The Great On-Line Equalizer

From: ljduchez@en.com (Lou Duchez)
Date: 21 Mar 1996

The Great On-Line Equalizer
by Joe Bob Briggs

The Internet. It's confusing, chaotic and full of weirdos who
sit at computer screens all day in their boxer shorts.

What should we do about it?

We've got so much information on there that it's like having the
Library of Congress in your house.

We've got 19 zillion different people offering products that map
your way through it.

We've got hustlers, corporate sponsors, Zen Buddhist shareware
hawkers.

We've got strange little cells of professional terrorists trading
bomb-making formulas.

We've got guys named Zeke trolling for Filipino hookers. We've
got Filipino hookers trolling for guys named Zeke.

What should we do about all this?

Kids are swinging through the Internet like it was a set of
monkey bars, searching for something their Mom will hate.

Murderers are tapping into the Net from the prison library,
trying to find Donkey Kong.

Embezzlers are feeling their way through it, looking for new and
better ways to fleece widows and orphans.

What should we do?

People hook up to the Net and, before you know it, they're
rootin' around in bed together somewhere, without even telling
their spouses.

Evangelists are spreading out through the Net, trying to save
cybersouls.

Button-down salemen with names like Marv and Stu are pitching
insurance policies to veterans with disabilities.

Now that computers have sound and pictures, we've got full-scale
infomercials just around the corner.

There's SEX on there. There's CRIME on there. There are SHADY
PEOPLE on there, and some of 'em are talking to CHILDREN.

What the HECK are we gonna do?

Nothing.

Not a goldurn thing.

Don't police it. Don't organize it. Don't restrict it. Leave
it the heck alone.

The Internet is a perfect reflection of the world at large. It
has everything in it except homeless people and that's only
because they can't afford the monthly hookup charge.

The Internet is scary to people because it TRULY makes everyone
equal.

All the people who are invisible in the normal world (the world
run by the rich and powerful), all those people you can dismiss
on the street as powerless and harmless -- ALL THOSE PEOPLE are
now in your face.

You can feel their hot breath on the Internet.

It's called "humanity."

America was invented to empower those people. It's just taken
this long to find out how to do it.

After all, the Net is just telephone lines, computer screens and
satellite hook-ups. It's purely technical.

Its only purpose is to bring the real world into focus. Anyone
who opposes that should go back and read the Declaration of
Independence.

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