Rural America Is Building Its Own Internet Because No One Else Will (vice.com)

New submitter bumblebaetuna writes: In many cases, it's not financially viable for big internet service providers like Comcast and CharterSpectrum to expand into rural communities: They're not densely populated, and running fiber optic cable into rocky Appalachian soil isn't cheap. Even with federal grants designed to make these expansions more affordable, there are hundreds of communities across the US that are essentially internet deserts -- so many are building it themselves. But in true heartland, bootstrap fashion, these towns, hollows -- small rural communities located in the valleys between Appalachia hills -- and stretches of farmland have banded together to bring internet to their doors. They cobble together innovative and creative solutions to get around the financial, technological, and topological barriers to widespread internet.

Comments

Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[SuperKendall]

Rural communities helping themselves? Not to be allowed in todays Corporate America.

Yet another reason to support smaller government whenever possible, and not allow a centralized monster to take over that can be controlled by any remote faction of people...

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[Herkum01]

Why do assume smaller government is the answer? It is usually the smaller communities, with less knowledge and resources which are easier to co-opt than larger entities.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[Dutchmaan]

So ironic that you are confusing regulation and lobbying... it's the regulation that PREVENTS the very thing you're whining about. Companies like to strong arm small communities as presented in the article you linked to... that's not the government doing that.. it's the private sector. So you think that weakening the government and strengthening the private sector (who is doing the strong arming) is the solution????

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[Rick Schumann]

This has nothing to do with the size of government. It has EVERYTHING to do with corrupt governments full of corporate cronies prioritizing the rights of big business over the rights and needs of citizens. Corporations like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast/Xfinity should not be allowed to exclude people from doing precisely what these people are doing -- which is exactly what will happen, just as soon as one of them decides they're an untapped revenue stream. Most likely they'll wait until they have installed a sizeable internet infrastructure, then come in with a team of lawyers, sue the shit out of them, bankrupt them all just because they can, then scoop up everything they worked so hard to build for pennies on the dollar -- then sell the 'service' back to them for inflated prices and with a lower quality of service than they were getting on their own. Instead of running around preaching how we need to chop down the entire tree, how about we talk about excising the rotten parts of it? Get corporate favoritism out of our government and bring back 'government by the people, FOR THE PEOPLE'.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[GLMDesigns]

Pick up a history book sometime. You will be astounded.

I have. That's why I prefer small, constitutionally limited government over all-powerful states.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[Archangel Michael]

Why do we assume more government is the solution?

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[kwbauer]

If the government did not have the power to grant and enforce a monopoly... Government gets that power when it gets the power to overregulate. If a government only had the power to punish a corporation for unfair business practices (like hiring hired killers to entice ranchers to give up rights of way to railroads if we want to go that far back in history for the abuses) and didn't have the power to grant the railroad exclusive access into an area in the first place...

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[ShanghaiBill]

It is usually the smaller communities, with less knowledge and resources which are easier to co-opt than larger entities.

Perhaps. But if you don't like the government, it is easier to move to a different town than a different country.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[Archangel Michael]

Actually, it is collusion between government and businesses that are causing the problem. BIGCORP lobbies congress for protection from competition, paying huge campaign donations, and getting laws that prevent small cooperatives from ever forming.

No, the problem isn't where you think it is, because a free economy has no artificial barriers. Think about it, the Franchise agreements between cable companies and municipalities are government/business ventures that prevent actual competition.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[kwbauer]

How will a small community project be taken over by a big corporation? It will only happen if the small community's government agrees or if the larger government around the small community (state or more likely federal) uses overreaching regulatory power to force the small community to acquiesce. I doubt that you can find any modern examples of a big corporation forcibly taking over a community project using hired killers and such. But making nonsense claims about the evilness of corporations sure does make a good slogan for why communism is good. We will just ignore the fact that communism results in the largest, greediest corporation possible being in charge of a country. That makes for a not so good slogan.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[kwbauer]

Well, having the "Central Committee" run the show is a worse solution as you then having a single corporation controlling everything. I haven't seen that the European feudal model works any better.

The less control a government can take, the less power it has and the less reason for corporations to control it.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[imgod2u]

It's funny. In Europe, people trust the government more than corporations. So it's usually the government screwing them over.

In the US, people trust companies more than governments. And it's usually the companies screwing them over.

Just because it's not a "government" doesn't mean it can't get big and centralized enough to become abusive. Especially when it provides what, in the first world, has become a near-essential good/service. See, for example, Comcast.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[imgod2u]

Think that one through. We'd be without:

1. Non-cluttered public streets.
2. National parks.
3. Non-cluttered, no-charge freeways.
4. Patents.
5. Copyrights.
6. Cell phones and radios that work 10% of the time.

Say what you want about how poorly they're implemented in the US, those things have uses in a modern society. You can look to some areas of India to see what a cluster-fuck letting anybody build anything they want on shared public land will do.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[Herkum01]

Smaller or larger government is the size of the entity, not the quality. I guess it is easy to focus on that rather than "how smart the government is!". It is just like any other organization of people. A major difference between a government and a corporation is the government has to interact with a number of people and groups on things it has no knowledge about. That somehow a smaller government, which has broader responsibilities and fewer resources is going to out perform or negotiate someone like Comcast, is just unlikely.

So a larger government is more likely to outperform a smaller one it is just not a guarantee, like everything else in life.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[MightyMartian]

It depends on the problem. If you're talking about large scale multi-regional infrastructure, well, that's what the Federal Government was designed for when it was rebooted after the failure of the Articles of Confederation. Now I applaud these people in rural areas for taking the initiative (and hope they don't run afoul of the same Big ISP attacks that their urban cousins have suffered when daring to put in their own infrastructure), but the fact that they have to cobble together their own solutions to get access to 21st century communications systems is a sad testament to state and Federal level failure to take the lead on delivering such access.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[ShanghaiBill]

Companies like to strong arm small communities as presented in the article you linked to...

That is not what the article says. It describes STATE governments placing restrictions on local governments.

that's not the government doing that..

Yes it is.

it's the private sector.

The corporations are only able to do this because the government is too big and too centralized.

So you think that weakening the government and strengthening the private sector ...

Power to make broadband decisions should be at the local level, not the state level. States that leave the decisions up to local jurisdictions have better coverage and lower prices.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[MightyMartian]

They'll just make sure the state government makes the project illegal.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[HornWumpus]

India is a libertarian place now?

Nonsense. India is a corrupt over and mis regulated shithole. They can build anywhere they can afford the bribes to get access to.

