Democrats May Promise Broadband for All 836
andyring writes "According to CNS News Service, the Democrat Party will have an agenda that guarantees every American will have affordable access to broadband within five years as part of their 2006 election year agenda, according to Nancy Pelosi, House minority leader. Absent, of course, are any details as to how they will accomplish it when they are the party out of power in Congress."
Re:A Chicken in Every Pot (Score:5, Interesting)
We have no choices. There are only two parties, each of which has about 25% of a supportable platform, as far as I am concerned. What kind of a choice is that?
There seems to be an inverse relationship between importance and choice. I can select from literally hundreds of breakfast cereals, but only two presidential candidates? Where are the people who represent MY views?
It's not just you... (Score:2, Interesting)
How to get it done though, well, let us see.
One, you can have patent reform. Have drug related medicinal patents expire after like five years. This would hypothetically lower the cost of prescription drugs.
Two, non-tax related laws. Require businesses to provide a basic health care to their employees if they employ over a certain number. Perhaps require all businesses having more than 150 employees to provide a basic health care plan. There'd be stuff like as to what needs to be covered, and what percentage the company has to cover (like 80% of the cost of a doctor's visit, etc.).
Three, a single payer health care plan or whatever it's called. Have people opt in to a federal health care plan, covering certain things, for like $300-400 per year. Children should be exempt though. I don't know how much health care the average person needs, but imagine if we set aside simply $300 billion per year. Modify how those EBT cards work. Allow clinics, hospitals, and pharmacies to get the EBT system. Allow people to simply slide their card deducting from a debit system to pay for their medical care. It's already done for foodstamps, so why not extend it to medical care, but for anyone opting into the system?
Re:Promises and Fulfillment (Score:5, Interesting)
$80.00 a month broadband is to them "affordable" Hell they blow that much a day on lunch. They need to keep their hands out of the whole thing and let the market fist fight it out.
Comcast here is $60.00 a month for their lowest speed and $85.00 a month for their highest speed. Verizon is offering DSL for $14.99 a month and up to $49.99 a month. and yes these are normal prices not "special" prices. the 1.5M 384K DSL is absolutely perfect for most anyone. Hell I run 3 VOIP lines over one with far less problems than the Pro level Comcast Cable modem and honestly can not see or "feel" the difference between the two when surfing the web... the one thing that 90% of all users only do on their internet. Places like slashdot are no faster over a pair of load balancing DS3's with a crapload of bandwidth or a low end DSL connection. This is what users see.
The market will fight it out. when Comcast starts losing customers to DSL they will lower prices, it will all settle down to a price that makes companies a modest profit, costs very little to buyers and makes everyone pretty much happy.
Comcast right now makes obscene amounts of profit off of their Cable modem service, and they are reluctiant to give up that cash cow.
Pelosi Railroaded Cynthia McKinney (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.blackcommentator.com/171/171_blankfort
http://www.counterpunch.org/donham12092004.html [counterpunch.org]
People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction
rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.
-- John Kenneth Galbraith
This means Pelosi would sell you to the glue factory, if it meant keeping her mansion in Pacific Heights.
Re:A Chicken in Every Pot (Score:5, Interesting)
However, I stand by my point. I've "thrown my vote away" numerous times voting for a "third party candidate", knowing each time that it was nothing more than an act of protest which would be drowned out by the bickering tribes of Reps and Dems.
And tribalism is precisely what we have here. What we see for the most part is not logical, reasoned positions but merely 'we vs. they'.
Re:Gore Tax (Score:2, Interesting)
You are probably correct. But consider the alternative.
Under the Republican-led administration, the FCC has defined broadband to mean 'anything above 56Kbps' and has taken an skeptical eye toward network neutruality. The upshot: There are a lot of people who can sometimes get bandwidth faster than plain old dialup, but it's just barely faster. (768Kbps down, 192Kbps up? Come on!) In the United States, the trend is clearly toward a privatized, two-tier Internet.
It's a tough pill to swallow, but in the US, network neutrality is linked to Universal Service. The Carriers can't restrict usage of the first 56Kbps of bandwidth (basically, one voice channel) because they didn't pay for it; it was paid for by the Universal Service Fund. But they will argue (and their argument will have legs) that everything beyond the level funded by USF is theirs to play with as they please. That speaks for a future where broadband is available in many (but not all) places, but only for a Carrier-set price.
From a policy standpoint, we are headed back into the days where there was only one monopoly running the telecommunications system, the network they built is geared only toward supporting the services most profitable to them, and no other applications will be tolerated. We're even seeing the return of the days where you don't own the telephone in your home, you just rent it from the phone company. Except now it's not a telephone, but the cable modem or the VoIP box, or the Satellite DVR, etc.
The window is closing. The only hope we have to ensure that meaningful broadband infrastructure exists for any of us is to ensure it exists for all of us. As much as it sucks, we need to ensure a USF-style plan is put in place to run broadband access out to 'every farmhouse in Nebraska' before the Carriers do it, because once the Carriers do it, they will own it.
