If there’s an award for the dumbest historical reference of the week, it would surely go to The Seattle Times for its editorial in favor of net neutrality, “Free the Internet.” It begins:

Democracy is meaningless without structure. It requires support and infrastructure to become a word capable of giving entire nations voice and freedom.

The architects of America’s democracy knew this. The Founding Fathers made sure newspapers and magazines were widely distributed by allowing periodicals to utilize low postage rates.

Come again? Saying that the Founding Fathers encouraged newspapers by allowing them to “utilize” low postage rates is like saying that the USC Trojans are undefeated because the players are encouraged to wear cleats.

The obvious irony, no doubt lost on The Seattle Times editorial board, is that the Founding Fathers truly protected newspapers by prohibiting Congress from “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Yet The Times’ editorial is actually a cri de coeur for a law giving federal regulators and judges the ultimate say over today’s Internet.

The editorial gets even better: “Constructive regulation is needed to allow the Internet to grow and mature.” Really? For more than a decade, the Net has grown rather nicely without a lot of “constructive regulation” so it seems odd that the editorial doesn’t even offer a reason. Here’s a wild guess why: The deafening silence is The Seattle Times’ admission that there is not a single problem facing net users today that could be resolved with net neutrality.

Finally, the comment that “there is nothing stopping” a carrier from “degrading content from competitors” is an eye-roller given all the antitrust and other laws protecting Net users from online discrimination. For more on this, click here [PDF].

On one point, we do agree with The Seattle Times: The Net requires “support and infrastructure.” Our view is that this should be a shared responsibility involving individual and large corporate users. The Times would exempt the corporations through net neutrality and put the costs entirely on Net users.

That’s their right of course, but it seems an odd way to claim that you’re on the side of the little guy.