The UN and France are coming for your internet

“Of course I’m running for President. I had my teeth fixed didn’t I?”

The story in the Strib stopped short of explaining what exactly it was that the darn UN was trying to do when Coleman accused it of trying to take control of the internet. I’m sure it was an insidious attempt by the UN, as proxies for dictatorships who want to control the information their citizens have access to, to somehow have some say in what goes round the world in the form of the blogs, like this one, that are often so full of crap.

But, as anyone who knows anything knows, that genie has been out of the bottle for a long time. The info is out there, and anyone with a computer and a modem can figure out a way to get to it. The only recourse for repressive governments is to monitor what it is that people are looking at, and, if the government doesn’t like it, throw you in jail.

But, Annan has Coleman pegged perfectly. It’s all politics, and Coleman has again set up the UN as a straw man he can knock over. As Annan said, “this dog of an argument won’t bark.”

But is Norm content with that? Would he, having been slapped by a rolled up newspaper, slink away like he should? No way.

He piles on like this: “The challenge of what is being advocated by some threatens the free flow of information,” Coleman told a forum Thursday at the Heritage Foundation on Capitol Hill. “Do you want to be on the side of Zimbabwe, China, Iran? And I’ll throw France in there. Or do you want to be on our side? That’s an easy question.”

I bet that got a big round of applause from the open minded storm troopers at the Heritage Foundation.

Once when asked what she thought of a particularly xenophobic pronouncement from Pat Buchanan, Molly Ivins replied, “I preferred it in the original German.”

You’re the one who brought up Munich, Norm. You should be careful about the internet. When it’s out there for all to see how baldly ambitious you are, you might want to just keep smiling and shut up.