Defeat SOPA

DaewooOfDeath wrote:

4cylndrfury wrote:

DaewooOfDeath wrote: We have a means. It's called voting. It's kind of cynical to say this, but in a democracy, we get exactly what we deserve for leadership, which is why I find all the "stop the man" rhetoric pretty naive.

WRONG Joe Senator says in his campaigning "I are not a krook - I wan halp you to haz more monies! I can haz ur vote?" After careful consideration and comparison to the other choices for the office, I determine Joe "can haz mah vote" Joe is winnar!!! Wooot!!! Joe then acts in DIRECT OPPOSITION TO the platform on which he campaigned. Who in this scenario deserves what? Im pretty sure that I deserve the candidate I voted for, not the shallow representation of a public servant he turned out to be. Its pretty naive to think that everyone does what they say they are going to. But I guess thats just shame on me for thinking this guy would do what I elected him to...silly american...

If the voters are too stupid to stop this, and they appear to be, who is at fault? In a democracy we voters are the boss and the politicians are our employees. Yes, some employees lie, cheat and steal. Intelligent bosses fire those people. What kind of a boss are we? Statistically, we are bosses who want our employees to make the government smaller while making government programs larger. We want our employees to stop pork but bring more pork to our district. We want our employees to compromise and then go on RINO hunts. We want the government out of our Medicare. We want our employees to keep the government out of business while simultaneously reigning in the fat cats. We want lower taxes, more benefits and a lower deficit. This ^ is pure idiocy. It is also what poll after poll after poll shows we in the public demand. Pretend you're a politician, how on earth are you supposed to do the will of people like us? If I were a Senator, I would lie relentlessly because there's really no other way to behave rationally in the face of so much public delusion.

I fail to see where ignoring a moral obligation to simply DO WHAT YOU SAY YOU WILL DO is somehow a martyric response to a "lesser of 2 evils" debate where voter will is difficult to discern.

• You toss your hat in the ring
• You make a statement regarding your position and how that position will affect the way you vote on/promote/oppose/etc legislation
• you FOLLOW THE BERK THROUGH ON YOUR STATEMENT
• People see your true colors
• If the people like your true colors, you stay in office
• if they dont, you dont, and they find someone better

Thats the way its supposed to be. Instead, they do whatever the hell they want because, hey theyre already in, who cares now, the lies worked to get them elected. Sweeeeet.

EDIT - the idea is not to send someone to office, then tell them what to do. The idea is to vote for a person with a set of ideals that , in your estimation, will lead them to do work on your behalf that you see as being in your won best interest. An elected official should not have the liberty to decide once they get to office how they will behave. By the time they get there, they will have already demonstrated, through their campaigning, how they feel on certain issues, and how they will manage their political power. /edit

politician = gangster is the best analogy Ive seen here thus far....

Gangster? Perhaps. From ZeroHedge.com today: http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/democrats-are-ones-pushing-web-censorship

George Washington said: By Washington’s Blog MPAA head Chris Dodd is the former Democratic powerhouse (the same guy who blocked all financial reform). Dodd and Lieberman – another Democrat – have admitted that they want to emulate Chinese style censorship. Moreover, Raw Story notes: Democrats are now the core pillars of support for the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), which has not otherwise engendered a strict partisan divide among lawmakers. Far and away, the top beneficiary in the Senate from interest groups that support PIPA is Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who’s taken in just short of a million dollars from those groups, according to data from OpenSecrets.org. She’s also the most recent Senator to co-sponsor PIPA, adding her name to the list on Dec. 12. The runner-up is Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), who’s taken $777,383 from PIPA-supporting interest groups, and has co-sponsored the bill since May 2011. In fact, a list of the top 20 beneficiaries of special interest money in favor of PIPA reads like a list of the Senate’s most influential Democrats: Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY) in third; Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) in fourth; Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in fifth; Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the bill’s primary sponsor, in sixth; Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) in seventh; Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) in eighth; Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) in ninth; and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) in tenth. The list goes on like that until Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who places 15th with $274,600 in special interest money promoting PIPA. He has not yet announced an official position on the bill. The only other Republican on the list of the top 20 PIPA beneficiaries in the Senate is Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), in 19th place with $212,312. Corker is one of the bill’s co-sponsors. In total, only two Democrats changed their minds on PIPA during Wednesday’s blackouts: Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR). The other 11 to walk away were all Republicans, who seem more open to Silicon Valley’s warnings against onerous, job-killing regulations. That may be due to the total sum donated to Democrats on the top 20 list: groups supporting PIPA have given over $7,319,983 to the 18 Democrats on the top 20 list, according to a Raw Story analysis. By contrast, those same Democrats have only taken in $807,502 from groups opposing the legislation. *** As yesterday’s strike wore on, Raw Story reached out to all the leading Democratic senators supporting PIPA, in hopes they would step up to defend the bill. Not a single one did, and none of Raw Story’s requests for comments defending PIPA received responses. The Obama administration said recently that it was hedging its bets on the anti-piracy bills as well …. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Sunday during an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press that he would move forward with a full Senate vote on PIPA in the coming weeks, once some of the text had been altered to build consensus on the legislation. We are wholly non-partisan, but this sell out by Dems on censorship has to be named for what it is.

