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Rep. Darrell Issa Requests Public Comments On ACTA
langelgjm writes "After repeated dismissals by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Congressman Darrell Issa has taken matters into his own hands by posting a copy of ACTA online and asking for public comments. ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is a secretly negotiated multilateral trade treaty with the potential for profoundly affecting the Internet. 'ACTA represents as great a threat to an open Internet as [do] SOPA and PIPA and was drafted with even less transparency and input from digital citizens,' Issa said."
Because those two certainly won't uphold corporate interests? If you hold your nose and vote for either of them, it won't be taken as a sign that the American people oppose ACTA. It will be taken as a sign that people want more government intrusion in their bedrooms and more rights for corporations. If you want to give more power to the women-are-sluts-and-corporations-are-heroic-people party, don't come crying when the obvious results.
So a republican wishing to jab Obama does the right thing by posting a secret treaty online. And he's a California republican as well - land of the Entertainment Industry. Does this count as a good thing or a bad thing? I'm thinking it's both but it works out for the citizens so it's a net good despite potential partisan motivations.
bah.
I feel like you might be missing the larger issue here. If we're going to require employers to provide health insurance to their employees, it probably isn't a good idea to allow them to refuse to cover some treatment to which they have a "religious objection", because the end result of that is "an employee doesn't get any medical care that the employer does not like". Contraception is the easiest one for the Republicans to attack so it came up first, but it's by far not the only one. Jehovah's Witnesses are morally opposed to blood transfusion, ultra-Orthodox Jews are opposed to organ transplants, and Christian Scientists are opposed to just about every medical procedure. Should I be denied a blood transfusion (or required to pay the disastrously high out of pocket cost, which is almost as bad) just because my boss doesn't like them? This is a bad precedent to set.
Like it or not, you are paying for the sex lives of others. The poor have sex, and they go to hospitals to give birth. When they can't pay, who do you think pays? You do.
The only question is, are you going to pay for a very expensive birth, and the social problems that come from people with few resourses having large families? Or are you going to pay for the birth control that will save you a lot of money in the long run?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!