be costs. But let's share the costs then, not pretend some capitalist market magic will make us all happy with great service, healthy competition, and constant innovation. I have horrible service, only one company to choose from, and my DVR is a piece of shit. It freezes for 5 seconds then goes through every button I pressed all at once.
Man, am I proud to be an American.
Forcing buildouts to the far corners of rural America will just inflate everyone else's prices.
Sadly you are doubtless going to be modded troll, but really, what's wrong with this? If you want to live out in the rural sticks then you should be prepared to pay the cost of doing so. It will cost you more money in taxes, more money for running water (pump and septic system upkeep), your roads will be less maintained, you may not have access to cable and will have to rely on satellite, you'll pay more for energy (having oil or propane delivered vs. natural gas out of a permanent connection), more in gas money to get places, blah, blah, blah.
This notion of subsidizing lifestyles is really annoying. If you want cheap fast broadband move to civilization. If you want clean air and open spaces move to the country.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
A step in the right direction.
1 - Right to broadband.
2 - Human right to broadband.
3 - Human right to porn.
4 - Human right to 3D multi-sensorial porn.
5 - Ascension of mankind to a new state of consciousness and peace with the universe.
Electricity isn't a right in the USA. There are plenty of places without electricity that people still live. There are even more places without safe, drinking water and indoor plumbing.
Universal access for telephones is the law, but it doesn't apply to everyone either.
When you don't have safe running water, internet service is really, really low on the desired rights list.
Pull your heads out from where ever you've had them shoved please.
If electricity hadn't become ubiquitous, we'd have a lot less carbon being emitted today from power plants.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Yes and this actually mirrors the gradual rollout of electricity too. Remote areas obviously got connected to the electricity grid later than more populous towns and cities.
You need not go back to electricity; phones will do. We have already decided that communications are something we need to deliver to everyone, and the internet is the new communications medium.
Arguably, the government should stop promoting television and radio, and should put the effort into figuring out how to make the emergency notification network work on the internet... railroading connections and returning "DISASTER IN PROGRESS" errors, whatever. Then we could [eventually] reclaim all spectrum used by broadcast media for a more noble use: bidirectional communications permitting collaboration between humans. It's not like the shitty ol' push media can't be distributed via internet.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Electricity is not a right. It will get cut off if you don't pay the bill.
If electricity is a right like free speech then at some point maybe we'll get to cut off free speech because it's a right just like electricity. Forget to pay your free speech bill and off it goes.
We have inalienable rights endowed by a creator. In other words, not given to us by men and as such cannot be taken away by men.
We must be pretty well off in this country when we can start calling commodities and the inventions of men "rights."
"Materialism" is not a right. You do not have a right to stuff. Free speech, the right to bear arms, a common trait of all things that are actually rights is that they do not cost money. They are intangible.
You do not have a right to tangible things. They cost money. All you can do is help lower costs so you can afford them.
Work Safe Porn
because it provides a far more intelligent and useful way to interact and be part of society. However, it will more likely happen because it will give those folks who want to control us a better way to do just that. Of course as long as you can turn the devices off then you have some control.
I think we may need a new word because "rights", at least in my humble opinion, don't lay an obligation on anyone else or society in general, to fund. If you desire to express yourself by yodeling on a street corner you come fully equipped to do so and society has no obligation to buy you a megaphone or lessons.
If anything, this issue is more about those asserting the right; about their assumption of a right to impose their views on others or assuage guilt for being relatively wealthier, then about those who are supposed to enjoy the right to free internet access.
Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Advocates for public education once had to deal with basically the same arguments. And, it's certainly true that a free basic education is not a necessity in the same way that food, water, and shelter are--but very few today would dispute that it's a necessity in the sense that, without it, an individual is at a serious disadvantage in life. It's the same with the internet. Sure, you don't NEED it, but it's going to be very hard to live a normal life in an industrialized country in the future WITHOUT at least basic access to it.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
let's compare when we threw money at corporations to upgrade our infrastructure to when we did it ourselves.
I live two miles from the city switch. and all I can get is a stink'in DSL.
I am sorry the FCC needs to rethink House top routers and put the "last mile providers" out on the street, unless the people with the wires can offer something better.
House top routers would for sure make your cell phone time charges obsolete. You would be better off paying up front for your hardware and not some inflated plan for air minutes.
Its time to enter the 21st century.
Let market forces decide who gets it. Forcing buildouts to the far corners of rural America will just inflate everyone else's prices.
Differentiate between the right to get broadband and the right to get broadband cheaply. The former makes sense, and the latter is just uneconomic; an unjustified subsidy of rural areas by urban citizens.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
one person's right to health care is not the same as another.
I prefer the right to access to health care, however the one item left out of most every discussion I see is the requirement to actually lead a healthy life. Sorry, but why should the majority of people pay for other people's health problems caused by known bad habits, like smoking, drinking, and over eating?
The real problem with health care is that too many people willingly take on a car payment and exorbitant cell plan yet are offended they have to pay to take care of themselves. Too many put more effort in taking care of their cars than their own health.
Once someone can define universal health care in appropriate terms instead of just being a buzz word maybe those of us who don't favor the idea will think twice. Until then, try spending some of your own money on your health and quit expecting me to cover it while you eat out.
(and yes I know there are hardship cases, but this isn't what the current debates are turning into)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Internet access gives people freedom of information and freedom of speech.
You don't want criminals to have freedom of speech, you know. What if one of those child molesters spoke to your children!
If everybody is given an Internet, our next generation will all become pirates and move to Somali!
Think of the children!
Like Edison did in 1903 to prove that alternating current was a bad idea (http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/01/dayintech_0104) So we more enlightened folks can stick to posters and foul language...
I was thinking the same thing, since when did we have the "right" to electricity? As you said if you don't pay you are out.
They may really be arguing that everyone should have the opportunity to pay and buy from a state regulated agency - but didn't we learn that electricity is also better when individuals can produce their own and also sell it back to the utility? In that same way broadband is better off if everyone can compete for customers.
Sure perhaps the government can help bring broadband to truly rural areas, but the best thing they can do for broadband for the rest of us is regulate there can be no regulation - to let providers spring up where there is a need, like a single cable company that does not serve a region well.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Part of the problem here is that the language of "right" doesn't really capture what we ought to be capturing here. Webster's defines a right as "something to which one has a just claim." And that is the right way to look at things like employment discrimination, etc.
But when we start talking about universal access to services like broadband, healthcare, electric, I think it's much better to speak of it in terms of what's best for society. Simply put, our society as a whole is better off with a healthy work-force. Businesses will have more predictable costs, and the playing field between large and small companies, as well as government, will be leveled substantially, promoting innovation. Likewise, it promotes economic development for everyone to have electricity, not to mention public health--it's no accident that regular bathing became much more popular once everyone had a water heater. And, in a democracy, isn't the publics access to information equally vital? Isn't the ability for all members of society to communicate on a somewhat equal footing a useful social function? In other words, let's not talk about this as a moral question, but as a pragmatic one.
High speed Internet is infrastructure. Maybe it's not a "right". But if you don't have it available to all of our population and all of your competitors do, then watch out!
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
This notion of subsidizing lifestyles is really annoying. If you want cheap fast broadband move to civilization. If you want clean air and open spaces move to the country.
I'd expand on that and say that the notion of anti-subsidizing lifestyles is equally annoying. Adding taxes to 'unpopular' activities or products has the same effect of subsidizing the popular lifestyle.
If a tax were levied that placed a $1000 burdon on anyone who drives a red car, it is effectively a subsidy on the non-red car population. In this case, the non-red car population ends up $1000 ahead of the red car population.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Well depends what you define as broadband I suppose.
It's quite easy to get guarantee that ~everyone~ can get ~some form~ of broadband. You just need a satellite or two. Two-way sat connections can provide pretty decent throughput to any spot in the country, which more than satisfies the definitions of 'broadband'. Expensive though ... and the latency is terrible which makes it impossible to use for many of the applications you'd traditionally think of when you thought of a broadband connection.
In Europe this kind of thing is seen as helping the development of economically challenged regions. The EU has been spending lots of money on that kind of things for a while, and it started long before broadband. But BB is obviously now a part of the solution.
Who said it has to be free? In Finland, for example, you have the right to have access to an Internet connection in your home. No one said it needed to be free.
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I think sex is a birth-right too. Where are my willing, attractive and faithful women?
(I think "pick two out of three" applies here too.)
Very insightful objections you have here ...
Isn't it interesting, though, that *all* over developed nations don't seem to have those problems? How d'you explain that away, I wonder ...
I don't see broadband and clean air as mutually exclusive - at least in the city. As for open spaces, I expect there to be enough
of that within city limits, even if it's not right in my neighbourhood
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
The reason why the health reform as proposed by the Dems lacks popular is because, it does not go far enough. No chance to escape from whatever your employer dishes out in the name of health care. No recourse if your employer decides suddenly to drop health coverage from the compensation. Have to just bear it if your "contribution" is increased, your copay is increase and your doctor is dropped from the list of preferred providers.
No relief to the employers either. They are competing with Europe and Japan and their competitors do not have to pay for health care. If GM did not have to pay 2000$ per vehicle to provide for health care for its 1 million employees and retirees between 1990 and 2004, it could have competed effectively with the imports.
Already there is public option in so many areas where the private sector refuses to serve. National Flood Insurance Program to insure homes that can not get private insurance. Postal service to serve mail and parcels to places where FedEx and UPS wont go. The examples are endless.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
This is actually a big issue when talking about 'Rights' across national borders.
The US has historically stuck to negative rights (ie rights of non-interference). The virtue has been that the burden such rights impose upon others is limited (ie the government just has to not go out of its way to impinge upon your 1st amendment rights).
Internationally, a lot of 'rights' talk is based in some way on (or related to) the human rights movement and positive rights (the right to something which must be provided by someone). Such rights inherently impose an obligation upon some party which is far greater than an obligation to NOT do something. This works, to an extent, in European nations because they have 'big government' traditions.
If you are serious about bringing positive rights to the US, you need to have a serious plan for changing the consensus view in the US for the role of the state in the day to day lives of the citizenry.
I'd expand on that and say that the notion of anti-subsidizing lifestyles is equally annoying. Adding taxes to 'unpopular' activities or products has the same effect of subsidizing the popular lifestyle.
I'd concur with that. Vice taxes in particular annoy the hell out of me.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Mod parent up ... a rather nice summary of the difference between interpretations of the word 'right' in the US vs. elsewhere, and unfortunately doomed to be buried since it was posted as an AC...
> We have inalienable rights endowed by a creator.
[citation needed] :P
There's a difference between having a right to "access" a service and having a right to a "free service". It's not the same thing at all. Any properly-zoned residential area must have electricity and running water. If you don't want to pay for them, you won't get them, but they must be *available*.
It's the same argument with broadband going around. We propose that everyone has access to a fast, affordable high-speed internet connection. No one here (other than detractors using logical fallacies to present strawman arguments) is saying that everyone should have free access to broadband internet.
