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Nancy Pelosi, Ron Paul join SOPA opposition
- LeafStorm 15y agoI don't think there was any doubt that Ron Paul would oppose SOPA. Nancy Pelosi's opposition, on the other hand, is somewhat surprising, but also quite promising.
- bentlegen 15y agoNancy Pelosi represents the 8th Congressional District, which is basically San Francisco. She knows who her constituents are.
- thomasgerbe 15y agohttp://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Bay-Area-Reps-Slam-Obama-on-Marijuana-Crackdown-Pelosi-Silent-132942843.html http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Bay-Area-Reps-Slam-Obam...
- javert 15y agoIs there any real chance she could fail to get re-elected? I suspect some other reason for her stance on this (can't fathom what, though).
- nl 15y agoErr - it's a bad bill that will screw over many of her constituents. It's unclear how motivated her constituents are against it, but it seems likely that all that letter writing may be paying off. In extreme cases, sitting members can be vulnerable to losing their nomination within the party (eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Lieberman#2006_Senate_election http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Lieberman#2006_Senate_elect...). Edit: Downvotes? I'm not from the US - what did I get wrong?
- sliverstorm 15y agoThe general consensus these days is congressional representatives don't actually care how a bill affects their constituents.
- mortenjorck 15y agoConstituents that live in their districts, or constituents that get them re-elected?
- sliverstorm 15y agoPresumably they have figured out that acting in the interests of your constituents and getting re-elected are not mutually inclusive. Voting to please your party instead of your citizens gets you full party support, and as far as beating the other guy, it has been shown that campaign funding has an unsettlingly strong correlation to campaign victories. Making matters worse, voters tend to want conflicting things. For example, in general they want more government programs and also lower taxes. Making matters even more difficult, what voters say they want and what they actually want can be different stories. Schwarzenegger got elected on the premise that he was going to do certain things. He tried to do those things. He was shut down by everyone- including directly by the voters.
- tomjen3 15y agoSure to a point. But you don't see many politicians out of the bible belt who votes for abortions.
- hucker 15y ago> it has been shown that campaign funding has an unsettlingly strong correlation to campaign victories. Do you have a citation on this? I recently read Freakonomics where the authors claimed to be able to prove this theory false, but I didn't look up their numbers.
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- hugh3 15y agoPelosi will never fail to get re-elected. But as House Minority Leader she has other things to worry about, in particular getting all the other Democrats re-elected. And that means trying not to piss off any big donor group. Big Content is a big donor group for the Democrats, which is why she'd be naturally inclined to support something like this. On the other hand, overwhelming opposition from Big Internet (particuarly Google, etc) is a bit of a dealbreaker even if Silicon Valley isn't nearly as conscientious about paying its protection money (err, political donations) as Hollywood. So, like she says, "we need to find another way". They'll come up with a new bill that is either less objectionable or one that hides the objectionable parts more clearly... and then they'll pass it when nobody's paying attention.
- jellicle 15y agoThis is roughly correct. Please do not confuse Pelosi's temporary and minor objections to the bill as written with any sort of principled long-term objection to the concept behind the bill. Pelosi supports copyright maximization as much as anyone; she's just attempting to find some minimal accommodation to stop Silicon Valley from squawking so loudly.
- sp332 15y agoThey'll come up with a bill which is less objectionable in these areas in exchange for a lot of favors and other, probably completely unrelated clauses being added.
- jessedhillon 15y agoThat's the wonderful thing about SOPA -- there's something for everyone to hate in it.
- rbanffy 15y agoI wish all nasty legislation had this...
- nextparadigms 15y agoI expected Ron Paul to oppose it, too. He was also one of the very few who opposed the persecution of Wikileaks.
- ceejayoz 15y agoPredicting Ron Paul's opposition of legislation is hardly prescient. Heh.
- orblivion 15y agoA guy who praised a leak of secret government documents, running for president and beating half the other contenders, just blows my mind.
- edwardy20 15y agoYou might be surprised to know that the founding fathers supported whistle-blowers: "Nearly two centuries later, the Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas, praising the founders’ commitment to freedom of speech, wrote: 'The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of government suppression of embarrassing information.'" http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/opinion/13kohn.html?_r=1 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/opinion/13kohn.html?_r=1
- rjbond3rd 15y agoIn a good way, I hope. He opposes a Big Brother government. He has principles. Off-topic but to the people who so often say, "I agree with him but I'm not going to support him because he can't win," I say, "Where are -your- princples?"
