My Take on the SOPA Thing.

The SOPA bill is still very much an issue because clearly the thing isn’t dead, it’s just asleep.

GOOD SOPA.

It’s tempting to think this way: “let me check out which of the politicians that I like happens to be against SOPA and I’ll support that one”.  That sounds clever, but the politicians are way too clever for you and once you start researching you’ll realize that right now practically all the presidential candidates (both Democrat and Republican, with the possible exception of Santorum, although even his statements are not very assertive) are against the bill.

You might think this is a ludicrous situation.  If everyone’s against the thing then how come it’s out there in the first place??  Clearly, the candidates are simply trying to score political points, seeing the wave of discontent against the bill.  But as the current administration’s strike against Megaupload makes evident, there’s very little in the way of principled opposition to something like SOPA and a lot of desire to support certain lobbies and industries…

BAD SOPA.

So what I suggest is you try to look for politicians who are against SOPA because they are unequivocally for freedom and they recognize that bills like SOPA systematically chip away at that freedom.  And right now quite frankly there are very few of these men and women.  Among the major presidential candidates there’s only one: Ron Paul.  I suggest if you’re an American and this SOPA thing worries you, and more importantly, if  the whole environment that generated this drive to restrict your freedom to begin with worries you, you consider voting for him.  That would be a real step in the right direction and not just rewarding politicians who blow with the wind.

~ by animekritik on January 25, 2012.