What people like you also don't seem to understand about capitalism, is that it's a chaotic system with a very powerful strange attractor: monopoly. Left by themselves, our economic system will tend toward monopolies which is definitely NOT a good thing to have if it's not controlled by the public in case of a basic modern requirement like internet access. Think how it would be if only the very rich had access to phones or electricity...
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
The libertarian side of me says that maybe providing broadband to all isn't necessarily a good thing. Likewise, maybe providing electricity to all back in 1900 wasn't necessarily good either. In the end, we didn't just provide poor people in the country with power. Instead, we provided an incentive for people to move out into the country, leading to sprawl, demand for more roads, foreign dependence on oil, etc... From a pure efficiency point-of-view, living in the city is much more efficient than living in the country. So providing all these services to the country leads to a very inefficient system. One of the reasons why infrastructure in cities is falling apart is because we use all of our resources building infrastructure out to every rural corner of the country, when really we should be concentrating on putting our resources where it affects the most people...in the cities.
Of course broadband should be owned/operated by the government. And electricity, along with other sources of energy like oil and natural gas. Without question health care should be owned and run by the government. Food production too, we need to nationalize all farms and agribusiness companies immediately. Other natural resources like forests and minerals obviously belong to The People so the government should take them over. And you can't trust things as important as banking, insurance, journalism, or manufacturing to private industry. Did I forget anything? Oh yea, porn, the government also has to provide that according to our needs.
Funny you should mention the competitive disadvantage US companies have because they have to pay American employees' healthcare, because it's actually even worse than that! Many US companies pay for all their employees' healthcare regardless of where they live.
I live in Australia but work for a major US software company, which laughably gives me the best of both worlds but must be a tremendous drain on my company's bottom line. Here's the situation...
Australia has universal healthcare. The system works like this:
- Healthcare is free or very cheap via the universal public healthcare system.
- This universal system is funded by a surcharge on top of your standard income tax, but only if you make a moderate to high amount of money. Poorer people don't pay a cent, and still benefit from the system. Wealthy people pay essentially 1 or 1.5% extra income tax which isn't a huge deal in the scheme of things.
- However, you can avoid some or all of the surcharge if you take out private health insurance. The existence of a public/universal health care system does not mean there is no private option, and indeed Australia has a thriving private health insurance industry. Thus, those that can afford private healthcare are encouraged to purchase it, because it reduces the drain on government money, and also means you don't have to pay the healthcare-related surcharge on your taxes.
Australian employers therefore do not, and have never, paid for healthcare. Healthcare is NOT tied to your employer, even if you have private insurance (you pick a company and buy that insurance yourself, just like car insurance or house insurance). And if you don't have private insurance ... the public system will still cover you.
However, the American company I work for, apparently because it is too complicated to set up different HR regimes for each country, pays for private health insurance for me and my whole family, even though that is virtually unheard of for companies in Australia to do. So basically - my company pays for a (expensive high level) health plan for me, I enjoy the coverage of that plan ... AND I make a saving in my taxes because I'm avoiding the surcharge for the public system (because I am covered by a private fund and not draining the public one).
Great for me! But wow, that must cost my company a lot to do that everywhere in the world, when really they only need to do it for their American employees ... lol.
This was 1900, people.
Electricity was limited in its uses to lighting and some minor household gadgets.
People mostly heated their homes with wood, coal, or some petroleum product. Usually coal.
Today, no, it would be unthinkable to not have electricity. But that's mostly because people rely on it for heat, hot water and cooking. (modern furnances almost never have a pilot light). But back then it was a nicety. Much like broadband is today.
Which isn't to say there isn't a place for municipal broadband. I consider an internet connection, today, to be as important as a library.
However, we're getting to used to the notion that things are rights. Here's a simple test: if you can buy it, it's not a right.
I understand that most of the population on /. is not rural, but your blatant stereotypical prejudices are amazing!
"rural sticks?"
"move to civilization?"
I live in what you would call the "sticks". Do you think we live in shacks, don't wear shoes, and cook over the fireplace?
I am lucky enough to not be one of those that "have to rely on satellite" , in fact I have the choice of DSL, Cable, and fiber to my house (I chose the fiber drop), I know that I am the exception, but let me straighten out a few other things...
Taxes are higher because I live out in the sticks? Really? I don't have to pay taxes / fees for any municipal offices or services, just county, and the last time a major tax hike was instituted, the entire incumbent county council was booted from office.
I pay LESS for water than when i lived in "civilization"- I only have to pay for the power on my well pump. The septic system is well balanced and is basically no maintenance.
Roads are maintained by the county, they get the same round robin updates as the rest of the county, except with less traffic, they are not as damaged.
There are competing LP distribution companies to keep LP costs in check, but we use energy star electrical appliances, so I can't comment on any cost/benefift analysis on LP/NG.
OK maybe it costs more in gas... nope .. S.C. has some of the lowest prices of gas in the country, and gas is usually 5-10c cheaper near my house than in the city.
So let me sum up:
If you want clean air and open spaces and LOWER COST OF LIVING move to the country.
... and unwieldy enough to fail spectacularly should it attempt to do either.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
No to dispute your main point, but you make it sound as though everyone who lives in a rural area does so as a luxury. Cost of living actually tends to be a bit lower in rural areas, based on the studies I could dig up. Not everyone living in the country has 100 acres and a manor house.
It's sad when choosing an installation directory on your own qualifies you as an "advanced user."
When this Country was created and you wanted to share your views and exercise your freedom of Speech you went to the town square and spoke. This was what free speech was all about.
Where is the town square in the 21st Century?
Where do we share our views?
Why Its right here at shashdot. Yes its on the Internet.
Now we pay the ISP's for Speech. Thats not the Free we should be talking about. The ISP's want to block traffic they do not like, traffic that does not make them cold cash, we have to watch this closely.
The founding fathers could not have invisioned that speech would stray into the gigahertz bands. But if they had, Some of that bandwidth would have been by law given to the people. Other parts reserved for the public good, like the military and fire/police etc. Come to think of it, a working radio infrastructure would also be useful to the fire/police.
We should have the right to own the infrastructure. We should have the right to put a radio router on our roof. And share the connectivity. We are talking 300 megabit channels, in the GigH. frequency ranges. How many places do you go where there is not a house with in 5 miles. Its like a Gun, you have to buy it and buy ammo. The same is true for a radio router, You have to buy it and feed it electricity. But we should have the right. Not be ignored by the FCC for the good of the duopoly's/monopoly's.
A radio last milewould give ISP's a level playing field And There could then be 100s not 1 or 2 ISP's to provide backbone connections. It might even be better if the backbone was public as well. Its infrastructure like the Highways. It can make or break this country.
I understand that most of the population on /. is not rural, but your blatant stereotypical prejudices are amazing!
Your outrage is wasted. I grew up in the rural sticks. My town had a population of 500. It had so few people that not only did we have a single telephone exchange but we all had the same first four numbers, i.e: 895-6XXX. The nearest grocery store was 14 miles away. The nearest gas station 8 miles away. The nearest traffic light was 10 miles away and was only a flashing light at that.
Do you think we live in shacks, don't wear shoes, and cook over the fireplace?
Where did I say that?
Taxes are higher because I live out in the sticks? Really?
Around here they are. Most people who live in rural areas where I'm from do it so they can own a decent amount of land. Having a large amount of land in NYS will raise your property tax bill above and beyond that of someone in the city, even though you aren't paying for all of the services and extra government of the city.
OK maybe it costs more in gas... nope .. S.C. has some of the lowest prices of gas in the country, and gas is usually 5-10c cheaper near my house than in the city.
I don't know the particulars of your situation but my point was that you'll usually have to drive more by virtue of living in the country. My point wasn't that the price of gas is higher in the country. Driving more miles will cost you more in gas money.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Says Fleishman, "Electricity should go to people who had money, not hooked up willy-nilly to everyone...Like electricity, the notion of whether broadband is an inherent right and necessity of every citizen is up for grabs in the US.
Same arguments being thrown at health care. But every week I help load someone exercising their right not to have health care in an ambulance because they collapsed. Even loaded one of them into a helicopter for a $10,000 trip to the ER. Unless you're prepared to stand by and let people die for lack of emergency care, then what we're doing now doesn't work. Otherwise we end up taking them to ER, with no insurance and no real income and the prices go up for the rest of us.
You could make the same argument for electricity. I have a friend building a homestead in that bastion of liberal thought we call rural Georgia. The state made him get a rental this winter or they threatened to take his kids and put them in a foster home. The state of Georgia doesn't view electricity as a luxury if you have kids. Any one you teabaggers want to argue we don't really need child protective services? Go on, make that case. Demonstrate how far gone intellectually you really are.
As technology changes what in one time was a luxury becomes an integral part of everyday life. At some point there's a blurry line between necessity and luxury. Making those choices from the perspective of some Grizzly Adams isolationist doesn't really account for the real world consequences.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Then again, your vote counts more than all those suckers' packed up in the cities, so there's that.
Just because a political decision was made doesn't mean that it's right. Slavery was a legal political decision for a long time the USA, and Freedom is a birthright.
You are blinded by the light.
Well, when a significant portion of your population is becoming temporarily and/or permanently useless thanks to vice-related illnesses, the decision not to tax certain vices can become an anti-subsidy of its own.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
They are competing with Europe and Japan and their competitors do not have to pay for health care.
At least in Germany, employers pay 50% of their employees' health care insurance (and unemployment insurance, pension plans, etc.) - which all adds up to significant sums, explaining why German companies are so keen to automate everything.
I'd expand on that and say that the notion of anti-subsidizing lifestyles is equally annoying. Adding taxes to 'unpopular' activities or products has the same effect of subsidizing the popular lifestyle.
So what does that have to do with the grandparent's complaints about subsidizing broadband to rural homes? And what is an "anti-subsidy"? If it is merely not paying someone for their economic choices, then it doesn't have the effect of subsidizing the popular lifestyle. Else every dollar you spend on something other than me is an "anti-subsidy" which I really wish you'd stop.
If you're going to talk about rural areas you shouldn't use the very developed East coast where you can't throw a stone without hitting urban sprawl as the the example of rural.
Taxes are high in NY state because of the proximity to NYC and the very high population density and the fact that all the rich fat cats in NYC want their "little" idyllic farm out in NYS. If you're going to talk rural (and not just non-metro) use the Mid-West.
Why are we even having this perverted discussion about what First World countries are doing? The lobbyists our congressmen work for will never listen to arguments about common good.
Ah, yeah. Electricity _and_ phone service. Rural electrification was before my time but I can really, really vaguely remember one of the family farmers saying he had to take some time off that day to help with some broken phone lines for the coop. If corporations had had their way, farmers would still be using kerosene at night and reading their kids bedtime stories for entertainment. [Well, it wasn't _all_ bad.]
... and unwieldy enough to fail spectacularly should it attempt to do either.
