October 25, 2007
by Evans Munyemesha

(Update 10-25-07: The US Senate approved a 7-year extention of the Internet Tax Moratorium. The bill now goes back to the House for approval)

As we approach November, which signals, if not extended, the expiration of the tax moratorium on the internet (a legislative decision that has apparently made it possible to protect the freedom of the internet and us, its users, from the always overreaching and parasitic long hand of the political superstition called government), I find it fitting to offer some brief remarks on the internet, freedom, and political interference.

The internet, that is, the global web of interconnected computer networks that has richly transformed our lives, raising us up from the dying age of communication through public monopolies and traditional media to one of potentially boundless opportunities for unregulated development, would seem to be the kind of technology that should not be interfered with, frustrated, or taxed by the machinery of prohibitions and legislation.

Yet, some congress persons, in supposing that they have legitimate power to protect the internet from their tax-hungry political fellows by way of a series of moratoria through legislation, indirectly admit, that there is in fact legitimate power to tax the internet---only this time they kindheartedly choose to suspend it. (To claim that congress has the power to prohibit internet taxation is to simultaneously, but implicitly, claim that congress has the power to permit internet taxation).

If there is such a legitimate power arrogated to congress, inevitably our question should be: What is the source of this power? If it is replied that the Constitution is the source of that power, our inference must be that since the Constitution is an article produced by men, then these men must necessarily be the source of that power - unless the power so conceived by them and bequeathed to us through the Constitution is not constructed out of mere opinion but has the authority of Nature; that is to say, the power so transferred to us through the Constitution existed before the Constitution.

To accept the first proposition in this reply is to reject the reply for the mere opinions of men who have passed on could not bind the living; and to accept the second proposition is to entangle oneself in a self-evident absurdity. Congressmen, faithful to their conscience, would reply that there is no such legitimate power. Therefore, this capricious power exercised to temporarily protect the internet from a tax now is dangerous for it shall surely be exercised in the future to tax the internet when it is expedient for the congressmen to do so.

The internet, as a valuable invention, does not only promote our happiness, encourage social intercourse and collaboration, but as well is essential to the enlargement and enjoyment of freedom. It is in every condition a provident gift, for without it we are less free as we would then be beholden to old institutions that are either highly regulated (e.g. public radio) or in alliance with government (e.g. public think tanks).  

Government interference with the internet, like government interference in everything else, furnishes the means that will undoubtedly pave the way for prohibitive costs, unnecessary restrictions, and poor service. That individuals are better judges of the most beneficial mode of employing their time, capital, and talents than government with regard to the internet is a reflection that requires but little effort. However, congressmen, assuming illegitimate power, will contend that to meddle with the internet is a duty to do "justice to all and injustice to none."

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But such congressional nonsense, if acted upon, has the effect of producing the opposite of what was originally intended, for to attempt to do justice by the application of legislative power pulled out of a congressional hat is to court calamity as is now exampled in the fact that the antismoking campaign which initially started out as a harmless movement committed to encouraging healthy habits is now so fascistic that its campaigns are tending to criminalizing smoking in public parks(and pretty soon in private vehicles!).

It is an idolized absurdity of our congressmen that the more they interfere in everything, the better off we are. This is demonstrated to us in their relentless multiplication of incongruous pieces of legislation that their black-robed permanent justices could not consistently interpret.

The internet and its benefits to us are a result of the judicious expenditure of mental capital, and the extent therefore to which it could be interfered with by a third party without causing harm or retarding its further development must be limited if any interference is desirable at all. If, therefore, there is a just cause to interfere with the internet or the existing voluntary transactions due to it, such interference ought only to be engaged in in a manner that augments its usefulness to the advantage of the participants.

But as the internet is a product of science, not of politics, and as political interference is bound to yield a stunted and corrupt media, it is inarguable that the continued development of this valuable media (and for freedom's sake) must be left to the sphere of science, and not to the sphere of politics. As there could be no general policy of interference in the internet that would not inevitably lead to an undesirable outcome, it becomes fitting, then, to infer, without reservation and with good reason, that it must be left to the judgment of those individuals, who, in their own interests and by ingenuity, determine how it ought to be usefully employed; and that all political interference in it is without support.

But to contest a political delusion, after it has found a home in, and settled itself upon the legislator's mind, is to underestimate the power of congressional reasoning!

For effective regulation of the internet (for every tax is an indirect form of regulation), the legislators must be vastly knowledgeable to the extent of being omniscient; the legislators  must have no interests of their own, if they do, which they do because they are human beings, their desire to satisfy, first, their own interests will supersede the desire to satisfy the interests of the participants on the internet; legislators must know more about the internet than the participants possibly know about it.

But seeing that legislators taken singly or as a group do not satisfy the above conditions; seeing also that legislators are generally unwise as testified to us by their political products in the statute books, the case for the whole idea of political regulation of the internet is excluded.

Should the legislators persist in their idea that to tinker with the internet is their duty for our good, it is well to remind them that reverence and adherence to the political fallacy of government legislation of the internet is as fabulous as representative government itself. Combating this fable is one way of assuring that the internet remains free from the wiles and whims of these good-for-nothing tireless legislators.

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Evans Munyemesha [send him email] is author of soon to be released libertarian book, "Poverty: A Treatise On Its Principal Cause"