Fast Broadband To Be Classed a Fundamental Right in the UK (bbc.com) 188
Mark Wilson writes: Every home and business in the UK will have access to "fast broadband" by 2020. This is the latest pledge from Prime Minister David Cameron, who said access to the internet "should be a right." At the moment, 83% of homes and businesses in Britain have access to broadband connections 24Mbps and faster. By 2017, this is expected to rise to 95%. The latest plan is directed at the "last 5 percent" — such as people in remote areas — and will oblige broadband providers to supply at least 10Mbps broadband to anyone who demands it.
Fundamental right????? (Score:5, Insightful)
When everything is a fundamental right, then that completely devalues the definition of "fundamental".
Re: (Score:2)
Just make it go on long enough for "fundamental right" to mean "something the government gives you" and pretty soon they'll take some of the old ones back.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Its the UK , there is not right to own and bear arms.
Re: (Score:3)
Its the UK , there is not [sic] right to own and bear arms.
Very few people in the UK have any wish to "own and bear arms". Most people find the idea repulsive, and certainly would not regard it as a "right"; it is a different culture from wherever you are and always has been.
I say this as one of a tiny minority who has owned a firearm, as a member of a rifle club, and even I did not regard my ownership as a "right", but as something to qualify for. Anyway, last time I checked there is no great difficulty in owning a firearm if you are a bona-fide member of suc
Re: (Score:2)
- subjects who are Protestants may bear arms for their defence as permitted by law;
Re: (Score:3)
Really? Like women have in Saudia Arabia?
Re: (Score:2)
Saudi Arabia is also violating those women's rights, what is your point?
Do you honestly think that people don't have a right to free speech, anywhere in the world, regardless of what governments do?
Do you think China's censorship is right or wrong?
At some point, basic human rights exist regardless of what laws are passed. Any law that attempts to limit such rights, is a violation of human rights.
Re: (Score:2)
Saudi Arabia is also violating those women's rights, what is your point?
Do you honestly think that people don't have a right to free speech, anywhere in the world, regardless of what governments do?
Do you think China's censorship is right or wrong?
At some point, basic human rights exist regardless of what laws are passed. Any law that attempts to limit such rights, is a violation of human rights.
But there are always some limits on these rights. If you had a right to absolutely free speech, there would be no defamation laws. If you had a right to absolute liberty, there would be no prisons. And so on.
Society agrees on what is or is not acceptable, there's not some series of Platonic Rights that they're reflecting.
Re: (Score:2)
The right to free speech is the absence of prior constraint. In that regard, defamation is completely irrelevant.
The agreement of society has only minimal relation to what a right is. Rights are based on human life, that an innocent person may not be deprived of his life or the means to maintain and advance his life.
The only apparent limit on rights is the rights of another person, and I regard that as not properly called a limit.
Re: (Score:2)
Really? Like women have in Saudia Arabia?
A lot of them probably don't have arms at all any more.
Re:Fundamental right????? (Score:4, Informative)
"Rights" aren't something given by a government, they are something we all have, simply by existing.
... as determined by ...? You? Me? Everybody as they see fit?
The UN universal declaration of human rights would be as close as you're going to get to consensus. But I'm afraid the right to bear arms didn't make the cut.
Re: (Score:2)
... as determined by ...? You? Me? Everybody as they see fit?
Our creator...
Without a creator, a higher being, then we're just brutish cavemen and it just becomes survival of the fittest.
I'll take the former, if I get a say in it...
You're right that the US Uni Dec of Human Rights is a good start, but it isn't perfect due to politics.
The right to be armed is the right to self-defense. It is the right to be reasonably secure in ones own safety. Since the police don't have the job of keeping people safe, that is your own personal responsibility.
Being armed is one way
Re: (Score:3)
>Our creator...
No holy book ever written included a right to bear arms (or any mention of the topic at all).
So which creator did you have in mind and what is your reference that this is one of the rights he granted you ?
I haven't even asked for actual evidence he exists yet - just that there is one whose believers actually have a scripture supporting your claim.
>Without a creator, a higher being, then we're just brutish cavemen and it just becomes survival of the fittest.
If the only thing keeping you
Re: (Score:2)
>They don't talk about free speech either, so what's your point? How about the right for women to vote, that isn't in there either.