'India' is an argument against strong corrupt Clinton style government.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[KingMotley]

Going by that logic, you'd be better off hiring 100 people to go cut your lawn, because a larger lawn cutting team is more likely to outperform a smaller one. And this way, you get to pay for all 100 people, and you don't get to pick them, and if they burn your grass or don't show up on time (or drunk), you can't do anything about it because you didn't hire them.

But every 4 years you get to decide if you want to hire the group that says the reason they can't get your lawn cause is because they need another 10 people to do study on why the other 100 are useless, so they need to raise the rate you pay them by 10%. Of course the other group which may just put 98 of those 100 useless government workers (I mean lawn care specialists) out of a job, but that seems like the more logical choice to me.

Enjoy.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[Noamin]

You understand that large corporations are the "centralized monster... controlled by any remote faction of people" you're talking about here, not government, right? The problem is that Comcast and Charter won't do anything to help, but also will devote significant resources to preventing anyone else from helping so that they can swoop in the moment things look profitable enough. Calling for less government and more privatization in a situation like this is insane. The privatization is the problem. You don't see the postal service completely refusing to serve people because it's just not in their own selfish best interests.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[Rick Schumann]

Massive campaign reforms, for one.
Voting out politicians who clearly don't have the American people's best interests at heart for another.
Shotguns loaded with rolls of dimes, and guillotines, if necessary.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[liquid_schwartz]

I guess it is easy to focus on that rather than "how smart the government is!".

It's a lonely position you have if you're trying to say that the government is smart. Counter examples abound and even when the government is smart in a narrow area (ie NSA tapped the entire friggin internet and just about every device with a microphone, pretty amazing) they fail in the larger sense (think deficits and social security promises that can't be kept).

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[Calydor]

By YOUR logic, all work should only be done by a single person ever to avoid hiring too many. I do trust it's harder for a nefarious player (eg., ISP lobby) to bribe a thousand people than to bribe one person.

Re: Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[SuperKendall]

What do you lobbying leads to?

Regulatons are not formed in a vaccum. The smaller government is, the less lobbying matters to ANYONE.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

Going by that logic, you'd be better off hiring 100 people to go cut your lawn, because a larger lawn cutting team is more likely to outperform a smaller one. And this way, you get to pay for all 100 people, and you don't get to pick them, and if they burn your grass or don't show up on time (or drunk), you can't do anything about it because you didn't hire them.

I'll give you a choice, a lazy teenager to cut your lawn with a rink-a-dink mower, or a professional lawn crew with a ZTR mower.

Which do you choose?

You might not care, if you have a tiny bitty lawn, but as your lawn grows, and things get more significant, maybe you start to look at the other side.

But every 4 years you get to decide if you want to hire the group that says the reason they can't get your lawn cause is because they need another 10 people to do study on why the other 100 are useless, so they need to raise the rate you pay them by 10%. Of course the other group which may just put 98 of those 100 useless government workers (I mean lawn care specialists) out of a job, but that seems like the more logical choice to me.

I don't see any logic in this, just random sputtering. Did you forget how to make your words form some kind of cognizable point?

Enjoy.

Well, you did produce something laughable, but with Archangel Michael and SuperKendall in the thread, it's kinda redundant, so why don't you just quit?

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[JohnFen]

It's funny. In Europe, people trust the government more than corporations.

I'm an American, and I trust the government more than corporations. Not that either of them are all that trustworthy, of course.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[JohnFen]

Actually, it is collusion between government and businesses that are causing the problem.

Bingo.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[JohnFen]

the less reason for corporations to control it.

Exactly, because in that scenario, the corporation already have the power and become the defacto government.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[lucasnate1]

The main conclusion from your comment is not that government has to suck, but that the current algorithm for democracy needs to be replaced.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[PopeRatzo]

Yet another reason to support smaller government whenever possible, and not allow a centralized monster to take over that can be controlled by any remote faction of people...

Just look at how successful small rural governments were in building the interstate highway system.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[Khyber]

" Non-cluttered, no-charge freeways."

I can tell you don't live any where near a metropolitan area.

"Non-cluttered public streets."

See above.

"Patents."

Good. Get fucking rid of the abused things.

"Copyrights."

Good. Get rid of it.

"Cell phones and radios that work 10% of the time."

Good, give me one that works 100% of the time.

The only real negative out of that entire list of yours is the national parks. Let's try making a better list to prove your point, eh?

Re: Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[dryeo]

How does small government help when the corporations just write the law. You can have a one person legislature, rubber stamping the corporate (or trust or other large private organization if we get rid of corporations) written law. We can shrink the government down to one judge. If that judge is corrupt and always rules in the favour of whoever pays him off, how is that better. History already shows that one corrupt judge can empower private, non-government police forces (Pinkertons) to act just as bad as a government
As others said, the problem is bad government, and if we get rid of government, whoever fills the vacuum could be just as bad.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[ChrisMaple]

The concept of self-responsibility is obviously outside your experience. Just how do you think it is possible to bribe yourself?

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[ChrisMaple]

National Parks have become one of the most blatant thefts of private property imaginable.
The federal government should own no property other than military bases.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[ChrisMaple]

Grow a brain, and stop spouting meaningless slogans like "Check your privilege."
The C.S.A. was in no way a limited government, its constitution mandated slavery be allowed in all states.

Re: Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[ChrisMaple]

Government is neither the only source of education nor the best source of education.
Government is not the source of food safety. Government does not make the food I grow safe.
Government is not the primary source of medical care, and in a free society very little medical care comes from the government.

Government comes into picture when the private parties fail and people die.

You got that right. When the government is in the picture, people die. For instance, in gas chambers.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[whit3]

Why do we assume more government is the solution?

We just have to recall the similar situation before rural electrification (sponsored by the Rural Electrification Act, 1936, and an alphabet agency in FDR's New Deal).

Mostly, cities had local power companies at the time, but those companies had no plan for long-range power lines (hadn't developed suitable transformers or studied the problem, even). So, a task force was set up to consider the technical and financial challenges, using a central plan and with powers, like eminent domain, that a commercial outfit couldn't wield. Powers that didn't stop at a city limit or county line or state border.

By the time WWII started, there were dozens of offshoots, and the beginnings of a real national energy grid. Oak Ridge, Tennessee had enough electric power available to... enrich isotopes. That wouldn't have happened without federal efforts, and loan guarantees.

So, when we see data channels not reaching the more rural parts of our very large country, we can find a good precedent for ways to solve the problem. Financing dozens of 'owners' to develop trade secrets and proprietary hardware with secret innards, isn't how to do it. That way lies madness, and incompatible networking standards from before TCP/IP (the 'internet') are that madness. Just as the data standards are public, so the communication channels (like roads) should, for best benefit, serve as many leaf nodes as possible, with no one excluded from connection.

