Instant Runoff has lots of good points, but I really prefer Condorcet. Either, however, is vastly preferable to the current system. And perhaps Instant Runoff is better, because it's easier to explain.
Both of them would allow you to vote for the candidates that you prefer without penalty. Of course, you'd need to vote for a lot of secondary candidates, too, unless you didn't care who else got the vote.
This election cycle it's quite likely that I *will* vote third party. I can't possibly vote for Obama after his signing that indefinite detention bill. And I haven't heard of a Republican candidate that I could stomach. I might hate them more if they were honest that if they weren't.
The only exception, here, is Ron Paul, who is a lousy choice, but possibly better than Obama turned out to be. I don't trust him worth two cents based just on the rhetorical tricks in the introduction and first 5 pages of his book. (After that he smoothed down a bit, and so far [I'm still no farther than page 22] he just seems a states-rights libertarian who wants to remove all checks on the large and powerful abusing the weaker. In other words, better than his opponents from the Republican party, and better than Obama. But as I said I don't trust him to be being honest.)
Actually, government is merely that entity which effectively claims a monopoly on the use of force in some geographic area. We *HOPE* it will do those other things. But look at rising governments and sitting governments and the only thing you can rely on is that they claim a monopoly over the use of force. (They aren't always even willing to delegate it to associates.)
Notice that as the states cede more and more of their control over "their" police and over the national guard to the Feds, they become less and less governmental entities. Currently I think you can claim that they exist by the will of the Federal government, and as such cannot really be considered governments, but only... I can't think of a proper word. Satrap implies that you are talking about one individual who exerts the delegated power. It's sort of like a distributed satrapy, though.
IIRC this garbage got started around the time of the civil war (1865) though I can't remember whether before or afterwards. The term lobbying was invented because these people would meed the legislators in the lobby, and talk them into coming out for a meeting. I don't recall whether this was due to a change in the laws, or whether it was just the lax environment created by the war, but I seem to recall (as in don't really believe this) that it was a legal change.
My Senators? I've written, but they'll vote for it anyway. (One of them I didn't bother to read the response from, as that entity has lied about how they're going to vote before. But they are both solidly in the pocket of both the MPAA and the RIAA.) My Representative? She may vote against it. I've written. But it doesn't have much of her attention, so she might not. I wrote, but....well, I'm uncertain.
Not sure of the difference you are making between overthrown and revisited. If you are arguing that some similar bill (similar how?) is desireable, then I'm willing to listen. But the current bill is so bad in so many different places that the best answer is to just get rid of it. And then get rid of the Sony-Bono copyright extension act, too. That wasn't quite as bad, but it was bad enough.
WRT the DMCA the worst part of the bill is that you can file false charges against someone without suffering any penalties. It's far from the only bad part, but that part in and of itself is sufficient that the bill should have never have been voted, and should be repealed immediately.
Note that the specification of how this is to be done is that the person filing the charge must have a "good faith belief" (don't know the exact wording) that the person who asked them to file the charge is acting honestly. There's no requirement that this be tested. There's no requirement that there not be a prior history of misrepresentation. And there's no penalty as long as he told you it was infringing. And he can lie without penalty.
So essentially you CAN'T get someone prosecuted for filing a false claim against you. Or even for repeatedly filing the same false claim against you. And you can't file civil proceedings on the basis of this law, only on something like "interference with business relations" or something.
Catuion: I Am Not A Lawyer. But I believe this information to be correct.
Sorry, but Greece is "the home of Democracy", as Britain is "the mother of Parliments". The US is generally called (by it's anthem) "the land of the free", but it's well to remember that when that line was written, slavery was legal.
Of the three examples, only Britain seems to be living up to it's image. (Or, "Don't trust slogans!")
Obama hasn't done much of anything worthwhile in the last year. And that's the best I can say for him.
So if he want's something done, it's probably better that it not be done. You can't be certain without more info, but that's the way the odds lie.
My wife thinks he's a Republican pretending to be a Democrat, but I think he's evidence that both parties want the same thing...and it's *not* the good of the citizenry. (Generally I say that the Democrats want to be liked more, but Obama has called that into severe question.)
