Colorado kills law that made it harder for cities to offer Internet service
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Rollout took a few years to get to me as they ran fiber. But it was a steady pace, doing a neighborhood at a time.
Get yourself some local broadband. It works well. Comcast could have run fiber through the whole city, but they never did. And they charged 2x or more for their slower cable, with worse service and worse reliability.
It would be really cool if tech support wasn't considered a dead-end / low-value job. Competent tech support makes a huge difference, but it seems like the pay offered for the role means competent people look elsewhere.
Prior to California/etc diaspora it was diaspora from the surround states. Wyoming/Kansas/etc all have more conservative values so the progressive young adults often moved to CO.
(Pure speculation)
Conoco bought the land like 10 years back and demolished the old offices for a "clean energy lab" IIRC , though that never happened and now Tape Drive (and Disk Drive, on the western side of the campus) just deadend into a large empty field.
The fact that those offices are gone feels like a weird message about tech, but i don't know what it is.
Piratically, you just fly if you go back to the east coast for some reason, just like if you were on the west coast.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipalities_in_Colo...
And it's only fairly recently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_senators...
When you have a state like Utah next door it might pull a large portion of the religiously Republican.
I don't live in, or near, Colorado though.
But on top of that, a good chunk of the republicans are honest to god libertarians and can be reasoned with (though that doesn't always include those they elect, like Boebert).
This is key: Colorado has far more libertarian-conservatives than social-conservatives. It comes from the Western ideal of "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps." Libertarians are "classical liberals" and value individualism, so they do not push for government-sponsored restrictions. The conservatives in many other states are socially-conservative and legislate to preserve their social values and cozy business interests.
I’m sure that was a great line of thought when the government was just giving away land to people.
In Boebert country you'll see plenty of less philosophical politics. "I identify as non-bidenary" stickers, yard signs about how Biden enjoys anal sex with illegal immigrants, that kind of thing.
Colorado polling suggests two thirds of Republicans and a third of "Independents" approved of the Dobbs decision restricting abortion. Half of Republicans and a third of "Independents" believe Biden didn't win the election.
Source: https://www.colorado.edu/lab/aprl/sites/default/files/attach...
Pedantically, though, the votes haven't been strictly progressive, more lowercase-L libertarian. Often the state votes to increase freedoms instead of traditional progressive/conservative lines.
Overall, i think the CO population is more drug-friendly than the average liberal US voting pool. Denver feels relatively moderate, politically, as we have so many influences from where people came from (east coast, california, texas). We have one of the most liberal (Boulder) and conservative (CO Springs) cities in the US. The things that the population collectively agrees upon is often the freedom-y bits.
The next question is why Denver is in Colorado and not anywhere else? The answer is that, from the beginning, Colorado had some geographic advantages and the leaders of the state pushed for intentional growth. As the state grew based on geographic advantages, the state was able to push for government contracts to get things like the National Energy Research Lab. The gov't contracts drew an educated population which drove the creation of a pretty big university system, and it all became self-reinforcing.
The surrounding states just don't have a big city like Denver. Utah is an exception with SLC but Utah has its own idiosyncrasies.
They wouldn't have such a big statewide majority if it was just because of Denver. That case is more like PA, which has 2 big cities, and while it has a Dem governor, it has a republican majority in the state senate and no majority in the house. This microcosm of Capitol Hill leads to very little legislation being passed, even for stuff the voters want & stuff that would really benefit the state.
Sure, but the Dem majorities are exactly because the cities are liberal.
https://www.zipdatamaps.com/politics/state-level/districts/m...
https://www.zipdatamaps.com/politics/state-level/districts/m...
Outside of the cities, the state is almost as red as Wyoming.
Pennsylvania looks very similar to Colorado actually: https://www.zipdatamaps.com/politics/state-level/districts/m...
You raise an interesting point though. My guess for PA is that their population is spread out enough that you can create more credible districts in the rural areas because almost all the land is livable whereas Colorado sort of self-gerrymanders because despite its size there are decent chunks of the state that are unlivable (plus all the national parks, etc).
