I know next to nothing about the SOPA bill or any of the other proposed pieces of legislation that will supposedly destroy the internet as we know it. I therefore am hesitant about saying anything here against the bill. I never planned on having this blog become my personal political soapbox, and I don't want to voice an opinion about something that I know so little about. I realize that by definition that is what bloggers do, it's just not my thing. As my daughter always tells me, "That's not the plan."
However, after finding I have much more free time on my hands thanks to the Wikipedia blackout, I find I have something to say after all.
If the history of homemade alcohol can teach us anything, it is that passing a law against something people are going to do anyway doesn't help anything. Prohibition didn't stop anyone from drinking. SOPA won't stop anyone from downloading music (or whatever it is it's supposed to stop, like I said, I really don't know anything about this). Instead, we'll have a "moonshine internet." The internet brought much that was underground into the mainstream, it can just as easily send it back into the underground. Who would benefit from this? Probably no one.
But there is good news. We can protest, we can sign petitions, and even if that doesn't work, laws can be changed. We've had really bad laws before, and we'll have them again. We have three co-equal branches of government to help prevent dumb laws, but it doesn't always work. But I do believe, in the end, democracy works.
Very very very slowly, but it works.
I yield the soapbox.
No comments:
Post a Comment