My point is that you are stating rights from a creator, who probably doesn't exist, with no reference that even your fellow believers in him acknowledge the existence of this right. There are many good and solid philosophical starting points for discerning a basis of human rights. All with their benefits and downsides. John Locke's labour theory of value on which all modern l
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Without a creator, a higher being, then we're just brutish cavemen and it just becomes survival of the fittest.
We don't have a creator. Society's laws are written by human beings.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
"It's a 'right' that nobody in the UK wants." ... except those who do. If the "we" you're talking about were unanimous, it would not have needed a petition, never mind a law.
Re: (Score:2)
"It's a 'right' that nobody in the UK wants." ... except those who do. If the "we" you're talking about were unanimous, it would not have needed a petition, never mind a law.
It's a case of the majority ruling.
For instance, while there are undoubtedly some paedophiles who would want the age of consent abolished entirely, most of us think a law preventing you from fucking babies is a good idea.
And, yes, this does infringe on the paedophiles' "rights".
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you for clarifying. Even 49% of people wishing to retain possession of a self-defence or hobby tool are a "nobody", just like baby f*ers. It must be comfortable for you to have such a clear moral compass.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a case of the majority ruling.
Majority ruling becomes mob rule really quickly, without something to balance it out.
Lynching black people in the south used to be done due to "mob rule". It wasn't right back then, it isn't right today.
For instance, while there are undoubtedly some paedophiles who would want the age of consent abolished entirely, most of us think a law preventing you from fucking babies is a good idea.
And, yes, this does infringe on the paedophiles' "rights".
That would infringe on the child's rights not to be assaulted. But we already have laws against assault, so this just adds yet another law, to pile onto the millions of other laws. Because a politician somewhere was running for office.
As a side note, there is in fact a difference between an adult having s
Re: (Score:2)
"people who like guns are strange and not to be entirely trusted"
Do you tell that to the face of police officers or soldiers or security guards who carry?
Re: (Score:3)
It's a 'right' that nobody in the UK wants.
"Nobody" is highly unlikely...
But in any case, you can't vote away your rights. If you could, then they wouldn't be rights.
We either have a civilization based on basic fundamental rights that exist because we do, or we're just thugs getting our way with brute force.
Take your pick...
---
Side note: Would you be ok with women losing the right to vote in the UK, if a petition passed to ban them from voting?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The homicide rate in Canada or in France is nowhere near the homicide rate in the US, yet, we are allow to own guns.
Canada and France don't allow you to carry a concealed revolver around with you, and there is no right to shoot muggers or burglars in "self defence". Also, there are serious restrictions on rifles, it's only really hunters who have guns.
Re: (Score:2)
"Canada [...] don't allow you to carry a concealed revolver around with you"
Some members of the political elite are given carry permits.
"there is no right to shoot muggers or burglars in "self defence""
Of course there is - you can defend your life against muggers (those committing robbery) with any means at your disposal.
"there are serious restrictions on rifles, it's only really hunters who have guns."
Maybe in France. In Canada, there are many target-shooters and collectors too.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It's more of a "right not to be killed by a gun-bearing lunatic, right not to be killed by finding sometime lying around the house while you are growing up"
Re: (Score:2)
That is a nice sounding idea, let me know when all murders have stopped and the banning of guns has fixed that.
Of course, if we could just ban that pesky speech, life would be easier as well, right?
---
As a side note: Your desire to be safe from gun-bearing lunatics doesn't mean I have to be unsafe due to being unable to protect myself.
You're assuming that your fears and desires outweight mine, but they don't.
Re: (Score:2)
and yet, a whole bunch of countries have significantly more strict gun laws, and also have significantly less death and injuries by guns, while not having a corresponding increase in death by other methods.
Statistics don't help make it better when you're one of them...
Try the knife violence in the UK, it is far worse than the US.
You of course miss the point, and in doing so, would deny others rights. Being armed is the modern day way to provide for self-defense. If you take that away, you're telling people they cannot defend themselves.
All your points, numbers, and debates go right out the window because of that. It is like someone who wants to limit free speech because of what the KKK says. If you want r
Re: (Score:2)
It happens more often than you'd think. If you're getting your information from CNN, well that's your problem.