It's like that old xkcd comic about heat maps - a map of democratic voters is basically just population density heat map.
The interesting question isn't "why is Colorado blue?" - we know the answer, it's because of the cities. The real interesting question is "why did Colorado develop so many cities when no one else in the intermountain west did?"
Depends on who you ask.
The answer I liked was that CO had a good blend of farmable land and minable mountains which gave it a slight edge over the other Rocky states so early on it was just slightly bigger. And then when it came time for the USG to start establishing a bunch of west-located offices it was a winner take-all situation.
A common go-to example of New Mexico's libertarian tradition was the legalization of same-sex marriage in this very Catholic state by a supreme court ruling, after some county clerks started issuing same-sex marriage licenses on their own initiative because they didn't think the law prohibited it. This kind of thing is sometimes viewed as apathy but is more charitably seen as part of a general attitude towards permissiveness.
Arizona is basically New Mexico, except it became a retirement destination (like a western version of Florida), which shifted its demographics older and whiter (and therefore more conservative). Texas is probably a little more unique since it is both massive and at the crossroads of several geographical and cultural regions.
I'd say Colorado is (at least) 3 different states in a trenchcoat.
1. Cities mostly clustered together. The state is sort of weird geographically. Giant open plains to the east, and big ass scary mountains to the west. Lots of cities formed along the boundary between them, forming what is now called the 'Front Range'. Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, Longmont are all along here. Most of the population lives along this long corridor.
2. Rural farms and ranches. Both on the plains, and in the mountains, and the Western Slope (an area sorta coming out of the mountains towards the far west end of the state). This is fairly conservative, matching what other rural people in neighboring states. Include poorer mountain towns here, which are often farming focused.
3. Rich mountain towns. Skiing, or other attractions. Aspen, Vail, Breckenridge, Steamboat Springs, etc. The areas are very attractive due to natural beauty, but typically have geographical or weather reasons they can't really grow huge. That leaves richer and richer people driving out others. Many of these end up with a 'theme park' feel to them. Rich people have a condo that gets used a few times a year, and rented out another few times, but no real residency.
Generally though, the common theme through all of those is a love of the outdoors. Even those who want to drill aggressively for oil are out hunting and 4-wheeling. Granola hippies are out hiking, skiing, and backpacking. But practically everybody has at least a passing interest in the outdoors.
As for the comparison to other states that have swung super-conservative in recent years, I'd guess that it's to some degree that a more liberal western state had to exist somewhere, and it ended up as Colorado. If you want to move west, smoke pot and ski or hike all day, you go where others are already doing that. Other than accidents of history, I don't see any reason Wyoming couldn't have been shifted that direction. Colorado and Wyoming are very similar states geographically, and early-on economically. We both have ranching, farming, oil, mining. It'd be interesting to really dig in and figure out why one went one way, and the other a different way.
My guess would be airport access. Denver is a major hub and getting non-stops to many other cities is conveniently easy. Wyoming doesn't have the same ease of access
Well, the skiing out of SLC is closer and better :-)
More seriously though, you're still living in an environment that's very closely aligned with a specific church. Which depending on your circumstances may be difficult to pretend just doesn't exist. Some people are fine with it. But it's a factor.
SLC felt far sleepier & suburban, to me. With incredible mountains right there.
I think the weather is noticeably less friendly in Wyoming than Colorado. There's three degrees of latitude between Denver and Casper, for example.
I couldn't tell you what created the initial imbalance, but it feels like at this point what sustains it is a simple positive-feedback loop. To generalize, when relatively liberal, educated, wealthy people from the coasts want a different lifestyle (work-life balance, better outdoor access, less density, etc.) they move to CO because that where others like them have moved, which further bolsters that reputation.
From what I know, it's kind of like Austin in that the its reputation as a progressive outpost in TX just attracts more of those people.
How places evolve seem like a kind of an interesting study in how branding can become reality.
* Mountains!
* Great legal protections for gender minorities, especially Boulder County
* Good tech scene to job hunt locally
We weren't part of that initial shift, but we're definitely part of the acceleration. We've met plenty of other transplants with similar stories.
