You sure about that? Pre christian roman, ancient chinese, and ancient egypt all have instances of same sex marriages.
Quite sure. Some cultures were tolerant of homosexuality itself (even if they mocked it a bit), but none equated homosexual unions with marriage.
Roman Empire's equivalent of gay marriage was banned in the 3rd century Roman Empire, where it had previously been legal.
What "equivalent of gay marriage"?
Your sense of the word marry as being specifically man to female is clearly proto-Christian
No, it is "proto-human". Probably, "proto-mammal"... Christians added the monogamy requirement (though it was not strict and even officially suspended it, when reality required), but it was always "hetero".
Anthropologists say that some type of marriage has been found in every known human society since ancient times.
Exactly. And the primary (if not the only) purpose of it — always and everywhere — was to rear children. And where did those children come from? Adoption? Surrogate mothers?
The idea that it necessarily and inherently implies straight is as ridiculous as the idea that it implies male ownership of the bride as chattel
I fail to see, how a union of one male and one female must imply the former's ownership of the latter. It seems, you are repeating somebody else's talking points without fully understanding them yourself...
drugs are increasingly being tested on homeless, destitute and mentally ill people
This is an outrage and a waste. We must switch to testing on the successful and the smart, who have nothing else to contribute anyway!
Second, it turns out many human trials are being run by doctors who have had their licenses revoked for drug addiction, malpractice and worse
Sure, malpractice, drug addiction and, especially, the unspecified "worse" are known to cause people to quickly forget all the training they've ever received in the medical school, and all the practice they got before losing their license.
Arbitrarily redefining the terms to suit your argument doesn't make you right, and ins't a valid form.
I am in full agreement with you here. Unfortunately, that — redefining the terms — is exactly, what proponents of "gay marriage" want the rest of us to do. They want the society to change the meaning of the word "marriage" to include homosexual unions (which no civilization in the history of the world has ever equated with regular marriage). You found "paraplegic karate" to be ridiculous — well, "gay marriage" is equally non-sensical...
Gays want to be "married". We all KNOW what they mean by that.
Yeah, they want the recognition — both societal and legal — that has hitherto been given only to the heterosexual couples, to be given to homosexual unions as well. Whether such recognition is a good idea or not, I don't believe it to be a human right — and that is how this subtopic started, when somebody up above equated Iran's handling of their gays with America's treatment of ours.
I was not suggesting that the law prevented gays from entering into straight marriages.
"Straight marriage" is just as much a tautology, as "gay marriage" is a self-contradiction (think "meatless steak")...
Having an "equal opportunity" President is proving to be so popular, I can't wait for Mr. Jackson to be treated by an "equal opportunity" heart surgeon...
fessed up to having a tech workforce that's only 1% Black, apparently par for the course in Silicon Valley.
Not only is Silicon Valley young and Illiberal, they are also working on developing their businesses and would not sabotage their start-ups' success by turning away real talent.
Whatever the problem is, Silicon Valley's "racism" ain't it...
There are, indeed, organizations trying to keep the semantics of the term "marriage" from being redefined to include same-sex partners.
Nobody is out there trying to prevent homosexuals from marrying somebody of the opposite sex. It is not the law, that prevents them from entering into marriage, it is their own biology (or preference, or whatever).
No amount of policy change is going to help a paralyzed person do karate.
Not true. If we redefine, what "karate" means — creating, for example, a "paralyzed karate" (the way some wish to create a "homosexual marriage") and equating this new creation with the real karate (the way some wish to equate homosexual unions with real marriage) — we will have, magically, allowed a paralyzed person to practice the sport. Wouldn't that be terrific?
Re:Such practices REDUCE profit and kill companies
on
Comcast Confessions
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· Score: 1
While you were sleeping, Rip Van Winkle, exclusive local franchise agreements (the crux of that paper) were made illegal by the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
Such practices REDUCE profit and kill companies
on
Comcast Confessions
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· Score: 1
painted a picture of a corporation overrun by the neverending quest for greater profit.
A typical anti-Capitalism drivel. The listed practices reduce profit and cause the company to either collapse or be taken over — unless it has powerful friends in government.
From the article: 'These employees told us the same stories over and over again: customer service has been replaced by an obsession with sales, technicians are understaffed and tech support is poorly trained, and the massive company is hobbled by internal fragmentation.
Yep, that's what leads to losing money. Few can survive it without being a monopoly.
