The mass digital demonstration the other day by some of the internet biggies against SOPA and PIPA had stunning results with many in Congress changing their minds about their previous support of those bills. It was an amazing thing to watch.
As for SOPA and PIPA, the proposed laws that would put immense power in the hands of intellectual property owners over anyone they suspected of violating their rights, there's a very rational discussion at Dilbert's, er uh, Scott Adam's website. He notes that Republicans and Ron Paul in particular are responsible for the growing distrust of government. He expands from there ...
It's a simple rule of thumb: The more the government interferes, the worse off we are.
By that filter, the SOPA question boils down to this: What is worse - allowing legitimate businesses to be robbed of their intellectual property, or having the government try to stop it? There is so little trust in government that most people prefer being robbed over the alternative of having the government get involved and making things worse.
Bottom line: If you apply the "more government is bad" rule of thumb, SOPA is a bad idea.
It's hard to argue with that bottom line.
Another interesting aspect of the SOPA deal was the money paid to Congress members for their vote. Maplight.org has a breakdown. Lamar Smith, the Republican Representative from Texas, sponsored SOPA and gets credit from most sources as the spear head of the effort to get the bill passed. How much does it cost to get that kind of support for a bad bill. The aforementioned Maplight.org says he took in $388,599 from interest groups that supported the bill and $27,000 from interest groups opposed to the bill. So it looks like around $400,000 could do it.
But what is the lowest amount that it would take to buy a Congressman? Our own Texas District 11 Representative Mike Conaway hauled in $74,614 from pro-SOPA groups according to the linked source. And he's shown by SOPAtract.com to be undecided, so it must take more than that. But there's a good chance that the bids might stop unless something breathes new life into the bills. So as a cash cow this one may have gone out to pasture.
In any event, this turn of events was an amazing thing to witness. And it makes one wonder what else an organized effort by websites could do. Hopefully, their efforts will be directed toward freedom and liberty not regulation and restraint.
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