But now with every Californian moving here because it’s cheaper, costs have gotten out of control and they are already voting for the very same policies that ruined the state they fled. It’s not “cool” at all.
This also reduces the amount of private land, making rural living more difficult and expensive. Conservatives tend to live in rural areas which weighs the political landscape towards liberals when 43% of the land is publicly owned. Compare that to Texas which is 4.2% publicly owned.
Municipal Broadband means that a community gets together, digs their own trenches, pulls their own fiber, and creates a completely new, modern, independent local fiber network that charges enough to run at Cost + Future Investment.
Reality:
City Council puts out a bid for construction. Comcast buys the bid. They tell the city "We've already got this super duper hifi modern network we installed in 1834. You'll save a ton of money if you just piggyback that." All residents now get subscribed to Comcastic service. And if they can't pull that off, the "City's traffic" is routed over "Comcast existing superdeuper network infrastructure", which basically means the same thing. Do you really think the entrenched local monopolies are going to let these projects succeed?
The problem is, most municipalities simply aren't sophisticated enough to prevent the 2nd scenario from happening. I'm 100% for communities running these projects, but there's only been a handful of success stories. The key to success is keeping the local monopolies out at all costs and make sure you get fresh, independent infrastructure pulled, not leased from one of these asshats.
Even here in NC in an "unsophisticated" municipality (as far as tech is concerned), the situation is precisely reversed. The municipality started the project for stringing fiber during the period where the FCC overturned the state law banning muni broadband. And they lease that out to an ISP with a contract requiring delivery of symmetric connectivity.
The online reviews for that ISP are the pits; however, in this municipality that ISP hired the team that had been running the muni wifi program that started during that FCC-allows-muni-broadband period. I've been getting 300/300 for months; my ire is now wholly directed at the crappy state of wifi on my linux machines! :(
Long story short-- I'd steer clear of taking an upshot about muni broadband in the U.S. unless it's from a user reporting what speeds they are actually getting on a business or residential endpoint on a muni broadband plan, measured over at least a few months.
The Supreme Court sides with Verizon, whose argument was effectively, sure, there are laws about sharing the physical infrastructure. But we want to make a lot more money & might not do fiber unless we get a physical monopoly over this utility. The Supreme Court gave them their monopoly.
There should be multiple ISPs competing to offer you high-speed service. Each would have to build it's own physical network, without Local Loop Unbundling, which gets harder & harder the more infrastructure is already put down. Before fiber, DSL for example allowed competition, created a huge number of competitive ISPs. But the Supreme Court killed that competitiveness, & seemingly nothing can ever be done to claw back this physical monopoly that was handed out to the giant corporate entities. Fuck us.
For too long, the Internet service industry has been dominated by a few big players who prioritize profits over providing quality service to customers. This has resulted in high prices, slow speeds, and limited options for many people, particularly in rural areas.
By allowing cities to offer their own Internet service, Colorado is opening up the market and creating more opportunities for smaller, local providers to enter the field. This can help drive down prices, improve service quality, and give consumers more choice and control over their Internet experience.
Hopefully, other states will follow Colorado's lead and take steps to promote a more competitive and innovative Internet service industry. This is an important step towards ensuring that everyone has access to fast, reliable, and affordable Internet service, regardless of where they live.
> Residents voted to opt out of the state restriction 122 out of 123 times, with the lone defeat coming in Longmont in 2009 after an industry lobbying campaign.
Edit: Upon further inspection, their gun laws are much worse than I thought. Nevermind.
And it's a "well regulated militia", not a free for all. But sure, I understand people wanting more rights than they are statutorily entitled to. So do I, on other rights.
Generally, it's not the gun that's permitted it's you as an individual.
You're telling the government "hey I have a gun and here's all of my personal information".
Even if you only carry one around it's not a huge leap to assume that more may exist and if confiscation were to happen they know you have at least one (and probably more than one) to seize.
Not to mention said information is stored in databases where the information can (and has been) stolen [1] which may lead to you becoming a more valuable target for theft.
I can legally (but not wisely) carry a firearm in the open in my state, but if I don't want everyone to know about it and "conceal" it I have to tell the government and be put in a database that may get leaked.
