Internet Fascism

As if to coincide with Sunshine Week, Internet aficionados ride the ebb and flow of attempts to undermine free speech by gestapo politians who skipped one too many American History 101 classes.

(See Bill of Rights, Amendment 1. Those first ten are biggies, like the main principles you're supposed protect. But I understand if you're just too busy keeping NJ affordable and its government clean. Oh, forget it.)

Anywho, The Jersey Journal reports that GetNJ.com has been banned on City Hall computers in Jersey City because posts on the site's forums have been critical of the current administration. (Link via Abe )

And let's not forget the genius move by Assemblyman Peter Biondi, who proposed an Internet civility bill requiring posters to blogs and forums to provide their real names and addresses to site hosts before said posters would be legally allowed to write anything. He got the bright idea after some apparently rude posts appeared on NJ.com's Somerset forum. Thankfully, the woefully ignorant bill has died on the vine.

(Regarding the necessity of anonymity during certain public discourse, I suggest Assemblyman Biondi add the Federalist Papers to his reading list.)

Are people down-right rude in their anonymous postings? Quite frequently.

But, of course, we've tackled all the important issues in New Jersey like obscene property taxes, poorly funded and S-1701-shackled school districts, corrupt politicians and/or their megalomaniacal developer buddies, etc. etc. and now we can turn our attention to regulating the behavior of our fellow man.


All righty folks, I'm off on a commuter test-drive to Jersey City. Let's see exactly how long the traffic will kick my butt for.