Guns are used in self-defense every day. Far more than mass shootings, but they don't end up on national media.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This is a good start, but it isn't complete, due to politics:
http://www.un.org/en/universal... [un.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Bearing arms is not, you will find, in the international bill of human rights. Considering that document is almost identical to the US bill of rights - this should be food for thought. Now consider that it was written in the aftermath of the holocaust and took several years to reach sufficient consensus to actually be signed it's probably the best reference we have for what is natural human rights that governments aren't supposed to be allowed to tread on.
Of course it's imperfect, but it's the best we have
Re: (Score:2)
Bearing arms is not, you will find, in the international bill of human rights.
No, it isn't... that is one of the flaws in the international version...
Like I said, politics... There is much the US says and does that doesn't live in reality. The recent calls for "peace" in Syria are a good example. Who are they kidding, even thinking to ask for it, when both sides are very busy killing each other.
Silly, it is simply not living in reality, and that is a shame.
One of a human's rights is to live secure knowing that you can provide for your own protection. In the modern day, that requ
Re: (Score:2)
A law professor probably would, but that doesn't make him right... it means he sees the world through man-made laws.
Slavery was once legal, it still exists in the world. Is that ok?
Or is it wrong and a violation of human rights, regardless of the law?
Re: (Score:2)
A law professor probably would, but that doesn't make him right... it means he sees the world through man-made laws.
There are only man-made laws, unless you can somehow prove that God exists.
Slavery was once legal, it still exists in the world. Is that ok?
Or is it wrong and a violation of human rights, regardless of the law?
The point is that until enough people decided slavery was wrong and made it illegal, the imaginary "rights" of the slaves (to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or whatever) were completely meaningless.
Re: (Score:3)
Right to own and bear arms.
Right to own and arm bears?
Now that would be an awesome sport.
Re:Fundamental right????? (Score:5, Insightful)
When everything is a fundamental right, then that completely devalues the definition of "fundamental".
Internet access should be enshrined as a right. This extends beyond just remote rural citizens to everyday citizens everyday lives.
I'm sure you recall the scene in the matrix where Neo demands his call and they edit out his mouth. "What good is a phone call if you can't speak..."
In modern society the internet is replacing the post office. We increasingly use it to commuicate with eachother and with our government.
To deny someone the internet in 2020 is akin to denying them the post office in 1920. Not only should access be mandated, but it really should be enshrined as a right -- such that it cannot be easily curtailed by a judge or future legislators at whim.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What if access to the railroads had been enshrined a fundamental right back in the 1940s? After all, "freedom of movement", right? But that would have stifled the growth of roads, and we're much more mobile now than we were 70 years ago. Same thing with newspapers and freedom of speech.
It's infinitely better that fundamental rights be generically written so as not to tie civilization to any one specific technology.
Re:Fundamental right????? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's infinitely better that fundamental rights be generically written so as not to tie civilization to any one specific technology.
I don't disagree with you, and your not wrong. First, RTFA...
--
The PM is to introduce a "universal service obligation" for broadband, giving the public a legal right to request an "affordable" connection.
It would put broadband on a similar footing to other basic services such as water and electricity.
--
Its not being enshrined as an amendment to the magna carta or something.
It's infinitely better that fundamental rights be generically written so as not to tie civilization to any one specific technology.
And while I agree with this. If they don't pass legislation to "enshrine" specific technology then its legal status is indeterminate and in limbo until the courts set binding precendents. Especially since the courts are bound by the law as it is written, not the will of the people or even common sense. Which is precisely the wrong way to go about protecting your rights. Its good to proactively legislate that certain technologies are captured by your more abstract rights.
Finally, to your railroad argument vs freedom of movement; I offer you the modern air travel "no-fly list"... as an example where if something is not explicitly enshrined you get bullshit like this that will take decades to work out. The internet has a lot in common with it, and someone who wishes to deny you the internet simply argues ... your freedom of speech is not curtailed: you can still say what ever you want to people in person; you just can't say it on the internet....