>And it's a "well regulated militia", not a free for all
There's plenty of debate over that term (and if it's just some antiquated terminology or not), but it is followed by "the right of the people" (not explicitly just some "militia" for what that's worth).
I'm not in favor of it being a true free-for-all and there's plenty of restrictions on who should be able to have guns which are seemingly reasonable (with appropriate due process), but realistically that only affects those who comply with laws.
>I understand people wanting more rights than they are statutorily entitled to.
I want as many rights as possible for the most amount of people. Of course this one is one of the most contentious given the risk of harm (which should be acknowledged in any honest argument), but in my estimation if you consider it a right (which not everyone does clearly) you should defend it because there's no shortage of governments wishing to remove rights from its people.
>So do I, on other rights
Without going too far down the slippery slope, which other rights are you willing to compromise on with the least generous interpretation?
Or would you rather prefer the strongest interpretation that maintains the most personal protections at the risk of a safety over freedom?
2A aside, I think there's a bunch of rights including speech and privacy rights the government would like to bypass for the supposed sake of perceived safety. After all we have to stop the terrorists and protect children, the ends justify the means.
[1] https://calmatters.org/commentary/2022/12/how-did-confidenti...
Is it the "people" as a group of singular individuals, or the "people" as a group. I almost wish the founders had set up the same structure that Switzerland had, instead of making it so ambiguous. Because as is it seems any restriction may be unconstitutional. Why should felons or those declared to be non compos mentis be specially excepted?
> Without going too far down the slippery slope, which other rights are you willing to compromise on with the least generous interpretation?
It's been a few years since I've really thought about this and I can't recall them to mind at this time. I'm distracted by other things in life at the moment.
> Or would you rather prefer the strongest interpretation that maintains the most personal protections at the risk of a safety over freedom?
One person's right is another person's limit. I'm generally in favor of the Scandinavian/Californian right for the public to pass through, and even use, certain property regardless of ownership. But as a bleeding-heart vegetarian I'd be enraged if I ever manage to own land, and a hunter passed onto my property to kill animals who I know by name.
I personally will probably never own a gun because historically I know I probably would have, at minimum, brandished it out of anger. I value my own freedom, and the safety of others, too much to own a gun. And from what I've read in news articles it seems a bunch of other people should do the same. But they don't. You can try to train morality, but you can't force others to use it.
The government acting the way it does is an instance of power corrupting. And the powerful not caring about the imposition others must deal with. It, too, is a balancing act.
I want to edit to add:
> but in my estimation if you consider it a right (which not everyone does clearly) you should defend it because there's no shortage of governments wishing to remove rights from its people.
The few times I am aware of that the right to bear arms has been pushed against the US government wanting to remove guns, a lot of people have died, and not on the government's side (thinking Ruby Ridge and Waco).
Aye, it's pretty astounding how language can be so ambiguous that it can be an issue hundreds of years later.
>Because as is it seems any restriction may be unconstitutional. Why shouldn't felons or those declared to be non compos mentis be specially excepted?
Definitely a conflict point I have, I'm far from well educated enough to know the nuance there, but in many cases that felons for instance lose their voting rights as well (which I don't particularly agree with) so there is somewhat of a standard there of restricting some rights even after they've been released.
I don't think I quite go that far, but there are some people who truly believe that any restriction is unconstitutional vs "shall not be infringed".
Ultimately there's got to be a balance somewhere, but I'd prefer the government have to prove that it can justifiably take away someone's rights, rather than being based on mere suspicion that they may do something in the future based on possibly non-violent past behavior (drug possession charges are often felonies for instance for drugs that many states have decriminalized).
>I personally will probably never own a gun because historically I know I probably would have, at minimum, brandished it out of anger. I value my own freedom, and the safety of others, too much to own a gun. And from what I've read in news articles it seems a bunch of other people should do the same. But they don't. You can try to train morality, but you can't force others to use it.
