Government is good because law and order is good. Vital to civilisation and progress in fact. But yeah I agree they don't need to be involved in telecommunications.
governance is a good concept, but always corrupts.
ACA lowered prices and improved quality of healthcare for me.
You must be on welfare, unemployed, or disabled. It has raised the cost for most, and has forced people off their policies and away from their doctors. That is indisputable facts.
Is that what the telecoms are doing? Because for every theoretical bump in "quality" most of us don't notice, how many cost increases have there been? Even if you call to complain, overall over time costs go up for little actual quality increases. While they make record profits. The free market lets them be a monopoly here, 1 provider or no internet. That doesn't make me feel very free.
I could provide numerous examples of how the free market is charging us more for less, but you're so worried about a non-existent gov takeover that you're more than happy for us to give our "freedom" to private companies that are known to be terrible.
crony-capitalizim should not be confused with free market.
I don't want to give my freedom to ANYONE! I want the freedom to choose who I want, and for the market to be open so more competition can compete.
Non-existant? yeah, ACA was the government ONLY fixing a problem the big mean insurance companies created.......OH WAIT!! The gov first nixes the FREE market by not allowing health insurance to be sold across State lines (like home and auto). They also don't cap crazy lawsuits with tort reform.
Soooooo Once again.... Government creates the problem then says 'Hi, we're the government, we are here to help'.
How thinking people can't put these simple pieces together boggles my mind!!
Interesting claim. I don't buy it. As far as I can see it makes no difference. If you have info to support the "more transparent" idea then you should share it.
When is the last time you had a national conversation about your electric bill, gas bill, water bill, or any other utility? Keeping it out of the gov hands allows each attempt of control to become a national debate. Won't fix it forever, as we see with the ACA, they are willing to lie to the People, Congress, and Supreme Court to get what they want!!
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Competition is good as long as it's real competition. But telcos in many states (about twenty, I think) have encouraged (cough) State lawmakers to prevent municipalities and related entities from providing broadband, even if they already provide similar services such as electricity (i.e. they already own poles, wire and rights-of-way). There is a delicious irony in this which is lost on those legislators: as they strongly argue for States' rights against the tyranny of the Federal Government, they practice the exact same tyranny against their smaller political subdivisions. If the citizens decide through a referendum that they wish to establish their own broadband service, because the "majors" aren't doing a decent job, then why should the State Government, at the behest of the telcos, prevent this? To "foster competition" ? Really ?
So your claim against this one is to show me an example of gov involvement that cripples the free market? WOW!!
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Agreed. This is a winner. There's enough dark fiber out there that some creative folks could set up a broad-area WiFi (I guess using white-space spectrum, but maybe others ?) without the massive expenditure entailed in physical connection to every house.
Your own claim was "All government becomes bad, even when it starts out good. No need to look past our own government for that lesson".
Since you claimed that all were bad, a single counterexample will suffice. And since you asked, let me refer you again to the example I quoted before.
This is a really crisp description of how the French government has done well at regulating telecom services (which they screwed up very badly years ago, as I well remember). And not that I do not argue that everything in France - government or otherwise - is wonderful. Only that here the French have done, through government regulation, very much better by their citizens than the U.S. governments (Federal, State and otherwise) have done for us. In case some readers are losing us at this point and don't follow the link, this choice tidbit explains it well ...
Great! Someone who is less bad than others is considered good for the people! When all else fails, lower the standards! Stop regulating the ability for competition to enter the market, and most will resolve itself. Yes, gov needs to make sure entities play nice with the public, but healthy competition tends to do that better.
You must be on welfare, unemployed, or disabled. It has raised the cost for most, and has forced people off their policies and away from their doctors. That is indisputable facts.
Good.
So in order not to hang around being unemployed all these doctors and health insurance companies will be forced to compete.
It should stop the insanely overpriced services you Americans put up with and stop your citizens dying because money has overridden Hippocrates.
That... doesn't make sense. You seem to think the “free" market would magically fix everything, but I honestly don’t see how given what they’re ALREADY trying to do. Who's going to give you that freedom to choose your provider? Certainly not the providers. Gov isn't forcing them to monopolize. There is an element of crony capitalism because they’re LETTING providers pretty much do as they wish, which they've taken advantage of and still want more. Further deregulation wouldn’t fix that. Wouldn't you want gov oversight to tell them they have to not only give you choices, but not try to control content delivery? Which is basically what they are trying to do if we allow things like throttling. That’s why this debate is happening. Verizon and Comcast basically blackmailed Netflix and are the only or one of the only providers in some areas, most having only one, because the gov LETS them, not makes them. And it's about to get a lot worse if nothing is done.
