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Why Politicians Should Never Make Laws About Technology
snydeq writes "As the world gets more and more technical, we can't let Luddites decide the fate of dangerous legislation like SOPA, writes Deep End's Paul Venezia. 'Very few politicians get technology. Many actually seem proud that they don't use the Internet or even email, like it's some kind of badge of honor that they've kept their heads in the sand for so long. These are the same people who will vote on noxious legislation like SOPA, openly dismissing the concerns and facts presented by those who know the technology intimately. The best quote from the SOPA debates: "We're operating on the Internet without any doctors or nurses on the room." That is precisely correct,' Venezia writes. 'The best we can do for the short term is to throw everything we can behind legislation to reinstate the Office of Technology Assessment. From 1974 through 1995, this small group with a tiny budget served as an impartial, nonpartisan advisory to the U.S. Congress on all matters technological.'"
This simple act underscored a problem possibly bigger than SOPA: the fact that as with far too many of our elected officials, technology legislation isn't even on his radar.
I don't think you understand SOPA. SOPA isn't a problem with Technology. It's not going to physically break the backbone routers we need for the internet. It's not going to present technological challenges. What it's going to do that is a problem is rape free speech, make user-generated content (like what I'm doing right now) nearly impossible and on par with China's arcane policies as well as a number of other things. It threatens uploading content, it threatens internal networks, it threatens open source software, it threatens DNS, DNSSEC and internet security. And the worst part is that it's going to be completely ineffective at what it aims to do!
You don't need to understand technology to read the pieces on how this is a direct assault on free speech. Screw their understanding of technology, frame this piece of shit legislation as a direct assault on basic civil liberties! Let them chisel into stone memos about their dry cleaning, who cares if they don't use e-mail. Just make sure they understand that this is first and foremost diametrically opposed to free speech when you simply consider the internet as a means of communication and expression!
The best we can do for the short term is to throw everything we can behind legislation to reinstate the OTA (Office of Technology Assessment). From 1974 through 1995, this small group with a tiny budget served as an impartial, nonpartisan advisory to the U.S. Congress on all matters technological.
Another government office or agency? Man, don't we have enough of that bullshit as it is? I think you're deflecting and focusing on something that will sidetrack us from getting this crap shut down. Call your representative and senators and tell them that you feel that your First Amendment Rights are being threatened by H.R. 3261 and forget trying to lecture them about how DNSSEC works.
You want to effectively stop this? Here's a commercial I'd like to see Google air on national TV:
*woman sits behind bars with a look of remorse on her face*
Woman: I uploaded a video less than half a minute long of my toddler dancing to music on Youtube.
*clip of cute toddler jamming out to some pop music plays*
Woman: The video went viral. Then I received a letter in the mail from lawyers saying I owed them the cost of that song for every view. Instead of just taking it down, I'm now in a criminal lawsuit facing bankruptcy and jail time. Please call your representative to stop SOPA and prevent this from happening to thousands of people.
Fight fire with fire, 15 second ad. Let's see it, Google.
My work here is dung.
There is no subject where at least one of the arguments to be found isn't true, and probably multiple ones.
Why is there no union for information technology workers? They control the keys that run this world, they have more power than to know what to do with. Where is their VOICE?
The Greek "politicians" were actually philosophers. They knew they didn't understand everything, so arguments were structured to expose their own ignorance through the statement of assumptions: "Assuming X is true."
This inevitably can lead to more discussion about whether the assumptions are valid, but the approach at least documents the process of working through the details of what eventually would become legislation.
Right now politicians make decisions based on ideology and dogma, not on logic and reasoning. At a bare minimum, Parliament and Congress should be held to a philosophical evaluation of law that starts with "Assuming the Constitution is true" and "Assuming the Charter of Rights is valid". Those foundational documents should always be the core of testing the validity of an argument for encoding something as law.
As long as politicians are chosen by a popularity contest instead of an assessment of their skills, experience, and knowledge, that leads me to conclude that politicians should not make laws at all.
Instead, they should be responsible for collecting evidence from the public, industry, and others concerned about the legislation they propose to prove it's good legislation meeting the needs of the people, not serving the will of dogma and corporate influence.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Killed by Newt Gingrich in 1995.
They're not even anywhere near a hospital, they're somewhere in the middle of Utah.
The sad fact is that it doesn't matter if there's a resource for politicians to get sound information from to make decisions. With the structure of today's congress/senate what you need are actually lobbyists - lot's of them and bribes, err, campaign donations too!
