George Carlin on Rights vs. Privileges.
To redirect back to the parent post: if you don't want to call them rights, do you think internet access should be an essential privilege that governments must secure for their people? If so, how do you propose that privilege be fulfilled in rural communities that currently don't have internet access? It would seem to be a fundamental violation of the governmental charter not to provide it, and who would be held accountable for that violation?
>If so, how do you propose that privilege be fulfilled in rural communities that currently don't have internet access?
I think a lot of the noise around this issue comes down to not clearly delineating between positive and negative rights:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=positive+vs.+negative+rights
...in the American tradition, "internet access as a right" means that that others (government, etc.) can't deprive you of whatever internet access you happen to have. Whereas other traditions interpret "internet access as a right" as something that the community needs to provide to individuals.
By not letting monopolistic ISPs stop municipal networks.
Nationalizing everything is not going to work. Most water, electric boards are not national/state government responsibilities. Venezuela model does not work, can't work for USA for sure.