Renting from a monopoly landlord isn't working. Buying with municipal funds (like roads) DOES work.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[Duhavid]

That might be an argument for smaller government. It is an even better reason to completely disallow corporate influence over government at any size.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[AmiMoJo]

In Europe people see the government as their agent, not some external force that they have no ability to influence. Politics isn't quite as fucked in Europe as it is in the US yet, although the UK is trying really really hard to get there.

Anyway, when you look objectively as European governments, or at least the more progressive ones and the EU, they tend to look out for individuals and protect them from corporations. Consumer law and human rights are much stronger than in the US, largely thanks to the EU and the progressive countries at the heart of it.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[AmiMoJo]

Of course the other group which may just put 98 of those 100 useless government workers (I mean lawn care specialists) out of a job

So fire anyone who could keep them honest, keep all the money for themselves and your lawn still won't look any better.

Maybe it's possible that there is some good number in between 2 and 100, and corporations aren't magically able to divine it any better than government can.

Also, if government does end up with a few too many people because it has really strong worker's rights, I'm actually okay with that because the pay tends to be below industry levels and their conditions set a benchmark to measure the private sector against.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[Duhavid]

"You can't even have somebody else to enforce your property rights, but have to go with the government."

Who would you recommend?

Yourself? Easy to overcome, two or more people wanting what you have, and you don't have anymore. Even one person, better armed, sneaker, luckier, etc'ier.

Yourself and a private army? You have to have money/power/etc to make this work. I don't know about you, but I can't see this as leading to anything but a feudal system of warlords battling to defend what they have when relatively weak and battling to grab more when they are relatively strong. And what about those who dont have?

Corporate "protection"? If they are what keeps you in what is "yours", how long will that last? Either they will adopt the above, and become a warlord, or they will bleed you dry in fees, until they own what was once yours.

Government came out of the "Yourself and a private army" model. And if that is what you have, well, that sucks.

Today, however, we have the ideal ( that we seem to be creeping away from ) of a government composed of, guided by "we the people". Until people become a whole lot wiser and kinder, it sucks, but it is better than the other options.

Re: Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[Duhavid]

Government is the only thing that has made education something available to the general populace. Sure, technically, individual parents can educate their kids, but not evenly and to a great extent. Not well, in general. Not past the very basics ( speaking the native language, maybe a bit of math and writing ). Do for profit entities do it better? Sure, if you can pay. And that leads us straight into a whole lot of ugly. Class divisions. To the extent that our democratic trappings work, they will surely stop working.

Government, here in the US was not involved in food safety for a long time. Corporations, intent on maximizing profits, would regularly, intentionally put food they knew fully was not safe out for sale. Lots of people died. Yes, government has most assuredly made the food you eat safer.

Government could be a source of medical care. Or not. It should certainly ensure that standards are met in how care is given.

Government can be a source of many evils, including mass death. It is important to keep it in check, watching it carefully and continually. Not allowing the powerful to amass more power within or using it. Not allowing the various branches to be corrupted or influenced, as we have. Or why do corporations make campaign contributions? When a corporation makes a donation to a charity, they emblazon it across the store/news, so you will know what great people they are. Why do they hide the campaign contributions? Why do they make them at all? They expect a return. If that is not bribery and corruption, what is?

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[Duhavid]

Or, ( radical notion, I know ), give the government the correct amount of power to do it's job, make it answerable to the general populace, and remove corporate influence over the government.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[houghi]

The difference is that if a company screw me over in Europe, I can go to the government and they will sort it out for me. Laws are put into place to give me more power so the playing field is even.
If a government screws me over in the US and I go to a company, they will look what is good for them and take action. In fact they do not even wait to see if I get screwed over, they just lobby already.

Concerning providers, I always had several companies I can select from. In Belgium there need to be at least 3 cellphone operators by law.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

So, a task force was set up to consider the technical and financial challenges, using a central plan and with powers, like eminent domain, that a commercial outfit couldn't wield. Powers that didn't stop at a city limit or county line or state border.

Wouldn't work today. With NIMBYs filing legal challenges to each and every attempted action, hippies demanding environmental impact studies, and threatened corporate entities lobbying and bribing, no progress would be made due to the legal hurdles. Even if the authority was spelled out clearly in an act of Congress, don't think every court at every level won't want the chance to hear each case and extract their own pound of flesh.

By the time WWII started, there were dozens of offshoots, and the beginnings of a real national energy grid. Oak Ridge, Tennessee had enough electric power available to... enrich isotopes. That wouldn't have happened without federal efforts, and loan guarantees.

Agreed. Again, I don't think it would work today, but the world was a different place back then. People valued progress. And it worked.

So, when we see data channels not reaching the more rural parts of our very large country, we can find a good precedent for ways to solve the problem.

I doubt it would work again, but what the hell, it's probably worth a shot.

Financing dozens of 'owners' to develop trade secrets and proprietary hardware with secret innards, isn't how to do it. That way lies madness, and incompatible networking standards from before TCP/IP (the 'internet') are that madness.

This is absolutely true.

Re: Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[JohnFen]

When the government is in the picture, people die.

The same thing is true when corporations are in the picture.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[thinkwaitfast]

I live in a very rural area. So rural in fact that my house is off grid with the exception of broadband internet (don't know how this happened).

Anyway, my neighbors seem to be ditching it in favour of smartphones. Most couldn't afford both and phones are sufficient for everything that people out here use the internet for (amazon, ebay, weather, news, email and farm ville). Does it really make sense to cater to the 3 / 7,000 people in 30 km^2 who really could utilize a high speed connection to the home?

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[thinkwaitfast]

Good. Get fucking rid of the abused things.

Without patents (now expired and free for anyone to use, not that it matters because they've become obsolete), three years of my life as well as my life savings would have been taken by a much larger competing company (hey, hundreds of thousands of dollars free r&d) as soon as they bought one and took it apart.

Yes, that really happened.

Re: Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[SuperKendall]

I am pretty tired of how utterly stupid Slashdot posters get when it comes to politics.

Doesn't matter who is writing the law if the law affects only a few people, then the people can easily escape it. That's why limiting what powers federal government has over anyone is the ultimate protection.

Re: Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[dryeo]

That's why limiting what powers federal government has over anyone is the ultimate protection.

There's been experiments along those lines. Take a look at the American Constitution for one example. Unluckily that experiment only showed that governments will take more power then they're constitutionally entitled to for whatever reasons sound good that day.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[ArylAkamov]

Companies like to strong arm small communities as presented in the article you linked to... that's not the government doing that..