Look at what happened to Microsoft: they didn't lobby enough and found themselves on the wrong-end of an antitrust suit. Now they lobby enough that that's not a problem anymore.
Shh.
Politicians should never make laws about technology. Which is why machine guns should be free for everyone to own.
Advice: on VPS providers
Will SOPA affect the usage of the internet for people outside of the USA, but where a recursive DNS query might happen to travel through it (for example, somebody in mexico finding a domain that is based in Canada, or vice versa)?
It's been suggested that people who utilize DNSSEC can simply ignore SOPA, because SOPA explicitly states that nobody is required to make significant changes to their software or facilities to comply with it. Will organizations that use DNSSEC be later dragged into court for "enabling" copyright infringement? Will free software start to also suffer a similar fate?
Will SOPA ultimately lead to additional legislation that will require ISP's to prohibit their users from utilizing foreign DNS servers?
Will SOPA ultimately lead to censorship by IP address, when blocking domain names has been shown to be ineffective? And if so, owing to the lack of available IPv4 address space that can potentially make it inconvenient for somebody to bypass such censorship by switching IP's, will this create delays in supporting widespread IPv6 adoption, where the availability of trillions of IP addresses would make it arguably easier to bypass such censorship?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's not just making laws for tech, politicians shouldn't be allowed to make laws period. Nobody in parliament houses these days is well educated or informed enough to create laws....they are however good at other things, namely reducing accountability, making TV appearances and looking after the people who pay for their election campaigns. I find it quite alarming that people with no background in any field except politics (whatever that is anyways), accept advise from accountants and lawyers to regulate the lifestyle and influence decisions of the common man.
Politicians are basically owned by the big money corporations that put the politicians in office. The politicos don't know about tech, and don't care either. The lobbyists write the bills, and the give the bills to the politicians to pass - along with a big campaign contribution, of course.
Do you actually think SOPA started in congress? Some congressmen, all of the sudden, thought it was important to save the content providers?
All the stuff about "politicians don't understand tech well enough to make laws about it" is just silly. Congress doesn't even read the bills it passes, and congress certainly does not write the bills.
All JMHO, of course.
We should move all control of the internet over to the EU og the United Nations.
The USA should not have anything to do with anything.
SOPA is the problem of the people of the united states - as is the "great firewall of china" is the problem of the people of china.
fucksa
But of course it's perfectly OK for the same politicians to pass laws about medical care or the environment or whatever radical shibboleth is current these days. And anybody who opposes THOSE laws should be demonized and called a "denier".
I disagree, it creates a conflict of rights and a loophole allowing people to commit harm to others. That is foolish and irresponsible, but it is not the end of the world or the end of slashdot or the end of free speech.
When did I say it was the end of the world, the end of Slashdot or the end of free speech? And, yes, it could affect my Slashdot posting as I might inform you that I have parodied Dr. Suess and movies and songs in my posts. Should a rights holder decide that those are too close to their original material or even just decide that I probably couldn't defend their lawsuit, they could sue me instead of issuing a DMCA and demanding it be taken down.
If it is abused, then the conflict of rights will have to be resolved in the courtroom.
Well, unfortunately, those with the most money often win in the courtroom and which side do you think is going to predominantly be the big dog? The conglomeration of all record labels known as the RIAA? Or the single mother?
No matter how badly the courts stumble over it, it won't end up with some doomsday "zomg we're China" xenophobic nonsense.
Wow, if you think my criticism of an oppressive tool such as the Great Firewall of China is xenophobic then you truly are ignorant. Don't you get it, I want to help the Chinese people enjoy the freedom to say and read whatever the hell they want! I want the Chinese people to enjoy the freedoms I enjoy like being able to say "Fuck the United States Government and that wasteful war in Iraq" while being a citizen and not worry that there is a death van awaiting me on my return to my home tonight. That's not xenophobia, you idiot! It's a desire for freedom! I suffer from oppressive-government-phobia!
My work here is dung.
There's a quote by a politician (perhaps a US President) which I can't find exactly, but I can paraphrase it: The best way to expose and destroy an unjust law is by rigorously enforcing it. If anyone knows the exact quote please tell me.
I've always been of the same view. If SOPA passes (I pray it does not), what can I, as an individual, do with it to cause chaos? Could I force Amazon to remove all of my product reviews? Mess with eBay seller feedback? Post copyrighted material in comments on Whitehouse.gov and get the site shut down?
