[ilyanep]

For what it's worth, we let bridges crumble, communities sit without clean drinking water, and are intentionally bankrupting our postal service in the hopes of being able to privatize it. So I would say the Internet is being treated about the same.

[Kalium]

If you're thinking of Flint, you may wish to update your reading material. It's possible your talking points could be more up to date.

[Bramble]

It took them the better part of 4 years to bring clean water back to Flint - they only ended their bottled water program in April of this year. Those who were there during the crisis will be living with the consequences of lead poisoning for the rest of their lives. Odd that you view something this recent, and of this magnitude, as an outdated talking point.

Anyway, Flint isn't the only place in the US with water problems. https://impact.vice.com/en_us/article/wj4qvx/these-us-cities...

[Kalium]

You're absolutely right! It took years to replace a huge number of pipes while keeping a water system working, and those affected will suffer lead poisoning so long as they live.

I've seen a lot of "Flint still doesn't have clean water!" talking points in the past month or so. Without passing moral judgment, the talking point is not reflective of current reality.

[AsyncAwait]

But the government shouldn't be able to run postal services! Socialism something, something, Venezuela, uga buga!

[TheCrownedFox]

This is entirely disingenuous, the United States Constitution explicitly allows the federal government to run a post office (Article 1, Section 8).

[mattnewton]

Gp is being sarcastic (hence the “socialism uga buga”)

[TheCrownedFox]

I meant that it's disingenuous to portray small-government proponents like he did by using a strawman of someone upset at a clear government power. It adds nothing to the conversation.

[wahern]

For many decades (certainly at least through the 1990s, I think) there was a popular narrative that made poor postal service synonymous with inept government. Almost every citizen regularly visited a post office, and everybody had at least one poor experience. Standing in line at the post office was the equivalent of standing in bread lines in communist countries. This shared experience made the postal service a key talking point by politicians when selling small government, pro-capitalist policies.

For various reasons this narrative has subsided. It probably wouldn't even occur to younger people to perceive in the post office reflections of a wider debate about government. Indeed, for some the post office is seen as a pragmatic answer to providing banking services to poor communities, only distantly related to or even entirely divorced from the big government vs small government debate. Actually, I think in general the debate on both the right and left has shifted away from bickering over the size of government, per se, and instead emphasizes individual rights and injuries.[1]

It's why you'll hear the echos of demands on the right to completely privatize the USPS, almost entirely from the older generation because newer conservative generations couldn't care less unless you're talking about Jeff Bezos.

[1] IMO I think that conservatives won the small government debate in the 1990s, for better or worse. There was a confluence of events in both America and Europe that effectively resolved the debate. Rather, policy proposals these days either rely on some public-private model, or simply attempt to exact concessions from private industry. The government directly doing something themselves is completely off the table. See, e.g., rayiner's comparison of Stockholm's and LA's fiber initiatives.