Listening to the latest political debate over the Internet, and Net Neutrality, one question floats to the surface. What are all these supposedly unjustly denied youths doing with their lives, if buffering, suggesting low download speeds (at least too low for their needs), should bother them?
Take a walk. Share a good meal with friends. Build a piece of furniture. Join a sports league; baseball, softball, or even bowling. Have a significant conversation with your wife (but young people are not getting married). Spend some time with your children (young adults see children as a burden, that’s why abortion is so important). Do something to improve your life. If it includes studying over the Internet, I don’t believe there is any service provider with insufficient bandwidth to provide you with the appropriate text or video. The computer can be a great tool and the internet a great resource. So what are these naïve self consumed youth doing with their time? Playing games? Watching Netflix? Do they know how to use a compass when their smart phone (not a recommended brain substitute) has GPS?
Too many live life through the screen of a smart phone. They take videos and pictures and post them instantly via Instagram, Facebook or whatever app is the latest fad. Does it make you feel important, young people, to have your life on virtual parade? Here’s a tip. No one cares. If they do, those people are not a productive part of your life. You’re going nowhere.
Is it any wonder that the millennials are clueless to the dangers of government oppression, the dangers government control of the Internet suggests; dangers to our freedom of speech, and simply to the freedom to live the lives we choose. Of course we could do without the Internet. Man has lived and died, failed and prospered, lived free and as a slave for thousands of years without the Internet. The vast majority of these past individuals are remembered and honored only through the value they held to their family and close community; which points to what is truly central and defining in one’s life. Family, it is where values are learned and your personal value created. We can’t all be Thomas Edison’s, if anyone knows who he is anymore. A person’s value does not come from an Internet presence and certainly cannot be dictated by government.
The FCC was initially formed to keep private sector radio bands from encroaching on military bands. It wasn’t long before it began monitoring and controlling content. The government further attempted to dictate content with the Fairness Doctrine; it mandated equal time for contradictory views. The doctrine failed. Newspapers, hitting financial hard times, and politically aligned with the left, now call for government buy outs, handing over control and content, and protest not a peep when government observers take up posts in their offices.
What does equal time mean? Every view needs an equal voice. Every company an equal opportunity. Sounds good on the surface but, what if one, speaking of the public, judges certain views to be immoral? Certain concepts to be poorly formulated? What If one believes a view or business model holds no merit, that the results and consequences of such a view or concept is detrimental to the well being of society? What if one view or product is simply more popular than another? If morality, results, consequences, merit or popularity, credibility, competence, knowledge or ability, if it all doesn’t matter, one needs to ask why. But more importantly one needs to ask where it will all end.
Why? If all views are held as equally valuable, then no single view holds any value. If all views are held as equal, then anyone who opposes any particular view, or believes one view better than another, is turned into the enemy. Every tyranny needs an enemy to distract the attentions of its people from their plight; an enemy like big oil, the tea party, conservatives, just plain republicans or Internet service providers.
And if the public cannot make determinations on the validity or value, the truth behind any view or financial or business venture than who can? That would be government. Because we, the public, are simply too incapable, incompetent and ignorant to make such determinations. Remember it’s only because government exists that businesses can succeed; providing the roads and infrastructure. It is not poor morals that turn people into mass murdering shooters, it is guns. If the government doesn’t give you your pot, then you’ll just break the law to get it. Indulge yourself in any carnal desires possible. The government will be behind you.
This is the accepted viewpoint of government, that the public is incapable of knowing what’s right, and that only government can be the determinant of the correct view; that only government can solve our problems. “Wait!”, you all knowing techno savvy individuals are screaming, “You said government says there is no correct view, that we are all the same.” Yes, and if you like your doctor you can keep him (or her). Your insurance costs will drop on average $2,500 per family under Obamacare, and the economy is improving; just don’t look at the economic figures after we correct them some months after they come out. “What difference does it make?”
Maybe, if you believe yourself wiser than most, you should begin to listen to those who knew that you wouldn’t be able to keep your doctor, that your costs would go up and not down, that their will be death panels in Obamacare and the government will eventually takeover healthcare completely. Maybe you should believe those same prophetic voices who now claim the government will control content and traffic on the Internet. Believe them when they claim that the government will censor and/or requiring licensing and oversight of the members of sites such as Blogger. Believe those who know that your costs for Internet access will rise and that the government alone will ultimately decide what the next great idea will be.
I will tell you where this control grab will start. It will start with pornography. Why hasn’t the private sector been able to stop this evil that victimizes women and children? They don’t care. They don’t have the capability. But government does. Even if the government accomplishes nothing and makes the problem worse, just like with Obamacare, the government will still have succeeded where the private sector failed.
And where will it all end? Where indeed. Everything is now run through the internet; commerce, education, mail, news, advertising, music, movies and TV, finance (you don’t even need a living broker) and publishing are all facilitated by the Internet. Ultimately, after monitoring and dictating our daily transaction and consumption habits, the government will end its power grab with the figurative burning of books.
Anyone can publish a book via the Internet. I have published two. I will publish two more this summer. The argument will be that what is being published, without oversight, is harmful, dangerous fanaticism. racist, bigoted, anti-Islamic, against scientific consensus and hate speech. The argument will follow, and this can be applied to any action on the Internet, that in the past their were gatekeepers of the public good; in the case of books, publishers.
Not just anyone could publish a book before the Internet. Authors were vetted by the publishing process in the past. Responsible editors and publishers verified the educational pedigree of an author. They were there to confirm the validity and merit of their work. Now, anyone can publish without even an editor. It doesn’t matter if they don’t know how to write or even spell. How can such a person be allowed to publish and unwittingly rob the public of their money? Who will solve this great injustice? What more qualified body, capable of judging what is good and proper, is there than the government; a vast improvement over the old system that relied on a variety of private sector publishing houses.
The Internet has changed everything. Everything has been changed by the Internet. If you give government control over it, the government controls everything. The books will burn along with everything else. But heah! As long as nothing interferes with your Netfix…
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