KY Rep. Seeks To Ban Anonymous Blogging

First rule of politics for incumbents: During an election year, try not to highlight your general uselessness, especially if you share a name with a famous football player, because people will notice.

Second rule of politics for incumbents: If you go to the trouble to introduce a bill, be prepared to defend it until the bitter end, even if you know in your heart it will never pass, not in a million years, unless futility somehow becomes a desired legislative virtue.

Oh wait. Scratch that futility part. Futility gives the administrative branches of government something to do*.

Ahem. On with the article, right?

Kentucky state representative John Cheves reports Couch doesn't think it will go anywhere or that the legislature can do anything about it in reality. Also in reality, Couch is using his legislative powers to bring attention to online bullying, especially when bullying is exacerbated by parents who join in on the anonymous gauntlet, which we can agree is pretty cowardly and rotten.

This quote was the kicker, though: "I think right now (online posting) is pretty much just on its own. It's a machine that's going to go its own way," Couch said. "The state can try to pass some rules, but I don't really think it would do anything."

But he introduced it anyway,

Then again, without the logic to support bills-to-nowhere, we wouldn't have the logic to support why state lotteries, horse racing, and bingo are okay while casinos, back-room and online poker games, and betting on sports are not. Ahem. But I digress.

I don't think I need to talk about freedom of speech, the First Amendment, civil liberties, or the necessity for anonymous speech even if it is abused by a few dastardly, yella-bellies—I get a few of those comin' by sometimes myself. Perhaps an anonymous commentator called "

"The erosion of personal liberties continues ever so quietly ... The government is here to protect us."

The good news: It's an election year and Couch has 12,400, I suppose it's possible there are two unrelated Tim Couches who kinda look alike.