I applaud any nation that proactively says: "Noope. We're not having that nonsense here. Denying you the internet is a violation of your rights. All citizens should have affordable access." And if in the year 2400 such a ruling on the books is as quaint as those ordinances that still require the school house to stable your horse... so be it. (Although I am in favor of a better system of removing obsolete law than we have now.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The railroads had common-carrier status pushed on them in the late 1800's IIRC, this forced them to treat all customers the same and was sorta considered a right.
Re: (Score:2)
That's a good comparison. The Post Office has to serve everywhere, from big cities to remote islands, and at the same charge.
Of course while you probably see that as one of those things needed to keep a society running, others see it as the first step towards death panels and compulsory gay marriage.
Re: (Score:2)
Note that the Postal Service is a government institution.
So, raise your hands if you want internet access to be a government provided service. After all, they'd NEVER do something like monitor every website you visit and every email you send, right?
Re: (Score:3)
It's worth pointing out that in the U.S. there is absolutely no requirement in the Constitution for a postal service
Article 1 Section 8's enumeration of Power of Congress are implicitly also exclusively *reserved* for Congress.
For example Congress is not merely empowered to establish currency; this task is reserved for congress. Congress is not merely empowered to declare wars or maintain the navy; the power to declare wars and maintain navies *rests* with congress. The states can't establish their own currencies, navies, nor declare their own wars.... nor can they establish their own post offices.
Historically, the post
Ah, but... (Score:2)
...the US postal service has strong law protecting the service and customers thereof from tampering, misuse etc.
Interception is also non-scalable.
None of this is true for internet comms. If governments can push citizens to use the tubes for all their comms, research, media, then the automated analysis will make picking out and tracking any type of person from child-molester type criminal threat to MLK or anti-TPP-organising political threat very easy.
Re: (Score:2)
Article 1 Section 8's enumeration of Power of Congress are implicitly also exclusively *reserved* for Congress.
For example Congress is not merely empowered to establish currency; this task is reserved for congress. Congress is not merely empowered to declare wars or maintain the navy; the power to declare wars and maintain navies *rests* with congress. The states can't establish their own currencies, navies, nor declare their own wars.... nor can they establish their own post offices.
Nonsense. Section 8 only says what Congress is permitted to do. It doesn't mean, on its own, that any of those things are exclusive to Congress. That would mean, for example, that states couldn't establish their own courts ("To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court"). Most of what is in Section 8 only makes sense for Congress anyway, but the rest is fair game.
States don't get to declare war or maintain navies in peacetime because they are explicitly forbidden from doing so by Section 10, not be
Re: (Score:2)
It's also worth pointing out that the article is about the UK.
The constitution doesn't explicitly mention roads either, so if you think Ike was a goshdiggitydarned cormanust don't nobody's forcing you to drive on the interstate.
Re: (Score:2)
And that's why I specifically mentioned the U.S. in my comment. Many Americans are quite ignorant about the U.S. Constitution and some vaguely recall hearing that Post Offices and Postal Roads are mentioned and make the mistake of believing there is some sort of constitutional requirement that such entities exist when in fact it's no different than wars -- Congress has the right to declare war, however they have no obligation to ever declare war and they are not in violation of the U.S. Constitution any tim
Re: (Score:2)
> they are not in violation of the U.S. Constitution any time there is not an active declared war.
Actually the current one would be (and everyone since world war 2) - but for a completely different reason. The US has no right to have a standing army - in fact the constitution explicitly prohibits this. An army may only be raised in times of war.
After world war 2 though, the military became such a crucial part of the economy in the US that dismantling it would be a disaster. The easiest work around is to
Re: (Score:2)
You have misunderstood the Constitution. Congress is limited in funding the army to 2 years at a time, and that is the only limitation. The Constitution does not prohibit the army from existing in times of no war, nor does it prohibit the army from existing indefinitely.
The idea that after WWII the military was kept intact for primarily economic reasons is paranoid fantasy. By the time that occupying forces were no longer necessary to prevent Germany and Japan from restarting war, it was clear that the USSR
Re: (Score:2)
But access to a post office is not a right. It's something governments have striven to provide their citizens, but it's never been a right.
Re: (Score:2)
Many countries *do* consider it a right.
Re: (Score:2)
Trying to make the first two rights is called socialism which is just a prettied up word for people who believe in slavery.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There is a world of difference between denying access to the internet and not providing access to the internet, and it's dishonest to attempt to equate the two.