Re:A Chicken in Every Pot (Score:2, Interesting)
Incorrect
Only in your mind its called 'killing babies', not every thinks like that. Some people believe in women using their bodies as they see fit and not being forced to undermine their liberties for some conservative zealots who like to think that they can tell other people how to live.
Re:A Chicken in Every Pot (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm essentially kept out of being part of the solution, because I cannot agree with either of the two empowered sides who are *entirely* unable to create solutions for the problems we have.
Both major parties are full of incompetent boobs, but they are incompetent boobs who set all the rules for the rest of us. And this is self-reinforcing, because anyone who shows tendencies towards thoughtfulness or considered opinion these days is painted as indecisive, wishy-washy, or as a 'flip-flopper'. Imagine that: Someone who is capable of realizing they've made a mistake, someone who can change their mind to cope with new facts, realities or understanding, is attacked viciously by those who are so entrenched in their beliefs that they can never change.
The system is badly broken, and it's damned difficult to try and change it, either from within or without. That being said, I am trying to do my part. I must say: The form letters one gets back after contacting legislators tends to be very depressing. One is generally either thanked for supporting some position which one has never mentioned, or given a paragraph along the lines of 'thanks for your opinion, but mine won't change'.
Re:A Chicken in Every Pot (Score:3, Interesting)
George Washington must have been a prophet, and must be reeling now:
"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty."
also:
"There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume."
George Washington, farwell address, 1796. He makes a lot of other poignant observations in this address(foreign affairs, relation of religion & government, national debt) that we have completely gone the opposite way from.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A Chicken in Every Pot (Score:3, Interesting)
You mean it couldn't be free like amateur radio? You buy your equipment and you're online? All we need is a good chunk of the useful spectrum and a decent mesh protocol [wikipedia.org] and we could, in theory, have a completely wireless Internet.
Of course the current wireless carries would lobby with everything they could to prevent it, but is it possible?
Re:A Chicken in Every Pot (Score:3, Interesting)
Would you also to pay tolls for every road that you use?
How about paying a tax every time you cross state lines on each good that you purchase?
How about paying into a private militia to protect you and your family from rival factions?
You like to be in charge of collecting and purifying your own drinking water?
What will happen is that my tax dollars will be used for that and that my friend is just wrong.
What has happened is certain legislators have realized that broadband has become a necessary and basic right. As an American citizen, you're forced to pay for certain things for yours and others benefit. This is win-win and you're a crybaby.
Re:Pot, Kettle ..... (Score:5, Interesting)
To exhume the corpse of an old political metaphor, it's more like building an interstate highway system. While there may be some issues of scaling, and challenging issues of security and regulation, the technology exists today and is mature. There are probably thousands if not tens of thousands of engineers in the country who could sketch out a workable outline for how to do it, and if we lookd at those outlines they'd probably boil down to no more than handful of similar designs. In fact, if anything the job is technologically easier, since highways have to deal with unique geographic obstacles along every mile.
The only thing you need to do this is money, and while in the grand scheme of federal spending it'd be a major project, it would not be anything like the actual highway spending.
The reason it will never happen is the very same reason that we don't have single payer health insurance. There are companies that are making money today under the status quo. These companies will open their checkbooks and fight this to their last penny, because a Federal program along the lines of the Eisenhower Interstate System would be tantamount to a bill of attainder. So, what will happen is they politicians will try to create a complicated system that works around the concerns of these companies, resulting in something that is nearly incomprehensible and probably unworkable. In other words the network equivalent of the Clinton health plan.
And even then, the companies won't like it. The only difference is that politically speaking, it will be like demolishing a house of cards with a squib.
Re:A Chicken in Every Pot (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A Chicken in Every Pot (Score:1, Interesting)
Um, yeah! The government will spend $400 to give me worse service.
Would you also to pay tolls for every road that you use?
As opposed to paying tolls for every road I do and don't use, like I do now? You are trying to scare me with the suggestion of annoying administrative overhead, but that is just a practical problem that has many solutions. Besides, no one ever said that government intervention was never convenient, or never helpful in some way for some period of time. People have said that it is wrong. And always has bad practical results over longer periods of time. Something can be both practically useful and wrong, you know. They aren't exclusive.
How about paying a tax every time you cross state lines on each good that you purchase?
Eh? What service is the state providing by letting me cross the line? If there isn't one, then what you are suggestion is simple extortion. I don't see how that has anything to do with your argument. As far as I am concerned, all taxation is just as ridiculous as this.
How about paying into a private militia to protect you and your family from rival factions?
How about providing for the national defense without taxes? Do you realize how much harder America would be to actually conquer if we had a militia instead of a military, with varying levels of well-armedness? There are people that only fly F-16's on weekends, you know. Their bombs hurt too. But our goal isn't to keep from being conquered, it is to exert control over the rest of the world all the time.
There are other sources of income. Like endowments. We've been here for 220+ years and the government doesn't have its own money yet? Ridiculous. Even universities have figured that one out. And then there is fundraising, and user fees, and money-lending, and the 95% of crap that we don't need to fund publicly anyway.
You like to be in charge of collecting and purifying your own drinking water?