It is reported, I don't know how honestly, that it is official Lyonnaise de Garantie company policy to not pay off insurace claims until the claimant has gone to court and received a court order that they should pay them off. Were I one of their customers, I'd consider them crooks.
I think it's stronger in the exploited than in most of the less exploited. The strong don't feel that it's right, in fact they feel a bit guilty about it. They just don't let the guilt stop them.
As for the belief that it's right... that goes back to an old religious belief that the Puritans, among others of the time, had that the favor of God was demonstrated by success in this world, and that therefore anything that you do which increases your success if justified because it shows that God favors you more.
No, he wasn't wrong. One alwasy needs to consider the failures as well as the successes if one wants to understand the basis for success.
OTOH, he was being an orator, and only bringing up the points he wanted to you to attend to. Never trust an orator. Even when he tells the truth, he's lying.
But he was more honest than most political speeches that you'll hear this year.
Communism *can't* be tried on a large scale, because it doesn 't scale. It is arguably the best form of government for a group of fewer than 50 people...provided that the group is allowed to kick out members for willful sponging. And the groups can be quite democratic, though they often aren't. (Communism and democratic are not antithetical. They speak to different aspects of life.)
OTOH, no successful group remains communist. (Please note the lower case c. It was there in the prior paragraph too, but the word was always sentence initial, so you couldn't tell.) It grows, and then it either stops being communist, or stops being successful.
Socialism is an attempt to take the ideals of communism and apply them on a much larger scale. It seems to work fairly well.
If, on the other hand, you meant Marx-Lenin-ism, that isn't any longer communism, however it may have tried to cloak itself. And it wasn't that much of a success, until it was blended with Stalinism, at which point it became moderately successful, even if extremely unpleasant. (Successful and pleasant are also not antithetical, but neither are they identical.) The more appropriate name for such a system is Tyrrany. Or Autocracy. Such systems, under sane leadership, can be quite successful, and over time tend to turn into Monarchies. (But it takes two or three generations of leadership.)
You're blaming the wrong people. It's true that mass transit involves destroying parts of the city in order to make transportation available, but most forms of public transit don't. Any street wide enough to have two lane in each direction is wide enough. One lane can be made to work with difficulty. (More on mass transit at the end.)
The problem isn't the city planners, it's the expectation that, unlike all other forms of transport, public transit should pay for itself. Cars don't, ships don't, trains don't, but public transit is supposed to. (Well, to be honest public transit also benefits from the subsidies for roads that cars get.) Mind you, I'm not claiming that it ever *does* pay for itself. Just that it's expected to, and whenever funding is needed the claim is raised that it should be paying for itself.
Personally, I think that local public transit should have a nearly nominal fee, if any. I'm not sure it should have any. Yes, I'm arguing that it should be totally tax supported. I consider it a public good. I also think that it should run 24 hours a day, though with reduced service at times that aren't busy. But people need to be able to depend on it being available. If they can't, then they need to own a car, and if they need to own a car anyway, they'll drive it frequently. (I've noticed this behavior in myself, and I really doubt that I'm unique.)
I'm dubious about automated buses, even though there are now automated cars on the road. Vandalism is just too prevalent a problem, and needs to be addressed somehow. Currently the drivers limit it, but I have doubts that a robot driver would have the same effect.
P.S.: WRT mass transit. The city planners can't know ahead of time where the mass transit will need to go. I suppose that they could design the city full of linear parks and bike paths where mass transit MIGHT need to go in the future, but there would need to be so many of them that the average density of the city would decrease significantly. Unless you go in for arcologies or some such.
Are you under the delusion that the US is a democracy? Or even a republic?
It's about as close to a republic as Rome was at around 50BC. Maybe a bit less. And social change is happening faster due to the increase in the speed of communication. Expect Julius Caesar within the decade.
Of course, things don't repeat that precisely. I don't know how the autocrat will come into power, or even whether she/he/it will be publicly visible. (I don't think it's already happened, but it's not beyond the bounds of possibility. Bush made me wonder. And it might explain some of Obama's actions.)