How many decades or centuries will it take to "fail spectacularly"? In the meantime, they have your stuff.
Perhaps the writer overlooked this one little fact: Since when did we have a right to electricity? We don't. His argument is a non-starter.
If you're going to talk about rural areas you shouldn't use the very developed East coast where you can't throw a stone without hitting urban sprawl as the the example of rural.
You've never been in Upstate New York, central Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Vermont or Maine have you?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Are you terribly sure of that? It seems rather the opposite -- I know this is just one my personal experience, but my taxes are lower, my utility prices are lower (electric, phone, cable), my broadband availibility is the same (but higher speeds are available) and my rent is lower since I've moved from the city (Springfield, MA) to a little rural town in Vermont. Granted, the roads here are less maintained here than in the areas surrounding the city, but those in the city were worse than they are here too.
If you want cheap fast broadband, move out of the US.
The American Dream has too much grinding and the leveling makes no sense. -GameboyRMH (1153867)
Just like Broadband, Electricity does cost money... You don't get it for free except in very particular and unique circumstances.
Well, when a significant portion of your population is becoming temporarily and/or permanently useless thanks to vice-related illnesses, the decision not to tax certain vices can become an anti-subsidy of its own.
Only if the people who aren't useless decide to support the people who are.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
That's because the GP is a troll. We wouldn't have a national rail system, national highways, freeways or communication system if we let the free market do it on its own. When you let the free market do it, you get the areas where there's high profit serviced to the minimal extent possible to exploit the profit and most parts of the country get no service at all.
I realize that there's a lot of idiots out there that claim to know something of economics who believe this fairy tale, spontaneous generation of wealth bullshit, but in real life there is no free lunch. Consequently, you can't just allow the free market build up an orderly, well maintained cost effective infrastructure without setting most of the rules for those doing the building. It just doesn't work.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. All of the free market crowd should recognize that a free market is predicated upon all participants having enough information to make informed decisions. So access to information is critical for the market participants to know what they are consenting to in an agreement. All of the arguments from economists about market efficiency are based upon perfect information by all parties. This is clearly an idealization, but it underscores the need for widely accessed, shared information in the running of a free market. A free market is not a natural state of the economy, it is a highly refined construction based upon thousands of years of social evolution. Communication and access to information are essential infrastructure.
Think global, act loco
Broadband access, via Hughes as just one of several options, is currently available in the following areas:
Earth
Given that anyone, anywhere in the above location, already has access to an internet connection of 1Mbs+, why is such a law needed?
Moderation : -1 Conservative Viewpoint
Are you seriously suggesting that the solution is that everyone just move to the city, and anyone who doesn't is either wanting to be subsidized for their lifestyle or should be forced to pay more for basic utilities?
Have you ever stopped to consider the fact that some industries only exist in rural areas? Farming and agriculture, for example, is not going to happen in urban areas. It's not just about a bunch of people wanting to live like country folk. Economics, education, opportunity, feasibility of certain industries, security and yes sometimes cultural inclinations are among the many factors of why someone would live in rural areas.
To say we can solve the problem by everyone moving out of rural areas is just boneheaded.
I think that works if there's no inherent advantage to having the broadband over not having it.
Here in the UK if you file your tax return online you have extra time to get it in (the postal deadline is earlier), and while you don't need a broadband connection to do that you do actually need an internet connection. Government services having an advantage if done over the net is hardly a reason to subsidise internet for everyone, and we're not quite there yet with internet being required for a "standard" life, but I think it will get that way.
At the very least, those middle-of-nowhere towns do have electricity and water. If TV, radio and electronics are going to go the way of the net and become as ubiquitous as electricity then I think you at least need to provide a minimum broadband (or otherwise 'always on' connection) to the bulk of your population.
It doesn't have to be 100Mbps fibre, but it should at least allow them to download software updates and stream low-res media without hour-long delays.
There are clearly compromises to both lifestyles, but as long as you don't take it to extremes and demand a huge pipe into your population:12 town then I can't see a problem with it.
Well depends what you define as broadband I suppose.
Okay.
...and the latency is terrible
Not that.
Even today, electricity is certainly not free. While it is almost ubiquitous (though there are a few households, even the US, without electricity), we all still pretty much pay the electric bill every month. Of course, you can get free power AND wi-fi in many coffee shops and airports, though many of these places are starting to hide their outlets more, to prevent people from coming in and camping out for a long period of time, using the shop as their "office",. . .
No relief to the employers either. They are competing with Europe and Japan and their competitors do not have to pay for health care. If GM did not have to pay 2000$ per vehicle to provide for health care for its 1 million employees and retirees between 1990 and 2004, it could have competed effectively with the imports.
You're just being creative with numbers. Here in Norway 7.8% of my income goes directly from my salary to the national health insurance, it's actually retained by the employer along with other taxes so I don't even see it. If my employer would pay my health insurance, my salary requirements would drop by 7.8%. If GM were to drop health insurance, people would either have to get personal insurance or the capacity in the public system must be expanded costing tax money meaning higher salary requirements for equal net result. Shifting the cost one way or the other won't matter unless one way is more efficient than the other - which it is, but that's another story.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
This is very telling. How does their being "useless" effect you, unless you believe you own the product of their labor?
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It looks like he invented the term "anti-subsidy" to describe the disadvantaged condition of a behavior or product adversely affected by intervention external to the market.
If I sell widgets, and you sell widgets, but your widgets are subsidized by the government for 10% of the price, mine are going to be 10% more expensive to start out. My position is what the GP is referring to.
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Note that you had to qualify those first two states with locations (upstate, central).
For your last three, let's compare:
Montana | 6.2 people/mi^2
Vermont | 65.8 people/mi^2
Maine | 41.3 people/mi^2
New Hampshire | 137.8 people/mi^2
Yeah.
Are you seriously suggesting that the solution is that everyone just move to the city, and anyone who doesn't is either wanting to be subsidized for their lifestyle or should be forced to pay more for basic utilities?
Yes, if you want to live in rural areas you should be prepared to pay the full cost of doing so. It's bullshit to expect other people to give you money for free.
Have you ever stopped to consider the fact that some industries only exist in rural areas? Farming and agriculture, for example, is not going to happen in urban areas.
Then why don't the farmers charge more money for their product so they can pay for their higher utility costs? Why have the government step in as a middle man?
Economics, education, opportunity, feasibility of certain industries, security and yes sometimes cultural inclinations are among the many factors of why someone would live in rural areas.
Preaching to the choir. I grew up in a rural area and desire to move back to one. I just don't desire to have other people subsidize my expenses when I do so.
To say we can solve the problem by everyone moving out of rural areas is just boneheaded.
Fortunately I didn't say that. I just said you should be prepared to pay the full cost of living in the community you choose. Should rural areas pay some subsidies to city folks so they don't have to drop insane amounts of money paying for parking?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Vice taxes don't deter vices. They just cause more problems down the line. So now a particular subset of the population not only is addicted, but also is poor and perhaps driven to crime. Taxes are simply a means of revenue in this case, since the demand is inelastic due to addiction.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
Secondly without the unbounded liability that is increasing faster than inflation straining its bottom line, its credit rating would go up and its cost of servicing debt will go down.
It would make sense for GM and ALL American companies to shift the burden of health care to the Government. It may have to increase the pay of its employees to retain talent. But most young healthy productive workers with low seniority and lower pay and less burdensome union contracts will accept a small increase, something around 5000$. GM would have been better off ditching its older employees and retirees and passing them on to the taxpayer. Not that it matters now anyway. The tax payer owns GM and all its liabilities now.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
So what? The grandparent implied that you can't live near the east coast without residing a "stones throw" away from urban sprawl. That's clearly not the case.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Fear mongers like to paint "cost effective" conditions as being about whether if you get cancer, some bureaucrat decides if you get the cure or not.
They completely skirt how this would most commonly be applied, and that is with drug companies that release new versions of an old drug that is the exact same drug as before, but with some slight variation (such as making the exact same drug as a time-release capsule so you only take it once a day instead of twice), and then take the prescription price from $50 to $500. This is not an exaggeration, it happens all the time.
There are many procedures and medications that are no better (and sometimes worse) than older treatments, but with a higher price tag. Quite often these are marketed to Doctors by the pharms and the Doctors will hear their pitches, start prescribing them, while at the same time being completely being out of touch with what the actual costs are.
This electricity you speak of is only being used for piracy of our content! People are staying up after dark, laboring by the light of these electrical lamps to copy down note-for-note the contents of our valuable original content!
What we propose is a law of three-strikes, not unlike that of baseball. Upon the third finding that a person has been engaged in illegal copying, their electricity is to be cut off forever, preventing their copying in the future.
It is of the utmost importance to our industry and culture that the use of electricity be carefully monitored and restricted, lest it be used illegally. With vigilance and diligence, we can combat the menace that electricity poses to the future of our nation.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
Well, when a significant portion of your population is becoming temporarily and/or permanently useless thanks to vice-related illnesses, the decision not to tax certain vices can become an anti-subsidy of its own.
Wait, whose population? I'm still very much independant and since no one owns me, I'd like to continue to decide what is best for me.
How much does the government own of me? Can I buy it back? May I not accept your generosity and therefore be exempt from your decision that I'm costing you too much money?
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Who said it has to be free? In Finland, for example, you have the right to have access to an Internet connection in your home. No one said it needed to be free.
More or less the same for Norway. The Government mandated that coverage should be as close to universal as possible. However just because coverage is universal don't mean that it's is free, only that the possibility of decent access should be present. If you want internet, you have to pay for it.
The Long Now Foundation
And yet people want us "city folk" to subsidize their broadband/electricity/whatever.
You need to take the bad with the good. Yes, I know you have broadband choices, but you're obviously not living in as "sticky" a place as others.
Stupid, sexy Flanders.
If you want internet, you have to pay for it.
Unless of course you go to a public library and use a public terminal. Though that is almost like having sex with a random stranger while wearing a ruptured condom.
The Long Now Foundation
Like roads and power, the infrastructure needed to service broadband for everyone requires a private company to trample on the property rights of a 3rd party. If a someone wants electricity but the person that owns the land between them and the power company doesn't want power lines strung across their land at any price (or even a slightly unreasonable price) then they are SOL. Same thing happens with roads, waterworks, cable TV, and broadband.
Although it goes against every Libertarian bone in my body to say it, the Government is the only entity that can insure these kinds of things are able to happen.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
The lines on my income tax form for Medicare and Social Security, and the giant number behind them.
This notion of subsidizing lifestyles is really annoying. If you want cheap fast broadband move to civilization. If you want clean air and open spaces move to the country
US agricultural exports are worth $98 billion. Imports $77 billion. Adavatage US. Value of U.S. Ag Exports To Rise in FY 2010 vs FY 2009
The US produces 10 billion pounds of apples each year. 1.3 billion in New York state alone. The geek tends to forget how much of the US is still rural. Northwest apple harvest strong, but with some hitches
If you live in a city like New York or Los Angeles, you import everything.