The right to life prohibits me from preventing you from eating. It does not require me to feed you (parents of young children excepted).
Re: (Score:2)
I would advise against dial-up as the baseline for a completely different reason. Dial-up is expensive infrastructure for ISP's to maintain (they need to pay for a phone-line for each person who wants to be online at any given moment), it ties up the telephone network, it's unreliable...
Dedicated internet infrastructure taking off was not simply a result of the benefits outweighing the cost - it was also technologically a far superior solution than piggybacking on the phone network and this made providing t
Re: (Score:2)
Where in the article or the summary did you read anything about not having to pay for the internet ?
The "right" being granted is only the right to *have* the choice. The right to get a connection *if* you are willing to pay for it.
Re: (Score:2)
It's just a rhetorical technique. Government handouts are stigmatized, yet voters will still reward politicians for them. So politicians and their supporters make arguments about various things being rights (college, healthcare, cell phones, broadband, etc.) which gives the recipients the cover they need to avoid the stigma
Re: (Score:2)
The government wants everyone to file their taxes online. If they want to make that a requirement, then they need to make sure everyone has internet access.
Re: (Score:2)
Everything isn't a fundamental right. Very few things are, in fact. But one of them is the ability, not just a purely theoretical liberty, to live and partake in society on equal footing with everyone else - and today that requires the Internet.
That said, it might be clearer if fundamental rights and consequently required rights were separated to their own groups. In that case, "broadband Internet connecti
Re: (Score:2)
the ability, not just a purely theoretical liberty, to live and partake in society on equal footing with everyone else
No, since that pretty explicitly means everyone having as much of everything as everyone else, and that experiment was a catastrophic failure.
it might be clearer if fundamental rights and consequently required rights were separated to their own groups.
Splendid idea.
Re: (Score:2)
However, when it's impossible to become educated, or employed (or potentially in the future, registered as existing, being able to travel, ...) in any way really participate in society without it, then you really do have to consider internet access a fundamental right.
Re: (Score:2)
Absolutely not true. For example, think back to pre-radio days: freedom of the press required you to be able to afford a press. The government didn't pay for there to be one in each house an apartment.
Re: (Score:2)
Just like the government isn't paying for your internet connection in the UK, they're just stating that the ISPs aren't allowed to refuse to install one, no matter where you live.
Re: (Score:2)
You misunderstand. How can GCHQ spy on people who are not online? This is an attempt to close the spy-agency version of the analog hole.
Re: (Score:2)
But being a right doesn't mean it must be provided.
Telescreens (Score:4, Funny)
The bandwidth will be needed for our telescreens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescreen
Curiously (Score:5, Insightful)
No right to privacy, eh? If you're building a police state, it makes for a convenient combination of priorities.
For that matter, why not make free speech a fundamental right? Or has Cameron forgotten he's in the UK?
Re: (Score:2)
Carnerib has certainly not forgotten that he's in the UK.
That kind of "gift" comes with a catch:
Pull the live of more people into the internet, where you can easily observe them because they just share.
I just fear for those that do not accept this fundamental gift!
24mbit.... or "up to" 24mbit? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I've just been told there's currently no guarantee of upload speeds. So my upload can go down to 512Kbit and it would still be "working". Fibre To The Cabinet is such a wonderful tech, even BT can't be arsed to try to make it work.
Re: (Score:2)
Hmmm ... not limited to uploads, methinks. With my BT FTTC, the download speeds are all over the place as well :(
Re: (Score:2)
What good is fast internet? (Score:3)
What good is a speed increase if I am not allowed to use it for what I want? I sure as fuck don't need faster internet to get more ads that I must not block. I sure don't need faster access of pages that don't interest me because the ISPs may throttle those that do with impunity.
Most of all, I do not need faster access. I need more secure access. Which you buffoons actually want to outlaw.
Don't dip the turd you try to feed us in chocolate and pretend like it's tasty.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd rather have them spend time on removing the restrictions. Living in a prison cell ain't going to be any better because there's cake for dinner now.
80/20 rule (Score:2)
What ever happened to the good old 80/20 rule? 80% of the coverage with 20% of the effort.