Note that this is not arguing against the statement that we live in an oligarchy run by plutocrats...which isn't, quite, the same as a plutocracy. Wealth isn't enough, you also need to be of the proper "family", or your power is severely limited. But it's not infrequent that one of the oligarchs will "take control". As long as there isn't enough dissention from within the other members of the oligarchy, this will be allowed to continue. Then someone else will rise as a rival for power, and the dissention may even erupt into public notice. Check out the Medichi. Frequently the real power isn't even a notable public presence.
America does not value the skilled worker, and does not value the academic scholar and does not value the intellectual. Subtle effects aren't newsworthy.
It's not just what the media says. if you become skilled in your job, you are likely to be replaced, because the company doesn't want anyone who isn't easily replaceable. If you study hard, you are neglecting the development of your social skills, and it's the social skills that are admired. If you work hard, you are ignoring your family (if you have one). And you are at any time subject to being moved across the country to a new job. Guess what that does to your spouse and family. Especially if you need two incomes to "maintain a decent living style", or given student loans, to even keep up with you loan payments.
Ever since at least the 1950's companies have been demanding more and more commitment from their workers, and offering less in return. It's not JUST the geek that they don't value, it's any individual who isn't in upper management. And society has focused more and more on atomizing the social environment, so that there isn't a reliable social support group. (Some churches still serve that function, to an extent, but even there it's an increasingly limited extent.)
You or me in a garage somewhere will never be able to file an acceptable patent, or defend the patent against infringement, or defend our use of the patent against patent trolls.
I'm not talking about libertarians. I'm talking about Ron Paul. I've been reading his book. (To be fair, he frequently makes me so angry that I need to stop reading for awhile, so I'm only up to page 22.) So far he has addressed only the government as the enemy of liberty.
P.S.: I didn't limit my comment to corporations, and my intention was to list them as only one example of entities stronger than most humans in a legal context. Before corporations were powerful, there were the "robber barons". The crucial factor is that some individuals or groups were so much more powerful than the individual that the individual had effectively no chance to defend themselves against abuse.
P.P.S.: The introduction and the first 5 pages of the first chapter are so full of rhetorical tricks that I don't think I could EVER bring myself to trust him, even if I became convinced that what he was proposing was the correct approach. After that he has, so far, lowered his level of rhetoric to something more acceptable, but not only is it hard to forget that first part, I don't want to.
You aren't going to get a better selection as long as you have only two candidates to choose between. Instant Runoff or Condorcet would quickly improve things, as it would be nearly impossible to buy off the entire slate ahead of time.
OTOH, I sure don't trust him. And if I did I wouldn't want his proposals written into law. He appears to want to remove all government control over what corporations and powerful individuals do to the rest of us. The governent is, indeed, far from perfect, or even mildly decent, but it's a lot better than the past history of uncontrolled corporations and "robber barons". That's faint praise indeed, but given the alternatives, it's the best I can do.
That's a paraphrase of a historical incident involving George Bernard Shaw. (Don't remember the detials, but you could look it up if you're interested.)
And it was at a party, not in a bar...though I presume that alcohol was being served. (I believe that there were a few intermediate figures, also. And I don't remember what the original figure was, but it was in pounds, not in dollars.)
I really doubt that Congress is ignorant of the effects of they choices. They WANT to limit the number of people with the power to create media. It is in their best interest if those who have the ability to be heard in public are dependent on them. Neither side will admit it, but that's why this kind of law is so prevalent. They WANT control for the sake of control, not for any sane reason. If they weren't power-mad crazy very few of them would run for congress, and I don't think that any would run for senator in any very large state. (New Hapmshire and Rhode Island aren't typical. They're small enough that sane Senators are possible. Don't know whether they're likely or not, as I haven't examined their history.)
There are scaling effects that have ensured that the US is governed by mad men, and controlled by media czars (who themselves are generally mad.)
P.S.: I'll grant that mad is a trifle vague. I mean more sociopath, but there's a touch of obsessive-compulsive in the mix too. If you aren't so driven, you won't put forth the effort needed to win an election in a large state, except, perhaps, as a representative. Even then only if someone else builds the power-base. And you'll OWE them.
