You mean, I did not bother to provide evidence for either one of those in this case.
No, I mean that the term "better" is a subjective term that depends on what weight and value one puts on objective measures, and in many cases, includes subjective measures like "happy with service".
"Better" is not a fact. "Meets specified connection speeds 95% of the time" is a fact. "Costs less than other similar services" is a fact. You assume that "faster and cheaper" (facts) means "better" is a fact, but that's simply not true.
But you didn't provide contrarian evidence either.
I didn't try to show you that something wasn't "better" because "better" is subjective. The point is that the VOTERS who voted down the municipal service can, and do, have their own views of "better" that may not align with yours.
Unlike your example of education, internet service has objective measures of success - uptime, bandwidth, latency, peering.
And those may be called "facts", but then you have to weigh the facts to come up with the subjective evaluation of "better". What is better for me may be a service that isn't as fast but comes with a static IP. Or I may consider it better if the service comes over existing wiring because I don't want installers mucking about my house and property. I may consider it better if I'm not forced as a taxpayer to fund a service for you because in your opinion the existing options are too slow/too expensive/provided by a company you hate.
As opposed to private utilities like Comcast that care? And why can't you vote them out? At least you have some choice there. I pity the person at the mercy of monopolistic private utilites.
1. Comcast has a financial interest in keeping customers, even if it is a small one. A government-run service has no financial interest in keeping subs. Any cost overruns will just be pulled from the general fund.
2. You can't vote out a civil service employee because their position isn't an elected one. I shouldn't have to point that out.
3. If the government is the ISP and has driven the competition out, then you have no choice. If the government has forced the competition to raise prices, then your choice is more expensive. And even if the competition is the same price, you're paying twice for service.
4. I pity more the people who face a true government monopoly on service. They have two choices: use the government service or go without. Why is a government monopoly better than this alleged private one (that really doesn't exist)?
You would never be convinced to vote against your own interests.
This /. attitude that we're all smarter than the average voter and know what is "better" for him, to the point of calling your opinion of "better" an objective fact, is pretty arrogant. The point I'm trying to get across is that the voters have the right to decide what is best for them and what is "better". Saying that they're voting against their own best interests is rather presumptive, since I'm sure that many of the voters simply don't care about internet service or paying taxes so that you can get your downloads faster than you can already get them through any of the existing commercial services. And I expect that many of them do not share the "fuck Comcast" reason that apparently makes "anything else" a better choice.
Because there is a right answer.
In your opinion, there is a right answer. In their opinion, there is a different right answer.
First, they would be in different unions.
Sorry, but no. AFSCME and SEIU are very large unions that cover a very large number of state, county, and municipal employees. It is most likely that all the unionized employees in a municipality are members of one of those two, except perhaps for specialized unions that cover specific occupations. "City employee" is not a specific occupation, and clerical workers in the cop shop are not police union members. In our city it is SEIU, and it was big news a week ago that a contract was finally signed a year after the last one expired. Disgruntled city employees running your internet service? What a great idea. A union slowdown that stops work on the internet service? Great!
Second, there is no way that evidence gained like that could be used in trial.
Of course it could. One employee sees it happening. They tell it to another, who tells it to someone who gets a warrant. Bingo. The law that protects your privacy at an ISP includes exemptions for admins seeing things in the course of their duties (like investigating email problems). Or they just start investigating you based on the word of mouth and come up with other evidence. It doesn't have to be used directly in a trial for it to make your life difficult. Do you really think that one city employee telling another one who works in the cop shop that "I think John Doe is downloading CP" would be ignored because the information came informally? Even if John Doe isn't actually doing that, he's low hanging fruit that can be used to show the community that the cops/prosecutors are tough on crime.
The consequences of misusing that data are so great it would never happen.
You have such great faith in the honesty of the government. Here's a fact that hasn't gotten a lot of press but should put the "consequences" claim in its proper context. The NSA monitoring of cell calls? Ron Wyden, the Senator from Oregon, admits that he was briefed on the program months before it became public BUT HE DID NOTHING. A US Senator who has a reputation for standing up for "the little guy" knew it was going on and said nothing about it and did nothing to stop it.
This is the government you think would consider the "consequences" of handing data about you across the aisle to a co-worker too great for it to ever happen.