It may well be that she wanted him to delete the tweet, and it may well be that she threatened to call the police, but those may be close in time and not otherwise related.
The first — demanding, he deletes a tweet — is enough, even if the threat of calling police didn't happen or was due to something else. Because if the man is doing something criminal, then he should be prosecuted regardless of whether or not he deletes a tweet. And if he is not, then the threat is that of malicious prosecution.
Similarly, it seems unlikely that the airline was monitoring Twitter
Of course, they do — Marketing departments nation- (and world-!) wide are watching their brands on Twitter and Facebook carefully — many offering discounts in exchange for "likes" even...
mandating punitive responses
Of course, nobody told Kimberley to threaten the man with arrest unless he removes the tweet. But they, probably, called her (or her supervisor) and she decided to retaliate against the complainant. Maybe, they suggested, she apologizes and asks him to remove it — politely, rather than on pain of arrest. But she felt righteous and was enraged — and nobody in her position (being able to ruin somebody's long-distance travel) should be given to such an emotion.
The airline probably does not give its side of these situations, as a matter of policy
According to TFA, the airline offered "boiler plate" apologies and vouchers for future travel — clearly, they believe the agent screwed up. I still think, she should be criminally prosecuted and pay a fine — her power over us is too big to tolerate even a hint of abuse of it...
Oddly enough, when American citizens are killed by the thousands as a response to direct actions of their freely elected democratic government, its called "terrorism"
"Terrorism" is a method — targeting (rather than accidentally hitting) enemy civilians has been frowned upon since shortly after the WW2.
What you're saying is that anyone that suffered directly from decisions made by the US governments has the legitimate right of shooting down *any* american
I am saying nothing of the kind. My point was not, that Gazans all "deserved to die" because of their vote — I was simply responding to mrspooni's claim, that "Palestinian people as a whole are not Hamas". They are Hamas or Hamas-sympathizers and do deserve the burdens of war. Any other country in the region would've summarily killed (Syria, Iraq) or expelled (Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia) such people — Israel's restraint is, if anything, inhumane.
And now we can go back to those "direct actions" of our freely elected government, which, in your opinion, justify killing Americans. Which actions are those? Bin Laden's major grief with the US, for example, was — America's desecration of the holy soil of Saudi Arabia, which we defiled with our infidel boots. Is that a good reason for you?
Its not the hater's portrayal when you have western media covering it [...] Are you really convinced that Hamas has a super-duper propaganda machine that is bigger and more efficient than Israel's/US machine
Hamas has inherent propaganda-advantages:
they are the underdog, whom "low-information" spectators always prefer;
their non-military policies (inasmuch as they are known at all) are Socialist, bringing every "low-information" bum with a Che Guevara T-shirt on their side;
Western countries have a much bigger share of Arabs and Muslims now, than even 20 years ago — who all sympathize with their "brethren"
After starting — and loosing — several "real" wars in the 20th century, Arabs have given up on the "honest" battlefield success. They've switched all their efforts into terrorism on one hand and propaganda whining on the other. They are succeeding.
Shit happens when you bomb one of the most densely populated areas in the world, and they don't care.
Retaliation will hit any area in the world, from where thugs shoot at somebody. Israel's retaliation will try to hit the thugs only, but it is not, of course, guaranteed... That the area is "densely populated" should be the concern of the shooters, not of those, who defend themselves and their country.
Not everyone in Israel... Two Jews will, infamously, have 3 opinions on most matters...
Arabs, on the other hand, are much more determined — 2/3 voted for Hamas in the free elections of 2006. 2/3rds wish to destroy Israel and drive the Jews into the sea. Any state living next to such enemies is absolutely justified in doing anything to defend itself.
What you mean is that Israel doesn't consider what is 'currently' Gaza to be its own terriitory -- but that its own territory expands inch by inch at the crest of a bulldozer
And reality is, the Arabs should've accepted the UN partition plan of 1947 and built their own state. That they chose to instead wage war — and not just one, but many — is their own fault. And the fitting punishment for that aggression is loss of land. And as long as the morons keep shooting at Israel, they will (or should) continue losing land. Occupying the enemy's territory is perfectly proper conduct in war — and if the stupid enemy is not giving up for decades, then the loss may become permanent.
Majority of people are arguing against Israel because they want the senseless killing to stop
Where was this "majority of people", when Hamas were firing dozens of rockets per day at Israel? Watching soccer? Why don't you go back to that — and leave the arguing to people with attention spans longer than 30 minutes...