Politicians should never make laws about technology. Which is why machine guns should be free for everyone to own.
SOPA is an unconstitutional law, violating free speech. If it passes, I'd bet all the money I have that it would make it all the way to the Supreme Court and be struck down as unconstitutional.
Politicians will continue to make laws about technology because `technology` is a synonym for `money` (in one context or another), and there are a whole lot of corporate interests that are concerned with it. Content, delivery (via network or by spectrum), technical labor ... all of these things drive cost/profit one way or another, so expect to see this trend continue.
It is a little slow now that the tech heads are now seeing the cost of staying out of or ignoring what happens to our Constitutional rights. This country has been chipping away at the 2nd Amendment for decades without a minor peep from most of you. Now you run the risk of having your very private world behind the screen invaded in ways worse than any Patriot Act has bothered you and now you get involved? Good luck trying to throw out the tyrants without guns huh, just like our Bill of Rights were written those many years ago. Did you vote on SOPA? I did not, but at the same time I did not vote for any of the gun restrictions in this country that violate the 2nd Amendment. Now that your 1ST Amendment is being restricted through censorship activities you all get all worked up, but again, who is voting on this? This will never come to a vote just like the 2nd Amendment will never come to a vote because we only a democracy for about 1% or 1% of our time (we vote once or twice in a 4 year period). The rest of the time we let our elected officials make the laws they see fit (and money fits very well into their pockets from all these lobbyist and the wealthy). At best we are a plutocracy where the rich make the rules anymore. Who did the government bailout? The already rich. The poor were left on the side of the road and are still there. Good luck now making any significant changes. This is what happens when no one pays attention, just like our politicians have played us for years. Bah Bah Bah
From 1974 through 1995, this small group with a tiny budget served as an impartial, nonpartisan advisory to the U.S. Congress on all matters technological.
Only bad could come from its reinstatement:
1) "Buy IBM and Microsoft and contract with (insert major defense contractor) and (well-connected Indian body shop) for services - that's all you need to worry about."
2) Usual government bureaucracy means we'll get specs for good technology ten years after consumers have moved on
Very few politicians get technology. Many actually seem proud that they don't use the Internet or even email
I call BS. 1999 wants its quote back. Everyone in Congress and almost every politician with any pull has a smart phone and those use...the Internet and email.
The preceding discussion is based on the term "technology" being used in a very narrow sense. However, the argument still applies when the term is used broadly, and hence to probably 80% of modern life. How many politicians (and lumpen proles) understand enough to make informed decisions about stem cells, oil pipelines, radio spectrum allocation, chemicals, water treatment and distribution, combustion, electrical networks, etc., etc. But yet laws and regulations are passed every day.
The politicians can learn from the medical profession - "First, do no harm." Of course, that rules out about everything.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Someone should take away his laptop.
Or folks on /. should at least stop posting links to his drivel.
The issue is they aren't informed.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Technology experts are frequently completely clueless about the law.
Instead of electing educated scientists and engineers (see China) to office, we instead elect people whose qualifications are in social sciences. That is, the politicians we often end up choosing are mostly good at manipulating people with their rhetoric (and the masses fall for it); but they are pretty stupid when it comes to technical details. Furthermore, your average Joe is intimidated by the nerds (hence the term "nerd"). We often say "Oh I suck at math" when that term is brought up, and that is too often the typical response by the average American. We're too proud of being stupid, and then we elect stupid politicians to office to run our country.
politicians make decisions based on ideology and dogma
It's not even that romantic. The people who run the business of government make decisions based on money. The question is whether we can admit it, or whether we will continue to repeat "for the people" like unthinking zombies.
"Why Politicians Should Never Make Laws"
Because history shows they consistently do it WRONG.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
We elect them. The best frame/spin, money can buy, proves they are the right people for the job.
Any well purchased frame/spin can prove that god loves bible-thumpers, that patriotic rhetoric is alive, freedom is a valuable word, and we're number one!
Bible-thumpers read very little, spew bullshit rhetoric, low the word freedom, and are pissed at the world for not making them rich. Politicians, C*Os, and clergy are very happy to take any money given them, money for bailout, added fees, robber-baron laws and then bless you with more patronizing words. Not all politicians are bad, just the vast majority that fickUS day2day, decade2decade and make any good educated patriotic citizen a criminal.