We wouldn't need laws against murder if people didn't kill each other either. But they do, and corporations get greedy, so here we are. I don't know if they have to be regulated as telecoms, but that's only one proposal. Most of us just want to continue Net Neutrality, and if the providers want to mess with that someone has to step in. Because that's the thing about freedom - if we give it to corporations, which is what happens if there’s limited or no regulation, we do lose it ourselves anyway. We already have. I would be just as angry if the gov was trying to take away our freedoms too, but in this case they are trying to protect the consumer. I'd side with a compromise from them (because, again, at this point they aren’t doing ENOUGH) over letting the providers have free reign. Do you trust the providers on this, or just fear what the gov might do? At least we can vote out politicians, I can’t choose anyone but TW if I want internet. I know you think it’s because of over-regulation, but that’s just not accurate. Look at our internet and why it is the way it is vs. other countries who regulate it more (delivery, not content). Theirs is better. It just is.
So those are our choices, regulation or deregulation. There's no gov monopoly on the internet, no one in the gov controlling content, no gov takeover, even the question of a new tax has been debunked. Just regulation proposed to prevent corporations (and in some cases local gov) from making things worse like they've already tried to do. I just don't understand why so many people are so afraid of what the gov "could" do, even though the proposals are nothing like what's feared, but are more than happy to let the companies continue to do things they already are and want to do even worse. Which is somehow freedom? And when they jerk us around, which of course they do, you somehow blame the gov and call for LESS regulation!?! Maybe someone can explain to me how that's supposed to work. “I don’t want to be controlled by the gov that’s not trying to control me, I want to be controlled by a company that is because… freedom”. Ok… Maybe you just don’t see what the corporations are doing, or trying to do. Maybe you can’t look past gov mismanagement even though they really aren’t trying to control anything. I don’t know. But I do know that the free market and deregulation have let us down in this case. Not sure why you can’t see that.
As far as the ACA, remember that this was actually the Republican plan. Created by the Nixon admin, taken by the far-right Heritage group, used as a counter to the Clinton's bureaucratic nightmare, and implemented by Gov. Romney as a compromise. At the time it was referred to as "personal responsibility using market based solutions". Instead of socialized medicine or even a public option, it's simply stricter regulations and subsidies over the existing system. The otherwise free market system. States are free to create their own exchanges and regulate them within federal guidelines, and since every state has its own rules interstate shopping wouldn't make sense. Especially since they could all just setup in the place that has the least regulation and the places with more may not be able to enforce their own rules. States rights, no?
Also, tort reform has already been tried, but in places where it's implemented it's done nothing to help with costs. I'm not even saying negligible, literally nothing. Not to say there couldn't be some reforms to the court system and there definitely could be some fixes to the ACA, but again we're talking about things like negotiating prescription prices and streamlining claims. Which would be MORE regulation, not less. Less and we have the old system, or worse, which was becoming unsustainable. Again, the current compromises and hodgepodge aren't perfect by far, but they wouldn't be needed if corporations didn't try to get away with murder. They don't want regulation, stop trying to screw us over all the time.
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TL, DR version: no one likes being told what to do, but regulation is a necessary evil that appears half-a'ed because it can be full of compromises and cronyisms over protecting the consumer (i.e. sometimes going to far, but sometimes not far enough) though still better than nothing, which would lead to even more corporate control (re: abuse) and often actually does have reasoning, even if not apparent at first glance.
So in order not to hang around being unemployed all these doctors and health insurance companies will be forced to compete.
It should stop the insanely overpriced services you Americans put up with and stop your citizens dying because money has overridden Hippocrates.
Doctors do compete for business. Health insurance companies do not in the same way as auto/home/life. Health insurance here is not allowed to be sold across State lines.
If you are stuck in California, with these insanely high taxes, then your health insurance is more as it cost more to operate in CA. I can buy my auto insurance from Maryland, my life insurance from Texas, and my home insurance from Idaho. But I MUST buy my health from CA! How absurd.
Also, doctors run so many test to be sure and cover themselves in court if a lawsuit is filed, that the cost per visit goes up. Also doctors have high malpractice insurance (I've seen $100,000 per year) that also increases cost.
I've been to the doctor twice since I was 18 (now 46) and this last visit I was told I might want to get some 'old guy' tests ran (how rude lol), the average cash price was 80% cheaper than the insurance covered price due to all the high costs involved. INSANE!!