Yes and not long ago all US citizens had the right to be married to one person of the opposite gender of the same race.
What the rest of the society considers worthy of recognition as "marriage" should, indeed, be up to that society... This is not about sex-life, which should be up to the willing participants, but about other people's opinions: "We are a married couple!" "No, you are not — you are two men..." "Yes, we are — this new laws says so!"
To force others to consider a particular union as "marriage" may be illiberal...
No doubt eventually we will knock the gender caveat off of marriage too
Sure. And move straight on to fighting the species caveat next, will you not? Or, perhaps, the one person caveat will be next — why can't I be married to two consenting adult human females and an adult male cat — at once, after all? How is that prohibition not discrimination?
While we are at it, lets just get the state out of marriage and just allow exclusive legal partnerships between any two consenting adults.
Full agreement here — there should be no special provisions for "spouses" in any laws — we are all equal subjects and citizens. Until then, however, "marriage" and "spouse" are legal terms and their precise definitions are up to the legislatures...
The guy in the wheelchair may be deprived of his ability to practice karate, but its not because his fellow citizens are campaigning and voting to keep him from doing it.
Nobody is campaigning to keep the homosexuals unable to marry — they are unable to do so already. Not because they have no right — only because they have no ability.
This is utter bullshit. If an enemy is trying to kill you, you try to kill them — using the best weapons you've got, hitting them as hard as possible. Because they are doing their best.
You also have to consider that the Palestinian people as a whole are not Hamas
For every innocent non-terrorist killed, that will recruit many terrorists.
Contrary to the haters' portrayal, IDF are not indiscriminate killers they don't need this sort of calculations to try their hardest to avoid killing innocent civilians. Shit still happens, unfortunately.
Saddam never gassed his own citizens, you probably mean Kurdish insurgents.
Assad never gassed his own citizens, you probably mean rebels.
Both strongmen considered their victims to be their citizens and subjects. In the state of rebellion, but citizens nonetheless. Bullshit propaganda much?
Those people have lived within the territorial boundaries their whole lives.
So? The "boundaries" have Israel on one of the sides — why aren't you claiming them to be citizens of Jordan and Egypt? At least, those two neighbors actually once occupied the entire West Bank and Gaza respectively — for twenty years...
The Israeli government is being run by far-right reactionaries
Israeli government has changed many times since the country's establishment — swinging from Left to Right and anything in between. Never once have PLO or Hamas changed their official goal of destroying Israel.
but that won't make it any less true.
Nothing your wrote is true — except for the obvious fact, that downmodding will not make it any less so.
All US citizens have the exact same right, when it comes to marriage: they can be married to one person of the opposite gender, who are not too closely related to them by blood.
That about 3% of the population are unable to exercise that right is unfortunate, but it does not mean, they are deprived of the right.
Not any more so, than a quadriplegic is deprived of the right to practice karate.
Oh, so it's a separate nation that Israel recognizes?
No, they are not a nation — not in Israel's opinion, not in their own, not in that of the rest of the world. When the UN split the former British mandate into two parts, Jews proceeded to establishing their own state. The Arabs, instead of likewise establishing theirs, declared war... That was because — in their own opinions — they weren't separate nations (Jordanians, Iraqis, Syrians), but simply Arabs. They lost that war — and the subsequent ones. By the end of the 20th century, Arabs have given up attacking Israel openly and switched to terrorism on one hand and propaganda whining on the other.
Israel is sure doing a good job in that area creating more enemies
With the share of Gazans being enemies of Israel before the war being around the "five nines", I doubt strongly, Israel has increased the animosity substantially in recent weeks.
Certainly not enough to prefer to go back to living under the constant barrage of rockets — however ineffective they may be.
It would have, if that — destroying the soldier's transportation — were the goal. But it is not. The goal of blowing up a bus is to make the population — civilians — afraid. That, by definition, is terrorism.
To put it differently, if the IDF started providing a separate transport for these soldiers going home for the weekend — prohibiting them from using the regular buses, Hamas would still try to blow up the regular transit. On contrast, if Hamas were to stop using schools and hospitals to store weapon caches or, indeed, fire from, Israel would not be shooting at those installations.
This shit keeps up and I'll just skip the goddamn Internet completely and go back to reading more books instead.
Please, do. Instead of adding anything to the discussion, you simply repeated your previous comment — only with more swear words. Please, disconnect. Remember to logout.
Whenever I see a provocative account of something from one person's viewpoint, I suspect it of not being entirely honest.
