The internet has shrunk the world with access to all information for all people at the same time. It should be very good for democracy by helping people in other countries learn about and move toward getting democratic freedoms. There are some people with positions in government around the world who would rather see the people not connected.

The ordinary person can now have access to everything and everyone here and around the world. Here I am right now writing this article. I click on publish and my thoughts go out for the world to see. I could write a letter to the editor before Internet access and maybe a few people would read it in a week or two. All the information in this world today is just a few clicks away for anybody to access. The kids in school today with Internet access, are very fortunate, The US education system was going backward, there is no reason why it shouldn’t reach new highs from now on.

The Internet can be good for democracy or bad and that will depend on how it is used. Television might of been the best thing since sliced bread if it hadn’t been taken over by the garbage business. Television was used for some good in the school systems for teaching and now the computer is also being used in similar ways. The important thing again will be who has control over how these teaching aids are used. If our next generation will not be able to learn anything unless it is through the use of a computer game, we might dummy down our society at a much faster pace.

The Internet will hurt democracy more than help if it is mostly garbage coming out. The people who choose a daily schedule of pornography or violent games will find it all on the Internet. Everything is there, for any age to access, how that will affect future generations all boils down to personal choices. Everyone has the choice on how they will use the Internet and that gives parents an awesome new responsibility. Parents have to guide their children in a whole new area of growth. Life’s walk is all about choices, which road do people take? The high road or the low road will determine how fulfilled your life is, the type of citizen you become. The wrong road has a lousy destination in life and some also believe after this life is over there can be a bad destination to spend eternity in.

Politicians have been awestruck by what has been happening with the use of the Internet by voters. Information that they favor is reaching the voters like they never imagined but their opponents sometimes fabricated information is getting out at warp speed too. Lies and slander about politicians go on line and is accepted as truth, they refuse to work together in Washington. No one is minding the store!

Millions and millions of dollars have been raised almost instantly to finance their campaigns. This is really great, a new campaign advertising and fund raising tool at their disposal. Internet fundraising will not be so good for democracy and the economy if it leaves the banks holding more bad credit card debt. Who knew those millions might have been raised with phony credit cards?

Terrorists use the live internet to increase the shock value of their bloody deeds, and recruit new followers. The internet helps terrorists plan attacks, it also helps in their capture. The internet is used to send in drones and vaporize groups of them.

The powerful world wide web depends on strategically placed satellites to operate correctly.The new wars will be cyber wars as enemies try to disrupt satellite signals or hackers penetrating computer systems with viruses, worms, new bugs are invented daily. There are four main types of computer bugs. http://turbinehq.com/2013/software-bug/

We must hold on to the hope that the Internet will be good for democracy. Everything that is happening in this world today is on display at some website. People who never listen to the news or read a newspaper have a new way to learn about current events. Let’s hope the events shown on the internet are close to accurate. Each individual’s unpredictable brain is the only sorting and collating tool available to handle what the eyeballs send to it. It would seem our only true hope would be that good will prevail for the sake of freedom and democracy.