Aye, there's certainly issues with a lot of people having guns and not everyone is going to morally prudent or safe. (or even if they were 99% of the time, that 1% can turn out quite bad)
Perhaps it is truly is a pipe dream, but often the prospective is that if society were to improve (whatever that truly means in the context of mental health, economic security, morality) violence in general (and relatedly gun violence) would reduce as well and that's truly the root cause of many issues. But that's being fairly optimistic on human behavior.
Personally, I think I'm plenty well suited to handle it, but I'm certain many who aren't feel the same and very much aren't.
>The government acting the way it does is an instance of power corrupting. And the powerful not caring about the imposition others must deal with. It, too, is a balancing act.
In theory it leads to somewhat of an equilibrium between both extremes, but of course nobody want's to find themself on the outer edge of that
Especially if, like most of the people who commit crimes, they feel they are justified.
I think it's intended to be closer to the latter than the former.
The text of the second amendment is: "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed".
If as an analogue you said, "A well stocked Library being necessary to the education of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Books, shall not be infringed", would you support the idea that only accredited librarians could have books?
Besides, the "militia" includes every able-bodied male between 17 and 45.
In the bill of rights itself we have two very similar amendments (the 1st and 2nd) that are phrased differently despite being about universal rights. And unfortunately the 1st has often enough been interpreted by the courts as a collective right, not a singular right, and that can't all hang on the collective meaning of the word "assemble". "or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"
> Besides, the "militia" includes every able-bodied male between 17 and 45.
Under current federal statute, but this can easily be changed.
I'm just kidding, there's no need to ask rhetorical questions.
This rhetoric is akin to redefining "worker rights" to mean being payed $500/hour with benefits, and then proclaiming some corporation doesn't believe in workers rights if they don't go along with whatever preposterous fantasy you have.
You are claiming that ALL books Republicans have banned contain material that... fails the YouTube TOS, and... this is a gotcha to you?
First of all, Republicans cried about Dr Seuss' publishing company pulling their own books, do you remember that? [0] They said this was "cancelling childhood" and other hilarious shit.
Then, now, they:
* defund libraries [1]
* burn books that the government deems contain "inappropriate things" (definitely not a fascist move) [2]
* try to make it illegal for teachers to teach about slavery being morally incorrect [3]
Your strawman is ridiculous, and you should feel bad.
[0]: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/dr-seuss-c...
[1]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/librarians-say-a-misso...
[2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/27/tennessee...
[3]: https://msmagazine.com/2021/08/02/texas-republicans-critical...
I'm pretty sure that this kind of statement is against the site guidelines. Take this kind of posting somewhere else.
The rest of your post was OK. Why include this paragraph?
But say you're right. Say it is in bad faith. Do you really expect "and you should feel bad" to have any effect on someone operating in bad faith? For readers who are not the person you're replying to, do you expect it to make them agree with you more? What do you actually think posting something like that is going to achieve?
> Do you really expect "and you should feel bad" to have any effect on someone operating in bad faith?
Of course not. In fact, I expect there to be nothing to do to dispel conservatism and its brand of bad faith. The framing is actually wrong - I wish not to have any effect on anyone, besides telling them I see thru them.
I enjoy doing that.
> For readers who are not the person you're replying to, do you expect it to make them agree with you more?
I expect some people would be entertained, and others, as yourself, displeased.
> What do you actually think posting something like that is going to achieve?
What do you think posting anything is going to achieve? I'm interested in why you do it, given this framing. For me, online interaction offers a chance for discourse, to learn what others think, to hear rebuttals to your mistakes, and to chuckle at the occasional low blow I wouldn't throw to someone I really know.
The books I'm referring to are extremely sexual and graphic in nature. And if the content of those books isn't appropriate for YouTube, I don't see any problem with a local government banning that material from schools.
That doesn't mean I also believe anything else from team red or team blue. I don't. I find them to be equally repulsive.
Sure, of course pornographic materials don't belong in schools. But this is clearly not the case at all, and is being used as a strawman to drive all sorts of issues, just like I enumerated with sources for you.
Do you care to enumerate the sources which can actually show instances of pornographic materials being banned from schools that previously contained them, i.e. not just for show? That would be meaningful. Currently, despite your assertion of enlightened centrism, you talk a lot like a Republican