We don't know, what exactly was said, and how "provocative" both sides were. What we do know is:
He griped on Twitter about the agent's rudeness.
She called him and his boys back from the plane and threatened to call police, unless he deletes the tweet.
That threat to "call police" over nothing but an Internet-posting is enough to have her fired from the job and prosecuted for attempted malicious prosecution. Worse — because she, likely, was not busy checking the Twitter herself, but was informed by Marketing, who do monitor their @-handles all the time — there should be an investigation into a possible conspiracy to commit malicious prosecution.
These people — almost like police themselves — are granted enormous powers to do their jobs. Any time they abuse it even in the slightest, a slap on the wrist is not enough — the hand should be chopped off (yeah, I know), so that none of them do that again.
Do we really want an Internet that, with regard to the U.S. consumer, is essentially owned and operated by Comcast/Xfinity?
Whatever Comcast's failings, I wager, you'll find the Internet owned and operated by the government far worse. I predict mandatory "child-protection" filters, for example. Also, any time you violate the service terms (which will be copied from those of commercial providers), you will be committing a crime (however small), rather than merely breaking contract. Oh, and the tech-support will not only be incompetent, but also rude — because, being government employees, they will be impossible to fire.
the more competition that can be arranged the better
A government entering a market — any market — is the end of competition in it.
Roads (and rail-roads), health-care, electricity and telephone — government and government-sanctioned monopolies provide such outstanding services, only a fool or a sell-out would try to prevent their scope from expanding. Tokyo may have competing privately-owned subway lines, but we here in America know better than that!
Take Municipal WiFi — which the young and progressive generation was hailing on this very site only 10 years ago — was not that a roaring success, that swept over the nation?
Slashdot Mirror
Quite sure. Some cultures were tolerant of homosexuality itself (even if they mocked it a bit), but none equated homosexual unions with marriage.
What "equivalent of gay marriage"?
No, it is "proto-human". Probably, "proto-mammal"... Christians added the monogamy requirement (though it was not strict and even officially suspended it, when reality required), but it was always "hetero".
Exactly. And the primary (if not the only) purpose of it — always and everywhere — was to rear children. And where did those children come from? Adoption? Surrogate mothers?
I fail to see, how a union of one male and one female must imply the former's ownership of the latter. It seems, you are repeating somebody else's talking points without fully understanding them yourself...
This is an outrage and a waste. We must switch to testing on the successful and the smart, who have nothing else to contribute anyway!
Sure, malpractice, drug addiction and, especially, the unspecified "worse" are known to cause people to quickly forget all the training they've ever received in the medical school, and all the practice they got before losing their license.
I am in full agreement with you here. Unfortunately, that — redefining the terms — is exactly, what proponents of "gay marriage" want the rest of us to do. They want the society to change the meaning of the word "marriage" to include homosexual unions (which no civilization in the history of the world has ever equated with regular marriage). You found "paraplegic karate" to be ridiculous — well, "gay marriage" is equally non-sensical...
Yeah, they want the recognition — both societal and legal — that has hitherto been given only to the heterosexual couples, to be given to homosexual unions as well. Whether such recognition is a good idea or not, I don't believe it to be a human right — and that is how this subtopic started, when somebody up above equated Iran's handling of their gays with America's treatment of ours.
"Straight marriage" is just as much a tautology, as "gay marriage" is a self-contradiction (think "meatless steak")...
Having an "equal opportunity" President is proving to be so popular, I can't wait for Mr. Jackson to be treated by an "equal opportunity" heart surgeon...
Not only is Silicon Valley young and Illiberal, they are also working on developing their businesses and would not sabotage their start-ups' success by turning away real talent.
Whatever the problem is, Silicon Valley's "racism" ain't it...
There are, indeed, organizations trying to keep the semantics of the term "marriage" from being redefined to include same-sex partners.
Nobody is out there trying to prevent homosexuals from marrying somebody of the opposite sex. It is not the law, that prevents them from entering into marriage, it is their own biology (or preference, or whatever).
Not true. If we redefine, what "karate" means — creating, for example, a "paralyzed karate" (the way some wish to create a "homosexual marriage") and equating this new creation with the real karate (the way some wish to equate homosexual unions with real marriage) — we will have, magically, allowed a paralyzed person to practice the sport. Wouldn't that be terrific?
Too little, too late, youngster. The existing monopolies have had too much of a head-start — an action like that taken against AT&T once would now be required. And that's unlikely, when the CEO is playing golf with the President.
