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The whole purpose of the 1996 law was to open it up.

Well, it’s open.

Let’s not close it again.

No censorship.

No monitoring.

Let the websites flourish.

If you think the internet is dangerous for children, don’t let your children use it.

If you think a video is too violent, go after the person who posted the video, not the platform he used.

And if you think Islamic websites cause terrorism, you’re living in a fantasy world. I could read all the content on a hundred websites calling for jihad and never become a jihadist. I’m sure the same is true of everyone reading this column. Jihadists are created from the inside, not the outside.

The hysteria over “dangerous” websites reminds me of debates I had years ago with Donald Wildmon, head of Citizens for Decency, a religion-based media-monitoring organization based in Tupelo, Mississippi. The Reverend Wildmon believed that movies and TV shows caused rape, murder, and other depraved acts. He was a censor of the first order. Since we were both Protestants, I would taunt him with the words of Jesus: “There is nothing without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.”

All these attempts to police internet content will founder on the shoals of human complexity. Lines will have to be drawn, and since they’ll be drawn by people who are afraid of offending, they’ll always censor what should not be censored.

In memory of Sonny Bono, if nothing else, hands off. Let the internet be the internet.

Joe Bob will be presenting his politically incorrect multimedia show How Rednecks Saved Hollywood Jan. 26, 2018, at the Texas Theatre in Dallas. Tickets available here.