You clearly don't understand how democracy is supposed to operate. The corporations have already protested to the legislators, what they are threatening to do is involve the people, i.e. the demos. People generally ignore what the politicians are doing, this might cause them to pay attention. Involving the people is hardly "the corporation voting", but rather the corporation ensuring that the populace is made aware of what the politicians are proposing.
I will agree that the US government doesn't deserve to be called a democracy, or even a republic. Oligarchy is much closer. The forms, however, are still democratic, and the forms are not yet totally without power. This is a threat to activate the existing remanents of democracy.
A better question might be where would they move to. I can't think of a single country that is safe against this kind of manipulation. They'd probably need to move to a country where they were such a large fish that they 0wn3d the government. Yet they'd want to be close to technical support. Scicily might be plausible. (I don't know much about it.) Or one of the other small mediterranian islands. Corsica? But which are independent countries? Which could be made politically stable? Google could find out.
OTOH, electric generation capability and communications capability are iffy with that kind of solution. Not to mention vulnerabiltiy to military action from outside. Perhaps Denmark or Luxemborg would be a better choice. But then you need to ensure that the... (I'm confused here. It's not the EUC, I don't think, but whatever the European Government is calling itself)... wouldn't interfere. Fortunately the countries of Europe seem to haveso far kept greater independence than the states have retained, so that might not be a problem.
The only other alternative is a truly distributed corporation. I don't think one has been designed yet, but this might be a good time to do so. Basically you need lots of different corporations in lots of different countries that coordinate their actions "somehow". The trick is that the somehow not be able to be coerced into a particular course of action, say suppressing display of some particular web page everywhere. Don't know if it's possible, as I'm not talking about anonymization. I want each piece to be compliant with the local laws, however absurd. But to be limited in ways that make this harmless, while still being useful. This may not be possible even in theory.
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Instant Runoff has lots of good points, but I really prefer Condorcet. Either, however, is vastly preferable to the current system. And perhaps Instant Runoff is better, because it's easier to explain.
Both of them would allow you to vote for the candidates that you prefer without penalty. Of course, you'd need to vote for a lot of secondary candidates, too, unless you didn't care who else got the vote.
This election cycle it's quite likely that I *will* vote third party. I can't possibly vote for Obama after his signing that indefinite detention bill. And I haven't heard of a Republican candidate that I could stomach. I might hate them more if they were honest that if they weren't.
The only exception, here, is Ron Paul, who is a lousy choice, but possibly better than Obama turned out to be. I don't trust him worth two cents based just on the rhetorical tricks in the introduction and first 5 pages of his book. (After that he smoothed down a bit, and so far [I'm still no farther than page 22] he just seems a states-rights libertarian who wants to remove all checks on the large and powerful abusing the weaker. In other words, better than his opponents from the Republican party, and better than Obama. But as I said I don't trust him to be being honest.)
Actually, government is merely that entity which effectively claims a monopoly on the use of force in some geographic area. We *HOPE* it will do those other things. But look at rising governments and sitting governments and the only thing you can rely on is that they claim a monopoly over the use of force. (They aren't always even willing to delegate it to associates.)
Notice that as the states cede more and more of their control over "their" police and over the national guard to the Feds, they become less and less governmental entities. Currently I think you can claim that they exist by the will of the Federal government, and as such cannot really be considered governments, but only ... I can't think of a proper word. Satrap implies that you are talking about one individual who exerts the delegated power. It's sort of like a distributed satrapy, though.
IIRC this garbage got started around the time of the civil war (1865) though I can't remember whether before or afterwards. The term lobbying was invented because these people would meed the legislators in the lobby, and talk them into coming out for a meeting. I don't recall whether this was due to a change in the laws, or whether it was just the lax environment created by the war, but I seem to recall (as in don't really believe this) that it was a legal change.
My Senators? I've written, but they'll vote for it anyway. (One of them I didn't bother to read the response from, as that entity has lied about how they're going to vote before. But they are both solidly in the pocket of both the MPAA and the RIAA.)