It's not the government creating laws making this difficult? Did you think this through?

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[KingMotley]

So fire anyone who could keep them honest, keep all the money for themselves and your lawn still won't look any better.

I'd rather be paying 2 dishonest guys to do a crappy job of cutting my lawn than 100 worthless guys to do a crappy job of cutting my lawn. Making the lawn cutting team larger doesn't mean it'll get automatically be better, but it will automatically mean it'll cost more. Even if it is "better", I doubt it is 50 times better than the job the 2 guys would do.

Also, if government does end up with a few too many people because it has really strong worker's rights, I'm actually okay with that because the pay tends to be below industry levels and their conditions set a benchmark to measure the private sector against.

You might be ok with that because you don't see what actually goes on in the government. I've been involved enough that I see just how ridiculous it really is. Below industry levels? Really? Where and when did that ever happen?

Should I tell you the story about the mid-level government worker who was so incompetent, yet unable to be fired he had all responsibilities stripped from him except one simple data entry responsibility that should have taken 30 minutes a day to do, yet never got done? It got outsourced to a private company eventually, and he just clicked a button everyday and got reports on what the private company did. He never read the reports, and clicked that button once a week instead of the daily he was supposed to. And he got paid silly amounts of money to do it on top of the silly good benefits.

Or maybe the mid/high level government employee who traveled all over the world and got financial budgets passed to do TV commercials so they could set themselves up in the private sector to start their own company? Oh yeah, this was during the recession too.

If you think the best way is to make the government larger so we can get more of that in a larger scale, well... You need to spend some quality time working with the government. It really will open your eyes. Smaller, more local governments work much better in every case I've seen. Even then there is so much fat and waste that we could probably lose half the government workers and not notice a difference.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[r2rknot]

Smaller Governments are more responsive. Because your leadership eats and lives in the same community as everyone else. Because it is easier to rally the community around a specific idea. And because it allows communities to have different values. If one is socially conservative, you can simply move somewhere they are not. It is also harder for companies to interact with the multitude of smaller governments because of the sheer numbers.

Ass opposed to regulatory capture, which has, and is currently happening today. That uses the force of the federal government to met out rules and regulations from one point.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[Dutchmaan]

Oh so you think that the government creating laws benefiting big corporations will be solved by taking power away from the government, thus increasing the power big business has? The government may be malfunctioning, but weakening it and giving power big business to do as it pleases without restriction isn't the answer. The problem of lobbying is the issue, not the government itself.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[ArylAkamov]

so you think that the government creating laws benefiting big corporations will be solved by taking power away from the government

Yes, I do. Corporations cannot pass laws, a powerful government can. A smaller government without the authority to make these laws cannot make these laws.

Re:Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsense

[Dutchmaan]

You seem to be missing the point, what's the difference between a company using IT'S OWN power to strong arm communities if there's nothing there to stop them and a well lobbied government allowing them to do it.

The government is there for the people's interest, if it's not working in the people's interests, it's up to THE PEOPLE to fix it, not dismantle the very tool they have to wield against such corruption.

Perhaps we're talking about the same solution from different perspectives.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe if they had reliable internet they'd be more educated and exposed to the outside world and possibly not vote for Trump in the first place.

Fuck you, AT&T and others!

[DontBeAMoran]

We're going go build our own Internet, with blackjack and hookers! In fact, forget the blackjack!

Re:Fuck you, AT&T and others!

[DontBeAMoran]

I didn't fuck the quote up at all. I had to change it because the original phrasing makes no sense if you replace "theme park" with "internet". Without internet you got no blackjack (gambling sites) and no hookers (porn sites).

Regulated as a utility

[DogDude]

Internet access should be treated like a utility. Everybody in the US should have access to affordable, reliable Internet access.

If the red state rubes want to keep voting against their best interests, then fuck 'em. Let them pay for their own Internet access.

Re:Regulated as a utility

[ShanghaiBill]

Everybody in the US should have access to affordable, reliable Internet access.
... then fuck 'em. Let them pay for their own Internet access.

These two sentences express opposite views.

Re:Regulated as a utility

[DogDude]

Everybody in the US has access to reliable, affordable electricity, no matter where they are. Internet access should be the same.

Re:Regulated as a utility

[ChrisMaple]

Everybody in the US has access to reliable, affordable electricity, no matter where they are.

That statement is demonstrably false to the point of being silly..

Re:Regulated as a utility

[ChrisMaple]

It wasn't funny the first time you posted that. Now it's just tiresome.

Re:Regulated as a utility

[ShanghaiBill]

Everybody in the US has access to reliable, affordable electricity, no matter where they are.

No they don't. Nor should they. If you choose to live on a remote Aleutian island, that is YOUR choice, and nobody else should be forced to subsidize you.

Re:Regulated as a utility

[Agripa]

Internet access should be treated like a utility.

It is treated like a utility with the government mandating that only one or two companies provide it.

Re:Why?

[Archangel Michael]

The implication is that Clinton would have been different. She wouldn't have been, and would probably be worse, since her entire political career was made on the backs of Corporate and International Cronyism. Google "Clinton Foundation pay to play"

Re:Why?

[dasgoober]

Better than having access to that Rachel Maddow twat-waffle, or thinking that John Oliver is a real journalist.

Re:Why?

[ShanghaiBill]

As soon as you educate an Appalachian, they realize that the sensible thing to do is to move somewhere else.

I grew up in the Cumberland coal region of eastern Tennessee, and in my HS graduating class, everyone with better than a 3.5 GPA has moved elsewhere.

We graduated on a Wednesday. I left on Thursday.

Re:Doing something yourself

[blackomegax]

Yeah? Next time your house is on fire, put it out yourself.

Internet Exchange

[im_thatoneguy]

I would be interested in wireless internet myself. There are some condos near my house that have gigabit but I "only" get 250mbps/10mbps internet. (Honestly upload is the only thing that still bothers me with the internet). I would happily pay someone to put a small 7" antenna in their window for a wireless gateway and pay them like $10 a month or something for the window lease.

There should be a craigslist section for connecting people with gigabit to those who want it.

Re:Internet Exchange

[HornWumpus]

Would ten bucks a month, plus collection hassle, be enough for your trouble if the positions were reversed?

There's your problem. Offer them half and they might start to consider it.

Re:Internet Exchange

[im_thatoneguy]

True, but I was assuming I would pay the $100/month for their bandwidth too.

Modem -> EdgeRouter -> PTP Wifi & local AP -> PTP Wifi -> AP.