I et the impression that the US has the most expensive mobile in the world. Here in the UK we get massive call and SMS allowance with all in unlimited data for under $25 per month.
US companies seem to operate as a cartel far far better, to the detriment of consumers.
I et the impression that the US has the most expensive mobile in the world.
Here in the UK we get massive call and SMS allowance with all in unlimited data for under $25 per month.
US companies seem to operate as a cartel far far better, to the detriment of consumers.
Except you're comparing a one bedroom apartment, or flat to a 20 bedroom mansion. Which costs more to build, and maintain?
I et the impression that the US has the most expensive mobile in the world.
Here in the UK we get massive call and SMS allowance with all in unlimited data for under $25 per month.
US companies seem to operate as a cartel far far better, to the detriment of consumers.
Except that the UK is less than half the size of Texas. I think that the cost to build and maintain a network vastly larger would possibly cost somewhat more.
governance is a good concept, but always corrupts.
Governance is the collective expression of the people.
Government is only as corrupt as we allow it to be. Sometimes that's a lot. Other times not much at all.
There are always corrupting influences. The difference is in how dominant they become. However that's a discussion for a different thread - this one's about networks, not politics.
Except that the UK is less than half the size of Texas. I think that the cost to build and maintain a network vastly larger would possibly cost somewhat more.
Except that the network doesn't cover the whole of Texas. And, to be fair, the UK one doesn't fully cover the whole country.
It does cost more to build a larger network. But the UK, unlike Texas, mandates a certain amount of infrastructure-sharing. That way they don't have the "huge" operators such as Verizon and AT&T so dominant in the market. UK is still an expensive market but the barrier to entry is not as big as it is in the U.S.
Wall Street likes the U.S. model with a couple of very big, profitable carriers. End-users like the less-expensive model which is why T-Mobile has been making inroads. As you say, the cost/coverage equation is a complex one.
I want the Federal government to step in when the local politicians are bought up by utilities to create local monopolies. That is what this is about. In several states, like North Carolina, it is illegal for a town to offer network access as a municipal service. This was done by Cable company lobbiest's to keep the prices for their service high and restrict competition.
In Davidson NC, the town offered a low cost high speed internet utility which was particually important to the local economy because of the college located there. The North Carolina Assembly passed a bill making the sale of services by the local government illegal which gave a monopoly to the local cable company.
This was a straight forward quid pro quo for money given to state legistlature bigwigs who sold out their constitutuents. Not using government to protect you from government manipulation of our lives is just insanity. We have already been down this road before and it took the civil rights movement and a near complete collapse of the social fabric to fix it.
I want the Federal government to step in when the local politicians are bought up by utilities to create local monopolies. That is what this is about. In several states, like North Carolina, it is illegal for a town to offer network access as a municipal service. This was done by Cable company lobbiest's to keep the prices for their service high and restrict competition.
In Davidson NC, the town offered a low cost high speed internet utility which was particually important to the local economy because of the college located there. The North Carolina Assembly passed a bill making the sale of services by the local government illegal which gave a monopoly to the local cable company.
This was a straight forward quid pro quo for money given to state legistlature bigwigs who sold out their constitutuents. Not using government to protect you from government manipulation of our lives is just insanity. We have already been down this road before and it took the civil rights movement and a near complete collapse of the social fabric to fix it.
Fully agree.
It is pitiful to hear these complaints of "States' Rights". About the big, bad Federal Gubmint trailing all over them.
What the reality is that the big, bad State Gubmint has been trampling all over the rights of the cities.
As has been noted elsewhere, this is like the 6th grade bully complaining about the high-schooler hitting him, when what the high-schooler was doing was stepping in to break up the bullying of the 3rd grader.
I want the Federal government to step in when the local politicians are bought up by utilities to create local monopolies. That is what this is about. In several states, like North Carolina, it is illegal for a town to offer network access as a municipal service. This was done by Cable company lobbiest's to keep the prices for their service high and restrict competition.
In Davidson NC, the town offered a low cost high speed internet utility which was particually important to the local economy because of the college located there. The North Carolina Assembly passed a bill making the sale of services by the local government illegal which gave a monopoly to the local cable company.
This was a straight forward quid pro quo for money given to state legistlature bigwigs who sold out their constitutuents. Not using government to protect you from government manipulation of our lives is just insanity. We have already been down this road before and it took the civil rights movement and a near complete collapse of the social fabric to fix it.
