Recently many cities have been proposing offering city-wide wireless internet access. As you can guess I am greatly opposed to such ideas. Why?
- cost
- maintenance
- security
- monopoly
Cost is an easy one.. It's a government offered service.. Clearly it's going to cost something.. not only that, but it's going to cost more than usual since the governemnt almost always manages to throw as much inefficency into the equation as possible.
Maintenance. Yet again.. it's cost. Bureaucrats will decide when and where the upgrades come.. maybe they won't come soon enough.. maybe they'll come too fast.. who knows! Certainly not the government. The market alone quickly, and generally very appropriately, responds to change.. politicians do not.
Security.. No I'm not talking about "Oh noes someones going to hack my computer". I'm talking about the government being one step closer to being big brother and watching over everything you do. Civil libertarians should be all over this.. I *would* be surprised that the ACLU wasn't all over it, but I'm not really since anymore they're pretty much just a front group for part of the Democrat agenda. Whatever the case, it's true - the government is just one step closer to being right in your backyard. What's next? Outlawing encryption?
You might say that "Oh well you can still buy your own internet access." Yes, that may be true. I can still buy my own roads and sewer system can't I? Well maybe, but probably not. Ok then.. I can still invest in my own retirement program! Yeah. I can. I will. Will everyone else? Maybe, maybe not.. more likely not. You know why? Government's already paying for it.. already taking their money. They don't have that money to invest on their own. They've taken the need for responsibility away.. so why bother doing it on your own?
It creates a government monopoly OR (what is almost entirely the case right now) a government-sponsored monopoly. The large corporations which so many people seem to hate will just get closer to your lives, become more powerful, take more of your money, help degrade your security and destroy more small business.
"But.. I just said you could buy your own access." Yeah well.. you're still paying for it.
"but.. you can buy your own access.." Are you sure about that? What if the government limits competition? What if the government says "Even if you offer it for a LESSER price than we do.. even if you offer it for FREE, it's illegal."
"Well that's just absurd. Why would they do that?" Yes.. indeed.. Why would the government protect it's own monopoly and limit your means for communication? After all.. we've never seen anything almost exactly like this before like the United States Postal Service. And it's not like they haven't been successful in enforcing such bullshit for well over a hundred years.