Re:Why?

[imgod2u]

If two are equally corrupt (assuming that's the case), I'd prefer the competent one who has a history of at least getting positive laws passed.

Even if you agree with Trump's platform, his ability to actually bring forth any progress on implementing it has been...disastrous.

Re:Why?

[MightyMartian]

Clinton at least acknowledged that some of the industries in question (ie. coal) were dying, and that the Federal government should do more to assist in economic diversification. Trump just told a bunch of people he'd somehow magically make it 1950 again.

Now of course a lot of that would be up to Congress, and maybe Congress wouldn't have been interested in any economic diversification and job retraining that a Clinton Administration wanted to put into action, but then again, it's not as if Congress is showing very much interest in helping out Trump, so maybe you're right, maybe it wouldn't have made a damn bit of difference, but at least Clinton showed some reason and realization of the economic reality of areas like the Appalachians.

Re:good

[kwbauer]

Will you make up your damn minds. First, Trump and supporters are a bunch of communists listening to Putin. Then they are a bunch of Nazis building ovens.

Today they are back to being communists?

I remember being taught a little saying about it being very difficult to keep a lie going because it is more difficult to remember all the lies necessary to keep a lie going than it is to simply remember the truth being told.

This Trump is a communist, Trump is a fascist. Trump is a communist cycle pretty much proves that old saying correct.

1st world problem?

[deckardt]

So... when are people figuring out that the US isn't a 1st world country anymore?

Re:1st world problem?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Well over a decade ago? Where have you been, under a rock? But the best part is that we no longer need to maintain a bloated military and can start bringing the troops home. Smart people have been saying for a long time that the sooner we stop spending money on a massive military to maintain our global hegemony the better. The goal is to no longer be a global hegemony, not to maintain it through other means.

Let's be honest: who wants to be a barbaric bully's friend? Nobody. Certainly not Europe, they've been demanding a US withdrawal forever. The US Global Supremacy era is long over. Time to close the 1,000 military bases across the globe, withdraw to the Western hemisphere, rebuild a crumbling nation. After serial genocides in SE Asia, Central America and now the Middle East, no one can seriously argue the US was a "force for good" over the past 50 years. American descent into a third world cesspool is almost complete.

Re:1st world problem?

[ChrisMaple]

The Nationalists under Chiang Kaishek had the military, the power and the international support, the communists had the workers.

Most of China was moderate sized villages. The communist method of takeover was to enter a village, kill the village elders and have the village assign a new set of elders. If that set didn't obey the communists, they were killed, and so on. There wasn't much of a workforce to be communist; the country was dominantly agricultural, not industrial.

Their own Internet?

[ichthus]

Really?! I wonder if they'll continue to use TCP/IP as the protocol for this new Internet that they're building.

Re:Why?

[HornWumpus]

Corrupt competent is worse than corrupt incompetent. Positive laws? Bullshit.

As to what he's gotten done? He's already saved the second amendment for a generation. Something Hillary was dead set against. When 'old what's her name' kicks off, the supreme court will be good for many decades.

Re: Why?

[Nidi62]

My dad's side of the family lives in Elizabethton near Johnson city. My grandfather was the only one out of 4 kids that got out. There's nothing to do there, but it is a decent place to visit for a long weekend

Isn't it...

[michael_cain]

...amazing what can be done if a bunch of smart people are willing to donate time worth enormous amounts of money. See, for example, GNU/Linux...

Re: Why?

[jnork]

People with degrees in journalism that work for obsolescent dead-tree newspapers, reprint press releases, do no research and have no sense of humor.

Or that the government has declared are "real" journalists because they like how they report. e.g., reprinting press releases without doing any research.

How do they get around

[Kernel Kurtz]

all the bought and paid for state politicians?

Re:Why?

[liquid_schwartz]

I view Trump as rejecting more of the same. Clinton was the very definition of more of the same, particularly as she had already lived in the Whitehouse. It's trying to force change rather than muddle along with corrupt but maybe competent. Not much difference between the frustrations of the Trump voters and the Bernie voters, they both were rejecting more of the same.

Re:Why?

[rcharbon]

I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!

I can't imagine this will go unchallenged

[rsilvergun]

but the mega corps. I remember reading of a small town implementing municipal wifi and how lawyers were parachuted in to wreck it. Far as I know that town never did get reliable Internet. Point is, you can't allow municipal broadband to exist anywhere because once the cat's out of the bag on how cheap and effective it is everyone will want it and AT&T, Cox, Comcast and the whole she-bang will be out of cush job.

Re:Why?

[Noamin]

It's not forcing change. You were upset about the system ignoring you and catering too much to rich buffoons who don't deserve the power they've inherited and won't use it to help anyone but themselves... so you elected a rich buffoon who doesn't deserve the power he's inherited and won't use it to help anyone but himself. All you did was cut out the middleman. There is no vote that is more in favor of "more of the same" than a vote for Donald Trump. Trump is everything that was already wrong with the system.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

What a stupid fucking argument. The 2nd amendment was never under ANY duress. I'm tired of this moronic NRA talking point. To get rid of the 2nd amendment it would take another amendment! No one anywhere has even drafted a constitutional amendment to even tweak the 2nd. No one was ever going to take away our guns. This is not Australia and quite frankly there is no sensible reason in this day and age that licensing your guns would be a bad idea.

The reason we have to get a drivers' license today is because a lot of people were stupid on the road and getting many more killed. A great number of gun owners don't take guns seriously. They argue about always keeping a round in the chamber like you're in the military. The one second it takes to chamber a round is not going to make any difference when you're hunting or trying to protect your house during a home invasion. Instead it adds a whole lot of risk and results in accidental discharge everyday somewhere in the country leading to more people wanting more restrictions on guns. Personal responsibility is sorely lacking among gun owners. There are plenty of gun enthusiasts who do take it seriously but the idiots ruin it for all of us.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

The implication is that Clinton would have been different. She wouldn't have been, and would probably be worse, since her entire political career was made on the backs of Corporate and International Cronyism. Google "Clinton Foundation pay to play"

Tell that to the trans folks in the US military. Also, would Clinton have appointed someone who is planning to repeal net neutrality?

Clinton would have been different, in some ways better and in some ways worse. Though in general it's hard to see how anyone could be worse than Trump et al.

Re:Why?

[Noamin]

Actually, Trump motivating Three Percenters and other racist groups to openly brandish guns to threaten people in public spaces is probably the best thing that has happened to the argument for restricting gun ownership in decades. They're making the clearest possible argument for why people like them should not be allowed to own weapons. Also, I don't know how you got to thinking that you being too ignorant to know people's names or policy records reflects poorly on your opponent instead of yourself, but it doesn't. Just a tip.