The entire Government from top to bottom is held in thrall to corporate lobbying, that's who they govern for, to think otherwise is naive.
Comments
Government is good because law and order is good. Vital to civilisation and progress in fact. But yeah I agree they don't need to be involved in telecommunications.
governance is a good concept, but always corrupts.
ACA lowered prices and improved quality of healthcare for me.
You must be on welfare, unemployed, or disabled. It has raised the cost for most, and has forced people off their policies and away from their doctors. That is indisputable facts.
Is that what the telecoms are doing? Because for every theoretical bump in "quality" most of us don't notice, how many cost increases have there been? Even if you call to complain, overall over time costs go up for little actual quality increases. While they make record profits. The free market lets them be a monopoly here, 1 provider or no internet. That doesn't make me feel very free.
I could provide numerous examples of how the free market is charging us more for less, but you're so worried about a non-existent gov takeover that you're more than happy for us to give our "freedom" to private companies that are known to be terrible.
crony-capitalizim should not be confused with free market.
I don't want to give my freedom to ANYONE! I want the freedom to choose who I want, and for the market to be open so more competition can compete.
Non-existant? yeah, ACA was the government ONLY fixing a problem the big mean insurance companies created.......OH WAIT!! The gov first nixes the FREE market by not allowing health insurance to be sold across State lines (like home and auto). They also don't cap crazy lawsuits with tort reform.
Soooooo Once again.... Government creates the problem then says 'Hi, we're the government, we are here to help'.
How thinking people can't put these simple pieces together boggles my mind!!
Interesting claim. I don't buy it. As far as I can see it makes no difference. If you have info to support the "more transparent" idea then you should share it.
When is the last time you had a national conversation about your electric bill, gas bill, water bill, or any other utility? Keeping it out of the gov hands allows each attempt of control to become a national debate. Won't fix it forever, as we see with the ACA, they are willing to lie to the People, Congress, and Supreme Court to get what they want!!
Competition is good as long as it's real competition. But telcos in many states (about twenty, I think) have encouraged (cough) State lawmakers to prevent municipalities and related entities from providing broadband, even if they already provide similar services such as electricity (i.e. they already own poles, wire and rights-of-way). There is a delicious irony in this which is lost on those legislators: as they strongly argue for States' rights against the tyranny of the Federal Government, they practice the exact same tyranny against their smaller political subdivisions. If the citizens decide through a referendum that they wish to establish their own broadband service, because the "majors" aren't doing a decent job, then why should the State Government, at the behest of the telcos, prevent this? To "foster competition" ? Really ?
So your claim against this one is to show me an example of gov involvement that cripples the free market? WOW!!
Agreed. This is a winner. There's enough dark fiber out there that some creative folks could set up a broad-area WiFi (I guess using white-space spectrum, but maybe others ?) without the massive expenditure entailed in physical connection to every house.
Your own claim was "All government becomes bad, even when it starts out good. No need to look past our own government for that lesson".
Since you claimed that all were bad, a single counterexample will suffice. And since you asked, let me refer you again to the example I quoted before.
http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/12/what-france-has-taught-me-americans-are-suckers-who-have-themselves-to-blame-for-crappy-broadband/
This is a really crisp description of how the French government has done well at regulating telecom services (which they screwed up very badly years ago, as I well remember). And not that I do not argue that everything in France - government or otherwise - is wonderful. Only that here the French have done, through government regulation, very much better by their citizens than the U.S. governments (Federal, State and otherwise) have done for us. In case some readers are losing us at this point and don't follow the link, this choice tidbit explains it well ...
Great! Someone who is less bad than others is considered good for the people! When all else fails, lower the standards! Stop regulating the ability for competition to enter the market, and most will resolve itself. Yes, gov needs to make sure entities play nice with the public, but healthy competition tends to do that better.
You must be on welfare, unemployed, or disabled. It has raised the cost for most, and has forced people off their policies and away from their doctors. That is indisputable facts.
Good.
So in order not to hang around being unemployed all these doctors and health insurance companies will be forced to compete.
It should stop the insanely overpriced services you Americans put up with and stop your citizens dying because money has overridden Hippocrates.
That... doesn't make sense. You seem to think the “free" market would magically fix everything, but I honestly don’t see how given what they’re ALREADY trying to do. Who's going to give you that freedom to choose your provider? Certainly not the providers. Gov isn't forcing them to monopolize. There is an element of crony capitalism because they’re LETTING providers pretty much do as they wish, which they've taken advantage of and still want more. Further deregulation wouldn’t fix that. Wouldn't you want gov oversight to tell them they have to not only give you choices, but not try to control content delivery? Which is basically what they are trying to do if we allow things like throttling. That’s why this debate is happening. Verizon and Comcast basically blackmailed Netflix and are the only or one of the only providers in some areas, most having only one, because the gov LETS them, not makes them. And it's about to get a lot worse if nothing is done.