My Representative? She may vote against it. I've written. But it doesn't have much of her attention, so she might not. I wrote, but....well, I'm uncertain.
Not sure of the difference you are making between overthrown and revisited. If you are arguing that some similar bill (similar how?) is desireable, then I'm willing to listen. But the current bill is so bad in so many different places that the best answer is to just get rid of it. And then get rid of the Sony-Bono copyright extension act, too. That wasn't quite as bad, but it was bad enough.
WRT the DMCA the worst part of the bill is that you can file false charges against someone without suffering any penalties. It's far from the only bad part, but that part in and of itself is sufficient that the bill should have never have been voted, and should be repealed immediately.
Note that the specification of how this is to be done is that the person filing the charge must have a "good faith belief" (don't know the exact wording) that the person who asked them to file the charge is acting honestly. There's no requirement that this be tested. There's no requirement that there not be a prior history of misrepresentation. And there's no penalty as long as he told you it was infringing. And he can lie without penalty.
So essentially you CAN'T get someone prosecuted for filing a false claim against you. Or even for repeatedly filing the same false claim against you. And you can't file civil proceedings on the basis of this law, only on something like "interference with business relations" or something.
Catuion: I Am Not A Lawyer. But I believe this information to be correct.
Sorry, but Greece is "the home of Democracy", as Britain is "the mother of Parliments". The US is generally called (by it's anthem) "the land of the free", but it's well to remember that when that line was written, slavery was legal.
Of the three examples, only Britain seems to be living up to it's image. (Or, "Don't trust slogans!")
Obama hasn't done much of anything worthwhile in the last year. And that's the best I can say for him.
So if he want's something done, it's probably better that it not be done. You can't be certain without more info, but that's the way the odds lie.
My wife thinks he's a Republican pretending to be a Democrat, but I think he's evidence that both parties want the same thing...and it's *not* the good of the citizenry. (Generally I say that the Democrats want to be liked more, but Obama has called that into severe question.)
It is reported, I don't know how honestly, that it is official Lyonnaise de Garantie company policy to not pay off insurace claims until the claimant has gone to court and received a court order that they should pay them off. Were I one of their customers, I'd consider them crooks.
I think it's stronger in the exploited than in most of the less exploited. The strong don't feel that it's right, in fact they feel a bit guilty about it. They just don't let the guilt stop them.
As for the belief that it's right... that goes back to an old religious belief that the Puritans, among others of the time, had that the favor of God was demonstrated by success in this world, and that therefore anything that you do which increases your success if justified because it shows that God favors you more.
No, he wasn't wrong. One alwasy needs to consider the failures as well as the successes if one wants to understand the basis for success.
OTOH, he was being an orator, and only bringing up the points he wanted to you to attend to. Never trust an orator. Even when he tells the truth, he's lying.
But he was more honest than most political speeches that you'll hear this year.
Communism *can't* be tried on a large scale, because it doesn 't scale. It is arguably the best form of government for a group of fewer than 50 people...provided that the group is allowed to kick out members for willful sponging. And the groups can be quite democratic, though they often aren't. (Communism and democratic are not antithetical. They speak to different aspects of life.)
OTOH, no successful group remains communist. (Please note the lower case c. It was there in the prior paragraph too, but the word was always sentence initial, so you couldn't tell.) It grows, and then it either stops being communist, or stops being successful.
Socialism is an attempt to take the ideals of communism and apply them on a much larger scale. It seems to work fairly well.
If, on the other hand, you meant Marx-Lenin-ism, that isn't any longer communism, however it may have tried to cloak itself. And it wasn't that much of a success, until it was blended with Stalinism, at which point it became moderately successful, even if extremely unpleasant. (Successful and pleasant are also not antithetical, but neither are they identical.) The more appropriate name for such a system is Tyrrany. Or Autocracy. Such systems, under sane leadership, can be quite successful, and over time tend to turn into Monarchies. (But it takes two or three generations of leadership.)
You're blaming the wrong people. It's true that mass transit involves destroying parts of the city in order to make transportation available, but most forms of public transit don't. Any street wide enough to have two lane in each direction is wide enough. One lane can be made to work with difficulty. (More on mass transit at the end.)