A typical anti-Capitalism drivel. The listed practices reduce profit and cause the company to either collapse or be taken over — unless it has powerful friends in government.
Yep, that's what leads to losing money. Few can survive it without being a monopoly.
The first — demanding, he deletes a tweet — is enough, even if the threat of calling police didn't happen or was due to something else. Because if the man is doing something criminal, then he should be prosecuted regardless of whether or not he deletes a tweet. And if he is not, then the threat is that of malicious prosecution.
Of course, they do — Marketing departments nation- (and world-!) wide are watching their brands on Twitter and Facebook carefully — many offering discounts in exchange for "likes" even...
Of course, nobody told Kimberley to threaten the man with arrest unless he removes the tweet. But they, probably, called her (or her supervisor) and she decided to retaliate against the complainant. Maybe, they suggested, she apologizes and asks him to remove it — politely, rather than on pain of arrest. But she felt righteous and was enraged — and nobody in her position (being able to ruin somebody's long-distance travel) should be given to such an emotion.
According to TFA, the airline offered "boiler plate" apologies and vouchers for future travel — clearly, they believe the agent screwed up. I still think, she should be criminally prosecuted and pay a fine — her power over us is too big to tolerate even a hint of abuse of it...
"Terrorism" is a method — targeting (rather than accidentally hitting) enemy civilians has been frowned upon since shortly after the WW2.
I am saying nothing of the kind. My point was not, that Gazans all "deserved to die" because of their vote — I was simply responding to mrspooni's claim, that "Palestinian people as a whole are not Hamas". They are Hamas or Hamas-sympathizers and do deserve the burdens of war. Any other country in the region would've summarily killed (Syria, Iraq) or expelled (Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia) such people — Israel's restraint is, if anything, inhumane.
And now we can go back to those "direct actions" of our freely elected government, which, in your opinion, justify killing Americans. Which actions are those? Bin Laden's major grief with the US, for example, was — America's desecration of the holy soil of Saudi Arabia, which we defiled with our infidel boots. Is that a good reason for you?
Hamas has inherent propaganda-advantages:
After starting — and loosing — several "real" wars in the 20th century, Arabs have given up on the "honest" battlefield success. They've switched all their efforts into terrorism on one hand and propaganda whining on the other. They are succeeding.
Retaliation will hit any area in the world, from where thugs shoot at somebody. Israel's retaliation will try to hit the thugs only, but it is not, of course, guaranteed... That the area is "densely populated" should be the concern of the shooters, not of those, who defend themselves and their country.
Not everyone in Israel... Two Jews will, infamously, have 3 opinions on most matters...
Arabs, on the other hand, are much more determined — 2/3 voted for Hamas in the free elections of 2006. 2/3rds wish to destroy Israel and drive the Jews into the sea. Any state living next to such enemies is absolutely justified in doing anything to defend itself.
Ariel Sharon demolished Israeli settlements in Gaza and forcibly pulled all of the "encroaching" settlers back. Hamas' charter did not change — they still aim for destroying Israel...
And reality is, the Arabs should've accepted the UN partition plan of 1947 and built their own state. That they chose to instead wage war — and not just one, but many — is their own fault. And the fitting punishment for that aggression is loss of land. And as long as the morons keep shooting at Israel, they will (or should) continue losing land. Occupying the enemy's territory is perfectly proper conduct in war — and if the stupid enemy is not giving up for decades, then the loss may become permanent.
Where was this "majority of people", when Hamas were firing dozens of rockets per day at Israel? Watching soccer? Why don't you go back to that — and leave the arguing to people with attention spans longer than 30 minutes...
What the rest of the society considers worthy of recognition as "marriage" should, indeed, be up to that society... This is not about sex-life, which should be up to the willing participants, but about other people's opinions: "We are a married couple!" "No, you are not — you are two men..." "Yes, we are — this new laws says so!"
To force others to consider a particular union as "marriage" may be illiberal...
Sure. And move straight on to fighting the species caveat next, will you not? Or, perhaps, the one person caveat will be next — why can't I be married to two consenting adult human females and an adult male cat — at once, after all? How is that prohibition not discrimination?
Full agreement here — there should be no special provisions for "spouses" in any laws — we are all equal subjects and citizens. Until then, however, "marriage" and "spouse" are legal terms and their precise definitions are up to the legislatures...
No such dilemma exists for American homosexuals — their sex-lives are entirely up to them.