Air travel, bill paying, credit/loan rates, fee-fines ... are just another way to inflate stock value and prove capitalism died 20 years ago with trickle-down-economics to reward the new communist/fascist/loan-sharks ....
Most governance/laws benefits politicians, C*Os, clergy ... and Fucks US. ....
Most governance/laws should benefit the people in education, science, innovation, personal freedom with security. BUT that would be un-christian, un-american, un-profitable
The whole point of SOPA is to control you. Your current government just can't allow you to continue engaging in free speech. Enough of you might find out what your overlords are up to and vote them all out.
Sure, Ron Paul is against the idea of "net neutrality". That means big corporations can screw around with your traffic. But remember, if evil ISPs mess with user traffic it only opens them up to fierce competition in the most profitable markets: High density urban areas.
Or you can continue to support, either actively or by your own apathy, the existing establishment who will in time make your internet resemble the Chinese version.
this headline is kind of hard to understand. its like saying 'doctors shouldnt perscribe drugs', when the real problem is not that doctors perscribe drugs. that's their job, its part of what being a doctor is. the real problems are that drug companies bribe some doctors, that perscriptions cost too much, that doctors write sloppy sometimes, that patients share meds with others, etc etc etc.
i mean, who the hell do you want to make laws? someone has to do it, and it better be elected representatives, not some cabal of know it all technocrats.
maybe our elected representatives have become incredibly corrupt ... im not ready to throw away that whole 'democracy' thing just yet though.
Politicians Ignore Constituency...news at 11.
I bet they all use the internet, and they do a lot trolling forums and message boards anonymously trolling pro statist and pro big government points of views
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I didn't need to RTFA or RTFS. Just RTFT and you can agree, it's a no brainer...
I'm good with that.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
"As long as politicians are chosen by a popularity contest instead of an assessment of their skills, experience, and knowledge..."
wait... who is making that assessment? all you have introduced is another corruptible source of power. "We have found politician XYZ to be without skills because we got $15M in our bank accounts to say so." i know what you are talking about in theory, but in practice, you are just introducing another point of failure and corruption in the power structure. there is only one valid source of power: the people. so only they should determine who rules them via, i'm sorry, a popularity contest. not because they always vote with the best intelligence and interests. but because any other source of arbiting power is worse
"Instead, they should be responsible for collecting evidence from the public, industry, and others concerned about the legislation they propose..."
and this is exactly right. they don't know everything. but they know how to assemble bright minds to help them decide. unfortunately, the concept of bright minds helping them decide is being replaced by pay-to-play in our democracy-rapidly-becoming-plutocracy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
CAPTURED BY INDUSTRY.
Reinstating OTA won't solve the problem, when the office will be populated by revolving-door industry flacks, just as regulatory agencies are, today.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
While "the board" (Congressmen) might govern the OTA, a few appointed people will actually be in charge. And these people are going to be ex-RIAA/MPAA litigators.
Isn't this true for most decisions and legislations passed by politicians nowadays? What do politicians know about the environment? Did they study environmental science? What do they know about health? Were they trained in health care? What do they know about education? Were they study and practice as educators? I think you get the hint. Sure they could employ and rely upon experts in the field, but in reality what do they do? Sell their votes to the highest bidder....oh I mean lobbyist.
Funny how people freak out about China and communism, but if you think about it...democracy in it's current form doesn't really work. Does your elected official know your name? Know what you need? Hmm..then how do they "represent" you?
Somebody (RIAA, MPAA, or other *AA) PAID somebody to introduce this bill, a bill that the entertainment industry had already written for them, and then proceeded to pass out checks to the rest of the congresscritters to get it passed. It's all about the money in this case.
If the congresscritters had any kind of actual understanding about what this bill does (we can argue that they should, but I very much doubt that most of them actually do understand any bill that they are voting on in any kind of detail to actually make a rational decision, but it's not going to change the fact that these idiots will remain idiots in the near future, and probably in the long term future as well...), they would be up in arms about it. All it will take is a takedown notice on somebody's reelection site (you know that somebody's going to screw up and put non-cleared copyright material on their site at some point) and the idiots will find out how well and screwed they (and the rest of us citizens) are over this stupid law.
Bryan
Shit, the Mayans were right!
We laughed at Y2K, because we were yet innocent enough before Innocence Ended on 9-11-2001, and the secondary Copyright Wars.
And we still have a year to go!
