“A never-ending challenge.”

That’s how Vint Cerf recently described the mission of educating Congress on the need for new Internet regulations. He asked rhetorically, “Do you write to the ones who get it or the ones who don’t get it?”

What’s ironic about this comment is that those pushing so-called Net neutrality keep insisting that their goal is a “light touch” of federal regulation. They deny that this effort will start a lobbying free-for-all that threatens the Net’s traditional openness.

But let’s remember that the tax code was originally a “light touch” of regulation. Then lawmakers discovered reasons to keep rewriting the rules until the code became thicker than the New York City phone book. Pretty soon, individuals and corporations weren’t making financial decisions without first clearing them through an accountant or tax attorney.

Not a pretty future for the Internet, is it?