"I will be likely voting Republican (for the first time in my life) for at least some of the 2012 elections, out of my commitment to vote against any incumbent

"I will be likely voting Republican (for the first time in my life) for at least some of the 2012 elections, out of my commitment to vote against any incumbent who supports or votes for SOPA." You've got to try to understand the kind of message seeing more Republican votes sends the Democrats. When they see the Republicans get more votes, their strategy over the last 20 years is to move more to the "center" (ie. more to the right). By voting for Republicans, you are helping no one but the Republicans/conservatives. If that's what you want, then go for it. But if you want a more liberal/progressive government, voting for the Republicans is counterproductive, even if you do help to vote a bunch of spineless Democrats out. The real way to combat the Democrats' shift to the right is to vote for a more liberal/progressive party, like the Greens. This strategy has worked wonders for conservatives, when they started to vote en-masse for Tea Party candidates. Now the Tea Party, an extreme right wing group, is an influential member of the right wing landscape, even if there's no Tea Party president yet and the vast majority of right wing congressmen are not Tea Party members yet either. The Tea Party still has a significant influence on policy, and on shifting the Republican party to the right. A similar strategy can work for progressives who want to push the Democrats more to the left.