New York State is asking should you be anonymous on line. What do you think right or wrong is it a right?

I watch KECI news most of the time and they have a weekly questions they put to the public for vote, I am usually pretty much in tune with the majority on the questions.  One recently was about having the right to not vaccinate your children.  I believe that, yes, you do have the right to not vaccinate but it is one of the occasion you should study and remember the deaths and problems that so many children suffered before we had vaccinations.  I vaccinate to make my kids safer, and the kids around them, but it is a choice as a parent we all get to make. 

Choice is a precious right we still have in our society.  So many in the world are still fighting to get to where, and what, we have enjoyed for our wholes lives and as long as America has stood.  Sadly every day we give up more rights under the cloak of not stepping on the rights of others.  I am not sure how having to give up the rights of the many for the few is fair in most situations but we are being run over at an alarming rate some times.  Funny in America we give up more each day as other countries are trying hard to get their rights honored.  I digress....

The new question KECI is asking is about being anonymous on the Internet.  It is a question New York State is asking now in their government.  I would think that technically it is one of those rights that the few are using to oppress the many.  It is the right of all to be anonymous but more and more it is being withdrawn, sometime a good thing and sometimes a bad thing.  Isn't the median of all situations that way?  I think all laws are written to try to help the most people it can, off each end of any curve people will fall.  Laws are like curves both ends will have people who are not happy and are not helped but penalized by the law.  You can not call in and be anonymous any more if you report a traffic violation  in Mineral county, if you do they won't respond so where is the right to be anonymous?  Isn't it a right to be anonymous? 

I think that it is a right, but is right?  I would say yes it can be.  How many people do you know that aren't strong enough to stand up but need to help or want to help do the right things, so yes it can be.  What about the those who want to help but don't want to get involved, still a right.  What about those who just want to reek havoc and want to cause problems?  Probably not right but is it their right?  Debatable, but yes, that it is their right but not right.  The anonymity that New York is currently speaking of is in regard to the Internet. 

Is it right to be anonymous on the Internet?  It is beyond a doubt a right, as far as rights go, but is it right?  I would think that with any thing else it is a matter of how it is used.  Is it right to give an opinion and want to be anonymous because you are not brave enough to voice your opinion out in the opinion, I would say yes.  You have the right.  I would also say it is abhorrent in alot of cases as well.  If you are being anonymous to bully other aren't you stepping on or crushing someone else's rights?  The anonymous can say things that maybe as a non virtual person they can't, if they have to sign their name to it some times they wouldn't or couldn't say.  This can be good, but it can be really bad, and be criminal, sometimes. Anonymity can make some people into something they aren't, and no one would recognise, or maybe it makes them into who they really are and the person they hide from the world.  It can be cruel, despicable, truly criminal and way out side of the realm of what is acceptable.  So should we be allowed to be anonymous?

I would say as an American, and in general, yes, we should be allowed to be anonymous.  On the Internet we should have the right to be anonymous as well, and you do have to remember the Internet is much more than the American person, so it gives many people that don't have that right, in their own country, a right they may not get to enjoy normally.  I have battled this problem personally on my blog, I do so love giving all a voice on my blog and I allowed anonymous comments for a long time but I was taken advantage of by a couple of criminal types that continually harassed me so I have gone to having to have my commenter's sign in to comment on my blog. It is so sad.  I would say that this is the rights of the few crushing the many in action.  I do think it is your right to comment anonymously but that right has been take away from you and me both, on my level of the internet, so what will the rest of the world decide on the Internet over all? .... tomorrow.