So now I know what our world ending risk is, it's SOPA-Clones passed, rampant Big Brother, and your choice of five more things.
Yikes!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
When did I say it was the end of the world, the end of Slashdot or the end of free speech?
What it's going to do that is a problem is rape free speech [eff.org], make user-generated content (like what I'm doing right now) nearly impossible and on par with China's arcane policies [nytimes.com] as well as a number of other things.
See my sig. Of course, no one ever listens to me.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
As a non US citizen/resident, I think the Internet is too US-centric. I look forward to this legislation encouraging more of the Internet to be based outside of America.
will have a paragraph or two about the amoral technocrats who enabled it.
then some authors, like goth and aly, or black, write entire books about technocracy.
A better way to think of politicians is not as people but a process. They're a system. A committee of blind people that gets all their information from thousands of little braille cards that are handed to them. These cards indicate polling information, funding, demographic surveys, etc. What they're actually talking about from one second to the other rarely matters. What matters is whether voting one way or the other will improve their chances of getting reelected.
If you want to talk to politicians... don't try to explain. That's like showing the blind people a picture. They don't listen on anything. Why should they make regulation on the finance industry when they don't understand that either? Why should they make regulation on medicine when they don't understand that? Why should they make legislation on war when they don't understand that?
They don't understand anything. They're not even good at law and most of them have passed the bar. That's now how they work.
Just send them little braille cards that make it clear they'll suffer in the polls if they do that and they'll stumble blindly in the opposite direction.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The GOP, led by Newt Gingrich, lest we forget.
The problem with congress is not that they lack good information or sources for good information. If we reinstate the office of technological assessment, it will simply add to the voices of industry people who are already there. However, the real problem (the money), will still be there, and the senators will still vote whichever way the company who makes generous donations to their campaign dictates.
or else!
If the democracy was perfectly designed at 1 point, the population growth would change the dynamics of the problem so that the previous solution would no longer be ideal. Technology and lifestyle also greatly impact the operation of any system that depends upon the currently living people to operate it.
NOTE: Congress should be much much larger; it used to be more reasonable but they CAPPED the size of the house seats. Its not 1 rep for every 50k people like it was long ago. States power has been undermined by the removal of state gov in choosing the senators; which is how senators used to be picked. The constitution has been altered greatly over time; that is, when they actually follow a part of it. (I still fail to see how one can reasonably extend copyright when its constitutionally defined; it requires an amendment to change it.)
Many reps actually BELIEVE they represent their voters because of whatever slogans they used to get in; choosing to not be realistic because then they can feel good about themselves. The truth is most get in by their brand name, some luck, and the most marketing money to sucker those idiotic "undecided" voters that decide almost every election. This is why somebody who is depressed or other conditions is better suited for office; they are less likely to tell such dangerous lies to themselves.
And this is different from deny global warming how exactly?
You have a populace and politicians in the US who cannot understand the technical, highly interconnected world they live in.
Instead they fill that gap with Christian Evangelism, isolationism and a belief in the free market magic bunny .
This is what the US is. The same heads in the sand types kept the US out of WWII until it was almost too late. They don't know and they don't want to know . Trust me I live by these people.
They've gotten away with it for this long, but i'ts catching up to them and they will not be able to change in time. Reality in the form things like the climate and technological advances has it's own timetable and it really could give a shit about your domestic politics. Accept and adapt or die. How do you like that for social Darwinism?
Oh that's right, you don't believe in Darwin.
Did I read online that software developers are electing to forgo the American apps market for far of being sued under the regressive software patent regime instituted at the behest of and for the benefit lawyers and large IT companies who fear real competition from small startups?
I knew I did:
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-app-developers-withdraw-from-us-as-patent-fears-reach-tipping-point/
Why Politicians Should Never Make Laws
- Fixed that for you.
You can't handle the truth.
They do not just admit it. It is easier for them to say "I ignore technology" in order to justify their anti-technology laws.
I even volunteered to assist in explaining technological things. They were good enough to send me a nice form letter thanking me for contacting them. Of course, they also didn't like my suggestion that they be forced to wear NASCAR-like suits that have patches for all of their "sponsors." Go figure ...
Bark less. Wag more.
And, yes, it could affect my Slashdot posting as I might inform you that I have parodied Dr. Suess and movies and songs in my posts. Should a rights holder decide that those are too close to their original material or even just decide that I probably couldn't defend their lawsuit, they could sue me instead of issuing a DMCA and demanding it be taken down.