Food. Water. Power. Wood. Metal. Stone. Paper. Leather. Fabrics.
The list is endless.
There is no free lunch. No Wall-E and no Eve. No matter duplicator. No too-cheap-to-meter fusion power.
You need men in the fields. Men in the mines and in the forests.
You need trains. Trucks. Pipelines. The high tension line.
You need to keep the supplies coming in. which means that you have to make it worthwhile for people to continue to live and work "in the sticks."
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And if there's any reason left in the world, you will fail.
Declaring something a "positive right" means you are declaring a "right" to a portion of someone else's life.
No. Just no.
Stupid, sexy Flanders.
Well said, Shakrai.
There are plusses and minusses to living out in a rural area (says the man building a house in the mountains). I accept that my road won't get plowed unless my neighbors and I do it, and that I have to generate my own electricity if I want any. On the other hand I have clean air and pine trees and quiet and stunning mountain views in a location that's so gorgeous it's borderline holy.
I don't expect, say, the folks on this list to subsidize a broadband connection for me or to make sure I have trash pickup at my doorstep. That's part of the price for living "in the view", as it were.
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Electrification of the USA was not mainstream in some areas until the 1950s. My late grandmother in law told me that she didn't get electricity until well after the war. Frankly, for her, it wasn't even really that big of a deal to have it.
Bottom line is, a lot of people didn't get electricity not because it wasn't provided, but because they just simply didn't want to have it. It's like, if they were content with life without it, why have it?
It's the same deal with broadband. Everyone keeps saying that broadband should be everywhere, but, really, does everyone want it? There's enough of a sense that when choosing a place to live, the availability of broadband is a consideration. If people are choosing to do without it, well, maybe they just don't need it as much as the corps we work for would make them think they need it.
For the most part, for many people, broadband is just entertainment.
This is my sig.
When I lived in the sticks, taxes were lower. Running (well) water was free. The septic tank /leach field didn't need maintenance or monthly fees. Wood heating was cheaper than oil or natural gas. Roads? Didn't notice much difference, honestly (well, except for the dirt).
I looked again at the now GGP post, and I got him wrong. An "anti-subsidy" is a penalty on some activity while a subsidy is a boon on an activity. Both serve to encourage and discourage, and are effectively equivalent.
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Yeah, and while were' at it why put border patrols or bother offer military protection to everyone? If you want to be protected from invasion live near a military base. If you want access to a postal services live near a post office.
This is absolutely correct. That's why it really bothers me when "conservatives" get upset about Obama calling the Constitution a "charter of negative liberties" - because that's exactly what it is, from the perspective of government.
Now, as far as changing that perception, I would fight that agenda in every way available to me.
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So what does that have to do with the grandparent's complaints about subsidizing broadband to rural homes? And what is an "anti-subsidy"? If it is merely not paying someone for their economic choices, then it doesn't have the effect of subsidizing the popular lifestyle. Else every dollar you spend on something other than me is an "anti-subsidy" which I really wish you'd stop.
This guy has Lifestyle A. I have lifestyle B, and that guy has lifestyle C. A, B, and C pay the same amount of taxes.
For some reason, the government decided that Lifestyle A is best. And it subsidizes that by providing X to anyone who meets the Lifestyle A conditions. X could be in the form of a direct payment, or like above, a payment to someone else to help implement Lifestyle A.
An anti-subsidy is when the government has determined that Lifestyle C is bad. We have decided that somehow That Guy uses more than his 'fair share' of government services. Instead of charging usage fees for government services, we have decided to hide the cost into the general budget. Therefore anyone following Lifestyle C doesn't have the option to pay directly for their lifestyle, and anyone following A or B is paying a bit more than what they use.
Therefore the government levies a tax on some aspect of Lifestyle C that is distinct from both A and B. As a result, A and B think this is a great idea, since their taxes remain the same. Lifestyle C now has a supplimental negative factor applied to his lifestyle. That is what I meant by calling it an anti-subsidy. You aren't encouraging A or B, but you are penalizing C.
The issue is that it is one of the tools which the government uses to obsfucate the taxes which it levies on a person, and without a clear idea of what you are paying to the government, it is easier for the government to abuse you.
It also creates a new class of crime, and an erosion of your rights. It would be unconstitional to say that C could no longer consume an unhealthy diet, but it is somehow constitutional to say that C must pay more because of that diet?
One of the reasons why I oppose any sort of Federal Healthcare is because the Federal government hasn't shown that it can be trusted to not use even the slightest power responsibly. I'm just not ready to throw it in and have the individual reclassified as a Serf yet again.
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Sorry about that. I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought you meant that because Lifestyle A or B is normally more expensive, then not subsidizing it is the "anti-subsidy".
but didn't we learn that electricity is also better when individuals can produce their own and also sell it back to the utility? In that same way broadband is better off if everyone can compete for customers.
There is a fundamental difference between electric, internet, and water services. I think our public water system is fantastic. I do not want to have shop around between three water pipes coming into my house which are all ultimately controlled by the same guy. But, while I'd buy my neighbors solar power, I wouldn't buy his dish water. And just how do you suppose that I sell broadband back to my ISP? It'd be neat if my neighbors set up an ad-hoc network with our wireless routers, but there's no way that the ISP would pay me for that connection. As for electric services, there are public companies and private companies, but it's very much debatable whether deregulation was a good idea. It allowed for Enron to make a lot of money for a little while, and royally screwed over California. And while you're touting the smartgrid about as the way of the future, it took regulation to get the power companies to install the hardware to enable it and it's regulations that forces them to buy it from you.
It would be WONDERFUL if everyone could compete for customers. I'd be happy if ANYONE was competing with the ISPs in my last three locations. But really, the bar to entry is so high that even major telcom companies whine that they need subsidies to lay down lines.
Sure perhaps the government can help bring broadband to truly rural areas, but the best thing they can do for broadband for the rest of us is regulate there can be no regulation - to let providers spring up where there is a need, like a single cable company that does not serve a region well.
Yes, this is a good thing. EXCEPT where the powers that be would use anti-competitive practices to undermine such efforts. Like telcom companies killing municipal wi-fi, motor companies killing public transportation, or Walmart killing off mom&pop shops.
So you'll have to accept that the public sector is another form of competition. When things get so bad that a critical mass of the populace would rather a leviathan like the government provide a service, bureaucracy and all, then the free market has failed them and the private sector will have to compete with the public sector. (or be regulated, or be privatized). You may not trust the government, but I don't trust big business.
And remember that competition will not flourish where natural monopolies exist. There's only one river going through town, there is a reason that the state owns it. Where there is a limited resource that everyone needs to use, an official body needs to govern it's use, like a government.
Right, because the 'free market' is doing a lot to keep the prices of broadband stable and/or falling right now. And the fight against net neutrality is just a mass hallucination suffered by eating too many organic yogurt covered whole-wheat bagels for breakfast by marxist socialist nazi liberals.
Good to know that 1-1.5% of someone else's money is "not a big deal" to you. Who gave you the authority to take that, exactly?
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I would mod this up if I could.
Vice taxes don't deter vices. They just cause more problems down the line. So now a particular subset of the population not only is addicted, but also is poor and perhaps driven to crime. Taxes are simply a means of revenue in this case, since the demand is inelastic due to addiction.
They are an insidious way to implement a tax hike as well.
Vice taxes cause the government to be dependant on the 'vice' activity, and thus the government has a vested interest in keeping that line of revenue open. It is why I oppose the 'Legalize it, Tax it' mantra that gets spread around regarding a certain product. I prefer to simply stop at the first goal.
What happens when your 'vice' is ended? Too often, vice taxes are used to fund activities unrelated to the ending of the vice, and therefore, if that revenue stream ends, then the government finds that it is now overbudget, and must either run a debt or raise taxes on everyone.
It is a convenient way to disguise a planned general tax hike and make it more palatable by targeting it at an 'unliked' minority. Then, either the minority continues to exist and pay extra taxes, or it ceases to exist, and the government is now overbudget.
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...hangs thick and heavy in the air this morning, with more than a hint of teabaggery mixed in.
Someone open a window and break out the air freshener!
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
The lines on my income tax form for Medicare and Social Security, and the giant number behind them.
Does that line also indicate that your way of living is the right way to live?
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Exactly. The only organization that I trust LESS than the government is a healthcare conglomerate. If I'm going to be subject to death panels and capricious claim denials, then at the very least I want the people on the death panel to be accountable through open democratic process. That's better than today's system of unaccountable, anonymous bureaucrats who are literally paid to make me die sooner.
That's one way to look at it, but another is that the company would otherwise need to pay you 1.5% more, to account for you having to buy your own insurance (which you could opt not to do).
Anyway, does Australia really pay for universal health care using only a 1.5% tax on only a portion of the population? That sounds difficult to believe.
Sorry about that. I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought you meant that because Lifestyle A or B is normally more expensive, then not subsidizing it is the "anti-subsidy".
No worries. I'm sure that there is some formal term that an Economist PhD has coined that I am not aware of. Maybe negative-subsidy?
I was trying to differentiate it from a fine or penalty, because a fine implies that someone broke a law and was being penalized for doing so. In this case, the individual has not broken a law, but is being penalized anyway.
It scares me because they may be used in a way to restrict/encourage behaviors that would not normally be even legally regulated by the government.
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Just a quick comment - the "postal service" is *NOT* remotely related to a 'public option'.
The US Postal Service is *NOT* funded by taxpayer dollars.
Every generation acts as if it were the first to invent sex. Maybe it's because parents are so good at forgetting what they were like at 19... But every history geek ought to know that there were plenty of times in history when sexual mores were as free and relaxed as they are today. And no, your generation did not invent pictures of naked women either. Porn was around for as long as photography, and before that there were painters who could do much better than the porn you had in 1993. And heck, I bet cavemen painted pictures of naked women too, and had way more sex and you do today.
Don't forget the absurd bandwidth caps. A rolling cap of 7GB and I get throttled if I go over 70%? Really? It's going to be great when they come out here to pull the dish and replace it with an antenna tomorrow...
Gee... maybe we shouldn't have those. Socialism seems to be the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems (like beer; thanks Homer Simpson).
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Yes, that's true. So, we can either neutralise this effect by heavily taxing humanitarian acts, or by taxing vices. I know which I prefer (in general).
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Sadly you are doubtless going to be modded troll, but really, what's wrong with this? If you want to live out in the rural sticks then you should be prepared to pay the cost of doing so.
This was one of the arguments against having everyone get telephone service and electricity. Giving farms power raised their efficiencies dramatically and helped feed a growing nation.
I would hazard to guess data networks would be helpful in allowing farmers sell directly to people (instead of the via agri-business conglomerates), which can help their profits what with the "organic" and "100 mile diet" things going on, as well as help tracking data on animals to the FDA.
Throw up some automated weather stations on each farm, and you also help NOAA with weather tracking.
