From: IN%"mccoy@communities.com" 15-MAY-1996 00:55:57.23

BTW, while there may have been a decent argument against the electrification act, I think that you are paddling upstream when it comes to net connections. The value of your net connection (or any connection to the net) _increases_ according to the number of people who are connected to the network. Unlike all of the other rural subsidies you pay for as an urban dweller (with the possible exception of the phone subsidy), this is one which has direct benefit to you.

If it was a direct benefit, we'd chose it freely without being drafted by the use of phone bills. Look at Juno et al - that's a circumstance in which interconnection is taking place via the free market. Moreover, you're assuming that there's some reason that I _want_ to be connected to those with insufficient education, etcetera to move out of the rural areas we're talking about. I know these places; I grew up in a town surrounded by hillbillies (Middlesboro, KY). Believe me, I have no desire to have further contact with them - via the net or any other method.

Oh yeah, and you are already subsidizing their phone bill (at least the increased cost of running a line out to them and maintaining that line), and their electricity bill, and satellite TV took care of any need to run cable TV lines out there or else you would also be subsidizing their cable TV by now. So what was your point?

My tax dollars (and that's what the proposed phone bill changes are in many ways - they're government requirements for people to pay money) are also paying for a lot of other things I don't approve of, such as the drug war. This isn't a reason to fund more of it. -Allen