December 14, 2008

And For His First Act…

Posted by Adam Graham in : Idaho Conservative, The

The career of Id. Rep.-elect Steve Hartgen (R-Idaho Falls) has got off to a rocky start. Rep. Hargen is off to the races this little absurd piece of legislation:

Rep. Stephen Hartgen, R-Twin Falls, is drafting a bill to require bloggers to post under their real name, and require online commenters to do likewise. In essence, Hartgen wants online commentary to more closely resemble newspaper opinion pages, where letter writers are generally required to identify themselves.

Yes, I’m sure that as Idahoans face a myriad of problems including declining economic opportunity, challenges in the education system, and cultural decline, that every Idahoan is asking themselves, “Who exactly writes the Mountain Goat Report?” Or what is the last name of Alan at Idablue or Chris at Unequivocal Notion?  Politically, this is foolish because its pursuing an end no Idahoan really cares about other than irked public officials who don’t like being anonymous attacked. Smart first-term legislators focus on addressing the problems of their people in their district. On the other hand, making your entry into state politics introducing bills no ones cares about in order to regulate things you don’t understand.

Beyond being politically foolish and practically unworkable, it seems that the former newsman is unaware of the great American tradition of pseudonyms. Benjamin Franklin was Silence Do Good. The Federalist Papers are seminal documents in American  History and we’re written by Publius who was a composite pseudonym of James Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton.

No one will compare Binky Boy to Alexander Hamilton (unless they had far too many beers on New Years), but both are part of an American tradition of anonymous speech. The way to combat bloggers you don’t like is by encouraging a wider circle of people to become involved, not regulating the heck out of it.  

2 Comments

  1. Comment by Joan E. Harman

    For once, Adam, and don’t have a heart attack, I do agree with you completely. What is published in the print edition of the newspapers, editors insist that those who write publish under their own names. That is at the discretion of the editorial board. On the other hand, forums, blogs, message boards have never required that anyone publish under their own names, since people could opt for screen names instead. What Hartgen thinks would only affect Idaho, and presumably only Idaho bloggers, would have far more impact on the WWW as a whole. CBS News blogs that have anonymous posters could have as much of a legal problem with such legislation as say message boards or blogs on the Washington Post. Not only does Hartgen not understand what he is demanding, but he also acts completely ignorant of the entire Internet itself.

  2. Comment by Adam Graham

    I sincerely hope he doesn’t buy into Ted Stevens’ “bunch of tubes” theory, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.