A discussion on Slashdot about the cost of broadband in rural areas contains an interesting explanation of the difference between USA and most European states (well, one of the important differences anyway): the meaning of “right”. Nothing new, but worded in a synthetic way that, in my opinion, shows well, apart from the USA Constitution, how many USA citizens see the issue. Here it is (the user names link to their comments in the original discussion, bold markup is mine):
Europe
- In general, I agree that humans aren’t ready for total transparency yet and that what is called the “space to think” in the article I quote below is necessary. But I also think we need an equilibrium betwen that and the de-facto total lack of transparency we have today, and I’m pretty sure that many average EU citizens think the same. However, if we are to judge from some recent news, EU governments seem to think that they’ll take such demands seriously… and then just merrily walk around them.