Fiber optic cable

[PPH]

... into rocky Appalachian soil

Ummm. Run it overhead?

With the power lines. On the same poles.

I was in on that sort of thing once

[JohnFen]

A good friend of mine was outside of broadband territory (well, he could get DSL, but it was expensive, very unreliable, and barely faster than a 56k modem), so we set up a "micro-ISP" with a microwave link relayed into the nearest town.

It wasn't exactly cheap -- I think he spent around $10k all in -- but he got his neighbors in on it to share costs. Now, there's a group of about 20 people who went from effectively no broadband to better broadband than most people in the city are getting.

Re:I was in on that sort of thing once

[UnderCoverPenguin]

Question: Were they able to get service without being forced to give all their equipment to an existing ISP in the nearby town?

I ask because other, similar, efforts, that I am familiar with, by groups of private citizens were refused service unless they agreed to give the system they built (and paid for) to an existing ISP.

Re:I was in on that sort of thing once

[aaarrrgggh]

The common scenario is that either you establish yourself as an ISP, or you are forced to pay the equipment cost. Most communities are better off with the latter approach, as running an ISP is a pain without scale.

Re:I was in on that sort of thing once

[JohnFen]

Question: Were they able to get service without being forced to give all their equipment to an existing ISP in the nearby town?

I ask because other, similar, efforts, that I am familiar with, by groups of private citizens were refused service unless they agreed to give the system they built (and paid for) to an existing ISP.

There are three providers in the area that can supply internet over a microwave link. None of them required that they own any of the equipment, but all of them had specific requirements for the portion of the equipment that had to be on their site (and, obviously, some of the equipment has to be on their site -- and they are the ones who operate that part).

We went with the one that worked the best for the sightlines we had. We also had to install a repeater on the roof of a private residence in order to make a bend.

Re:Why?

[Khyber]

"This is not Australia and quite frankly there is no sensible reason in this day and age that licensing your guns would be a bad idea."

We're moving to energy weapons. You have fun with your inaccurate loud as fuck guns, sonny boy. Meanwhile we'l sit here with our lasers fucking your eyes with no remorse and no license required!

Americans writing about Internet == Funny

[rbrander]

"We have crappy Internet provision because of Big Government!"

"Yeah! Let's make our government even less like those in France, Germany, and Scandinavia where the Internet access is several times as good."

And to fend off the inevitable "But we have it harder because the US is less dense than Europe!"

1) You are not less dense than Canada and Australia
2) US Internet provision sucks in US cities, too, and they are quite dense

You do not have crappy Internet because of "corrupt Clinton-style government". You have it because of not-technically-corrupt government that is *influenced* by large corporations that have an oligopoly on service provision. This influence is bipartisan, with a slight preference for Republican. (Until Trump, whose level of revolving-door state/corporate appointments has hit a new level.)

Re:Americans writing about Internet == Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

"We have crappy Internet provision because of Big Government!"

"Yeah! Let's make our government even less like those in France, Germany, and Scandinavia where the Internet access is several times as good."

And to fend off the inevitable "But we have it harder because the US is less dense than Europe!"

1) You are not less dense than Canada and Australia
2) US Internet provision sucks in US cities, too, and they are quite dense

You do not have crappy Internet because of "corrupt Clinton-style government". You have it because of not-technically-corrupt government that is *influenced* by large corporations that have an oligopoly on service provision. This influence is bipartisan, with a slight preference for Republican. (Until Trump, whose level of revolving-door state/corporate appointments has hit a new level.)

And Australian internet is worse than US...

Re:Americans writing about Internet == Funny

[Dunavant]

I would invite you to do a quick google image search for "Cell coverage in canada" and "cell coverage in australia" and "cell coverage in the united states". Do the same for "population density". Canada's north is mostly empty. Australia's interior is the same. The US has people basically everywhere except a few small locations because most of the US is habitable land. Per-capita they may be less dense than the US, but their actual populations tend to be clustered making the statistics misleading. The US has a lot more people that are spread out a lot more. The US really is harder to provide land-based infrastructure for people in these rural areas, but at least for cell coverage, they are arguably doing better for providing access in rural areas than either of your examples.

Re:Americans writing about Internet == Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't speak for Canada but my home country of Australia has all the population centres on the coast, it's not a valid comparison to draw my country in to a talk about density.

Re:Americans writing about Internet == Funny

[rbrander]

All three are comparable because all three at least *have* a lot of space, but don't use it, being 80% or more urban. Whether you have the rest evenly distributed in exurbs or semi-clumped in small towns, the 80% of ratepayers in urban areas pretty much ensures pretty good service overall. Or should, where the regulator enforces transparency and high standards.

Point to point WiFi

[Anonymous Coward]

Live nearby DC, but given how rural, there's no way that cable or fios makes sense. Enter a small isp, provides Netflix able bandwidth. My antenna points to a neighbors house omni, their other antenna points to the isps on a ridge miles away. It's reasonably priced, and stays up really well.

(Oh, thought I'd make this nerd ish post vs yall blathering about hrc v trump )

Re:Why?

[ChrisMaple]

Hillary has openly announced her opposition to both the first and second amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Like Obama, her intention was to just ignore any law she didn't like.

Re:Why?

[ChrisMaple]

Did you bother to read Ted Cruz's reason? Two thirds of the money for post-Sandy aid was pork unrelated to hurricane Sandy. Such fiscal malfeasance is why the federal government should not be in the disaster recovery business.

What's that fee on our bills?

[HangingChad]

Haven't we been paying that fee that's supposed to cover building out internet to rural areas. Does that mean the telecos and Comcast have been pocketing the fee and not actually doing the work?

Actually, that would kinda figure, wouldn't it?

Re:Why?

[Gavagai80]

Clinton was the consummate conservative who'd have kept the system as it was -- not good, but not dangerous. She was too deeply entrenched in the system to be a reckless looter. But anyway I'd like to think more educated voters would've made different primary election choices in both parties, and also considered other parties.

Re:Why?

[Gavagai80]

It's funny how 8 years of Obama supposedly tearing up the second amendment simply saw record gun sales. Guess he had the door to door confiscations planned for his 9th year in office.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

/u/dasgoober is a god-damned idiot. Rachel Maddow is one of the best journalists on television today.

Re:Why?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Considering the Clintons only passed laws that increased chaos and decreased the right to life, I'd say I'd rather have somebody with NO history to that.