Every country I have seen which declares that internet MUST be available to ALL citizens has subsequently shot themselves in the fiscal foot with horrendous cost blow-outs for installations. At some point someone must realise that someone living on a farm 2km from high neighbour is unlikely to be able to expect the same kind of services and systems available to inner city tech hubs.
I always laugh at the concept in Aust
Re: (Score:2)
"Rural"?.. (Score:2)
The latest plan is directed at the "last 5 percent" — such as people in remote areas
They will have to redefine "remote" because live the 10th largest city in the UK and the only option i have is a 3Mbit connection, they all go to the same cabinet regardless of what ISP you choose.
Rights (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless you believe in God given rights, every right is simply something the government guarantees to you.
Society over time decides what it feels everyone should be entitled to - and entitled is not a four letter word.
We started with Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Since then we added a few, everyone can vote, everyone can work, speech, etc.
As society changes more things become "rights" - ie. things we as a society feel all of us would benefit by having - like education, healthcare, living wage.
The internet is widely integrated into all walks of life in all industrialized nations. I won't list the benefits it brings, since Anonymous Cowards want to prove that dial up is "good enough" and you can live without it even.
The point is, rights are not about things you can't live without, rights are about those things we as a society believe everyone should have.
Re: (Score:2)
And who is this "we as a society"? You mean the 10-20% of society that usually votes for the winning party or candidate? Parties and candidates subject to extensive corporate lobbying and political pressures? Representatives that have approval ratings in the low teens? The idea that political decisions in a democracy represent the universal desires or preferences of "
Entitlement (Score:4, Insightful)
Not a right, an entitlement. A right is something the government can not stop you from doing. An entitlement is something the government must provide you. The distinction is important. Governments do not provide anyone with rights. Governments can only take rights away.
Re: (Score:2)
Not a right, an entitlement. A right is something the government can not stop you from doing. An entitlement is something the government must provide you. The distinction is important. Governments do not provide anyone with rights. Governments can only take rights away.
"The government" can stop you from doing anything they like. Also, there are no pre-existing rights, only systems created by human beings.
Wild animals don't have governments, and they don't have rights.
The Cost? (Score:2)
Rights (Score:2)
A right is a liberty, a freedom to do something without the government interfering.
The internet is a service, someone's labor for which they need compensation.
You never have a right to another person's services or goods. At best you could say it's a good idea to pool resources. Even that involves forcing those who do not want to pool resources into giving up their resources. As a result, a byproduct of pooling resources is a gradual reduction of individuals choosing what to do with their own resources.
It
Re: (Score:2)
Next Step will be ... (Score:2)
Not being online will not be an option. Don't have a (landline) phone or a computer ... please opt out using the web page at notme.gov.uk ....
It's like this thing that you have an address. Not having an address, or having a location which changes from night to night is not a permissible option. (I have a friend who is just about finished building his retirement home - a mobile home. He's an Bolshy anti-government person, who happily pays his taxes. But he doesn't fit into appro
Re:A right does not obligate anyone to act (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes and just like Ayn Rand you'll undoubtedly end up on benefits when you grow up, because there's no way anyone so profoundly selfish as you will make it very far in life by yourself. I'm sure you also don't ever travel on roads that other people have built right? I'm sure you're not currently using the very internet that was designed and developed as the result of government funded R&D yes? I'm sure you don't drink water pumped through government subsidised infrastructure right?
We're a social species, our very existence has depended on the fact that we've worked together to survive over the years. There's your fundamental fucking right, it is our evolved way. If you aren't part of that you're an anomaly in the human race, and are not fit to survive.
Going back to fundamentals as you put it, you would be easy fodder for those humans who have decided to work together whilst you isolate yourself and make yourself a trivial threat to dispatch. You shouldn't be here. The only reason you are is because civilisation and it's social aspects protect even idiots like you.
If you don't understand that humans are a social species, and working together is in our DNA, then you have serious problems.
Re: (Score:3)
In the UK, there is already the right to have various other services (power, water, phone) at the same price anywhere in the country, so wether you live in london or the highlands of scotland you still get these services.
All they're changing, is "phoneline" now means that you must be able to get 10mbps internet access, ie they're just raising the minimum standard of what's already required.
