THY WEBSURFER'S KEEPER
By Frederick B. Meekins

There is more to modern government than paving roads and catching bank robbers. A major contemporary function involves seeing just how many legitimate freedoms can be brought under closer bureaucratic scrutiny or even curtailed.

And being that the Internet increases freedom by serving as a decentralized conduit whereby almost anyone can propagate ideas, some within the government have taken it upon themselves to bring this technology under tighter control. But instead of going after smut peddlers and their related ilk, the IRS now believes it is their duty to limit the exchange of ideas in cyberspace.

According to the Conservative News Service, the IRS is considering a regulation that would forbid websites of 501(c)3 organizations from posting links to political parties or from hosting forums where participants could post comments endorsing candidates for public office.

Some may consider this an extension of already existing rules into the electronic frontier. After all, organizations incorporated under 501(c)3 regulations are already barred from direct political involvement.

Yet a classic axiom becoming more relevant all the time warns that, while politics isn't everything, everything is politics. So as the size of government continues to increase at a rate faster than Bill Clinton's waste in a fast food franchise, there is very little in life today falling outside the purview of politics. Politicians and bureaucrats have taken it upon themselves to enact policy on everything from whether or not you can correct you kids without fear of jailtime to whether or not you buckle your seatbelt as you drive your car down the street.

Not long ago, one church lost its tax-exempt status for sponsoring a newspaper advertisement simply listing the sins of Bill Clinton. Christian conspiracy scholar Texe Marrs claims the IRS threatened to yank the tax-exempt status of his ministry for daring to expose the policies and plots promoting the planetary politics of the New World Order.

Bob Jones University lost its tax-exempt status for merely forbidding interracial dating, something most Americans are leery about to begin with even if they aren't willing to admit it. The IRS admitted in this particular decision that the university did not violate narrowly defined prohibitions against partisan campaigning but instead what revenuers considered appropriate public policy.

What's to stop the IRS and other government agencies from declaring other beliefs such as the exclusivity of Christ as the only way to heaven or the inappropriateness of certain behavior to be policies they will not countenance? Already in other countries such as Canada, one can run afoul of the law for expressing these kinds of ideas.

But at least in each of these situations the groups being sanctioned are being persecuted for things they themselves have said. Applying 501(c)3 prohibitions to every statement made in a website forum exhibits the kind of imperviousness to progress for which the IRS is famous. Remember a few years ago it was said the IRS was still using maps missing the state of New Mexico?

Internet forums, like the letters page of a newspaper, do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the organizations gratuitous enough to provide them. Internet forums are a communications tool whereby individuals are able to post comments and exchange ideas freely, the kind of thing America use to be about before folks like the IRS got a hold of it.

In essence, the IRS wants to punish organizations for the statements of others. This proposed regulation could lead to a variety of interesting scenarios. For example, should a Christian or conservative group be held accountable if a liberal posts comments endorsing a Democrat on the group's website? Somehow I don't think they will since little is done when liberals such as Bill Clinton or Jesse Jackson pulpiteer in leftwing churches anyway.

This proposed policy would ultimately have the impact of shutting down most nonprofit discussion forums and Internet publications, putting the dissemination of information back into the hands of the mainstream media. Almost sounds like a conspiracy, doesn't it?

The regulations regarding 501(c)3 organizations are in certain ways outdated since, thanks primarily to liberals, politics is no longer confineable to solely political matters as they try to take over all areas of life. Nor do these regulations reflect some absolute principle of natural law or America's constitutional democracy. They arose as a venue by which to punish groups who would not dance to Lyndon Johnson's tune on racial politics.

Curbs were placed upon the FBI regarding what kinds of intelligence it could legitimately gather regarding subversive groups because of the abuses that arose in the process. Similar measures should be taken against the IRS in its campaign to hinder the advance of human freedom through the expanse of technology.

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