What's The Matter With Congress?
I, like so many other Americans, generally hate Congress.
Most of Congress, Republican and Democrat alike, are total hacks. So much awful corporate-written legislation has been passed in the last few years that it seems an inescapable conclusion that most of Congress is owned - legally or illegally - by big business. A few examples of this are the recent bankruptcy bill, the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, and the odious DMCA. These three bills are little or no more than corporate giveaways to the industries which need it least.
A recent issue is the controversy over Sony's rootkits. Basically, Sony has been adding software to its music CDs which causes problems with Windows, creates security threats, reports on what you're doing to Sony, and is nearly impossible to detect or remove. This is the kind of stuff that bad legislators and bad legislation enable. Is what Sony did illegal? Quite possibly. But is it illegal to circumvent the stuff under the DMCA? Also quite possibly.
I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican, conservative or liberal, or what office you're running for. If you're the kind of person who will allow this kind of stuff, you don't deserve your office.
And yeah, it hurts me to know that Pres. Clinton signed the DMCA, and (though I can't find the voting record) I'm sure plenty of Democrats voted for it in Congress. I'd like to be able to chalk most of that up to not realizing how bad that particular piece of legislation would be, but that's not realistic. The Democrats who supported the bankruptcy bill have absolutely no excuse. Corporate hacks from either party have no place in any elected office, much less Congress. If you're a Democratic hack and you're running against a Republican who's not a tool, I'm going to support the Republican every time. Honesty and integrity are worth too much to do otherwise at this point in political history.
Most of Congress, Republican and Democrat alike, are total hacks. So much awful corporate-written legislation has been passed in the last few years that it seems an inescapable conclusion that most of Congress is owned - legally or illegally - by big business. A few examples of this are the recent bankruptcy bill, the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, and the odious DMCA. These three bills are little or no more than corporate giveaways to the industries which need it least.
A recent issue is the controversy over Sony's rootkits. Basically, Sony has been adding software to its music CDs which causes problems with Windows, creates security threats, reports on what you're doing to Sony, and is nearly impossible to detect or remove. This is the kind of stuff that bad legislators and bad legislation enable. Is what Sony did illegal? Quite possibly. But is it illegal to circumvent the stuff under the DMCA? Also quite possibly.
I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican, conservative or liberal, or what office you're running for. If you're the kind of person who will allow this kind of stuff, you don't deserve your office.
And yeah, it hurts me to know that Pres. Clinton signed the DMCA, and (though I can't find the voting record) I'm sure plenty of Democrats voted for it in Congress. I'd like to be able to chalk most of that up to not realizing how bad that particular piece of legislation would be, but that's not realistic. The Democrats who supported the bankruptcy bill have absolutely no excuse. Corporate hacks from either party have no place in any elected office, much less Congress. If you're a Democratic hack and you're running against a Republican who's not a tool, I'm going to support the Republican every time. Honesty and integrity are worth too much to do otherwise at this point in political history.
