Should the Government Bring You High-Speed Internet?

[Daisy Buchanan]

No, I don't want government in charge of any of my household utilities.
Hem and I pay $200 a month for cable and hi speed internet. I know a good amount of that is in taxes. I can't imagine how much higher my bill would go if government owned these entities. It's too much already, but I think it would be more. How much control do we actually want the government to have over our lives. I think if they owned this service, it'd just be another form of control over a life that is already too dificult to keep personal. It is socialism at it's worst, first hi speed, then what??

 

[Lincsong]

The argument one normally hears in favor of such a plan is that the poor, very rural and minorities are underserved with information technology and are missing the opportunities of connectivity that the internet offers. An entire class of people left behind in the greatest information revolution since the printing press, because they are unable to plug into it.QUOTE]
A point well taken.

Well, my Dad didn't have electricity until 1934, and the TVA was later than that.[huh] Grandparents didn't own a color television until 1978. So I'm sure the poor will survive until they can afford internet service on their own.

 

[The Reno Kid]

No.

There are certain services that are necessary in a free society that can be provided only through government intervention. This is not one of them.

 

[Mr Nick]

No! No! No!

I am in agreement with less government involvement in my personal life. Maybe then they could take care of other issues that they should be handling already. Dealing with the budget deficit, illegal aliens (security concern alone should make it a priority), reduction of dependence on foreign oil, education concerns, reducing taxes and improving efficiency. The list goes on and on. I'm not trying to start a debate on these other topics, I just feel like there are too many other things that should be a higher priority than this.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

But,

The argument one normally hears in favor of such a plan is that the poor, very rural and minorities are underserved with information technology and are missing the opportunities of connectivity that the internet offers. An entire class of people left behind in the greatest information revolution since the printing press, because they are unable to plug into it.
.

If they really, really, wanted to get connected they could,...and quite easily and inexpensively at that. There are phone lines that go pretty much everywhere by now I think. Also a good working computer, albeit slow, is not hard to obtain.

(Now I have this mental image of Jed Clampett sitting in front of his old Compaq,...typing a post about "Sunday go to meetin' clothes", here at The Fedora Lounge.)

 

[Dixon Cannon]

How 'bout EARNING it!!???

The argument one normally hears in favor of such a plan is that the poor, very rural and minorities are underserved with information technology and are missing the opportunities of connectivity that the internet offers. An entire class of people left behind in the greatest information revolution since the printing press, because they are unable to plug into it..

Internet access is NOT a right! It is a commodity offered for sale. It has a cost and a price. It's a vehicle - like a car or an airplane - or a bicycle; no one is entitled to a ride, but everyone is certainly free to earn a living and actually PAY for the commodities and luxuries that they can afford (within their own budget!)

Sorry, but just because something exists doesn't mean that everyone is ENTITLED to use it.

-dixon cannon

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

Internet access is NOT a right! I is a commodity offered for sale. It has a cost and a price. It's a vehicle - like a car or an airplane - or a bicycle; no one is entitled to a ride, but everyone is certainly free to earn a living and actually PAY for the commodities and luxuries that they can afford (within their own budget!)

Sorry, but just because something exists doesn't mean that everyone is ENTITLED to use it.

-dixon cannon

Very well said, I couldn't agree more. Well said...

 

[VintageJess]

Internet access is NOT a right! I is a commodity offered for sale. It has a cost and a price. It's a vehicle - like a car or an airplane - or a bicycle; no one is entitled to a ride, but everyone is certainly free to earn a living and actually PAY for the commodities and luxuries that they can afford (within their own budget!)

Sorry, but just because something exists doesn't mean that everyone is ENTITLED to use it.

-dixon cannon

:eusa_clap

 

[Lincsong]

Cable for the Dead?

In the City of Colma, CA. Land of 2 million buried and 1100 living there is a card room/casino. The taxes on this casino provides every home in Colma with free basic cable television.

But, this still doesn't change my views on government and taxation. I thought I'd toss in an fftopic: point.