- cookiecaper 15y agoAs bentlegen indicated, Pelosi serves something of a different demographic. In fact, I think Democrats as a whole will consider this bill more carefully than Republicans because the Democratic base skews much younger and technologically inclined. Republicans don't have much to lose on this front since most of their base doesn't really know how to use the internet.
- statictype 15y agosince most of their base doesn't really know how to use the internet Neither do I identify myself as republican, nor do I support this bill in anyway but these are the types of sweeping statements that make it difficult to have any sort of rational conversation. (Frankly, I think this whole topic seems like exactly the type of thing that shouldn't be on HN. I flagged it for whatever that's worth)
- johnnyjustice 15y agoThis is very interesting news, but I am scared that there will be a bit of a backlash against this post because of its political nature, on HN specifically. How do people feel about Ron Paul's standpoint on Net Neutrality?
- JeremyBanks 15y agoDiscussion of specific points of Ron Paul's beliefs has always seemed a little pointless to me. If you understand the basic things he cares about, you can accurately guess what his opinion and explanation on almost everything will be. So any discussion of a specific topic is either shallow or derailed into a much broader political discussion. It doesn't feel productive.
- spenrose 15y agoWRT this topic, I tend to agree with you. But Ron Paul is not some Valley Libertarian. Did you know that Ron Paul doesn't believe in evolution?: http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/08/29/307010/the-continuing-adventures-of-ron-paul-cultural-conservative/ http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/08/29/307010/the-cont... More broadly: http://www.tnr.com/article/94477/ron-paul-distorted-libertarian-ideology?page=0,0 http://www.tnr.com/article/94477/ron-paul-distorted-libertar...
- NathanKP 15y agoHas anyone yet made a serious estimate of how likely SOPA is to pass? I would hope that if our legislative system is so divided that they can't agree on legislation relating to budgets or healthcare, they won't agree on this legislation either. Not that its a good thing for the legislation system to be so ineffective, but it would seem truly ironic if they agree on something that will hurt the economy, but not on things that will help the economy.
- philwelch 15y agoThe House did manage to pass a bill upholding the status of pizza as a vegetable: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/18/us-usa-lunch-idUSTRE7AH00020111118 http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/18/us-usa-lunch-idUST...
- tzs 15y agoThey did no such thing. That part of the bill concerned how much tomato paste has to be on the pizza for the tomato paste to be enough to count as a serving of vegetables. The USDA wants 8 tablespoons, and Congress wants 2.
- Natsu 15y agoCorrect. They're protecting french fries, too.
- jamesbritt 15y agofor the tomato paste to be enough to count as a serving of vegetables Sigh; I live in a country where tomatoes are considered a vegetable.
- Pointsly 15y agoLove this. Thank God.
- skrebbel 15y agoNot so fast. I heard God is in favour of SOPA.
- ck2 15y agoIn all seriousness, all we need is President Obama to say he is for SOPA and it will immediately be voted out of existence.
- nextparadigms 15y agoSadly, that won't happen, though. Obama and Biden are big supporters of RIAA and MPAA. They were the ones setting up the "voluntary" ISP alert system for people downloading illegal torrents, too.
- jerfelix 15y agoI missed your logic. If Obama is a big supporter of RIAA and MPAA, then why wouldn't he come out and say that he is for SOPA?
- rbanffy 15y agoTwo words for you: Overton Window. SOPA was designed to fail. It was designed, however, to help pass a less evil version of it in the future, by leaving the impression we have to defend content creators, but not this much. Wanna bet?
- robertk 15y agoCialdini's book on influence mentions this. An effective persuasion tactic is to request something absurd, then request something less extreme, and people are more likely to comply. No doubt the SOPA writers know this.
- spydum 15y agoAre you sure Protect-IP wasnt the bill to be shot down, and SOPA is the replacement?
- rbanffy 15y agoIt may take more than one absurd bill to shift the window enough.
- tomjen3 15y agoThat is not going to chang enuch I am afraid. We could always count on Ron Paul to vote against it but there are way too many people in the house for one vote to matter.
- cookiecaper 15y agoThe real question is, "Can Barack Obama stand to sign this bill when he relies so heavily on youthful support for election?" Also, "what happens if Republican nominee comes out against it?" I don't hear much about Obama vetoes, does he just sign everything that hits his desk like Bush?