Politics and Protest
By the time you’re protesting, you’re too late.
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In my life, I’ve had a few civics lessons. I got a few in school about the branches of government, how laws are made, and how the courts work. I watched Schoolhouse Rock. In 6th grade, I got pulled into a very interesting study group about the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) and the Privacy Act. In my 30s, I learned how to use the FOIA to get public about the way the government works. And in middle age, I lobbied for community broadband in my city and got it for my own home after 10 long years of activism.
I speak from experience when I say that protest is the last thing that happens when bad policies are adopted. If we want to have peace and prosperity, then we have to be involved. There is no way around this one fact of life. Be involved with the government or be ruled by someone with competing interests.
I watch politics at every level where I live, from the city up to the federal government. I don’t get involved much in protests though. If I get involved at all, I spend most of my time working directly with the government, long before things get too bad.
I moved to Utah more than a decade ago. I saw that in most places, internet access was very poor. I was keen to make sure I had good internet access wherever we lived. I performed due diligence as well as I could before we moved. I had been fortunate to find decent access where I rented. But when I bought my first home, I was stuck with Qwest (now Centurylink) at 5 megabits per second.
Everything was slow. My internet shut down every time I turned on the microwave oven. I called Comcast, but they said that my address was not in their database. They told me that the other side of the street had Comcast but not mine. Bureaucracy is everywhere.
It wasn’t until I attended a home show that I got the help I needed. A woman working the booth for Comcast asked if I wanted their service. Well, yeah, I did. I told her my story. I told her how in a year and a half, I could not get connected. She assured me that she would have me hooked up in 2 weeks. She did. I went from 5 Mbs to 25 Mbs, and speed tests showed me that I was pulling 50 Mbs down.
