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For that matter, before the Defense Dep't invested money in developing the Internet, people would have said "thanks--we're doing just fine with copper wire telephones."

I realize I'll never persuade you, but I believe the balance of our history shows that public spending can--on occasion--spur innovation and growth.

I am not aware of any land transportation in American history in which the government was not heavily involved. Beginning with roads, progressing to canals, then railroads, then highways, then airlines, and ship ports and waterways everywhere in between, one would be hard pressed to find a viable transportation method that has not bee nheavily supported by the government. Sure, there have been many industrial railroads that were paid by solely by the company hat owned them, and parts of the other industries were fully privately owned, but without governemnt assistance, we would in all probability still be riding horses on narrow Indian trails. Railroads especially (the driving force behind our country's rise to prosperity) were massively subsidized in their construction, though the railroad remained in private hands of course-and some railroad men scalped the government. I recall one story of a dinky line railroader in South Mississppi who insisted that his railroad-a three-foot gauge logging line that terminated off in the woods and was constructed of second hand rail, dirt ballast-was worth, per mile, the same as a transcontinental railroad being built at the time. I believe he actually got some money for it! And after te Civil War, many a crooked Yankee speculator robbed the Southern states of tax money in fradulent railroad schemes, adding insult to injury and endearing Northern folks to Southerners for years to come! Of ocurse, the industrialists that came South with real money helped salve things over a bit...

Actually we were moving FAR away from copper wire for reasons that have nothing to do with arpanet or the internet. Probably the largest single symbol for the move away from 2 strand copper wire was WTC. Business density (and the number of voice phone lines businesses need) in NYC and Chicago and other centers of commerce was driving the phone comany nuts, and the sewer folks since much of the phone line in those areas runs through the sewers. They were getting so much copper down there it was hard to get maintenance workers in, and copper wire is a pain to maintain, finding the exact fault point is difficult and splices don't weather well. Then came fiber optic and things go a lot easier for everybody.

Now the push past fiber optic has been spurred by the net, but without the net we don't need anything better than fiber either so that's really not a valid statement either.