Feds raid megaupload.

Anonymous retaliates. Brings down DOJ, FBI, RIAA...

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: Feds raid megaupload. Anonymous retaliates. Brings down DOJ, FBI, RIAA...

This is going to be interesting...

^^^This is the truth

Fry watches his first 31st century political showdown for the President of Earth.

Third parties are not viable in our system because of a constitutional flaw, which is why they've never been viable, and not because of some evil conspiracy.

4cylndrfury wrote: I fail to see where ignoring a moral obligation to simply DO WHAT YOU SAY YOU WILL DO is somehow a martyric response to a "lesser of 2 evils" debate where voter will is difficult to discern. + You toss your hat in the ring + You make a statement regarding your position and how that position will affect the way you vote on/promote/oppose/etc legislation + you FOLLOW THE BERK THROUGH ON YOUR STATEMENT + People see your true colors + If the people like your true colors, you stay in office + if they dont, you dont, and they find someone better Thats the way its supposed to be. Instead, they do whatever the hell they want because, hey theyre already in, who cares now, the lies worked to get them elected. Sweeeeet. EDIT - the idea is not to send someone to office, then tell them what to do. The idea is to vote for a person with a set of ideals that , in your estimation, will lead them to do work on your behalf that you see as being in your won best interest. An elected official should not have the liberty to decide once they get to office how they will behave. By the time they get there, they will have already demonstrated, through their campaigning, how they feel on certain issues, and how they will manage their political power. /edit politician = gangster is the best analogy Ive seen here thus far....

The reason politicians don't behave the way you desire? It would cause them to lose elections. It really is that simple. If we want to change it, we'd better start punishing this behavior when we vote.

And no, we should not take away our leader's ability to change their minds when circumstances change. Bush campaigned the second time around on staying the course and embracing supply side economics. He then unstayed the course and unembraced supply side economics and we were all better off for it. Rigid ideologues have an absolutely awful track record.

Term limits of 8 years. Done.

HiTempguy wrote: Term limits of 8 years. Done.

How so? Do you think the campaign contributions or lobby funds are any less effective over the longer term?

You have to make it possible for an elected official to act in the best interest of the people he represents. It is impossible with paid influence as part of the culture.

JoeyM wrote: ^^^This is the truth

Its always best to imagine all that is put out by an American intelligence agency is to confuse you and distort your view of them. They really don't care what you think weather it be the CIA, NGA, or any other respective intelligence agency.

DaewooOfDeath wrote: Third parties are not viable in our system because of a constitutional flaw, which is why they've never been viable, and not because of some evil conspiracy.

Care to elaborate? Are you referring to no one winning the electoral college then having the house vote on the president?

Still solved by everyone who says "I don't like any of the current choices and 90% of us disapprove of congress" voting for people in different parties than the big 2. Also Congressional appointments do not carry that stipulation so that solves that issue.

Back on topic...A great graphic here about how the Hollywood moguls scream "The sky is falling!" each time technology changes.

SOPA graphic.

