Well, that kind of equal and opposite extreme is just as silly as your first response that we should just ~trust~. I met my husband on the internet, right here on Free Republic, incidently.
People are potentially a lot safer meeting and getting to know someone in the relative safety of internet, than they are meeting someone in the same town who knows where you live and can follow you there. But, either way you meet someone new, it's not unwise or unethical to do a little checking up to see if he's who he says he is.
Agreed,
The internet (used wisely) is a great place to meet people and make friends.
And like you said, they won't follow you home if they turn out to be a creep.
Checking up a bit is just common sense.
Meeting someone through FreeRepublic makes sense. At least you are more likely to be conservative... What I should have said was meeting people "blindly" on the internet, such as through one of those money mill sites. Finding people through common interests makes perfect sense.