Vice taxes don't tend to have much of an effect on the addicted (the addiction outweighs long-term financial concerns), but they tend to drive down usage of those not addicted, but using regularly. It can help prevent another addiction case.
It doesn't always work (especially if not carefully considered), and rarely if ever does it work perfectly, but it can have positive effects.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Who gave you the authority to question Australian constitution? Australia is a democracy, pretty decent one at that. If they want to tax the rich 1.5% more to provide for universal health care it is their right. If you think that is a bad idea and that will sap the enthusiasm of the whole population, demotivate them to earn money and in general lead to general lethargy and lack of industriousness, you should rejoice. You would be able to show 10 years down the line how moribund Australian economy has become and use that as a real life example of what happens when people ignore the supply side economic principles. If you are so confident supply side economy is the best there is why are you so insecure?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Why? Because national defense and mail delivery are EXPLICITLY authorized by the Constitution.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
It is why I oppose the 'Legalize it, Tax it' mantra that gets spread around regarding a certain product.
Maybe it's just me but I've always considered that particular attitude to mean, tax the business behind it. You now have a legitimate source of income for the dealers that can then be taxed. You now have legitimate businesses that can pay income tax. You now have sales tax. I don't think anyone saying that really means add a vice tax to it.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
I find your argument that no one would have wanted to come up with electric products or services to market to farmers both compelling and rational. In other news, even the Mennonites have solar power now days.
Moderation : -1 Conservative Viewpoint
This isn't the government we're talking about here, it's the general population. Yeah, and like it or not, they own a small piece of you. And you own a small piece of them.
You live in a society that has to work together, and your actions and choices have consequences to people beyond yourself. Sometimes, your choices may feel good to you, but they come at the expense of others.
Sometimes those consequences are so bad that the original choice is banned. Some other times, the choice is not so bad to be banned, but it hardly becomes fair that everyone is forced to pick up your slack.
Deal with it.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
The constitution of a country does not grant property rights, it may merely recognize them. Those rights are inherent in the individual, and exist whether or not they are recognized.
Also, democracy is a very poor form of government.
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If we're concerned about the public expense implications of municipal broadband, perhaps it's time to eliminate some of the entries in tax codes that allow some individuals (or entities) to avoid paying their fair share. For instance:
1) Income tax exemptions for having children. Is there any reason for this? Does any one think that people won't reproduce without tax incentives? Even should such exemptions be deemed acceptable, should there be an upper bound? Perhaps exemptions for the first two children, but not for the third and beyond? Families with large numbers of children not only pay less in income tax, but they are a significantly larger burden on the local school systems. These people are, in essence, getting paid through income taxes to increase their neighbor's property taxes to support government spending on schools.
2) Property tax exemptions for "religious" institutions. OK, let the actual place of worship be tax exempt. And maybe even the church-provided residence of the minister/shaman/rabbi/whatever. But no properties beyond those two. Starting immediately, it should be a requirement that tax assessors annually publish the complete roll of tax exempt properties, their owners, the assessed valuation of the property, and the taxes lost through the exemption. Having some small amount of firsthand experience, I can assure you that you'd be astonished to see how much money is lost through these tax exemptions - and on what sorts of properties. Probably more than enough to pay for public broadband.
3) Income tax exemptions for interest on home loans and property taxes. Especially for rich folks. Any compelling reason why the guy with a $500K income buying a $3M house needs to be able to write off all the interest and taxes? If prefered, why not simply cap the write offs at some reasonable amount? Perhaps only allow a write-off of the first $20K in interest expense and $5K in taxes? These numbers are reasonably consistent with purchasing a $400K home. Being rich enough to pay more means being reach enough to pay your taxes.
4) Income tax exemptions on donations to a religious institution. No reason for this whatsoever. None.
The point being that any tax policy isn't necessarily bad, but neither is it fair or equitable. If because of tax implications we decide not to implement programs that benefit the public, we should also consider the tax implications of rewarding the behavior of some individuals.
What? No, what I'm saying is that a government that has the size for absolute power, including giving people what they want, or taking it away, is doomed to be frustrated thanks to all the opposing agendas of so many people competing for power.
These spectacular failures happen all the time, when a person enters politics with a particular goal in mind, and is worn down through compromise and political blockading.
Taxation ("they have your stuff" I presume) is one of the few things that a government can actually perform, partially because the government knows it needs it, and the people (by and large) acknowledge the reason for it. However, trying to raise or lower taxes, well, that's very difficult to do.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Ok, if you have fiber to your house, you're not allowed to comment. No matter how rural you *think* you are, you're not even close to what we're talking about here.
Hell, I live in a town with a population of approx. 8000, about 25 miles from Seattle. We don't have fiber... probably mostly because Verizon sucks ass, but still. (That said, we were one of the first towns to get cheap DSL for some God-knows reason, so I guess I can't complain.) So I'm stuck on DSL, oh, and since we're not one of the states that Verizon offers dry-loop DSL, I have to pay for a fucking landline phone, too. Ugh.
In short, if you're better-off than a town of 8000 about 25 miles away from the largest city in the state, you're not rural.
Comment of the year
Reality check, I have to pay for all kinds of things that benefit others all the time. The US is no different from any other country EXCEPT that in Europe the "positve rights" generally apply to large portions of the population while in the US I have to pay for things that only benefit the very wealthy There are countless examples of this... especially recently... Since the 1980s the US has massively redistributed wealth upward
It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.
Positive rights are not about taking. They are about doing. Positive rights are about having the ability to reach a goal.
Let's consider two distinct notions of freedom: political freedom, and economic freedom. We can characterize the America ideal of the first as a tradition of non-intervention. How do you characterize economic freedom? It isn't merely to be subject to market forces via a policy of non-intervention. Even slaves are subject to market forces. You have economic freedom in so far are able to further your agenda, and your economic freedom is derived from this power.
Positive rights are the very reason we explicitly have the right to assemble. The Founding Fathers understood that it is extremely unlikely that one man could cause profound change alone. It usually takes organization and effort create change, whether this change is political or economic. Governments would have no reason to limit assembly if it wasn't for the power of organization. Organizations are "units" of positive rights as understood in the West. People are free to join or otherwise support any organization they wish. The organization feeds on willing participants' efforts. The organization can further the political will of its members, because the organization accumulates its member's power. The organization has more positive freedom to pursue its members' agenda than any one member could alone.
Declaring something a "positive right" means you are declaring a "right" to a portion of someone else's life.
Get out of the basement. When you get out of high school, you'll find that people will have claims on portions of your life in virtue of paying you. Your employer is indeed using you to realize its potential as an organization. You are free to take your money and try to realize your potential, however you see fit. But it doesn't take much insight to see that the leader of a powerful organization has more freedom than a lone individual. This is positive freedom. The leader has the resources to further his agenda. The lone individual does not, unless he forms or joins an organization to further his agenda.
Both forms of freedom are about constraints: "negative freedom" is seen as freedom from legal constraints. "Positive freedom" is seen as freedom from other constraints. (And yes, you can order positive freedoms). The leader of a powerful organization has far fewer constraints in pursuing an agenda than your average lone individual.
Vice taxes cause the government to be dependant on the 'vice' activity, and thus the government has a vested interest in keeping that line of revenue open. It is why I oppose the 'Legalize it, Tax it' mantra that gets spread around regarding a certain product.
I wouldn't mind seeing it taxed in the same manner as my food and clothing purchases. A simple sales tax on that product is acceptable. Vice taxes are not.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Actually, this reminds me of a point sometime ago. The right to "bear arms" basically means you can keep 'em if you've got 'em, and buy 'em if you can afford 'em.
It seems that one trick in the bygone days was to put a fairly hefty tax on gun-related items. The common people may have had a right to have them, but only the aristocracy could actually afford them. I can no longer cite the source or it's validity, but such varieties of "sin taxes" would seem to allow the government to effectively ban things they didn't like without actually making a law banning them...
Declaring something a "positive right" means you are declaring a "right" to a portion of someone else's life.
No. Just no.
That's calling a glass half empty, IMHO.
Let's rephrase your sentence.
Declaring something a "positive right" means you are prepared to provide a level of civilization to other citizens.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Sometimes those consequences are so bad that the original choice is banned.
Like picking my own health care plan options.
Nearly 90% of the US, by population density, is "rural sticks". By your logic, no where but the east and west coast should have access electricity, telephone service, etc except by industry alone choosing to provide service.
Funny, but most rural areas do have municipalities which provide water services, septic services, and trash collection. As well, there tends to exist cable, natural gas, electricity, and telephone services; the latter two tend to exist everyone, although the former tend to be restricted to within or near city limits. The latter is a byproduct of municipalities being able to lure in industry under monopolistic positions. Without the effective subsidy of a monopoly, many industries would simply refuse to service such areas because of the risk involved (and the inherent poverty of rural life*).
Is it any wonder that the east and west coast are considered elitist with that attitude?
The former should, for the most part, be a requirement wherever you live. You shouldn't have to live in the country to avoid cancerous clouds from industry or river fires; living in the country doesn't really protect you from this, anyways. Perhaps you'd have more perspective on this if you think about China's effective lack of regulation of pollution? As for open spaces, while for the most part this is a simple factor of what defines country (ie, population density), many cities, like New York City and many European countries, have recognized the value of having open, pedestrian areas and not endless crowded concrete. Sure, it's definitely not the same as the country, but it's hardly unreasonable to want a space for people to experience life both outside of their homes and outside of their cars.
*As pointed out by others further down the thread, and you, there's increases costs of living in a rural area. This is increased with the existence of monopolies. Further than that, rural areas inherently have greater difficulty providing high paying jobs (hence the suggest to "outsource to rural America"). Much like urban city poverty, many are in a position where it's unclear exactly how they can escape this poverty (being low skilled labor, rural poor seems likely to, if in large number, to move to an urban area to become urban poor).
This isn't to say cities don't give greater advantage and there aren't many people who would benefit from moving. But, clearly, nearly everyone moving to the east and west coast wouldn't magically solve the socioeconomic problems of people. Now, whether this justifies subsidies rural people is another thing, but one can't simply dismiss the situation with the false belief that rural life is some grand choice by people who have a reasonable expectation of a better life in a city. After all, if there was such a reasonable expectation, then people in a rural setting must either be irrational or value open spaces very highly. I am quite certain the latter isn't true.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Maybe farmers don't manipulate the price of their product because they sell their goods on global commodities market and aren't a cartel, and therefore have very limited control over the sale price of their goods? And maybe the government steps in as a middleman because the economic stability of the country depends on having a stable food supply?
There might be better ways to implement the system, but there is an obvious public interest in having cheap, widely-available, domestically-produced food supplies, even if that requires some form of subsidy.
I'm not sure if you are serious, or if this is fairly clever satire.
I'm responding assuming the former. If the latter is correct, then I'm sure someone will respond with a *whoosh* for me.
Thank you for showing in such a precise form that the arguments today against universal broadband are *exactly* the same as those back in the day against universal electricity.
