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How the GOP (and the Tea Party) Helped Kill SOPA
Hugh Pickens writes "Strengthening intellectual property enforcement has been a bipartisan issue for the past 25 years, but Stewart Baker writes in the Hollywood Reporter that when the fight went from the committees to the floor and Wikipedia went down, the Democratic and Republican parties reacted very differently to SOPA. 'Despite widespread opposition to SOPA from bloggers on the left, Democrats in Congress (and the administration) were reluctant to oppose the bill outright,' writes Baker. 'The MPAA was not shy about reminding them that Hollywood has been a reliable source of funding for Democratic candidates, and that it would not tolerate defections.' That very public message from the MPAA also reached another audience — Tea Party conservatives. Most of them had never given a second thought to intellectual property enforcement, but many had drawn support from conservative bloggers and they began to ask why they should risk the ire of their internet supporters to rescue an industry that was happily advertising how much it hated them." (Read on, below.)
Pickens continues: "Pretty soon, far more Republicans than Democrats had bailed on SOPA, the Republican presidential candidates had all come out for what they called 'Internet freedom,' and now for Republicans, opposition to new intellectual property enforcement is starting to look like a political winner. 'It pleases conservative bloggers, appeals to young swing voters, stokes the culture wars and drives a wedge between two Democratic constituencies, Hollywood and Silicon Valley,' concludes Baker, adding that unfortunately for Hollywood, as its customers migrate to the Internet, it is losing not just their money but their hearts and minds as well."
Your explicit salary has increased more slowly than executive salaries. Your total compensation, factoring in health benefits (provided you're not a top-decile earner) has increased more quickly than executive compensation.
especially when it comes to religion (prayer in schools, prayer at government functions, the flagrant display of religious iconography in public buildings, denial of other religions equal access for displays, etc), the right for one to decide how to best manage body medically, and who one is allowed to have sex with, contraception, and who one is allowed to marry. Those issues hit me a lot closer to home than firearms ownership/carry, and how I'm allowed to access content vis-a-vis music and movies on the Internet.
How about the Assassination of American citizens without a trial for the fifth amendment violation, or Indefinite detention of US citizens without being charged with a crime for your 5th and 6th amendment violations? Does the federal government assuming the ability to detain you indefinitely without charging you with a crime, or even to assassinate you, hit you closer to home than denial of marriage to a class of people, or refusal to take down some hundred year old religious display?
Not trying to point the finger at you specifically or put words in your mouth, but as a general rule the people in this country have their priorities so fucked up it enrages me sometimes. These two policies recently exercised and or implemented under the demopublican rule can potentially affect any or every individual in the country, whereas the inability for gays to marry affect what, 10% of the population at most? And let's be honest, who really gives a rosy red rats ass if the supreme court has the 10 commandments on it or if some veteran memorial has a cross? FFS.
Seriously?
- can't make your own toys
- can't grow and sell your own food
- control what you watch, what you play
Granted their are christians on the right who want to protect marriage, and oppose a few other social issues. That's about it...
The Democrats/socialists want to control everythign else.
Like whether you have healthcare, who it's from, etc.
Whether you can protect yourself.
Whether you can allow smokers in your business.
On and on...and on...
More Ron Paul-style GOP members?
You mean more who would allow prayer in schools, reject the notion of seperation of church and state, sees no need for sexual harassment laws, finds a marriage to be "between one man and one woman," supported Don't Ask Don't Tell, is a fan of privacy (except in the bedroom, because he's OK with sodomy laws), is strongly pro-life, etc. Oh wait...I've just described most GOP members. He's not really that different, guys.
He may sound *great* to young male nerds, but beyond our demographic's pet issues of drugs, the internet and foreign policy he's just as much a racist, sexist, homophobic rights-stomping religious loon as the rest of them. Maybe more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Paul
Porquoi?