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Louisville's Fiber Internet Expansion Opposed By Koch Brothers Group (usatoday.com)
Slashdot reader simkel shared an article from the Courier-Journal:
A group affiliated with the Koch brothers' powerful political network is leading an online campaign against Mayor Greg Fischer's $5.4 million proposal to expand Louisville's ultra-fast internet access... Critics argue that building roughly 96 miles of fiber optic cabling is an unnecessary taxpayer giveaway to internet service providers, such as Google Fiber, which recently announced plans to begin building its high-speed network in the city. "Fundamentally, we don't believe that taxpayers should be funding broadband or internet systems," said David Williams, president of the taxpayers alliance, which is part of industrialists Charles and David Koch's political donor network... The group says $5.4 million is a misuse of taxpayer funds when the city has other needs, such as infrastructure and public safety.
To shore up public support, the mayor has begun arguing that high-speed connectivity would make it cheaper to install crime-monitoring cameras in violent neighborhoods.
To shore up public support, the mayor has begun arguing that high-speed connectivity would make it cheaper to install crime-monitoring cameras in violent neighborhoods.
These bastards must hate the environment, as much as they oppose any regulation to protect it. I'm sure SuperKendall will be along shortly to spew idiocy in defense of the Koch Brothers. Now they want to oppose efforts to improve infrastructure in Louisville. At what point do we decide that these people are just evil and seize their assets for the public good?
We've seen how well private industry does it. In the places where taxpayers fund the internet, you get gigabit speeds at rates around a quarter of what private industry offers for any internet service at all. Private industry might complain that it isn't "fair", but private industry won't step up and do it, either. And if life were "fair", you'd die penniless in the gutter after spending a lifetime enriching yourself by destroying the planet. So I'm not going to worry about that too much.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
...I think most people here on /. agree that fast internet access *is* vital infrastructure. We may disagree on how best to pay for this, of course, but it's essential.
Fundamentally, we don't believe that taxpayers should be funding broadband or internet systems
What a stupid fucking asshole. We're struggling to keep our business afloat because neither of our two ISP's (TWC and AT&T) can provide us with stable Internet connections at one of our locations. Everybody needs government funded, government regulated Internet access ASAP.
I don't respond to AC's.
Fiberoptic is infrastructure.
If the city owns the fiber then they can rent it out to which ever operator that is interested in that area. Even two competing operators.
The ones complaining the most about towns and cities running their own fibers are the ones that want to control the consumers the most.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I don't think we'll ever get there so long as the ability to spend money is legally considered protected speech.
What we can do though, is to work to roll-back changes that basically defined corporations as entities entitled to spending this kind of money as freedom-of-speech.
Unfortunately that means we have to play their game, form our own legal entities to do the speaking, to push for that change, and as we've seen they're a lot better than we are at organizing these kinds of things.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Worked for Stalin and Pol Pot.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
They could even take the approach that was originally required for DSL, where you pay one entity for the physical infrastructure usage, and pay a different entity for the final connection to the backbone of the Internet.
With modern routing you could even do it without having to result to changing physical patching, assuming that equipment used at the customer premises and at the network-equivalent of the neighborhood exchange or central office is capable of sub-line-rate service to the level that the customer is paying for and that the backbone linking NX or CO locations is sufficiently high-throughput.
If anything this approach would allow for more players, not fewer players, as providers would only have to cable-in infrastructure to the central offices instead of worrying about the last-mile links. This could allow for less expensive private WANs between multiple facilities within the metro-area; the customer with multiple locations could pay for their own private metro optical MLPS network without having to to onto the Internet for simple site-to-site networks.
Lastly it might make it easier for customers in less-desirable areas from a service-provider point of view to actually get service. This can affect both poor neighborhoods where an ISP might not expect enough adoption, and even some wealthier neighborhoods where the housing density is too low to make for a good return on the trenching or other infrastructure requirements to put the network in even if a lot of households want it.
I don't see any losing proposition except for ISPs that want monopoly or effective-monopoly positions in markets.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
...roll-back changes that basically defined corporations as entities entitled to spending this kind of money as freedom-of-speech.
Here's why you will fail:
We're not going to let the government ban books.
The Constitution doesn't reserve free speech for particular people. It doesn't mention people at all in regards to free speech. It says "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech".
So, by this logic, building highways and city streets was just the government giving away taxpayer dollars as a gift to the likes of Ford, Chrysler and GM?
It means there needs to be better support for small munipalities to do it well.
Or more generally:
The Ayn Randians have defined the debate about government involvement for the last 40 years. They've made it about small government versus big government. But that's a misdirection. What really matters is good governance versus bad governance It turns out that one of the surest ways to get bad governance is to capriciously hamstring government. "Starve the beast" is a surefire recipe for ineffective and often counterproductive government.
There should be no issue with laws restricting corporate speech. Such laws don't remove any right to free speech.
But they do abridge those rights.
The law which allows them to be created simply needs to say that speech is not an allowed purpose of a corporation.
That's not how rights work. Governments can't make people give up their basic human rights in exchange for some exemptions from some laws. If they could, then "everyone's salary is taxed at 97%, but it's only 10% if you give up the right to due process" would be permissible. It's clearly not. Courts aren't generally that easily fooled. Rights are rights, they're not some minor inconvenience for the government to easily work around.
As I said, they're entirely a figment of the law, and there's no reason they should have any rights at all, only the privileges and benefits defined by law.
The individual people have the rights. They use them together in a corporate organization. But, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech" is an even more powerful prohibition. It prohibits abridgment of speech, rights or no rights. So there's no power to restrict spending on political speech as it regards corporations. They can't put "except no political speech" in laws for things.
Fundamentally, we don't believe that taxpayers should be funding broadband or internet systems,
MhmmmKay. Let's whip that around a bit, shall we?
Fundamentally, we don't believe that taxpayers should be funding fire departments,
Fundamentally, we don't believe that taxpayers should be funding police departments,
Fundamentally, we don't believe that taxpayers should be funding Public water & sewer systems,
Fundamentally, we don't believe that taxpayers should be funding Hospital systems,
Fundamentally, we don't believe that taxpayers should be funding streets and highways,
Because, fundamentally, internet access isn't about browsing porn anymore. It's about scheduling medical appointments, getting prescription refills, it's about having a job, or looking for a job. It's about paying your bills, taxes, and doing your banking. It's about ordering things on line you simply can't get at your local brick and mortar store even if you wanted to take the trouble.
Because, fundamentally, if a person doesn't understand how all pervasive and simply necessary internet access is, they are either planning to rip off the public, or they are thinking with their fundament.
Fundamentally.
You can discern the hypocrisy in their statement by observing how fast they get on board if it's building (with tax dollars!) a billion dollar sports stadium or for a multi-billion dollar air port expansion, or a new freeway. Better watch out then, because they will leave hoof prints (like all jack asses do) across your back.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.