Editorial Cartoon: United Nations Declares Broadband Basic Human Right
Today’s editorial cartoon was inspired by our friends at the United Nations who last week declared that Broadband internet access is now included in the list of Basic Human Rights. Yes right up there with food, shelter, clean water and healthcare is the right to spank your monkey watching full speed downloads of porn videos. OK maybe you have more lofty goals like coordinating protests ala the Arab Spring over the web.
But seriously, Broadband?? My in-laws still use dial up and are just fine. Agree or disagree? Any other “basic” rights you would add to the U.N. list?
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69 Responses to “Editorial Cartoon: United Nations Declares Broadband Basic Human Right”
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I always wondered this myself.
Which part? haha
So does this mean that the UN will provide basic human rights for your inlaws? I can’t access many websites on our work computer, wich includes most blogs & webcomics that I regularly visit. Can I now claim that our company is denying me my basic human rights? Will this apply to everyone who doesn’t have broadband or just 3rd world countries?
McDonald’s, everyone in 3rd world countries should ahe access to Egg & Bacon McMuffins as their basic human rights.
I am just thinking I should be able to complain that my cable company is charging me too much for broadband and protest the government to start subsidizing my cable bill.
That’s a good argument!
Let me know if it works
Surely if it’s a basic human right our internet access should be free. I wonder if the Government will subsidise my water bill. Or is water no longer a basic human right? I guess we can’t expect broadband & water so one will probably have to go. Can’t publish comics in a glass of water so looks like I may be going thirsty for a long while
Your right to water is free…your right to having water delivered is not.
I’ve nominated both you and Binky, Bearman
Thanks Dunc!!!
Hey, thanks Duncan! I’ve got one vote, yay!!
thank god they made that a law :/ i mean what would we possibly do without the internet?
You might have to actually TALK to someone Bob.
and get of my lazy ass? my god i think the world would collapse!
random sorry…..I love Invader Zim and Grr. Great gravitar!
Finally someone explained what that was for me..haha
why thank you
everyone should have a personal G.I.R. unit in their house
I agree. The internet is the perfect place for an exhibitionist introvert like myself.
But… but… by having braodband, they can now fly in lobsters from Maine, or Angus beef from Nebraska and never go hungry again! …. so they dont have money or credit… no biggie! [sarcasm implied] o.O They can at least look at pics of food online, or watch Rachel Ray make a meal in under 30 minutes.
Or learn how to hack your credit card when you order your lobsters from Maine and beef from Nebraska and potentially direct some of that food to their house.
Here’s what I think. Take the UN building and tow it out in the middle of the sea and set it free. Make sure the tide is going to send it to some other shore than America. Now that’s what I think.
Have a terrific day Bearman.
haha. The tides always seem to turn when you least expect it though Sandee
So it’s now free,right? Wait until those starving kids start bitching on their blogs about the UN. They’ll be unplugged faster than Kim Kardashian’s wedding.
Or try their own Occupy Movement. Then again it the US hasn’t had a great track record with declarations either. Typically whichever group we support tends to screw us in the end.
Hmm, maybe the UN can wikileak all over the drought effected areas of Africa. Kinda like a win/win!!!
As long as the don’t dribble.
Spanking the monkey is a universal right! Take that away and you have the destruction of civilization!
After all, why shouldn’t we punish monkeys for bad behavior?
Or civilization could be more productive…
After initially reading the title to this post, my first reaction was “Finally! My parents can get some decent internet established in their rural area!”
Then, after reading your cartoon, I see the absurdity in the whole concept. If they can’t get rid of wars, famine, and pestilence, then what makes them think easy internet access is gonna make for a good substitute? That’s asinine.
Great comic, as always!
I think your parents should count on their talented son to make it big and afford to buy them a place where the connection is better.
Hey, they’re the ones who dragged me OUT of civilization to raise me. It’s not my fault that it eventually backfired on them. Nobody shed a tear when I begged for basic cable so i could learn how to do the Electric Slide like my peers. So now they need stamps to send emails…oh, well.
We never had cable so I had no reference to things when kids were calling me Boy George and laughing.
Hey, that was my moniker too!
Bur I knew enough to start swingin’.
But at least your NAME was George.
Alright, time for the world to get serious…
“FREE INTERNET!”
epic fail!
Great comic, by the way.
Thanks Jenn
I vote for taking Creatine’s broadband access away.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could be the purveyors of who could and could not have internet access. Then again, who would be left for us to make fun of?
This explains a lot. I have been denied my basic rights because I don’t have internet access. I am going to start my own protest and occupy my recliner all week.
So same as last week? Now you just need the media to show up.
I’ve got to get a better PR man. The media has been neglectin’ me a lot lately.
Need to run around naked declaring things against the government and they will show up.
I quick glance through the comments leaves with unscientific poll of no one favoring this. I don’t know if this means broadband access ranks at the same levels as food, shelter, education and basic living conditions. But if the poor are educated and feed enough to use a computer with better access there is a potential of them helping themselves improve. Of course it also has the potential of allowing more scam and con artists access to the rest of us. Think of the Nigerian fast money business opportunities.
I think internet access can be a tool for education (which I do believe is a basic human right) but broadband in and of itself doesn’t pass the litmus test IMO.
And the comments on Reddit say I am off base so go figure.
So does this mean that we are going to get free Wifi? The UN just bit off a chunk I don’t think they can chew
They don’t have to chew anything. They make resolutions and don’t tend to follow up on them.
Who knew that the United Nations wanted to expand Comcast’s monopoly!
You can always switch to your local phone companies broadband..though in some areas I wouldn’t recommend it.
So does that mean newspapers and local TV news were a basic human right previously? What is the internet giving them. I guess it could be argued it gives them hope access to a better life but I would think that not starving to death would trump that.
I can see why you picked this story to editorialize and you did it perfectly. It just seems like perhaps we might want to actually put money and time into keeping from dying of starvation and curable diseases before we get them access to an Netflix account.
I see education as a basic human right and broadband as one means to get there. But to say broadband is the right in itself is short sighted as depending on your location in the world, education will look different.
Ummmm…yah.
Can someone refresh my memory on what the United Nations was originally intended for?
to keep us from killing each other.
Timmy, you finish downloading every byte of that I-Tune. There are kids in Africa who are starving for DSL!
haha. It will be like the AT&T commercial about wasting rollover minutes.
Make sure he doesn’t leave until you can pull up Bearman Cartoons, kid.
What was that network id code thingy again?!
I’ll sponsor broadband somewhere remote if they can only access my site.
Who needs food when you’ve got a fat cat farting video?
Now if you can make a cat farting video, that means cash.
Broadband internet access is not needed.
Dial-up is still an available option? 10 years ago I got dial-up through South-Western Bell. Most of the time it would work. It caused me so much stress.
Okay, so maybe broadband is a basic human right, but not dial-up. It causes too many health problems.
Dial up is the devil.
Giving someone access to information isn’t the same as teaching them how to use any information gained. It’s like giving a power saw to a person who doesn’t know how to use it. Not saying folks aren’t smart enough to figure it out but it is a powerful tool… and potentially dangerous to those who are naive of it’s power.
Or it can be given and someone taught to use it in bad ways.
I don’t know about broadband being a basic human right, but internet access is changing the world. The one thing about many poor countries is it is their own government or rulers that are keeping them poor, and being able to see that or know that may very well be the impetus for change.
Again though while I think it is a tool that can be useful, I don’t think it is a right in itself.
Know they can order food online!
But the delivery charge.
“now”
I love the hell out of this one. Especially since they didn’t give that starving kid a mouse.
He might think it was food.