 

[J. M. Stovall]

Nothing is free.

 

[Twitch]

Hey Baron, I understand your statement "why don't they leave me alone," but know it'll never happen. There is simply too much of an economic undercurrent at work these days. You are a demographic. Every small bit of customer base adds up somwhere at some place and companies long ago realized that saturating us with impressions from advertising materials usually has positive effects for them.

You mention you are off the "grid" yet like me I am sure you gets reams of printed crapin the mail slot daily. Oft times it's nearly a pound of it a week! No wonder mailmen go postal. Much of it is duplicated as it the same junk is stuffed in my daily newspaper!

Everybody is on numerous lists that can be exploited as advertising databases. Even being on the Do Not Call list, though helpful, doesn't stop the computer auto-number sequence dialing. And how many damned political callers and worse yet, pre-recorded political message do we need to get around elections?

We say phone service is less. But is it? It is no less in the monthly service bill from your local company. You pay like a $1 a month to have their phone on lease- no less. Installation of new service isn't less. You pay extra for call waiting, caller ID, conference calling and whatever else there is. All that is less is long distance. I personally hardly ever use long distance so it's no huge savings for me. They're putting a dime in one pocket and taking a dollar out of another. If LOCAL companies were rivals then one would offer service for $15 a month and another for $12. Then they have these huge multi-faceted services that they want you buy all from them- long distance, DSL, cable cell phone etc.

So AT&T was a big bad company that simply had to be broken up. OK it was and tinhorn companies that just fell off the turnip truck came along with schemes and dubious service touted as bargains. Well how come At&T just bought my local phone company, which used to be SBC that used to be Pacific Bell? AT&T just sent me, and probably everyone, a full color 28 page catalog on their multifaceted services. You can guess how much that type of an ad mailing costs.

And the so called negativeness of power company monopolies is another full scale load of crap. Before deregulation pricing was stable= low. Since then it has skyrocketed and only gone up and up. How is this better? If the government wanted to do something to really help they'd quit tinkering with deregulation and monopoly busting and give us reasonably-priced solar energy alternatives so we don't have to cross our fingers when power demand goes up knowing full well that they caved to every green weenie organization that came off the pickle boat crying about refineries, power-generations plants and nuclear facilities in the past 35 years that should have been built.

As a taxpayer I'm tired of subsidising every halfassed idea some jamoke politician comes up with in some caus de celeb concept to pay for things that other taxes have already been earmarked for but instead are mis appropriated. When I get poll takers on the phone and it revolves around new taxes I emphatically restate "I wouldn't vote for it if it was a dollar."

Maybe someday they'll get the message and figure out how to exist on a budget like normal citizens do.

 

[Lincsong]

There's a senior mobile home park over here and the old geezers are complaining that their cable t.v. is too high. They want the City to subisidize them. My answer; rabbit ears work fine, there's 16 on air channels in the Bay Area. Seems like everything for that generation is; "gimmee, gimmeee, gimmee, free, free, free".:rage:

 

[Viola]

There's a senior mobile home park over here and the old geezers are complaining that their cable t.v. is too high. They want the City to subisidize them. My answer; rabbit ears work fine, there's 16 on air channels in the Bay Area. Seems like everything for the generation is; "gimmee, gimmeee, gimmee, free, free, free".:rage:

Since when are old movies and reruns of Law & Order a right???:rage:

 

[dr greg]

the pendulum

It's going the other way in this country, our government is still enamoured of the Thatcherite model, and is selling off the infrastructure, so I think it's an important difference to make between content and the carrying of. Sure there's more deals, but try and get service calls made if you live anywhere outside the cities, and there's a lot of outback. Interestingly our Labor Party, which is like your Dem's for want of a detailed explanation, has a new internet policy in which the govenment will provide a compulsory 'filtered' service, and then those who want unfettered access have to register to receive as they put it it: 'porn and hate'. Now I don't often log on to see what the KKK or Hamas are thinking, but I sure as hell should be able to if I feel like it without coming under the draconian terrorist legislation enacted here already, which is the real game.
Back to phones..I remember being on a street corner in LA years ago trying to decipher the different codes, change required, and pointlessly different functions of three different phones hanging off one pole to make one 'local' call. If that's your ideal system...no thanks!