The problem isn't the city planners, it's the expectation that, unlike all other forms of transport, public transit should pay for itself. Cars don't, ships don't, trains don't, but public transit is supposed to. (Well, to be honest public transit also benefits from the subsidies for roads that cars get.) Mind you, I'm not claiming that it ever *does* pay for itself. Just that it's expected to, and whenever funding is needed the claim is raised that it should be paying for itself.
Personally, I think that local public transit should have a nearly nominal fee, if any. I'm not sure it should have any. Yes, I'm arguing that it should be totally tax supported. I consider it a public good. I also think that it should run 24 hours a day, though with reduced service at times that aren't busy. But people need to be able to depend on it being available. If they can't, then they need to own a car, and if they need to own a car anyway, they'll drive it frequently. (I've noticed this behavior in myself, and I really doubt that I'm unique.)
I'm dubious about automated buses, even though there are now automated cars on the road. Vandalism is just too prevalent a problem, and needs to be addressed somehow. Currently the drivers limit it, but I have doubts that a robot driver would have the same effect.
P.S.: WRT mass transit. The city planners can't know ahead of time where the mass transit will need to go. I suppose that they could design the city full of linear parks and bike paths where mass transit MIGHT need to go in the future, but there would need to be so many of them that the average density of the city would decrease significantly. Unless you go in for arcologies or some such.
Are you under the delusion that the US is a democracy? Or even a republic?
It's about as close to a republic as Rome was at around 50BC. Maybe a bit less. And social change is happening faster due to the increase in the speed of communication. Expect Julius Caesar within the decade.
Of course, things don't repeat that precisely. I don't know how the autocrat will come into power, or even whether she/he/it will be publicly visible. (I don't think it's already happened, but it's not beyond the bounds of possibility. Bush made me wonder. And it might explain some of Obama's actions.)
Note that this is not arguing against the statement that we live in an oligarchy run by plutocrats...which isn't, quite, the same as a plutocracy. Wealth isn't enough, you also need to be of the proper "family", or your power is severely limited. But it's not infrequent that one of the oligarchs will "take control". As long as there isn't enough dissention from within the other members of the oligarchy, this will be allowed to continue. Then someone else will rise as a rival for power, and the dissention may even erupt into public notice. Check out the Medichi. Frequently the real power isn't even a notable public presence.
America does not value the skilled worker, and does not value the academic scholar and does not value the intellectual. Subtle effects aren't newsworthy.
It's not just what the media says. if you become skilled in your job, you are likely to be replaced, because the company doesn't want anyone who isn't easily replaceable. If you study hard, you are neglecting the development of your social skills, and it's the social skills that are admired. If you work hard, you are ignoring your family (if you have one). And you are at any time subject to being moved across the country to a new job. Guess what that does to your spouse and family. Especially if you need two incomes to "maintain a decent living style", or given student loans, to even keep up with you loan payments.
Ever since at least the 1950's companies have been demanding more and more commitment from their workers, and offering less in return. It's not JUST the geek that they don't value, it's any individual who isn't in upper management. And society has focused more and more on atomizing the social environment, so that there isn't a reliable social support group. (Some churches still serve that function, to an extent, but even there it's an increasingly limited extent.)
You or me in a garage somewhere will never be able to file an acceptable patent, or defend the patent against infringement, or defend our use of the patent against patent trolls.
Better to just get rid of them.
I'm not talking about libertarians. I'm talking about Ron Paul. I've been reading his book. (To be fair, he frequently makes me so angry that I need to stop reading for awhile, so I'm only up to page 22.) So far he has addressed only the government as the enemy of liberty.
P.S.: I didn't limit my comment to corporations, and my intention was to list them as only one example of entities stronger than most humans in a legal context. Before corporations were powerful, there were the "robber barons". The crucial factor is that some individuals or groups were so much more powerful than the individual that the individual had effectively no chance to defend themselves against abuse.
