Obama: "It is unacceptable that the U.S. ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption"

Re:Obama: "It is unacceptable that the U.S. ranks 15th in th... by GHFigs on Monday December 08, 2008 @11:38PM (#390949)

What makes you think that children who are struggling educationally or whose families are on the economic margins (which is only a subset of "every child") are incapable of appreciating the finer things that come with internet access, presumably including the things you most value about it?

Or more pointedly: what makes you more deserving of internet access than them?

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Re:Obama: "It is unacceptable that the U.S. ranks 15th in th... by cpr on Wednesday December 10, 2008 @03:59PM (#393458)

Nothing does.

But does that mean the government should be worrying about making sure everyone has a good car, a good home, good food, etc.? Seems like broadband is pretty far down on the "basic needs" list.

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Re:Obama: "It is unacceptable that the U.S. ranks 15th in th... by GHFigs on Wednesday December 10, 2008 @08:17PM (#393757)

Your point is unclear. Is it your belief that the government ought to only fund "basic needs"? If so, you must be very disappointed with its current spending. If not, I don't understand why funding expansion of access to broadband (something the FCC already does to some extent, by the way) is a bad thing, given that for pretty much everyone that has it already, it's been a good thing. Your prior argument for this seemed to be that poor people who don't deserve it would get it, but that fails for a whole host of reasons. So, I'm not really seeing the downside here.

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