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Once upon a time there were three little pigs…Then the internet came and blew their house down. When exactly did the internet become the big bad wolf? From the very first day. Let me set the wayback machine for the old days. The internet was owned by the government and the only way to be online was to be a teacher. Or to have teacher credentials. Ahem...which may or may not have been the case for someone who wanted to play Star Trek (which looked like a slightly cooler version of the original Asteroids) online with others. Aaanyway.

So back then the only way to be online was to be identified. Who are you? Teacher John Brown from Blah Blah University. Oh, okay then you are authorized to be online. Carry on. Then the military decided they didn’t need the monster anymore so they threw it out the door to the general public. And the monster started to eat.

First, it ate porn. Lots and lots of porn. The biggest part of the fat old internet is still porn. Human nature. Go figure. But, after that came news sites. Entertainment sites. Message boards. The very first time that half wits were allowed to post anonymously. Cue up the music for the douche canoe extravaganza. Suddenly, everyone had to tell us all their opinions. And they could do it with absolutely no negative repercussions. You could be as vicious, hateful and evil as you wanted. Worst case scenario you just made up a new user name. Neat huh?

Fast forward to present day and we have the bloated, slime coated monster that is our modern internet. There is very little more oversight. Still, Facebook makes you put your name on everything right? But there are still plenty of places to go be horrible to your fellow humans with no chance of being called out on it.

I have been the old man on the mountain of the internet. My seat here was present before most of you even knew what the internet was. The ugliness has gotten out of hand. People are horrible to one person or another. Then that person gets their back up and responds to the abuse and they are called a bully. Hmm.. My name is Lester. I was the youngest in my class growing up. I had two older brothers and three older male cousins. I know a bit about being bullied. That is to say I have been emotionally, verbally and physically abused by the best. And I am getting a little tired of the word being abused. Defending yourself from baseless attacks isn’t bullying. Baseless attacks are. Most times the people that are accusing ohers are the actual bullies trying to get their PR ahead of the issue. It is mind boggling.

So I think I have a great idea. Let’s get rid of anonymity. You can say whatever you want. Hell, it is one of the freedoms we have in America. But you have to stand up and be counted when you say it. The founding fathers didn’t write anything in about this to the Constitution because back then if you said something someone didn’t like you ended up dueling at dawn. Another words, own your words and actions.

It is not a question of privacy. The internet has removed almost all true expectation of privacy. Once it is on the internet it is there forever. Even if you delete it. Your anonymous posts are not really anonymous anyway. It is surprisingly easy to track down not only who posts these things, but the internet tracks you real time back to your IP address. Which, by the way, tells people your location. It is a very small thing from there to identify someone’s name and address.

So let’s just get it all out in the open. Just have everyone sign on as their name. Have everything they say and do tied directly to them. It will usher in a new age of personal responsibility and civility. Right?