Meanwhile, in third-world countries, poor people still cook meals. Even isolated jungle tribes can cook a meal. I guess no one taught them it's easier to be a victim and make excuses.

Also cheap: eggs, whole chickens, flour, other basic ingredients. If you cook, you can eat lots of healthy mostly-unprocessed food for very little money. And exercise is free.

Exactly. Change it to "100 non-profits chosen at random from a list of all non-profits listed in the city" and the corruption problem is mostly solved -- though you still have rate-payers implicitly subsidizing service for random non-profits for some unknown reason.

That's not really much different. In general, governments shouldn't be negotiating for free service for "some".

Franchise fee and PEG fee (which was waived) are 8% total. That's hardly negligible. And free service for "some" non-profits? How is it legitimate to tell a business they must give freebies to "some" people (surely not friends of city officials) in order to do business?

Fewer government-imposed barriers and artificial costs should mean more choices for internet service. More choices would be good.

Would you rather have more choices for internet providers or more money in your city's treasury? I'll take more choices for internet providers. Because I'm not on the city payroll.

It's amazing that these governments still get away with this stuff. If you don't have several choices for internet providers in your location, maybe it's because no one wants to pay a "franchise fee" and a "PEG fee" and give away free service to your city government officials' friends. Or maybe it's because your local city council hasn't "approved" it.

Where is that? If you're not talking about the US, then everything you've said is 100% useless.

The US has a unique culture with unique problems. Big government can work in a largely homogeneous society, where there exists broad agreement on some cultural norms, a genuinely independent press, and some other unifying virtues. That's not the US. The US can't become Switzerland or Norway or Germany or Denmark. Pretending we can is a stupid waste of everyone's time.

Small government works in the US. Big Government does not.

Does it matter that the consensus of scientists and scientific studies is that GMOs are safe? Or is "science" just a rhetorical tool -- a line in a script that the players must speak when they're performing for the crowd, forgotten the next day because there's a new script with new villains?

Personally, I'd say it doesn't matter any more or less for GMOs than for anything else. I support GMOs in general because I support technological progress and individual choice. If individuals or farmers choose GMOs because they think they'll be better off, governments shouldn't stand in the way unless there's a compelling non-FUD, non-bogeyman, non-witch-hunt reason. Same for anything else.

Are you OK with totalitarian dictatorships as long as they're not genocidal?

What's the dividing line between "big government" and "totalitarian" anyway? How do we keep a government with few limits from becoming a government with very few limits or no limits? Wishful thinking?

The current government is already spying on us all and sending the IRS after political enemies. Farm policies, defense spending, tariffs and import restrictions, immigration policies, financial regulations, clean energy loan guarantees, and environmental regulations are already for sale for campaign cash or non-cash campaign support. This is big government. This is what happens.

Do you think you can somehow magically get all the good things and none of the bad things? If you have the magic power to bring about this utopia, why aren't you using it?

And you're defending corruption and graft and repression. Because "efficiency" and what if bogeymen come?!?

Plus you skipped the part of "history" where governments slaughtered 100s of millions of innocent people and enslaved tens of millions more.

Your local governments made sweetheart monopoly deals to get cable money. Now you think the solution is for your local government to make a different kind of sweetheart monopoly deal for municipal internet access?

Open up local wired infrastructure to competitive use instead. The wire is in the ground. End monopoly access to it. Let companies compete for subscribers.

Big leftist corporatism gets a pass. Because leftists aren't really against corporatism. Corporations and corporate power are just a bogeyman used to scare the rubes into giving away their money and their personal autonomy. But leftist corps will save you from the bogeymen. See the difference?

More thoughtful insight. Congrats.

Why would they want to reduce profits? They're for free markets, not lower profits.