We wouldn't need laws against murder if people didn't kill each other either. But they do, and corporations get greedy, so here we are. I don't know if they have to be regulated as telecoms, but that's only one proposal. Most of us just want to continue Net Neutrality, and if the providers want to mess with that someone has to step in. Because that's the thing about freedom - if we give it to corporations, which is what happens if there’s limited or no regulation, we do lose it ourselves anyway. We already have. I would be just as angry if the gov was trying to take away our freedoms too, but in this case they are trying to protect the consumer. I'd side with a compromise from them (because, again, at this point they aren’t doing ENOUGH) over letting the providers have free reign. Do you trust the providers on this, or just fear what the gov might do? At least we can vote out politicians, I can’t choose anyone but TW if I want internet. I know you think it’s because of over-regulation, but that’s just not accurate. Look at our internet and why it is the way it is vs. other countries who regulate it more (delivery, not content). Theirs is better. It just is.
So those are our choices, regulation or deregulation. There's no gov monopoly on the internet, no one in the gov controlling content, no gov takeover, even the question of a new tax has been debunked. Just regulation proposed to prevent corporations (and in some cases local gov) from making things worse like they've already tried to do. I just don't understand why so many people are so afraid of what the gov "could" do, even though the proposals are nothing like what's feared, but are more than happy to let the companies continue to do things they already are and want to do even worse. Which is somehow freedom? And when they jerk us around, which of course they do, you somehow blame the gov and call for LESS regulation!?! Maybe someone can explain to me how that's supposed to work. “I don’t want to be controlled by the gov that’s not trying to control me, I want to be controlled by a company that is because… freedom”. Ok… Maybe you just don’t see what the corporations are doing, or trying to do. Maybe you can’t look past gov mismanagement even though they really aren’t trying to control anything. I don’t know. But I do know that the free market and deregulation have let us down in this case. Not sure why you can’t see that.
As far as the ACA, remember that this was actually the Republican plan. Created by the Nixon admin, taken by the far-right Heritage group, used as a counter to the Clinton's bureaucratic nightmare, and implemented by Gov. Romney as a compromise. At the time it was referred to as "personal responsibility using market based solutions". Instead of socialized medicine or even a public option, it's simply stricter regulations and subsidies over the existing system. The otherwise free market system. States are free to create their own exchanges and regulate them within federal guidelines, and since every state has its own rules interstate shopping wouldn't make sense. Especially since they could all just setup in the place that has the least regulation and the places with more may not be able to enforce their own rules. States rights, no?
Also, tort reform has already been tried, but in places where it's implemented it's done nothing to help with costs. I'm not even saying negligible, literally nothing. Not to say there couldn't be some reforms to the court system and there definitely could be some fixes to the ACA, but again we're talking about things like negotiating prescription prices and streamlining claims. Which would be MORE regulation, not less. Less and we have the old system, or worse, which was becoming unsustainable. Again, the current compromises and hodgepodge aren't perfect by far, but they wouldn't be needed if corporations didn't try to get away with murder. They don't want regulation, stop trying to screw us over all the time.
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TL, DR version: no one likes being told what to do, but regulation is a necessary evil that appears half-a'ed because it can be full of compromises and cronyisms over protecting the consumer (i.e. sometimes going to far, but sometimes not far enough) though still better than nothing, which would lead to even more corporate control (re: abuse) and often actually does have reasoning, even if not apparent at first glance.
Good.
So in order not to hang around being unemployed all these doctors and health insurance companies will be forced to compete.
It should stop the insanely overpriced services you Americans put up with and stop your citizens dying because money has overridden Hippocrates.
Doctors do compete for business. Health insurance companies do not in the same way as auto/home/life. Health insurance here is not allowed to be sold across State lines.
If you are stuck in California, with these insanely high taxes, then your health insurance is more as it cost more to operate in CA. I can buy my auto insurance from Maryland, my life insurance from Texas, and my home insurance from Idaho. But I MUST buy my health from CA! How absurd.
Also, doctors run so many test to be sure and cover themselves in court if a lawsuit is filed, that the cost per visit goes up. Also doctors have high malpractice insurance (I've seen $100,000 per year) that also increases cost.