And, of course, it was the United States that had the Rural Electrification Act bringing electricity to every home in America. The Soviet Union had no such act, which slowed the whole process of industrialization, hampering their progress even up to today.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
No matter how much right I have to my property, it is limited to the amount I can properly defend it by myself. Even if I have an arsenal with me, I would not be able to defend it against all the other people. In a Democracy, with non-violent conflict resolution mechanisms and property rights commonly agreed by every one I will have lot more than what I physically defend. The society you envisage will be very unproductive. Every body will be spending so much of their time and effort in defending what they got they will hardly produce anything.
The society you envisage existed about 70000 years ago. But the gradual gracilization (i.e. reduction in the thickness) of the Homo sapien skulls show that that mode of life died out about 15000 years ago, before the domestication of wheat. The last few remnants of cultures still practicing that are the Fore people of New Guinea and some M?????????o people of the Amazon.
You are welcome to smoke your libertarian dope.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Now that's just stupid. When was the last time Philadelphia _didn't_ decide where PA's electoral votes would go?
Before and during FDR's administration, the free market electric company shills argued that providing "socialized electricity" would be a disaster financially since generating electricity was supposedly so expensive that there was no way the government could provide cheaper service. To back up their claims, they pointed to a few mismanaged municipal electric programs as proof that it could never work. In reality, many of the electric companies were enjoying fat monopolies and wanted to keep their operations small scale so they could keep prices high. The government finally stepped in during the 1930's and proved that electricity did not have to be so expensive if the provider did not have profit as their only motivation. This sounds so familiar to another debate over other services that should or should not be "socialized" come to think of it...
What? No, what I'm saying is that a government that has the size for absolute power, including giving people what they want, or taking it away, is doomed to be frustrated thanks to all the opposing agendas of so many people competing for power.
There's plenty of examples of governments that didn't have that frustration. The opposing agendas are typically executed or jailed.
Totally Agree.
My job, unfortunately, relocated me to the Indianapolis area from the not-so-rural Terre Haute area of Indiana. My housing costs alone are insanely higher now. I now am paying more than twice my former mortgage payment for a house on 1/6th of the property, with a 30-year mortgage vs. the 10-year mortgage I had previously. My choices were limited though, since there just aren't that many jobs that pay as well in Terre Haute, and the boss of the division won't allow telecommuting. I do have better broadband access (AT&T U-Verse vs. Verizon DSL) at a cheaper price, but that's the exception. My drive to work is shorter (12 miles vs. 35 miles) but now takes longer due to traffic. My taxes are more than triple what they were, and I now also pay a "membership fee" for a "homeowner's association" that as near as I can tell provides a community pool I will never use and a newsletter filled with ads mailed once a year, and tells me what I can't do with my own yard.
And yet people want us "city folk" to subsidize their broadband/electricity/whatever.
Who the hell said this? Nobody is saying this, except you idiot city folk. The country is full of people who would love to pay for broadband access, even if it were expensive (to subsidize the install cost), yet the telcos and cable companies simply wont do it.
When I lived out in the country, there was a fiber termination a couple hundred feet from my driveway they put in to a service a cell phone tower they erected back behind my house. All they had to do to provide DSL for everyone in that area (a number of whom would have purchased surface) was to install a DSL card into the rack and provision it. Bellsouth wouldn't do it.
We don't give a fuck about trying to get you "city folk" to subsidize us. We have our own money, thanks, we just want the telcos to do the job we ALREADY PAID THEM (through government subsidies) to do. And yes, broadband damn sure should be a right. Look 20 or 30 years into the future, much of our economy and society will be dependent on the Internet by then. The Nordic countries that are guaranteeing broadband access for everyone are visionaries in this respect.
A question that I have is why in hell can I get a bog standard 56/33k dialup connection 30KM from the Colec on the POTS (plain old telephone system) yet can't get any DSL at all? To me the answer is damn obvious. Simply mandate that all Telco's offer a bog standard always on naked dls connection (64/64) would be fine for many folks still on dialup. This would force the needed upgrade of all infrastructure to DSLAM in all COLEC facilities and would go hand in hand with a transition from the switched phone system to the TCP/IP based of Recent FCC Request for Public Comments issue (Have filed my comment). Another point I just thought of is that by going the Naked DSL offering, the Telco's could still meet their Obligated 911 service standard to all phones without offering voice services. Hell for those who want the new DSL service, you get no gauranty that service is available during power outages, saving the Telco's money by not having to ensure the battery system can handle the load for the regulated 24 hours before generators are brought in. I'm hopeful that if we make the transition over to the IP Packet based from Switched based system that this requirement will be added to the upgrade.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
This isn't the government we're talking about here, it's the general population. Yeah, and like it or not, they own a small piece of you. And you own a small piece of them
You live in a society that has to work together, and your actions and choices have consequences to people beyond yourself. Sometimes, your choices may feel good to you, but they come at the expense of others.
The general population has authority to enforce any tax against me except via the government in the United States. And to state that the general population owns any bit of me is a hefty claim, and quite frankly, repugnant. To claim otherwise is to imply that there is a lack of consent, and without consent, there is no legitimacy.
Your justification is predicated on the notion that it is somehow unfair for people to pay for the lifestyle of others through a system which forces them to pay for the lifestyle of others.
You are advocating a system which allows the government to justify any restriction upon a minority group based on the idea that it might save the government money.
The government has VERY strict limitations on what it is allowed to regulate, and you are trying to justify the abuse of that power by stating that "If an action can be determined to have an impact on the operating costs of the government, then the government has the authority to regulate it."
That is a horrid premise which grants the government the ability to regulate anything and everything based on simple majority votes and is abhorrent in any free and just society.
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Government should do big services and big infrastructure when (a) that infrastructure will benefit the country significantly, (b) it can't be done fairly or generally or cost-wise by private entities.
This is why it legitimately builds roads; educates the citizens; guards the borders; (very poorly) regulates the airwaves; maintained the post roads; regulates the monetary standards.
This is why it *should* ensure that the individuals in the population are healthy; have electrical power; have heat; have water; have powerful and uniform networking available; have access to a portion of the RF spectrum for broadcasting. And other, similar things.
As usual, sometimes government does what it should, sometimes it doesn't. There's no question that were it to do all the things it should, the nation would be a creative and productive powerhouse. But getting around the vested interests in embedded private concerns is a political nightmare. Look at Leiberman blocking the health care bill right now -- the man is a complete tool of the insurance companies, and it is insurance companies that are the *problem* -- their very existence is a conflict of interest.
And as for money... you know, if we weren't spending trillions of dollars bombing and chasing Afghani goat herders and poppy growers from one valley to another, trying to impose a political system on Iraqis who have absolutely no interest in it, and otherwise pushing our way of life on other people, we'd have a lot more money to work with. The legitimate military interest of our government is to guard our borders. To the extent that requires an out of border presence - a deep water navy, the ability to respond at a distance to an attacker - we should have that capability. What we don't need is to be making war on others just to keep the MI/C in shekels.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I just moved from the city to a small country community and it's actually less expensive, all things considered. Yes I spend more on gas to commute for work. I have satellite TV which for me is the same price as cable TV was in the city. We built a house and our mortgage + taxes + insurance is about $400 more than we were paying in rent, but it really wouldn't take that long for the rent to catch up. My water bill is about half what it was and property taxes are much lower. YMMV.
Who was that pointy-eared bastard?
Holland, Michigan, United States. Home of a wooden shoe outlet, a Delft pottery outlet, and the Tulip Time festival... don't ask me why I know firsthand.
There's plenty of examples of governments that didn't have that frustration. The opposing agendas are typically executed or jailed.
Or a common enemy is defined and both factions team up to build the weapons to destroy the enemy. Yet once that common enemy is defeated or marginalized the weapons are not melted down or turned to ploughshares but are maintained.
See: any law "For the Children", as an example of a weapon(law) which is employed in a noble pursuit, but later twisted into a means of oppression.
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It doesn't always work (especially if not carefully considered), and rarely if ever does it work perfectly, but it can have positive effects.
Are the positive effects determined by the same people who get to determine what is, or is not, a vice?
The problem is, by your own admission, they don't always work, and rarely work perfectly. When you combine that with the idea that a Vice is just something that one group of people likes, and another group of people dislikes, the definition depends greatly on which group of people has the power at the time, and that is a recipe for disaster.
It's VERY easy to define something as a vice. Right now, it seems like anything that isn't a necessity is a vice (or eligible for a 'Glad it's not me' tax). So what do you do when you are the minority and it is your turn for your behaviors to become 'vices'.
It is tremendously easy to target the symptoms (or perceived symptoms) than it is to fix the problem.
Crime in cities? Ban baggy pants and tax beepers.
People getting fat? Tax soda
Drunks at games? Tax 'malt beverages'
Healthcare getting expensive? Tax cigarettes.
So, what do any of those have to do with solving the root causes of the problems? We have tried many of those things, but as far as I know: Crime still exists, people still get fat, people still get drunk, and healthcare is still expensive.
Yet all of those taxes/bans impact innocent people who have done nothing wrong other than living their life in the manner in which they find most enjoyable. Yet none of those activities impacts you in any way.
The only reason it impacts you, is because you used the government to force your way INTO their private lives and started regulating it.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
I have access to NO cable tv. While I'm close enough, the only provider is charter, and they're so bad they cannot keep reliable service to my appartment, and satellite is not an option (I rent, and can't clearcut the place I live at). Monopolies really are oppresive, I don't understand why I can't have access to cable tv and cable internet even though I live in the city.
He who controls the vice controls the world.
Right now breathing out carbon dioxide is considered a vice.
If we knew then what we know today, that electrification would require the creation of an immense source of greenhouse gas generation that would rapidly ruin the Earth's atmosphere, as we're being told, would we have been so enthusiastic about deploying this polluting technology to every household? Today, I have contemporaries that are sincerely evaluating yurts as replacements for traditional houses (theirs and yours) as they mosey about "sustainable living" fairs. I suspect they most emphatically do not intend that we wire our yurts for AC. Claiming universal electrification was a great vindication of fairness, or something, at the same time we're being told how selfish we're being for utilizing it appears schizophrenic.
It is fair to point out that I have conflated sandal wearing enviros with broadband freetards in contructing my straw man. In my defense I'll assert that most folks that would argue for broadband as a birthright are also likely to subscribe fully to AGW theories. I won't accept an argument that claims universal electrification can somehow be separated from all of its consequences; governance always has unintended side effects.
Mandating that everyone be wired up from birth could conceivably have a few problems as well; cut through the welds that secure that fairness hat so firmly to your head for one precious minute and think about what it might mean to make participation on the network an obligation of citizenship.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
You must have been lucky enough to live in an area where farmers were being gouged a per acreage tax for all the school levies that were needed to support the poorly managed neighboring school systems while the folks in town living on 0.25 acres decided that their cost for education was minimal and decided to kick out three or four more kids a piece which increased the schooling costs.
