SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The conservative small government movement has gained momentum based on the principle that decisions are best made at a local level, because people know what they want better than the federal government does. So why is a contingent of small government-minded congressional representatives trying to dick over local governments when it comes to high-speed internet access?
I live in Chattanooga. I have their gigabit internet. It is great, but it could be better officially let us run servers, officially let us run open wifi ala openwireless.org (I do it anyway, but if they come knocking I'll have to turn it off), even better would be if they let other ISPs run on top of their fiber plant and compete with each other. Still, it is at least as good as google fiber for the same price or less (except for no $300 flat-fee low-bandwidth option).
[Editor's Note] For the non-Americans in our readership, this appears to be nothing more than the usual Rep/Dem disagreement depending on which 'big business' funded the most to the appropriate campaign coffers. I would have to agree that the pricing seems expensive but, as we know, that is caused more by the regional monopolies than the actual cost of provision.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Friday July 25 2014, @03:13AM
its not really that a more local government is equivalent to people making their own decisions, but the closer a government is to the people it governs, the more able they are to hold that government accountable. the further a government gets from its people, the more the people appear as numbers and statistics than as people. so the closer it is to its people, the more likely it is to listen. there's also less people involved at lower levels, so it'll be easier to get a consensus on how the people want to be governed.
education of the populace is even more critical when more power is held locally though, because without it, you get idiotic situations like in my area where people fight to lower property and other taxes while bitching about underfunded schools and other services; they fail to understand even the very basic idea of government, which is basically that everyone pitches in money (pays taxes) to provide everyone with essential services and institutions (schools, roads, utilities, emergency services, etc), and that those services can not be provided if the resources aren't available (no taxes, no services).