A new survey, results published over at Broadband for America, shows a continuing opposition to Internet regulation. People just don’t want the government screwing with something that most of the world perceives as already working quite well without intervention,

A new national survey by Hart Research Associates finds substantial opposition to government Internet regulation, with 75 percent of respondents saying the Internet is working well and 55 percent saying the federal government should not regulate the Internet at all.

More from the survey: “When asked if the federal government should regulate the Internet, 57 percent responded ‘no.’ Of the 31 percent who thought the federal government should regulate the Internet, more than two-thirds said any such regulation should be focused on privacy, online safety and protecting children.”

Since privacy, online safety, and protecting children are already problems unrelated to the Internet at large each of them can be regulated without tinkering with the underpinnings of the Internet itself.

“The idea of delivering the Internet to the hands of our national censor, the Federal Communications Commission, violates the common sense of the Internet’s users,” says Jim Harper, director of information policy studies CATO Institute. “The bulk of Internet users are happy with their Internet service and how the Internet works. This is a strong bulwark against activists and regulators who want to centralize control of the country’s communications network in Washington, D.C.”

…there are actually activists and regulators who want to centralize control of the Internet? I suspect these people grossly misunderstand exactly how the Internet functions and that it’s a global communications system that transcends borders of countries. Certainly it would be erroneously unintelligent to force all Internet communication go through any one point for all the United States in the first place. Furthermore, like most things that flourish or suffer on community involvement, the Internet and the way we use it basically belongs to every person who puts themselves out here.

It’s a vast, interconnected resource and if anything needs to be regulated: it’s not the Internet but those powers who attempt to leverage it to exploit the people who use it.