What they seem to be fighting for is for the rest of us to treat their unions as "marriage". And for that the term needs to be redefined...
Nobody is campaigning to keep the homosexuals unable to marry — they are unable to do so already. Not because they have no right — only because they have no ability.
This is utter bullshit. If an enemy is trying to kill you, you try to kill them — using the best weapons you've got, hitting them as hard as possible. Because they are doing their best.
That lie was exposed as such, when the Gazans voted — in free and internationally-observed elections — for Hamas.
Contrary to the haters' portrayal, IDF are not indiscriminate killers they don't need this sort of calculations to try their hardest to avoid killing innocent civilians. Shit still happens, unfortunately.
Both strongmen considered their victims to be their citizens and subjects. In the state of rebellion, but citizens nonetheless. Bullshit propaganda much?
How are they citizens?
So? The "boundaries" have Israel on one of the sides — why aren't you claiming them to be citizens of Jordan and Egypt? At least, those two neighbors actually once occupied the entire West Bank and Gaza respectively — for twenty years...
Israeli government has changed many times since the country's establishment — swinging from Left to Right and anything in between. Never once have PLO or Hamas changed their official goal of destroying Israel.
Nothing your wrote is true — except for the obvious fact, that downmodding will not make it any less so.
All US citizens have the exact same right, when it comes to marriage: they can be married to one person of the opposite gender, who are not too closely related to them by blood.
That about 3% of the population are unable to exercise that right is unfortunate, but it does not mean, they are deprived of the right.
Not any more so, than a quadriplegic is deprived of the right to practice karate.
No, they are not a nation — not in Israel's opinion, not in their own, not in that of the rest of the world. When the UN split the former British mandate into two parts, Jews proceeded to establishing their own state. The Arabs, instead of likewise establishing theirs, declared war... That was because — in their own opinions — they weren't separate nations (Jordanians, Iraqis, Syrians), but simply Arabs. They lost that war — and the subsequent ones. By the end of the 20th century, Arabs have given up attacking Israel openly and switched to terrorism on one hand and propaganda whining on the other.
That tactics seems to be succeeding...
No, Israel has no territorial claim to Gaza strip. Are you not embarrassed over being wrong so often?
With the share of Gazans being enemies of Israel before the war being around the "five nines", I doubt strongly, Israel has increased the animosity substantially in recent weeks.
Certainly not enough to prefer to go back to living under the constant barrage of rockets — however ineffective they may be.
It would have, if that — destroying the soldier's transportation — were the goal. But it is not. The goal of blowing up a bus is to make the population — civilians — afraid. That, by definition, is terrorism.
To put it differently, if the IDF started providing a separate transport for these soldiers going home for the weekend — prohibiting them from using the regular buses, Hamas would still try to blow up the regular transit. On contrast, if Hamas were to stop using schools and hospitals to store weapon caches or, indeed, fire from, Israel would not be shooting at those installations.
Got any more false analogies for me?
Please, do. Instead of adding anything to the discussion, you simply repeated your previous comment — only with more swear words. Please, disconnect. Remember to logout.
We don't know, what exactly was said, and how "provocative" both sides were. What we do know is:
That threat to "call police" over nothing but an Internet-posting is enough to have her fired from the job and prosecuted for attempted malicious prosecution. Worse — because she, likely, was not busy checking the Twitter herself, but was informed by Marketing, who do monitor their @-handles all the time — there should be an investigation into a possible conspiracy to commit malicious prosecution.
These people — almost like police themselves — are granted enormous powers to do their jobs. Any time they abuse it even in the slightest, a slap on the wrist is not enough — the hand should be chopped off (yeah, I know), so that none of them do that again.
Whatever Comcast's failings, I wager, you'll find the Internet owned and operated by the government far worse. I predict mandatory "child-protection" filters, for example. Also, any time you violate the service terms (which will be copied from those of commercial providers), you will be committing a crime (however small), rather than merely breaking contract. Oh, and the tech-support will not only be incompetent, but also rude — because, being government employees, they will be impossible to fire.
A government entering a market — any market — is the end of competition in it.
Roads (and rail-roads), health-care, electricity and telephone — government and government-sanctioned monopolies provide such outstanding services, only a fool or a sell-out would try to prevent their scope from expanding. Tokyo may have competing privately-owned subway lines, but we here in America know better than that!
Take Municipal WiFi — which the young and progressive generation was hailing on this very site only 10 years ago — was not that a roaring success, that swept over the nation?