So this farmer that has 350+ acres of land needs to pay over 1400 times more than someone else for their kid to attend the same school. Since his vote only accounts for a total of 1, while he pays 1400 times more than someone else for said taxes, you can see where it could be more expensive to live in the country. This is of course much worse if part of that land is not tillable because of a run-off, patch of forest or some other reason but it's still taxed at the same rate. Oh, and good luck selling that land to a homeowner with those taxes.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
It ain't much I'm asking if you want the truth
Here's to the future
Hear the cry of youth (hear the cry hear the cry of youth)
I want it all I want it all I want it all and I want it now
I want it all (yeah yeah yeah) I want it all I want it all and I
want it now
I want it
Now
I want it I want it
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Let's say I have $1000. I can pay it for health insurance premiums, or I can go without health insurance and spend the money on whores instead. That's 'choice'.
I don't believe that's a choice you should be allowed to make. Because:
We ALL know that when you get catastrophically sick, you're going to go to the hospital and get treatment, reglardless of your ability to pay. Without insurance, that treatment will probably (and quite literally) be unaffordable. Multiple times what you make in a year. Which means you won't be able to pay it, ever. Which means the hospital/whoever is providing the care increases the cost on everyone else to make up for that loss.
Now, if you were willing to only get the treatment you could actually afford (without insurance) when you have your stroke or heart attack or whatever, then I'd say "More power to you". If you had only a couple grand in the bank, you're not going to say to yourself "Well, I certainly don't have the money to get treatment for the heart attack I'm having at this moment, I'll just die and not call 911."
However, we all know that's not going to happen. You're going to the hospital, and we're paying for it.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Who gave you the authority to take that, exactly?
Society did. If (as some rich business owner) you enjoy people buying your products so that you can continue to live high on the hog, you have to preserve the health of those that support YOU.
Otherwise you're a parasite, not a symbiote.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
As usual here on slashduh and in quite a few other places, people don't seem to understand the difference between a "Right" and an "Entitlement." A right costs no one anything. An entitlement can only be provided if someone pays for it. Some examples:
Depending on where you live, you may have a right to free speech. You can communicate your views to anyone who can hear what you have to say or who can't escape listening to you. It is an entitlement to demand ink, paper and a printing press, radio or TV time or access to some other medium to spread your views. These all cost someone to provide them to you.
You do not have a right to housing or food (regardless of some UN declaration). These can only be provided by your own work or by someone else's work. Somebody has to produce the materials for the house and build the house and someone has to grow the food. They can only be provided at someone's expense.
In the U.S. (and depending on local law) you have the right to "bear arms" (own a gun). That doesn't mean you automatically get a gun. If you wish to own one, you have to purchase it yourself. The right comes for free but someone has to pay for the gun if you want one.
You don't have a right to health care. It can only be provided to you by paying your own way (savings or insurance), forcing health care professionals to render it on demand (that's known as slavery) or by taxing someone else and forcing them to pay for it.
It's really that simple. What are truly "rights" cost no one anything. If it costs someone something, it's an entitlement and it can only be provided by taking something (taxes, property, labor, etc.) away from someone else. A political entity MAY choose to provide some or all of the above entitlements and may even confuse people by calling them "rights" but the fact remains that rights are free.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
"then you should be prepared to pay the cost of doing so."
Likewise with city dwellers. In fact, I think you don't realize how wrong you are.
"It will cost you more money in taxes,"
Why? Labor costs in rural areas are low. Raw material is often closer, saving on fuel and transportation wages and wear and tear on the equipment. What exactly would cost more? Even a supply demand curve would show rural prices would be lower, because most raw materials come from these rural areas.
"more money for running water (pump and septic system upkeep),"
What the running water part has to do directly with septic upkeep as you suggest with the parentheses, I don't know. Maybe you don't realize the pipes are separated.
You obviously have not lived out of a city, or if you have, have not built your own house or paid for common services and actually looked at the true breakdown, such as your rent or mortage actually paying for the house which includes the water and sewer hookup fees, which run into the thousands and some places up to $15,000 (one time cost but not in lieu of monthly fees).
Running water is taken from a well, for free. The cost is only pump electricity. Many people even with municipal water access still run on well water, because of the high cost of the municipal water hookup and the monthly fee. You don't seem to realize the hookup charge for water is roughly the same as the cost of drilling a well conventionally. And you can drill wells easier and cheaper. Many people in rural areas especially use wind mills to pump (similar to the Amish and Mennonite). In fact, municipalities have started to crack down on new wells, saying it's because they want to maintain the water table (bullshit, given most drinking water is pumped from streams anyways) for all, when most people realize it's because they want to control access to a common good they feel they should control to maintain costs.
Since you did mention septic, which is a separate system, septic installation are usually lower than a sewer hookup. Again, installation of a septic system is about the same as a municipal water hookup. A septic system runs cheaper than the yearly costs in my area, by far, even considering pump outs. My parents own rental properties with a wide variety of setups, and the septic systems are always easier and cheaper to maintain than the municipal sewer properties. Septic systems are a little more trouble, but if it's a new system, I'd say it's about the same as a PVC main sewer line in terms of cost and convenience once in.
"your roads will be less maintained,"
Your bias. I say we rural dwellers would maintain our roads cheaper and better, because labor costs would be low, transportation distances would be short, and the material would be local, which implicit in city life your material is essentially imported from us. I think you'd find you'd pay more, as we jack up prices since we are no longer subsidized.
"you may not have access to cable and will have to rely on satellite,"
Umm, guess you haven't noticed, but a lot of people LIKE satellite, esp. the cost and quality. Their HD rollout beat Comcast for years (although not so much currently).
Other funny thing, cable usually is said not to receive subsidies for providing internet access. Yet where I live, all the rural areas have Comcast cable, and not Verizon, despite the latter certainly receiving massive state and federal subsidies and Comcast none or substantially less so. Gee, why is that? Because Comcast actually found PAYING customers? It's not as if quad shielded RG6 is expensive to run a few miles, when the customer is, gee, paying $40-60 a month for access. And given suburban sprawl, rural areas aren't usually that far away nowadays from getting this sort of access.
Not to mention, how many stories have we seen on /. where subsidized companies don't supply an area, and the people band together and put together pretty good access for a pretty fair price?
This should be carried farther.
If you want air services, rail services, multi-lane freeways, nearby government services including universities and NSF research money, nearby parks, etc. then _you_ should pay for it, and not people in rural areas who do not have convenient access.
Are you ready to step up and say you're happy with the taxes in places like NY and CA which provide such baubles?
I hate to tell you this but there are no such things as "inherent rights". Inherent rights are as real as fairies, dragons, and Elvis sightings. For there to be "inherent rights", it would have to be somehow granted by Mother Nature, and Mother Nature frankly doesn't give a flying shit about your sense of what's acceptable. Any rights you have are granted to you via your government (generally via some nicely worded document) whether you like it or not. Even then, they are only good to the degree they are enforced.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
Vice taxes don't deter vices. They just cause more problems down the line. So now a particular subset of the population not only is addicted, but also is poor and perhaps driven to crime. Taxes are simply a means of revenue in this case, since the demand is inelastic due to addiction.
Do you have any source for this or is this one of the unsourced, uninformed pronouncements that Slashdot is so brilliant at inciting?
Vice taxes don't deter vices.
That seems pretty unlikely; in essence you're arguing that vices are for some reason excluded from the normal laws of supply and demand. You're claiming that increasing the price of something does not discourage its use, simply because the thing is bad? And not only that, but the CDC disagrees with you:
Research shows that tax increases on tobacco products are an effective policy intervention designed to prevent initiation of adolescents and young adults, reduce cigarette consumption, and increase the number of smokers who quit. A 10% increase in the price of cigarettes is estimated to reduce consumption by 4%.
As does the data from the Bureau of Labour, which shows that levels of demand for beer, wine and spirits are all sensitive to price variation. [See Chaloupka, Grossman and Saffer, The effects of price on alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems, published 2002].
They just cause more problems down the line. So now a particular subset of the population not only is addicted, but also is poor and perhaps driven to crime.
I think you're conflating taxed vices and more serious addictions. There are very few vices out there so expensive that they would force you to crime if you're gainfully employed. The country is not under threat from hordes of middle-managers robbing banks for cigarette money. The addicts that turn to crime to fund their habit do so not because they are the victim of crippling government taxation - to believe this would be to wilfully ignore reality. They do so because their addiction prevents them from holding down a job, and so crime is the only way they can get the money to feed their addiction.
Taxes are simply a means of revenue in this case, since the demand is inelastic due to addiction.
Another blanket pronouncement with no evidence or explanation.
We've already seen two accounts of the fact that vice taxes do reduce demand and that demand is, in fact, elastic. It's also worth pointing out that vice taxes don't only target the addicted. They can act to deter addiction. They can also act to fund the later health-care implications of your choice, as is the case with tax on cigarettes in Britain. There is scope for some philosophical debate here, which I would be happy to enter into if you want, but the point is clear: the taxes are not necessarily simply a source of revenue.
What an idiotic, moron, liberal, democrat thing to say!
Electricity has never been free!
Broadband Internet or telephone service should never be forced to be free!!! That is socialism!! Not the private market economy that has propelled the United States to super power status!
IMPEACH ALL DEMOCRATS!!!!!
Surely that was not the center-point of the debate over electricity and surely it is not for broadband either.
Anyone with a brain should know that electricity and broadband are not necessities. However, they do offer much convenience. The question should be:
"Is the cost to provide said service less than the gain?" It's a freakin investment decision, not a philosophy debate.
In the case of electricity, hindsight definitely shows that the gain was greater than the cost. Broadband? I don't think so. What's the difference?
Electricity in every home boosted the US economy. It also boosted national security, directly or by boosting the US economy. Millions if not billions of jobs were created in order to extend the range of electric service. Extending broadband would do the same. However, the more use of electricity required more power plants to be built to produce the electricity. These were permanent jobs. the use of more broadband will not require more 'broadband factories' to be built. They will lay more cable and that will be it...temporary jobs. Could there be a 'cottage industry' explosion from startups taking advantage of a bigger market? Yes, but how much bigger would it be? Doesn't 80% of the country already have access to some type of broadband? I don't see a great enough expansion of the market to form a big enough economy booster. If we were having this debate before 2000, before the dot-com bubble arose and burst, then yes this would create a huge market expansion and economic boost. It's too late to reap to those sorts of gains. What gain is left?
Government control of the nations communications infrastructure = Government control of [(speech + press) * technology]
Anyways, this debate should not be happening at the Federal level. This debate should be happening at the State level. The may still be some states that would experience a big enough economic boom from increased broadband access to warrant their investment in infrastructure.
Well, there are worse hands the money can fall into than the government's.
Vices will exist so long as people exist. That's a fact, and there's no going around it, legislation, education, or otherwise. I'd rather the government control the flow and get the money than the mob or worse, gangs liks MS13.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Do you honestly believe that your electricity bill or phone bill is higher because they had to provide service to everyone?