You want to see how a multi-party system works? Look north. Massive swings happen every generation or so - you can tell the people are tired of a party when it goes from being the leader to being decimated. It's a much clearer message than a presidential candidate getting 52% of the vote. The interplay of the parties makes things interesting. Also, elections aren't on a fixed schedule so you don't get the constant campaigning. The prime minister is simply the head of the party with the most seats, so he/she doesn't have the same power as in the US and can also be swapped out mid-term by the party. It's not perfect, but I think it works a whole lot better than the red pill/blue pill binary system used here.

Their bacon's pretty good, too.

JoeyM wrote: Their bacon's pretty good, too.

They have used propaganda in a fiendish plot to deceive you. It's just ham you fool!

In reply to Giant Purple Snorklewacker:

Delicious not-quite-bacon ham is still better than a two party system.

A two party system plays like a game of football, except at the end of the game people get berkeleyed. And not necessarily in the good way.

Keith wrote: You want to see how a multi-party system works? Look north. Massive swings happen every generation or so - you can tell the people are tired of a party when it goes from being the leader to being decimated. It's a much clearer message than a presidential candidate getting 52% of the vote. The interplay of the parties makes things interesting. Also, elections aren't on a fixed schedule so you don't get the constant campaigning. The prime minister is simply the head of the party with the most seats, so he/she doesn't have the same power as in the US and can also be swapped out mid-term by the party. It's not perfect, but I think it works a whole lot better than the red pill/blue pill binary system used here.

I also like the idea of a "vote of no confidence"

The0retical wrote:

DaewooOfDeath wrote: Third parties are not viable in our system because of a constitutional flaw, which is why they've never been viable, and not because of some evil conspiracy.

Care to elaborate? Are you referring to no one winning the electoral college then having the house vote on the president? Still solved by everyone who says "I don't like any of the current choices and 90% of us disapprove of congress" voting for people in different parties than the big 2. Also Congressional appointments do not carry that stipulation so that solves that issue.

The reason is because in our constitution, elections are winner take all. This makes it almost impossible for a new party to build slowly or rise up over a period of years.

Think of it this way, maybe the Green Party or the Libertarian/Freedom/WhateverTheyCallThemselvesNow Party is super amazing. Maybe one has massive funds and historically successful, ultra genius campaign managers. They go all the way from getting 2% of the vote in the presidential race to getting 30%. They somehow engineer an improvement of 1,500% in their performance. This would be the best third party performance of the last 100 years (beating TR's Bull Moose Party by a fair margin). It would also get the Green/Freedom Party exactly as much power and influence, exactly as much say in the elected system, as if they'd gotten 2%. It would all be, as many have pointed out before, a waste. You simply cannot go from nothing to top two in the space of one election cycle.

Parliamentary systems are different. If the Green Party in Korea, which I'm most familiar with, get's 3% of the vote, they get 3% of the representation in the Parliament. If they do well, form intelligent alliances and make the public happy, the next time around they might get 8% of the vote. After five or six cycles they might end up heading the government. This means political parties don't have to pull off a miracle to get a single congressman elected like they do in America. From what Keith says, it sounds like Canada and Korea do it the same way.

The other nice thing about parliamentary systems is that many of them are akin to elected dictatorships. In our system, it is a perfectly rational election strategy to sabotage the other party, stall everything and f- the nation in order to make your opponents look bad and get yourself elected next time. In a parliamentary system, the opposition can criticize and attack and counter propose all it likes, but it can't actually hold the majority hostage.

In reply to DaewooOfDeath:

Provided my understanding of the framers intent from documents and notes they left is correct, that was the intent. There is talk after every election cycle about splitting the electoral votes of a state so that it is not a winner take all system which will provide a more popular vote type of election rather than one determined by the 1 or two major cities in the state.

Gradual change is, supposedly, makes the US so stable compared to parliamentary systems. Swings between parties in charge of the government rarely make huge differences because you have the two other branches to balance them out. Our foreign policy rarely changes drastically and our domestic policies do not change as rapidly as dictatorships or parliamentary systems despite what the media would have you believe. Also there's that whole 24 hour news cycle thing which really focuses on domestic issues and rarely the inter-workings of other countries politics so it only seems that x system is better than y system.

