Will the Government Shut Down the Internet? What about just me?

Hopefully, you have been privy to the recent news about the government trying to regulate the Internet. This goes well beyond Ted Stevens' series of tubes meme. We even have a new federal agency to deal with the Internet, which has been given a name that sounds like something out of bad B-movie.

Here's a little video evidence to corroborate my claims about a potential Internet kill switch.




I read something earlier today that brought up an interesting point, however, about regulating/shutting down the Internet (from Robert Wenzel; Economic Policy Journal):

"But, the idea of the kill switch hints that the government is indeed scared of the internet. If they can't shut down the entire net, they will, when they deem it necessary, shutdown political bloggers who don't support the regime. How they actually shut things down is not exactly something I want to hang around to find out."

This is how this kind of thing tends to work. Governments do not have the capacity to shoot ALL the Jews, shut down ALL the chat forums in China, or arrest ALL the file sharers who supposedly "steal" music. They also cannot, for similar reasons, run an economy for very long. What they will do is go after those who are the most antagonistic, visible, and hittable. The rest of Wenzel's article talks about the possibility of getting out of Dodge, much like Mises and Hayek had to do during WWII. I may end up expatriating to another country anyway (lack of career opportunities in the U.S.), but rest assured, as long as I can, I will keep this blog operating. I see no reason, for the time being, to shut down the blog. Even if I leave, it will have to be to an English-speaking country.

If I do pull the plug on this, you will know that all of the libertarian/Austrian school predictions have come true, and that freedom of speech has been mortally assaulted. These predictions were all laid out in Hayek's Road to Serfdom. Help fight the freedom fight by disobeying the statist elitists (smoke in bars, protest taxes, tell off the census workers, pirate music, make Hitler rant parodies, etc.). Otherwise, be ready to suffer the fate of the boiling frog.