From what I've understood so far, they wouldn't do that. They would just freeze the assets of /. corporate overlord, and demand that /. removes the material. In that order, of course.
Which is the most insidious part: how do you defend yourself in court when you can't pay your lawyer?
!=
Slashdot is more than user-generated content, it's a news site. They can continue posting articles, they would just be responsible for censoring their users (or just get rid of commenting/discussion altogehter). CNN/Fox/MSNBC would all have to do the same. Either way, I don't think his comment that 'user-generated content would be nearly impossible' equivocates to 'the end of Slashdot'.
He said free speech would be raped, not gone. People can still go outside on their soap boxes and say whatever they want... they just can't do it on the internet.
I still don't see any mention of the apocalypse.
In the USA, politicians are constantly seeking funding for the next campaign. Their actions and the legislation they sponsor and support are largely driven by people, corporations, and organization with deep pockets that contribute to their campaign funds. Of course that is moderated by what their voting base will tolerate. The pols will vote in congress as they are paid to vote.
This goes for SOPA too.
If you want politicians to instead vote for the public good, you will have to work to eliminate private campaign financing as a major motivator. I am not saying this casually.
I suffer from oppressive-government-phobia!
I'm pretty sure that is racist... I just haven't quite worked out how yet. I'll get back to you.
Now address the rest of what he said or STFU.
The real problem is money in politics. Many of these laws, like SOPA, are written by *industry* groups who have monetary interest in creating laws to make you increase their ROI.
And the Republicans and DINOs who take the biggest contributions[1] are the ones who also fight tooth and nail to eliminate or stop the creation of any regulatory bodies[2].
"Free marketeers" my ass.
mark
1.Example of the latter: Sen. Max "single payer heathcare option is off the table" Baucus, who opensecrets.org showed at the time he was saying that, that two of his seven biggest campaign contributors were Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and another (Aetna? United Health? I disremember which).
2. Such as today's headlines that Obama's going to do a recess appointment of a Consumer Regulatory Affairs head, after the Republicans have spent two years fighting to prevent a vote on anyone ever taking place.
hey if we wanted someone fun, crazy yet ignorant we would just simply back Ballmer for president then we can enjoy the monkey dance every day whilst Ballmer tries to demonstrate windows phone 7 and how FCC regulations make it a mandatory phone OS for all smartphones
Politicians with an axe to grind -- or a bribe in their pocket -- would ignore the OTA just as they now routinely ignore (or decry as being partisan) the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) when its findings are in conflict with their agenda and/or whenever it makes for good theatre in a press conference.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Politicians are even more ignorant about banking, so we better not regulate that either!
Get the lawyers out of Congress and you'll stop getting stupid laws that only benefit lawyers.
Over 90% of the members of both Congressional Houses are lawyers by profession, and you wonder why stupid things like SOPA even get proposed. These stupid bills are nothing but cash grabs for their profession.
Stop voting for them. There's a few smattering of other professions, like Ron Paul being a doctor, but he's in the minority.
Another issue is that they keep putting unqualified yahoos on these committees. Is it dealing with the FDA or committees dealing Pharma regulations? They should put a few doctors on that committee. Why the hell are they stuffed full of lawyers and not a single member of Congress from the business or medical profession is on those committees?
@Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
By the same reasoning, politicians shouldn't create legislation for the military, healthcare, agriculture, or banking. Should we also disallow judges from working cases outside of their expertise? While it's not a perfect scenario, these people don't work in a vacuum. They have advisers, who draft the bills for them...I doubt any bill in recent history was actually written by one of our congressmen. You can view nearly every politician as a small team because they always come with a group of people, and they should be judged by who they surround themselves with. And for those who claim to be non-judgmental, this is an exception that you need to make to that rule when you vote.
Just another day in Paradise
If congress pushes this issue then all we have to do is drop a bomb in the heart of their world. All we have to do is, if they pass it call and cancel your internet service and have it disconnected. Believe me when they get jammed up by the service providers for the millions per month losses (1 Million people @ $45 per month = 45 million in losses per month) they will have to reconsider or back down from the bill. What this is going to do is start a war between internet service providers and the record and movie industries with the congress and senate in the middle. either way their going to piss off one or the other and lose a bunch of money. I'm telling you WE THE PEOPLE need to wield our power when we don't like whats happening. V said it best " The people should not fear it's government,,,Their government should fear it's people". I'm Just Sayin