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Well said I must say...

As a taxpayer I'm tired of subsidising every halfassed idea some jamoke politician comes up with in some caus de celeb concept to pay for things that other taxes have already been earmarked for but instead are mis appropriated. When I get poll takers on the phone and it revolves around new taxes I emphatically restate "I wouldn't vote for it if it was a dollar."

Maybe someday they'll get the message and figure out how to exist on a budget like normal citizens do.

Wow! This is music to a (LBT) ears! There is a movement underway today in America to resolve this kind of stuff - to get government back into the corral of the Constitution and out of our private lives, our transactions and our business. It starts with every individual taking a close, hard look at their own tax liability, making the necessary adjustments to correct their tax status within the scope of the IRC -AND- quit voting for any candidate that runs with a (DEM), a (REP) or an (IND) next to their name on the ballot!

If you've had enough, join us!

-Dixon Cannon

 

[Lincsong]

What about electricity? Oil? Natural Gas? Why is internet access more important than these?:rage:

 

[Paisley]

There's a senior mobile home park over here and the old geezers are complaining that their cable t.v. is too high. They want the City to subisidize them. My answer; rabbit ears work fine, there's 16 on air channels in the Bay Area. Seems like everything for that generation is; "gimmee, gimmeee, gimmee, free, free, free".:rage:

In my county, homeowners who are over a certain age and have lived in their home for a certain period of time are exempt from paying property taxes. Even if a person believes in the government playing Robin Hood, why should younger people with mortgages, kids, student loans, car loans, etc. subsidize people who've had a lifetime to work and save?

 

[Pilgrim]

This is an interesting discussion. Although I tend to fall on the side that supports municipalities providing wide access to wireless Internet as a public service that helps open up access to all citizens, I'm a bit ambivalent about it.

From my viewpoint as one who runs distance education programs for a university, I do know that the divide between those who have knowledge of the internet and access to it is definitely a factor that drives the division of "haves" and "have-nots" in our society. However, I think there are higher priorities for public funds than wireless internet. Priorities like nutrition and education for kids, health care for low income families, and adequate public transportation.

Let's step back for a moment and consider that our tax monies are used every day for things that person A agrees with and person B does not.

Person A might disagree with what's happening in Iraq. This is an incredible drain on the federal tax budget, not only now but for generations to come. But person A can't stop this expenditure. Person A does support food stamp and public housing projects funded with public $.

Person B might agree with support for military expenditures in Iraq but strongly disagree with food stamp programs, and/or with tax support for public housing. But person B can't stop those expenditures.

Neither the things that person A or person B disagree with are going away. In a governmental structure like ours and with the wide range of public needs, there will always be some dissonance between each person's view of an idea use of tax monies and the actual use of tax monies.

Therefore, discussions like this are appropriate, because testing and discussing such ideas meaningfully (not from positions of ideology and absolutism) before they are implemented has great merit.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Nothing is free.

Death is free. You do not have to pay in order to die.

Nice to know that something is free, yes?


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[Marc Chevalier]

... I am sure you gets reams of printed crap in the mail slot daily. Oft times it's nearly a pound of it a week! No wonder mailmen go postal.

Here's a solution:

In Chile, mail carriers are not provided with trucks or jeeps. They use motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, buses, the subway, or just plain walk. As a result, none of them can carry that much mail -- and certainly not heavy junk mail.

Grandma sent you a box of cookies? The Chilean mail carrier can't bring it to your door: it's too big and bulky. You'll have to pick it up yourself at your local post office.

Take away the U.S. mail carriers' jeeps and trucks, and you'll see how soon those junk mail catalogs stop clogging your mailboxes.

There's a price for everything, eh?

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