I’m a fan of saying that statism is synonymous with halting progress. Statists always attempt to curtail advancements by forcing them into preconceived notions. A classic example of this mentality can be found in stories involving Japanese Samurai. Many works note that the Samurai believed firearms to be dishonorable weapons. Such a mentality made sense to an individual who spent decades learning the art of swordsmanship. All of the time spent mastering the sword became irrelevant when some peasant with little training could strike from many yards away. Instead of realizing that technology had advanced to a point where the importance of the sword was diminished, a master swordsman would be apt to argue that firearms aren’t honorable. Why change yourself when you can force everybody else to change to suit your desires?
Today we’re seeing this with the emergence of the Internet. Statists are trying to confine the Internet to their preconceived notions. They don’t believe anybody with a blog can be a journalist because journalists have traditionally been individuals who work for centralized state-recognized news organization. They don’t want to acknowledge that crypto-currencies are real currencies because it goes against their belief that money must be centrally issued paper notes. This is what leads governments around the world to implement stupid laws like this:
A controversial law banning Vietnamese online users from discussing current affairs has come into effect.
The decree, known as Decree 72, says blogs and social websites should not be used to share news articles, but only personal information.
The law also requires foreign internet companies to keep their local servers inside Vietnam.
A government could only issue such a decree if it lacked an understanding of how the Internet works. Enforcing laws requires that you can identify offenders. The beauty of the Internet is that one can maintain anonymity if they desire. How can the Vietnamese government enforce laws regulating blogs if those blogs are created on a computer that is connected to a random wireless network under a pseudonym and hosted on a location hidden service? Statists can pass whatever laws they want but reality isn’t going to reform itself to make enforcement of those laws possible.