Looking at what the RNC did by splitting the electoral votes between candidates so there is not one clear cut winner in the first 5 states I cannot say that it is a bad thing. It takes the inordinate amount of power that swing states and states like California away overnight and allows for more issues to be heard and stances to be better clarified. I would personally like to see it applied to the general elections.

There's that whole cliche about even the longest journeys starting with a single step, patience is one of those things which I'm not sure the voting public has enough of.

According to my local scandal rag SOPA has been shelved indefinitely. Watch for a modified version in the next year or two; that's the one the 'sponsors' REALLY wanted.

'Industrial politics' is the biggest problem this country faces. Like Keith says, the red/blue 'binary' system is deeply entrenched and it's the stumbling block in the way of meaningful change. I'm not 100% sure that I agree the Canadian system is all that much better, unless it includes term limits.

The percentage parliamentary system DoD describes would be a good start, but the biggest problem I see is that just like 'Animal Farm' and also like our current binary system before long you would be hard pressed to see the differences.

It all comes down to money. The current state of affairs is that slick lawyers have managed to convince the right people that huge contributions to PACs are a form of free speech and thus are protected under the First Amendment. THERE is the real problem, along with Al Gore's 'no controlling legal authority' bullcrap. Until that is done away with, we are truly going to hell in a handbasket.

The0retical wrote: In reply to DaewooOfDeath: Provided my understanding of the framers intent from documents and notes they left is correct, that was the intent. There is talk after every election cycle about splitting the electoral votes of a state so that it is not a winner take all system which will provide a more popular vote type of election rather than one determined by the 1 or two major cities in the state. Gradual change is, supposedly, makes the US so stable compared to parliamentary systems. Swings between parties in charge of the government rarely make huge differences because you have the two other branches to balance them out. Our foreign policy rarely changes drastically and our domestic policies do not change as rapidly as dictatorships or parliamentary systems despite what the media would have you believe. Also there's that whole 24 hour news cycle thing which really focuses on domestic issues and rarely the inter-workings of other countries politics so it only seems that x system is better than y system. Looking at what the RNC did by splitting the electoral votes between candidates so there is not one clear cut winner in the first 5 states I cannot say that it is a bad thing. It takes the inordinate amount of power that swing states and states like California away overnight and allows for more issues to be heard and stances to be better clarified. I would personally like to see it applied to the general elections. There's that whole cliche about even the longest journeys starting with a single step, patience is one of those things which I'm not sure the voting public has enough of.

We were always going to be a bi-party nation. George Washington and a few others thought we wouldn't need parties, but they were proven wrong very quickly. We have no way to distribute votes (primaries are party run, not government) proportionally according to popular vote so we don't. Whether or not this is a good thing, I don't know, but it is the reason we don't get viable third parties.

I don't know if I accept the idea parliamentary systems are less stable, in general, than US style democracies. Could you give me an example?

Curmudgeon wrote: The percentage parliamentary system DoD describes would be a good start, but the biggest problem I see is that just like 'Animal Farm' and also like our current binary system before long you would be hard pressed to see the differences. It all comes down to money. The current state of affairs is that slick lawyers have managed to convince the right people that huge contributions to PACs are a form of free speech and thus are protected under the First Amendment. THERE is the real problem, along with Al Gore's 'no controlling legal authority' bullcrap. Until that is done away with, we are truly going to hell in a handbasket.

You bring up an interesting point. If you look at the global financial crisis, the individual parliamentary democracies generally responded more quickly than we did, and more effectively as well. This would seem to be the difference.

However, the giant, glaring exception to this rule is the EU, which is still dithering 3.5 years down the road. The interesting question, in my mind, is whether the EU can't get its act together because of industrial politics, or because it's a federation. Considering our own time under the articles of confederation, I tend to think the latter.

And yes, I very much agree with you that we need socially funded elections. There's just not much reason to believe smoozing PACs is a skill that is required for good leadership.

The EU is trying to bring various widely differing countries together under a common economic umbrella based on the euro and each of these countries has its own social/economic agenda meaning they won't pull together to set the cart going in a good direction. Greece is probably the best example of a bad practice. For that reason it's a fustercluck and it will remain so, unfortunately.