by Jeff Davis

No, they haven’t given up. The bureaucrats and the politicians still want to take the Internet away from us. They still keep coming up with these little trial balloons here, there and everywhere, trying to nibble away at the corners of freedom of speech on the Net. One of these days, when we’re not looking, they’re going to slip something by us.

The WTVQ web site reports: “Kentucky Representative Tim Couch filed a bill this week to make anonymous posting online illegal. The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site. Their full name would be used anytime a comment is posted. If the bill becomes law, the website operator would have to pay if someone was allowed to post anonymously on their site. The fine would be five hundred dollars for a first offense and one thousand dollars for each offense after that.”

WTVQ goes on: “Representative Couch says he filed the bill in hopes of cutting down on online bullying. He says that has especially been a problem in his Eastern Kentucky district.”

I’ll let you in on a little secret: Politicians don’t care if little Timmy or Sally is getting bullied on the Internet. What they do care about is criticism of the government or Israel (as if there’s much of a difference nowadays). They don’t want any anonymous whistle-blower telling the public about the latest government waste or torture scandal or lies.

Mr. Couch would have us think that all those Kentucky mountain folk apparently spend their time online “bullying” one another instead of their traditional pastimes of making moonshine and picking the banjo on the front porch.

Parents used to teach their kids that “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” Kids need to grow up resilient enough to withstand name-calling and smears without a Nanny-State sticking its nose in to protect little Timmy’s feelings. The sooner a kid finds out that other people will smear him when his back is turned; the sooner he’ll learn an important lesson he’ll need for his adult life. Does Timmy think his “buddies” in college won’t spread rumors to steal a girl away from him or that cubicle trolls won’t lie about him behind his back to cheat him out of a promotion or pay raise? It’s a cruel world out there and you have to defend yourself from liars and backstabbers throughout your life.

Imagine how this Nanny-State law would work in practice: if anyone wanted to comment on a blog or a news article anywhere on the Internet in a politically incorrect manner, they would be required to give their personal information and subject themselves to retaliation from everybody from the government to the ADL to gang members, as well as permitting their information to be added to FBI and DHS databases as dissidents and potential “terrorists.” Remember–they can’t persecute someone until they identify them first. Today, right now, the only people with REAL free speech are the ones who post and write anonymously; otherwise the Jews and PC crowd would make these dissidents pay for their truthful remarks by getting them fired from their jobs –which is the real goal that these lickspittle politicians and their Jewish wire-pullers desire.