I've been to the doctor twice since I was 18 (now 46) and this last visit I was told I might want to get some 'old guy' tests ran (how rude lol), the average cash price was 80% cheaper than the insurance covered price due to all the high costs involved. INSANE!!
Here in the UK we get massive call and SMS allowance with all in unlimited data for under $25 per month.
US companies seem to operate as a cartel far far better, to the detriment of consumers.
Except you're comparing a one bedroom apartment, or flat to a 20 bedroom mansion. Which costs more to build, and maintain?
I et the impression that the US has the most expensive mobile in the world.
Here in the UK we get massive call and SMS allowance with all in unlimited data for under $25 per month.
US companies seem to operate as a cartel far far better, to the detriment of consumers.
Except that the UK is less than half the size of Texas. I think that the cost to build and maintain a network vastly larger would possibly cost somewhat more.
governance is a good concept, but always corrupts.
Governance is the collective expression of the people.
Government is only as corrupt as we allow it to be. Sometimes that's a lot. Other times not much at all.
There are always corrupting influences. The difference is in how dominant they become. However that's a discussion for a different thread - this one's about networks, not politics.
Except that the UK is less than half the size of Texas. I think that the cost to build and maintain a network vastly larger would possibly cost somewhat more.
Except that the network doesn't cover the whole of Texas. And, to be fair, the UK one doesn't fully cover the whole country.
It does cost more to build a larger network. But the UK, unlike Texas, mandates a certain amount of infrastructure-sharing. That way they don't have the "huge" operators such as Verizon and AT&T so dominant in the market. UK is still an expensive market but the barrier to entry is not as big as it is in the U.S.
Wall Street likes the U.S. model with a couple of very big, profitable carriers. End-users like the less-expensive model which is why T-Mobile has been making inroads. As you say, the cost/coverage equation is a complex one.
I want the Federal government to step in when the local politicians are bought up by utilities to create local monopolies. That is what this is about. In several states, like North Carolina, it is illegal for a town to offer network access as a municipal service. This was done by Cable company lobbiest's to keep the prices for their service high and restrict competition.
In Davidson NC, the town offered a low cost high speed internet utility which was particually important to the local economy because of the college located there. The North Carolina Assembly passed a bill making the sale of services by the local government illegal which gave a monopoly to the local cable company.
This was a straight forward quid pro quo for money given to state legistlature bigwigs who sold out their constitutuents. Not using government to protect you from government manipulation of our lives is just insanity. We have already been down this road before and it took the civil rights movement and a near complete collapse of the social fabric to fix it.
I want the Federal government to step in when the local politicians are bought up by utilities to create local monopolies. That is what this is about. In several states, like North Carolina, it is illegal for a town to offer network access as a municipal service. This was done by Cable company lobbiest's to keep the prices for their service high and restrict competition.
In Davidson NC, the town offered a low cost high speed internet utility which was particually important to the local economy because of the college located there. The North Carolina Assembly passed a bill making the sale of services by the local government illegal which gave a monopoly to the local cable company.
This was a straight forward quid pro quo for money given to state legistlature bigwigs who sold out their constitutuents. Not using government to protect you from government manipulation of our lives is just insanity. We have already been down this road before and it took the civil rights movement and a near complete collapse of the social fabric to fix it.
Fully agree.
It is pitiful to hear these complaints of "States' Rights". About the big, bad Federal Gubmint trailing all over them.
What the reality is that the big, bad State Gubmint has been trampling all over the rights of the cities.
As has been noted elsewhere, this is like the 6th grade bully complaining about the high-schooler hitting him, when what the high-schooler was doing was stepping in to break up the bullying of the 3rd grader.
I want the Federal government to step in when the local politicians are bought up by utilities to create local monopolies. That is what this is about. In several states, like North Carolina, it is illegal for a town to offer network access as a municipal service. This was done by Cable company lobbiest's to keep the prices for their service high and restrict competition.
In Davidson NC, the town offered a low cost high speed internet utility which was particually important to the local economy because of the college located there. The North Carolina Assembly passed a bill making the sale of services by the local government illegal which gave a monopoly to the local cable company.
This was a straight forward quid pro quo for money given to state legistlature bigwigs who sold out their constitutuents. Not using government to protect you from government manipulation of our lives is just insanity. We have already been down this road before and it took the civil rights movement and a near complete collapse of the social fabric to fix it.
The entire Government from top to bottom is held in thrall to corporate lobbying, that's who they govern for, to think otherwise is naive.