In light of a mini-controversy set off this morning when the founder of a web startup apparently violated SEC laws when he sent out a Twitter message looking for investors, The Globe and Mail’s Matthew Ingram wonders why can’t we raise money from the crowd for startups?

“Why couldn’t someone ‘crowd-source’ a financing for a startup?” he asks. “Why not allow blogs and social networks to play a part in the raising of money? It’s not as though millions of people haven’t been just as impoverished by ‘qualified’ investments and prospectuses as they could ever be by investing in a Twitter financing. Why do we need the government protecting us from ourselves?”…