There was a time when, if my Mother wanted to call my aunt in the same state, it was a “long distance” call. Now we live in a time when everyone is “connected” by cell phones and the Internet. The government deems cell phones so essential it gives them away free to “the poor.”
The explosion of “social networks” has us more “connected” and, to a large degree, it encourages the young and not-so-young to believe that every single thing they do each day is so important that it must be instantly communicated via the Internet.
I am not a Luddite who thinks that cell phones, the Internet, and other modern wonders are a bad thing. Much of my professional life is conducted via the Internet and often with people I have never met face to face. I have friends I have made via the Internet and others from a long ago past with whom I keep in contact via the Internet. Interpersonal communication is a good thing.
While Barack Hussein Obama has been busy transforming our nation into a Soviet-style Socialistic republic, the invention of the Internet and the likes of the late Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, and the folks at Google have literally transformed our lives in ways we have only begun to comprehend.
In Egypt, Facebook brought out thousands of very unhappy Egyptians to Tahir square in Cairo where they proceeded to bring down one of the Middle East’s many dictators. The Internet exposed the global warming hoax when thousands of emails between its conspirators were leaked.
It gave the U.S. State and Defense Department folks a nightmare when a very low level Army kid passed countless secret dispatches on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to Wikileaks. Private Bradley Manning is looking at life in prison for that escapade. When I served in the Army, I had a clearance for “secret” materials and thought I was hot stuff until I realized that they gave that clearance to anyone who had a pulse. Apparently they are still doing that.