IN the community where I grew up, city leaders are thinking of making the city an ISP to increase revenue. Now, working for an ISP, I have to tell you it is not the cash cow they're expecting it to be. There's lots of overhead they're not even considering. But that's a whole other issue...

In the forum debates, all the proponents of this idea can think to do is chant "free Internet" with the same fervor that the sheep in Animal Farm shouted "Four legs good, two legs BAAAAAADDD!" The sad thing is, they really DO think it's free.

When we live in a nation where the government takes money out of our pocket and hands it back to us at pennies on the dollar as a "free gift", and we buy it as such, doesn't that say something about our gullibility? If the government provides it, it has no cost. Of COURSE.

Now, first I'm going to say that people in other countries are probably just as foolish. But not having lived in these countries extensively, I can't speak authoritatively on that matter. But in America, politicians make a tax cut, then increase the tax level to about 80% of the cut and everyone ignores the tax increases that followed the "cut". True, they still got a small cut, but the cut the government is advertising is not as big as what it advertised once it is finished. Then there are sales taxes, etc. We only recently finished being taxed for the Spanish American War, and residents in my hometown were taxed for a university for several years after the university became defunct. Even now, much of the "cut" taxes have been restored.

The problem with seeing government funded programs as "freebies" is, this is precisely how spending has gotten out of hand. Why should we bother saving when we know food stamps will fill in the gap? Why bother working at a minimum wage job to get back into the workforce when Uncle Sam will pay you almost as much to sit on your tush watching Oprah? Granted, there's supposed to be a cutoff, but I know several people who have found ways around it. Government "freebies" come out of our pockets, and while, yes, more comes out of Bill Gates' poket than mine, it is part (a small part, I'll grant you) of the reason you need a small business loan just to purchase a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate bundled with Office 2007. But as long as we're stupid enough to fall for that, the government's happy to keep doing it!