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The mayor of the city in which I live recently got angry with the Internet. Not all, of course (I suspect that there are sites that our mayor even like). The mayor got angry with only one thing, but the most dirty property of the World Spider Network, which allows anyone - the patriot and quite the opposite - not only read the network publication, but also leave his judgment about it.

Just imagine: here is an official, with all regalia, gives an interview, tells about the successes of the department entrusted to him or, say, a municipality, and then an angry reader replica appears, in which the official and all his victories are carried to fluff! “Taking advantage of the anonymity that the Internet gives, many commentators allow themselves not just negative, but frankly slanderous and insulting statements,” the mayor beats anxiety. And he claims that he has already applied to the competent authorities, which should take decisive measures.

Why decisive? Because, the applicant is sure, the case is not a specific victim of network anonymers, but in the threat of Russian power in general. Generally. As a system. If you do not want the Maidan, the mayor is hinting directly, if you please protect the entire vertical up to the last screw. According to the head of the city, the mayor in this case is not a person of flesh and blood, but from marble and steel. He is a living embodiment of state foundations, he is a small, but still a symbol. Like a staff and a rod. Like an eagle and a tricolor. Like the Kremlin and Crimea. Therefore, offensive words in his personal address are "actions that cause damage to the state." And, therefore, the authors of network comments - rebels are worse than Pugachev.

There are few eplelets and plumage to officials - give them another halo and radiance

And a rebellion is already a different article of the Criminal Code, you yourself understand. And the consequences are different. An ordinary city pensioner Ivan Nikiforovich, who has not been clothed with powers, can beat his head for years at the gate of the prosecutor's office and Roskomnadzor, unsuccessfully looking for a council on Ivan Ivanovich, who called a former friend “Gusakom” in his LJ. But if the same Ivan Ivanovich, who barely dodged on the street from the falling icicle and miraculously not broke his leg on the ice sidewalk, will return to his cold apartment (an accident on the heating main), he will sit down at the computer and in despair will call the same “hussak” the head of the city economy, then the slanderer will not do! Terrible paper will arrive, the “machine of happiness” will hide with the gears, take a look-and now people in the camouflage drag the stunning of the basics in the car, from there to the cage, and then the lady-soda with a short disgusting face will prescribe him “two-legged” or even “trescel”.

The saddest thing is that the mayor is partly right: when you read revelations like the mayoral, you think that Russian officials are really different from other people. Not biologically, God forbid (they also have hemoglobin in their blood, and not chlorophyll). We are talking about psychosomatics of a special property. The longer people of the authorities are at the post, the more often they are subject to a dangerous mental illness. This, according to Dostoevsky, is “administrative delight”, which gradually enthusiastically infuriates the fatal (according to Babel and Vysotsky).

At first they want to get more, then do less, and then keep in the fragment of those who do not like this alignment too much. It is not enough for our officials of their high salaries, privileges, bonuses, “memberships” and light opportunities to steal - they still want to be adored and look infallible. There are few epaulettes and plumage - give another halo and radiance. With their minds, officials are likely to understand that it would be better to stop and go back in time, that you can’t go too far and climb into the wolf, that they will come around. However, the element with the inexorable of rock carries them to a cliff.

Look: they have already shut up almost the entire printed press, from the district to the federal, poisoned the television air with Kiselevs and overlaid the network media with dragon prohibitions. And, judging by the fact that the mayor’s initiative did not meet at the top, now it is time to eliminate the genre of Internet comments itself-in fact, the only open valve in a pressure cooker puffing on fire. Soon the last opportunity of the layman can officially collapse with the authorities through words.

By the way, this kind of "feedback" existed in Rus' long before the Internet. Paul I, even wishing to find out about folk aspirations, ordered to hang a box for complaints on the facade of the Winter Palace, and even personally looked through letters. True, the king had enough patience for a while: in most complaints there were too unpleasant words, including at the address of the sovereign himself. So after a couple of months the emperor ordered the box to take off. Or, in modern terms, I turned off the comments.

How the biography of Paul I ended is well known.

Roman Arbitman - Saratov writer

Opinions expressed under the heading "Law" may not reflect the point of view of the editorial office