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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.'"
So it's better that a private company claims a couple kidneys and some few limbs from your household every month to provide "super luxury deluxe rich-people-only _limited_ edition broadband" that sucks ass compared to the goverment skimming a few cents off everyone and provides "ordinary unmetered 500mbps birthright-broadband".
It's certainly was not private efforts that allowed ordinary swedes to have 100mbps broadband a decade ago; it may not have paid off in pure cash, as most other things the goverment does, but it certainly did something not only for the swedes using the net but for the rest of the internet too.
But sure, go ahead and enjoy your pixelated redtube with your metered and throttled, protocol limited glorified 56k dial up while i stream native resolution porn to my 6x30" eyefinity setup.
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.
The average American is an obese, aggressive, religious ignoramus.
YOU want PIZZA? You want BURGER? You want SNAKE handling?
But under the crumbling façade of Nationalist pride and arrogance, the American people are secretly all wearing their footsie pyjamas from K-mart (Both figuratively and metaphorically).
...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!
If not everyone can profit, it might be socialism!
If not everyone can profit, wouldn't it be capitalism?
The reason I called you a douche is because you have a clearly America-centric view of the planet. And I think that is an arrogant thoughtless view.
No, I have an American-centric view during discussions about American political issues. Or did our health care reform legislation somehow morph into a global issue while I wasn't watching?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.