by B L Dehler

Created on: September 07, 2010

It is very tempting in this day and age of internet pornagraphy, pedophelia, piracy, and general evil on the net to call on politicians to regulate it. This, however, is a grave mistake.

Regardless of what country you live in, the internet is a means in which to communicate like never before. Just as the forefathers of the United States foresaw a problem with the government some day trying to disarm its citizens, so too is the importance of freedom of speech being allowed online. Guns are dangerous and kill millions of innocent people around the world, no doubt. Yet it is essential that the citizens of a nation fight to ensure that the government does not remove their right to bear arms. Remember, the right to bear arms in the United States is not just to permit the citizens from defending themselves from other citizens. The essential right to bear arms is to ensure the citizens can defend themselves from their government.

So too is the importance of keeping the government out of regulating the internet. The fundamental problem with the government regulating any part of the internet, even the most vile and disgusting websites, is that once the government starts picking and choosing which websites you can see, there is no telling what else they'll start eliminating from view.

Take, for example, public schools and universities banning certain websites. Am I arguing that schools shouldn't be allowed to ban pornography or other such sites from students? That is a complex discussion but not the point. Often times these same schools will ban pornography first, and then they'll ban websites such as Facebook or Myspace due to the “useless” content on those websites, or the claim that they are a “time waster.” Then after those websites are blocked, they chip away further, going after after many anti-government or anti-public education schools. Any website with a dissenting view is blocked. And then what's next?

If you don't believe me, simply do a google search at home for anti-government, anti-taxation, pro-libertarian, etc websites and see how that compares to a google search at the school computer lab. The problem is, once the government decides to block the most vile of websites, they will, in typical government fashion, start chipping away at all the other websites that are either against their policies or the websites which the special interest groups lobby against. And before you know it, the internet goes from a free exchange of ideas

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