Making The Internet Illegal For Kids

One reason I want so badly to get the idea of "Open Source Politics" out to a mass audience is its usefulness in creating understanding a host of issues.

Take education for instance.

The greatest hindrance toward improving education today is that we've made the Internet illegal in schools. In order to gain federal funds, schools must install filters. These filters deliver only a "Chinese Internet" experience, not the real Internet. Teachers must fight through their district bureaucracy to get individual sites unblocked. So they don't. And as a result, the Internet is unused.

Now, in the name of fighting pedophiles (terrorism, pedophiles, and drugs are the best friends ignorance ever had) they seek to tighten these restrictions further through HR 5319, the Deleting Online Predators Act. It's aptly named, DOPA. Because it's written by, for, and to dopes.

DOPA would, in effect, ban social networking sites from schools. And chat rooms. On the surface, not such a big deal. But add in the hundreds of thousands of sites already banned in all schools, and it's easy to see why the bandwidth giving the Bells billions per year to deliver (through their E-Rate) is not being used.

An Open Source Politics has a simple answer for all of this:

Fear of the Internet is fear of knowledge.
Fear of knowledge is ignorance.
Ignorance is the Dark Ages.
We demand the Enlightenment.

Filters should be run locally, and the default should be letting sites through, not blocking them. Restricting our kids to a Chinese Internet is not educating them. Nor is it protecting them. It's imprisoning them.

We demand, instead the Enlightenment. We demand America. Nothing known is foreign to me. Train our children to know, to understand, and to use this medium, so they may advance into the future.

But without a comprehensive political philosophy, without political Myths and Values that embrace this and other issues, such a stance has no chance in today's America. That's why I write so often about Open Source Politics. That's why it's important.

Both to you, and to your kids.