Currently if you want a phoneline in a remote location, BT must install it for you and charge no more than they would f
Re: (Score:2)
I have a right to free speech
The article is about the UK - therefore this is irrelevant. Whether or not you have free speech doesn't affect us in the UK.
Even saying that, rights have provisos. You have the right to live - but even in a certain "free" country that has different political regions - they call them States - some of these "States" will irreversibly revoke that right under certain circumstances. (And this is ignoring things like war)
I have the right to travel freely, does that obligate the government to buy me a car?
The Government not buying you a car doesn't mean you can't travel. I'm assuming you can g
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. But where we're on a planet where a very small number of people have the same total wealth as half of the planet, would taking more money from that very small number of people be a bad thing?
Yes, that would be a bad thing. People have the right of property. If the government can simply declare that something I own is now something they own is the destruction of the right of property.
What are they going to do with it anyway?
This is delicious. Somehow we are allowed to simply take stuff from the wealthy, presumably because they are greedy, because... why? Is not taking stuff from someone else arbitrarily also greedy? They own that stuff so what they do with it should not be my or your concern.
It cannot be taxed? Wouldn't not paying tax be a form of subsidy?
Perhaps. It would also be a means of s
Re: (Score:2)
People have the right of property
Only if society says they do.
Re: (Score:2)
I replied to this post earlier but then decided it was likely too long for most people to bother to read. Here's a much shorter version.
The Government can and certainly will interfere. In everything. (They are generally interested in politics - and as an advert here a few years ago said - "If you're not into politics, you're not into anything." Or, as I prefer to think of it "We will meddle in everything")
Just because the government can does not mean it should. Might does not equal right.
You'd generally want your Government to be interested in somebody trying to give health care in a sewer (The place) or operations being done by somebody who is claiming to be a doctor who isn't. (The manner)
My body, my choice. I should be able to choose what kind of care I get, whom should provide it, where that happens, and when. So long as we both agree upon the terms of the transaction then the government should not be able to interfere. With something as fundamental like medical care t
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They want universal access so that they can deliver government services via the internet and shut down local offices and call centres. It will ultimately save taxpayers money and also help our struggling internet services sector grow. At the moment our TV broadcasters can't even deliver YouTube quality video, our infrastructure is so bad and so expensive...
Re: (Score:3)
A recent debate is that medical care is a "fundamental right". So I find myself in need of medical care, does that obligate the government to provide it? Who is the "government" anyway? Government is people. Do I have the right to another person's labor? Are other people obligated to provide me with their resources? That is what things like food, shelter, internet access, and medical care are, they are the time, labor, and resources of others.
I don't have a "fundamental right" to another person's stuff. Claiming such sounds a lot like, "to everyone according to their needs, from everyone according to their abilities." I'd bet that a lot of people don't even know where that phrase comes from or what it means. That phrase is what brought us Marxism, communism, and socialism.
Negative right = the government will not interfere. Positive right = the government will secure your right. If you're absolutely against positive rights, you're against many fundamental rights like the rule of law. If we can raise taxes for police, lawyers og judges to keep you from being murdered, why can't we raise taxes to keep you from starving, thirsting, freezing to death or dying for trivially cured injuries or disease? What you're rebelling against isn't socialism, it's civilization and democracy. I
Re: (Score:2)
It's a big problem with lack of internet access on farms, not just in the UK. The problem is that the European Union has given each cow a unique ID. Cow breaders then have to report on their lifestock through the internet. However ADSL and similar is a town/city option and quite a number of farms are stuck with 56k and whoever made the webpage to report lifestock is using something way faster. This mean in order to log in, it has to download so much that it times out before it finishes as 56k bandwidth simply isn't enough. Some farmers are then forced to have somewhere else where they can connect to the internet and have to drive there whenever they have something to report and sure enough they waste quite a lot of time doing so.
Uh, no. This is problem with the yoyo designing the system. Sure, if you want an AJAX page with blinkies, a 2 MB picture of a generic cow and a pile of PDF's you need decent broadband. If all you are trying to do is to log some data into a remote server, not so much. We've done projects like that over satellite phones for bog's sake.
Now, I think it great if rural folk have access to high speed Internet - I live in the middle of fucking nowhere and have (expensive) 10 down / 1 up. We even have symmetri