Try using your brain and try not being a selfish twat.
Turning the US into some sort of two tier way of life is not what the US is about. If you get off on the idea of having people living like peasants around you then maybe you should go live in Zimbabwe.
If you opt to treat everyone in rural areas like a stone-age piece of shit then no one will want to live there. You can't farm in the city so when everyone moves to the cities to have broadband while increasing the housing prices and population density, the US will become increasingly dependant on other countries for food and you'll be paying more than you ever will to hook up some homes in rural towns.
Just remember as well, it's their land that all that fiber runs across to connect up the coasts. So quite frankly it's the least you can do to allow them to live to the same standard as everyone else.
And when everyone does that maybe you can ask China nicely to make you some cheap food to go with the cheap toys they send over.
Yeah! Screw those farmers and ranchers! We don't need ANYTHING from them! Food comes from a store right around the corner!
Dumbass.
Ummmmm.... are you insane?
I think you may be, you might want to get that checked out at a publicly funded socilized medical center.
Or do you honestly believe you have rights which are not afforded to you by the will of the people in the country of your residence.
Inalienable human rights and all that is great, and thanks to the Constitution our government abides by those. But if the Constitution said at the age of 65 every person gives up their land and possessions to their nearest related 25 year old. we would do that... What is a right in your mind has very little to do with actual reality unless you vote and get enough of your fellow citizens to vote with you.
This notion of subsidizing lifestyles is really annoying. If you want cheap fast broadband move to civilization. If you want clean air and open spaces move to the country.
I'm going to tentatively agree with your first paragraph. But this one bothers me. We've been spending incredible sums of money to subsidize the suburban lifestyle for decades. We have to run thousands of extra miles of road, wire, fiber, pipe and sewer just because every person wants to have their own personal house. So you really should take this next step. If you want civilization, you should be ready to move to civilization. If you can't walk or take mass transit to work, you live too far away.
Fuck off, they do deter vices. They stop people smoking, drinking as much, and speeding as much.
You've already paid property taxes for the use (or un-use) of the public library.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
The government takes it out, and it is a small price to pay for piece of mind, for yourself and everyone else around you. You know, some people like the fact that others in the community are also taken care off. I am willing to pay for that. I guess you aren't?
You're right that it can, however it can also have hidden effects and cause other problems.
More so it creates a rationalization for the regulation of other drugs, since the same logic is used in regulating the original drug.
This eventually leads to the creation of the FDA, DEA and similar.
Regulation, or more so the rationalization behind it, is a slippery slope.
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
It isn't a big deal.
I live in Australia also, and can tell you that 1-1.5% (of gross earnings)is nothing (around 1000 bucks a year for around a 100k wage). The cut-off point i believe is 50k a year.
I have evaluated private vs public option (for my personal use) and this is what made me stay in the public option:
1. UNIVERSAL CARE - no matter what happened to me I can rock up at a hospital and get care (from transplant to broken leg to a runny nose)
2. Quality of treatment - private insurance uses exactly the same hospitals as public (in most cases), and they are good. Spoken from experience.
3. Cost - equivalent coverage from a private insurer was several times more than public option.
4. Coverage - Private insurance offered me physio, acupuncture and massage - nice to have i admit, but pretty useless when I get run over by a bus - many of the consequences of which weren't covered by some insurers.
5. The absence of a multi-page, loophole ridden, legal-speak EULA that I had to sign to get private insurance.
6. the waiting period - why should i have to wait a couple of months (while still paying) for the policy to kick in. Also, some insurers have longer waiting periods for certain items - eg long term diseases like diabetes etc.
All in all, the private sector did not offer value-for-money. Essentially private insurance overcharges for crappy service.
It's the equivalent of not staying in a 5 star government hotel becaus OMG it's the government - and staying in a flea ridden barracks because "hey, that's private insurance!"
Sure, some of my taxes support things I don;t agree with - wars, people smooching off the system, MP wages, indefinite refugee detention, but the also support things that I do find aggreable - supporting less fortunate people than me, infrastructure for remote areas (I like steak. They make cows. Cows make steak.), refugee integration, desalination plants, roads and railways, a better city for me to live in (Melbourne ROCKS! :) ).
For me that is the nature of living in a free SOCIETY - by definition, you gain advantage from being in a society and society gains a advantage from you being in it. It's a symbiotic relationship that if we can get right everyone benefits.
We need people in rural areas for agriculture, logging, mining, and many other industries. What do you think will happen if you did increase their costs of their utilities, shipping, and telecommunication for those in these rural areas?
The likely answers are that you would start creating a lot of poor people, people with far lower standards of living, or shortages in the goods that we need in the city, or we'll have to subsidize them anyway in the form of increased prices.
Your viewpoint is extremely naive and shortsighted.
I'll drink to that!
Prices will be set at what the market is willing to bear. Not building into the far corners will not reduce your prices, it will just inflate corporate profits. Maybe as a non-American I don't quite get this 'neo-liberalism at all costs' mentality, but there seem to be an awful lot of corporate apologists on this site lately. Many of them ACs. Who are they working for?
Speeding isn't a 'vice'. At a certain point (not usually the posted speed limit but that's another discussion) excessive speed endangers the drivers around you. Smoking and drinking does either. It only harms the person partaking in it.
Please tell me why it should be an objective of government to protect people from themselves?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Do everyone a favor and educate yourself. Check out New York State on Google Earth or what ever the MS equivalent is and do a fly over. Don't expect much detail as there isn't much call for high satellite resolution in sparely populated areas. Adirondack Park is 6.1 million acres, there are 775,000 acres of state forests, in fact there are forests covering 18.6 million acres of NY's 30 million total acres.That doesn't include all the farm land in use. Also you missed the fact that New York City and surrounding sprawl is off by itself in a tail that is far from the rest of the state. I think you believe that NYC is in the center of the state.
Star Trek, there maybe hope.
I am, actually. I'm just not willing to quietly let that decision be made for me.
Yeah, its a fine line, but an important one. Another important point is that some people have moral or religious objections to how their tax money may be used - e.g. abortions covered under Obamacare.
Learn about Photography Basics.
The only irony here is that, speaking the same language, you use the same word "right" for a very different thing.
Namely, the right to bear arms is not a statement that someone should arm those without a weapon, in the manner that a "right to housing and food" is taken by some to mean that someone(s) must be made to build houses and feed others whether they agree to it or not. It merely means that it is not just for the government to prohibit law-abiding citizens from going armed. This proceeds from the conviction that people should be able to defend themselves with the best means they can afford, and it is not just for a government to deprive them of this capability.
The rights to "commodities" are a slippery slope. Someone must produce them, that is to say, must be coerced into working and giving up the fruits of their labor for the sake of the needy. Such was the country I grew up in - it essentially confiscated almost everything that everyone earned and provided "free" (rationed) housing, sponsored basic foods and clothing, and even a standardized education (that first and foremost suited its own needs, largely defined as the capability to force it on more and more people). Where the "universal" rights-through-confiscation stop and that system started, I honestly do no know; I only know that it sucked and I was glad when it died.
except in one thing: having and bringing up children. Look at the "more efficient" urbanized European nations - they are well below population replacement rates. Coupled with their pay-as-you-go social service systems, which depend on the ratio of working age people to pensioners to remain roughly the same (minus productivity gains, but productivity does not actually change that fast in developed nations), this presents a serious problem, doesn't it? Replacing a trained quality workforce with largely untrained immigrants from significantly less industrially developed nations does not seem to work so well either - if those nations had the same quality workforce, they would hardly be in such bad state as to suffer mass emigration.
Perhaps the investments you speak of were the best possible kind for America, despite the drawbacks?
that the US system is doing much better on cancer survival rates than socialized health care systems like the UK's NHS. Certainly Americans get newer drugs and equipment years ahead of continental Europe, and in some cases up to ten years ahead of the UK. The US is second only to Japan in the availability of high tech medical technology, too.
This is from the congressional comparative report on health care, which various partisans tend to ignore, and which itself ignores the question of what would happen to medical innovation should the US system imitate either the UK's or German or French systems. So far, it seems, the US is paying early adopter costs and enjoys the benefits, whereas European systems pick up the benefits once the edge has been taken off. It's nice to be able to buy at commodity prices, but someone must pay for commoditization, and it seems that the US has been picking up most of that tab. Are you sure that the US government will be able to bring about medical innovation as efficiently as the current 60% private system, should it -- God forbid -- find itself controlling not 40% as now but 80-90%? Having seen government innovation both in the US and under Soviet "central planning", I am not so sure.
Well, there are worse hands the money can fall into than the government's.
Vices will exist so long as people exist. That's a fact, and there's no going around it, legislation, education, or otherwise. I'd rather the government control the flow and get the money than the mob or worse, gangs liks MS13
Did you ever wonder why Prohibition was the best thing to ever happen to Organized Crime?
Government controlling the trade and treating them like 'vices' is exactly why organized crime is even able to use them to do business. The drug dealers exist ONLY because the government has either outlawed the substance, or placed a heavy tax on it.
Sugar is not something gangs deal with.
Coffee is not something gangs deal with.
Salt is not something gangs deal with.
Yet each of those items are consumed in greater quantities than any drug, and for the most part, you don't need to consume a single one of them on their own. Gangs are involved in drugs ONLY because the government has attempted to limit something that people want.
Consider sex. Marked as a vice by the government and we have an underground trade. In Copenhagen where it is legal, you have a regulated (for the purposes of safety NOT vice control), clean, and safe sex industry.
If the government outlawed sweeteners, you would have gangs dealing in stevia within 10 days.
(And for your MS13 comment? Why is one criminal who will kill you for getting in the way of their trade any scarier than another criminal who will kill you for getting in the way of their trade? Don't think for a moment that they are any different than the Mafia, or that the Mafia is any better simply because of a few Hollywood movies.)
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The EU has funded tons of development projects for formerly economically lagging countries; the result is increase trade within the EU, and the money spent benefits all member states, not just those who received the money.
It might be hard to believe but 30 or even just 20 years ago, countries like Ireland, Spain, Portugal or Greece only had a fraction of the economic output; today their GDP/inhabitant (for lack of a better metric) has approached or surpassed in some cases that of the larger countries. And studies show that their economic vitality also benefit the other member states.
Again, no. "you are prepared to provide" != "you are forced to provide because it's a 'right.'"
Do you not understand the difference? I am not suggesting we don't freely give of ourselves, I'm suggesting it's WRONG to force someone to; you have NO right to my life, but if I choose to willingly give it, then that's another story.
Stupid, sexy Flanders.
Well sure, I can see the difference, but I feel that's the difference between extreme individualism and some form of putting down rules to form a community.
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If you have cable, DSL, *and* fiber, you do not live in the sticks.
Broadband is pretty ace, though! Without broadband, it would be really difficult to watch video, participate meaningfully in online auctions, especially at sites like DubLi.com. If I could marry anything, it would be broadband :)