P.P.S.: The introduction and the first 5 pages of the first chapter are so full of rhetorical tricks that I don't think I could EVER bring myself to trust him, even if I became convinced that what he was proposing was the correct approach. After that he has, so far, lowered his level of rhetoric to something more acceptable, but not only is it hard to forget that first part, I don't want to.
You aren't going to get a better selection as long as you have only two candidates to choose between. Instant Runoff or Condorcet would quickly improve things, as it would be nearly impossible to buy off the entire slate ahead of time.
I don't think he's crazy.
OTOH, I sure don't trust him. And if I did I wouldn't want his proposals written into law. He appears to want to remove all government control over what corporations and powerful individuals do to the rest of us. The governent is, indeed, far from perfect, or even mildly decent, but it's a lot better than the past history of uncontrolled corporations and "robber barons". That's faint praise indeed, but given the alternatives, it's the best I can do.
That's a paraphrase of a historical incident involving George Bernard Shaw. (Don't remember the detials, but you could look it up if you're interested.)
And it was at a party, not in a bar...though I presume that alcohol was being served. (I believe that there were a few intermediate figures, also. And I don't remember what the original figure was, but it was in pounds, not in dollars.)
I really doubt that Congress is ignorant of the effects of they choices. They WANT to limit the number of people with the power to create media. It is in their best interest if those who have the ability to be heard in public are dependent on them. Neither side will admit it, but that's why this kind of law is so prevalent. They WANT control for the sake of control, not for any sane reason. If they weren't power-mad crazy very few of them would run for congress, and I don't think that any would run for senator in any very large state. (New Hapmshire and Rhode Island aren't typical. They're small enough that sane Senators are possible. Don't know whether they're likely or not, as I haven't examined their history.)
There are scaling effects that have ensured that the US is governed by mad men, and controlled by media czars (who themselves are generally mad.)
P.S.: I'll grant that mad is a trifle vague. I mean more sociopath, but there's a touch of obsessive-compulsive in the mix too. If you aren't so driven, you won't put forth the effort needed to win an election in a large state, except, perhaps, as a representative. Even then only if someone else builds the power-base. And you'll OWE them.
You clearly don't understand how democracy is supposed to operate. The corporations have already protested to the legislators, what they are threatening to do is involve the people, i.e. the demos. People generally ignore what the politicians are doing, this might cause them to pay attention. Involving the people is hardly "the corporation voting", but rather the corporation ensuring that the populace is made aware of what the politicians are proposing.
I will agree that the US government doesn't deserve to be called a democracy, or even a republic. Oligarchy is much closer. The forms, however, are still democratic, and the forms are not yet totally without power. This is a threat to activate the existing remanents of democracy.
A better question might be where would they move to. I can't think of a single country that is safe against this kind of manipulation. They'd probably need to move to a country where they were such a large fish that they 0wn3d the government. Yet they'd want to be close to technical support. Scicily might be plausible. (I don't know much about it.) Or one of the other small mediterranian islands. Corsica? But which are independent countries? Which could be made politically stable? Google could find out.
OTOH, electric generation capability and communications capability are iffy with that kind of solution. Not to mention vulnerabiltiy to military action from outside. Perhaps Denmark or Luxemborg would be a better choice. But then you need to ensure that the ... (I'm confused here. It's not the EUC, I don't think, but whatever the European Government is calling itself) ... wouldn't interfere. Fortunately the countries of Europe seem to haveso far kept greater independence than the states have retained, so that might not be a problem.
The only other alternative is a truly distributed corporation. I don't think one has been designed yet, but this might be a good time to do so. Basically you need lots of different corporations in lots of different countries that coordinate their actions "somehow". The trick is that the somehow not be able to be coerced into a particular course of action, say suppressing display of some particular web page everywhere. Don't know if it's possible, as I'm not talking about anonymization. I want each piece to be compliant with the local laws, however absurd. But to be limited in ways that make this harmless, while still being useful. This may not be possible even in theory.
They may be contractually required to display the ads. So surround them by a banner proclaiming that this (obscenity) supports the SOPA.
That move alone absolutely sickened me, and I have lost all faith in our politicians.
Well, at least one good thing came out of it.