Re:Doing something yourself

[ChrisMaple]

Install sprinklers. Install smoke and other detectors. Have fire extinguishers.
FWIW, most house fires so thoroughly damage a house that everything that isn't concrete or brick has to be rebuilt. Fire departments save people and keep the fire from spreading beyond the house, but rarely is the house saved. Not their fault; by the time a fire is detected, the fire company alerted and reaches the blaze, the house is already mostly aflame.

Re: Why?

[sg_oneill]

Yes all that real news. How else would the good folk of Appalachia have discovered that Obama was putting chemicals into the water that made the frogs gay

Re: Why?

[KGIII]

Carrying a firearm !== threat, I'm not even sure you can legitimately call it brandishing.

Re:Why?

[f3rret]

...They argue about always keeping a round in the chamber like you're in the military.....

You don't do that in the military though, whether or not you chamber a round depends largely on your current alert state.

Re:Why?

[Dog-Cow]

I don't know about the US military, but if an off-duty IDF soldier was caught with a round chambered, he'd probably never be allowed to touch a firearm within the country again. You don't have to be stupid about guns just because you're military.

Re: Why?

[Dog-Cow]

Were you asleep through the Charlottesville protests? Guns were brandished by hate-filled bigots.

Re:Why?

[Dog-Cow]

Or openly-socialist president, which means a lot more to Sanders than an accident of birth.

Re: Why?

[KGIII]

I saw some video of people carrying firearms. They weren't waving them about in a threatening manner, in any of the video that I saw. I carry a firearm fairly frequently. I'm not even remotely a threat.

If you're curious, I'm very politically left and not white. I'd hate to have you thinking I am a Nazi, or something.

At any rate, do you have some specific footage you'd like me to watch?

Re:Why?

[goose-incarnated]

My prediction last year that if Trump won, his Administration would eventually become so alienated that even Congressional Republicans would turn their back on him is coming true,

Your prediction for last year was, IIRC, that Trump would never win, and that his support was only amongst racists and misogynists. Your prediction was wrong then.

Just don't tell anyone

[zaax]

Like a small in a valley community in Wales - just do it. They put a repeater TV ariel near a mountain top, with the person who owned the areas help, and nobody has questioned it for 50 years. Apparently getting a mobile repeater is going to be more of a problem because the power that is needed, but they might just blanket the valley with Wifi.

The Romanian solution, applied in the USA

[iTrawl]

Romania shows up in top 10 broadband speed constantly and it's not even a developed nation like South Korea. How did they do it?

They were called "neighbourhood networks". People decided to go against common sense and deployed office-rated Cat5 and office-rated switches wherever they could, without asking for permission from anybody. They spanned local city areas and helped jumpstart the speedy broadband revolution. If it were left to the national telecom company Romania would still be on expensive dial-up.

Then a bunch of people with money came and bought the networks and consolidated the market, but the "damage" was already done: can't get away with shitty speeds and high prices anymore. Now you get 1Gb fiber to wherever your computer is located - i.e. without converting to Cat5 in the stairwell, for peanuts. In the cities, anyway. The countryside still gets American-quality connections :)

Why is this astonishing?

[argStyopa]

Who ELSE'S responsibility is it to build something for rural America?

If you don't want to live in one of the sweltering crapholes we call American cities, one of the "costs" is that you don't have as easy access to a host of services, internet broadband being one of them.

They want it, they can pay to build it. And I say this as someone from rural MN where the best broad band we could get until couple of years ago was 10/1 adsl.

Re:Why is this astonishing?

[cmdr_klarg]

Until some asshole big ISP that doesn't want to give you service sends a lawsuit your way stopping you from doing just that. Can't have someone threatening their monopoly.

Re:Why?

[AmiMoJo]

Wow, someone was triggered.

Re:Why?

[AmiMoJo]

When 'old what's her name' kicks off, the supreme court will be good for many decades.

So fuck democracy and having an independent, non-political judiciary, just as long as their views happen to align with yours.

Re: Why?

[pnutjam]

Do you carry it slung across your chest in the ready fire position?

Re: Why?

[ranton]

Who cares if she's against [the first and second amendments]? You need a supermajority to change something in the Constitution. You think anyone can get half is the Republican Party to agree to ban guns?

While I don't agree with the original premise that Hillary was against those amendments, in regards to constitutional issues the argument used by both the left and right is not that the President will push through constitutional amendments. They are worried about Supreme Court justices. A Supreme Court stacked with originalists will interpret some constitutional cases far differently than justices who believe the Constitution evolves with changes to society and culture.

Re: Why?

[silentcoder]

Not just brandished - at least one was fired.

Re:Why?

[Zak3056]

What a stupid fucking argument. The 2nd amendment was never under ANY duress. I'm tired of this moronic NRA talking point. To get rid of the 2nd amendment it would take another amendment! No one anywhere has even drafted a constitutional amendment to even tweak the 2nd. No one was ever going to take away our guns.

This is disingenuous, and ignores the power of the courts. The 4th amendment has been gutted in the last few decades not by another amendment modifying it or repealing it, but by the courts allowing the executive and legislative branches to make end runs around it, or redefining what "reasonable" means. The 5th amendment's right to remain silent was threatened a few years ago (Salinas v Texas) with the Supreme Court saying you have to "invoke" your right to be silent... by saying so. If you don't say so, then your silence can be used against you.

I think OP's suggestion that Trump is somehow responsible for the preservation of the 2nd amendment is, at best, overstated. However, your statement that the 2nd amendment is not under duress is equally so.

Re: Why?

[Zak3056]

Johnson City isn't exactly a place with no opportunity. There is lots of good industry (largely medical/biotech) in the area, ETSU has a good medical school, there are plenty of cultural activities believe it or not, great food and music, etc.

Re: Why?

[KGIII]

If I'm hunting, yes. Slung !== ready to fire (or brandishing).

Where they pointing them at people? I've seen no video that shows this.

Re: Why?

[Nidi62]

My grandfather actually coached at ETSU for years, and I grew up going to their basketball camps. Problem is they live on the opposite side of Elizabethon from JC so it's a good 40-60 minute drive just to get there. The closest thing to entertainment Elizabethon has is a drive in theater and the Elizabethon Twins rookie league team.

Re:Why?

[DontBeAMoran]

Holy crap I simply used the "not vote for Trump" from the previous post and made it into a Quest for the Holy Grail bit and you guys degenerated that into a political crap-fest.

Re:Why?

[Mr D from 63]

You would would prefer the one who's better at getting away with corruption vs the one that can't get away with anything.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you bother to read Ted Cruz's reason? Two thirds of the money for post-Sandy aid was pork unrelated to hurricane Sandy. Such fiscal malfeasance is why the federal government should not be in the disaster recovery business.