I live in a city where many people have 100-year-old wells on their property, in the middle of town. They are forced to pay for city water whether they are even hooked up to it or not. I don't like that much. You honestly think that unless clean water is publicly funded through coercive taxation, that we won't have it? How long do think we've been doing it this way? I would not have to be in charge of my own water. There would be services available for pay as now, and probably other options too.
What has happened is certain legislators have realized that broadband has become a necessary and basic right. As an American citizen, you're forced to pay for certain things for yours and others benefit. This is win-win and you're a crybaby.
You keep talking about necessities. I don't think you know what that means. Nothing "becomes" a basic human right. You have only one right as a human being: the right to be treated as an end in yourself, and not merely as a means to another's end. That means there is a list of things that people cannot do to you. There is no list of things that they must do for you.
As an American, I am guaranteed to be secure in my person, my papers, and my property. By forcing me to pay for "certain things for my and other's benefits", the state violates the agreement and makes all property insecure. It is a lose-lose situation and you are a fool.
Re:We need Proportional Representation (Score:3, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_represe
Re:You have it all wrong. (Score:2, Interesting)
If you want to change the process, the only change that would make any difference is to have true proportional representation rather then the 'winner takes all' government that we have now. Of course, this would be extremely messy - coalitions, 'no-confidents' votes, etc. And there is the slight changes to the Constitution that would have to occur first...
Your tax dollars already paid for the internet! (Score:3, Interesting)
Your tax dollars already paid for the internet. They paid for its developement and continue to pay for the high-level infrastructure. Unfortunately, a bunch of monopolies (and duopolies) control the last few miles from the backbone to your house. How would you like it if there was a 'free' 12-lane interstate highway out there that your tax dollars paid for, but some local cartel charges you $50 per month to drive on their dirt road from your driveway to the interstate on-ramp? I know I'd be pissed.
Oh yeah, and that cartel is now considering limiting what kind of cars can drive on their road, probably only the cars that they sell at a huge markup. And dispite the fact that you give them $50 per month for 2-way access on their road, they want to charge extra to FedEx and UPS for using their road to deliver stuff to you. And they also want two speed limits; 10mph for people who pay $50 per month and 100mph for people who pay $100 per month. And they're not doing any maintainance on the road so if you hit potholes and can only drive 5mph, don't expect a rebate on your $100.
Re:Don't be selfish. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Democrats have no vision. (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the problem that I have is that he is ruining our long term goals.
Don't get me wrong... I voted for Bush in 2000 and abstained in the 2004 election because I didn't like the other side. I actually changed my political party from Republican to independant.
I wouldn't call him a liar, but he either had his facts wrong which means he is incompetant or had an agenda to skew the facts for going to war in Iraq 2003.
Do you realize, that this goes against all of our previous doctrine of first strike of all our presedients.
Yeah, we invaded Panama and Iraq previously, but these were reactionary measures to provocation.
We aren't supposed to be the bad guys. We are supposed to be non-involved unless forced to play our hand.
This has been our policy for over 200 years! Now, we are faced with a possible civil war in which if we pull out we are damned and we don't we are damned as well with the population of Iraq turning on us. It's the Vietnam scenario all over again.
Secondly, we still haven't found Bin Laden nor helped Afghanistan rebuild.
If it was me in the Whitehouse... I'd would have given Pakistan an ultimatium to hand him over or else we invade. Without the war in Iraq we had a blank check and morality on our side to do whatever we needed to do to get him. Now we are seen as a bigger enemy and more as a nation with an agenda.
Some of you might disagree with this, but do you remember the Bush speech where any nation that harbors terrorists would be targeted? We'll we aren't doing that now... That was bothers me about the Bush administration. They are not even trying to do what they said they would do.
And as far as running this country into the ground... What about our almost 8 trillion national debt? I thought being a republican was about being conservative... And not spending our nation into the ground like a Democrat!
I think the only solution we have now is to stick it out until Iraq can keep itself from becoming a vassal of Iran.
Then we will have to distance ourselves from Israel and cut ties with them. After that find alternative fuel sources and pretend the Middle east doesn't exist. That is pretty much our only hope for the future now with dealing with the middle east.
Otherwise, I think homeland security is a waste of money...
We don't need to spend billions of dollars on security on a threat that may never happen and the only thing we needed to do was lock the doors of our airliners to prevent 9/11 from happening again.
And whatever happened to the land of the brave. I'm wiling to die for my freedom, but why are we being cowards about the whole terrorism issue. If we have to live in fear and pass laws like the Patriot Act. Then why bother at all?
I think Bush, Nixon, and Regan were the last real republicans. The guy in the whitehouse is a pretender. But that is my opinion...
Oh and I want to mention this... The whole Dubai Ports incident was to make it so the Republicans in congress can distance themselves from the President so they can have a chance to win the elections come fall. Whether this was a setup by the President or just something the congress critters did on their own... I don't know.
But we will see more of this towards election... But for gods sake. I can't believe how many other Republicans are blindly following Bush. No democrat has done what he has done on this scale... (in fact no Republican either)
I just hope Rudolph Giuliani runs in 2008.