Did you bother to fact-check Ted Cruz's reasons? Even if we accept the claim of materials unrelated to Sandy, that doesn't mean that they were pork, they could be related to other disasters of a similar nature. Or NOAA funding. Oh noes, the horrors. Making sure weather predictions are funded.

Of course, given that it was in the House, then it's Ted's own party to blame for any Pork, so go ahead, name names, why don't you?

Let's see the guilty parties identified. Ted could have done that at the time, and proposed removing those things, but he didn't.

Oh wait, Ted was just grand-standing. Well, now the roosters come home, and he's going to have to identify the pork in the bill to pass a clean one.

Oh wait, he won't?

Huh.

Re:Why?

[HornWumpus]

The most non-independent partisan hack of a judge on the SC is named Sotomayor.

A non-political SC isn't on the table. Never was, never will be.

The Ds were overconfident. Or they would have turned over all the geriatric liberal seats during Obama.

Re:Why?

[cthulhu11]

I disagree that not sparking a thermonuclear war with North Korea is worse than sparking it.

Re: Why?

[bestweasel]

Man who opened fire in Charlottesville crowd arrested

Re: Why?

[pnutjam]

You haven't been looking hard enough. I pulled this from a google image search, so I haven't read the article, but the guy in front is clearly carrying in a ready to fire position, the guy in back might be debatable.
Both are clearly there to intimidate.

Re:Why?

[liquid_schwartz]

It's not forcing change. You were upset about the system ignoring you and catering too much to rich buffoons who don't deserve the power they've inherited and won't use it to help anyone but themselves... so you elected a rich buffoon who doesn't deserve the power he's inherited and won't use it to help anyone but himself. All you did was cut out the middleman. There is no vote that is more in favor of "more of the same" than a vote for Donald Trump. Trump is everything that was already wrong with the system.

Keep in mind that breaking the system is a form of change. Who's to say that Trump won't break it yet? In any case it is a form of change because the media narrative was clear - vote for Hillary or else. Enough people chose else that we'll see what happens. In truth Obama was voted in on hope of change also, it was literally a slogan, but he turned out to be as corporate as they come. To be fair only an idiot would trust either a politician from Chicago or Trump, but the desire for change is real and is driving this. If nothing changes, expect more extreme candidates than Trump in the future.

Re:Why?

[HornWumpus]

The rare triple negative, bending space and time. Sentences that can only be diagramed on the surface of a Mobius strip. Username checks out.

Looks around...sees no destruction...Cthulhu11...you're in the wrong timeline...again. Trump won here, hard to believe. Praise Kek!

Re: Don't worry, regulation will end that nonsens

[GonzoPhysicist]

You think that rifle is going to help you in negotiations with Comcast?

Re:good

[kwbauer]

Plenty of Muslims still in the USA and still entering the USA. Perhaps this temporary ban on immigration from a handful of countries is what you erroneously label a "ban on all Muslims". Trump used only the authority granted him under the US Constitution and laws passed by the US Congress well before he even started running for office and were also used the same way by at least his two immediate predecessors.

Plenty of transgenders still in the USA. None have been forced to leave. Perhaps you are referring to the US Military thing. The one where his immediate predecessor acted unilaterally in his last year in office to tell the military what it was going to do (kind of authoritarian/dictatorish) and Trump simply worked with the military leadership and undid that; rolling back the situation to where it had been less than a year prior and then telling the military to take whatever time they wanted to study the situation and let him know if they had valid military reasons for altering the policy. I think using the powers granted to undo dictatorial acts by ones predecessor to reset the situation and then moving forward in a non-dictatorial fashion does not really count as being a dictator. YMMV.

Since we were only "in" the Paris accords because of the signature of a single man who had never bothered to submit those accords to the Senate for ratification to make them enforceable in the US, Trumps actions were, once again, simply undoing the dictatorial actions of his immediate predecessor to reset the situation to the status quo of before his immediate predecessor was in office.

Do you have any examples where Trump "acted like a dictator" that involve him seizing power in a manner not already used many times in the past by Presidents you would claim were not using that same power in a dictatorial manner? Do you have any examples where Trump's actions were not simply undoing an action taken by his immediate predecessor where the immediate predecessor acted just as unilaterally and dictatorially?

Re:Why?

[Agripa]

Even if you agree with Trump's platform, his ability to actually bring forth any progress on implementing it has been...disastrous.

And if you prefer gridlock to anything done, then Trump was the right choice.

Re:Why?

[Agripa]

What a stupid fucking argument. The 2nd amendment was never under ANY duress.

Heller was a 5 to 4 decision and even with a majority agreement, lower courts are still not upholding it.

Re:Why?

[Agripa]

We're moving to energy weapons. You have fun with your inaccurate loud as fuck guns, sonny boy. Meanwhile we'l sit here with our lasers fucking your eyes with no remorse and no license required!

Various space opera films show that chemically powered slug throwers are still competitive.

Re:Why?

[ebvwfbw]

What a stupid fucking argument. The 2nd amendment was never under ANY duress. I'm tired of this moronic NRA talking point.

Talking point, as if it's somehow not valid?
All one has to do is look at places like Chicago, New York City and now states like California and New Jersey. They keep passing clearly illegal laws. When they're struck down they don't care, they pass something else like little petulant children. We never see things like this applied to the 1st Amendment. For example - let's have people who do the news be licensed. They have to go to a school, pass a test and if they abuse it, they get locked up for decades. No more of this publish a lie, then a retraction on page 50 shit.

Re:Why?

[Khyber]

Good luck aiming with no eyesight. ;)

Re: Why?

[geekymachoman]

> If you're curious, I'm very politically left and not white. I'd hate to have you thinking I am a Nazi, or something.

Well, you can be fascist or somewhere around there, if you were black, and on the left.
Look at Antifa. I'm sure there are quite a few blacks there.

But thanks for letting us know! Let's hope we don't see any white man carrying weapons!

So, if I'm reading this right

[eric_harris_76]

So, if I'm reading this right, ISPs like Comcast are so bad at providing Internet service in some places that backwater local governments and plucky rag-tag bands of amateurs are able to do what those ISPs don't, can't, or won't

Have they considered hiring out their hard-won expertise?

Probably not. For one thing, they'd probably need all sorts of licenses and permits and registrations and certifications to protect, uh, the public. That's it. To protect the public.

Re: Why?

[slashdotwannabe]

*Cough* bullshit. This is where a citation or three will keep you from looking like a moronic neckbeard.