As I trekked across the majestic lands of the Internet this fine evening, I discovered this article from the blog Boing Boing, which interrupted my appreciation of the night's sojourn and left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. That's what she said?
Anyway, the entry is a reprinting of a plea from a group called Fight for the Future concerning the Protect IP Act, an anti-piracy bill making its way through Congress. Here at The Casualty Report I normally like to keep things focused on the things that really matter, like fantasy books and movie trailers, and I try to avoid blogging about political matters because I have the fear that it will cause me to break out in boils and spout insufferable vomitus to everyone I come across. But 1) This particular matter is somewhat related to the stuff I cover and 2) This rant of mine isn't so much designed to talk about the substance of the bill, but rather the manner in which its opponents choose to argue.
I'll say this: opponents of the Protect IP Act make a lot of good points, and I agree that the bill as written is probably not a good idea and should be retooled. But I'll also say this: reading that Fight for the Future piece almost made me change my mind out of pure spite. I used to read Boing Boing pretty frequently, but I grew tired of the level of hyperbole and superiority that manifested itself in all of the more political postings the editors there made. Anything that came close to censorship or government regulation of electronic media was AN ATTACK ON FREEDOM made by simpletons who didn't understand the complexities of the Internet and had never even seen a computer - and it's not even that there isn't an element of truth to that sort of rhetoric, but it just struck me as being so unnecessarily smug and one-sided that it became off-putting. The piece I'm writing about now exemplifies my problems to the extreme, as these pull-quotes show:
"The only thing that is going to stop Hollywood from owning the Internet and everything we do, is if there is a big surprise Internet backlash starting right now. "
"This is the worst piece of Internet legislation in history - the lawmakers who have been sponsoring (Leahy, Lamar Smith, Conyers) this bill need to be shamed by the Internet community for wasting taxpayer dollars on a bill that would break the very fabric of the Internet"
"I've been trying to think about whether or not the world is going to end if this bill passes like it's supposed to -- and the answer is, "kind of yes"."
Perhaps it's the frustrated optimist in me talking, but I've been growing more and more fed up with this kind of bullshit - shouldn't people be able to make an effective argument without belittling or demonizing their opponents or resorting to annoyingly exaggerated statements? Referring to "Hollywood" as a cohesive and purposeful entity out to destroy America pisses me off whether it comes from conservatives or liberals, as I think it's a completely misleading tactic designed to score cheap points by resonating with frustrated idiots (okay, maybe I'm doing a little demonizing of myself). There are so many components that make up "Hollywood", components with wildly different values and interests, and I highly doubt that any of them have a desire to "own the Internet and everything we do" - there are parties like the MPAA and the studios that clearly have a vested interest in taking action to stop piracy, but I doubt they have nefarious plans to institute a takeover of the Internet. Furthermore, I don't think lawmakers need to be "shamed" by people for supporting this bill, and I believe that portraying the situation like there is only one morally acceptable position and supporting the Protect IP Act means you want to RULE THE INTERNET actually hurts the case Fight for the Future is trying to make. And that is a real shame, because as I said there are some pretty compelling reasons not to support the bill, but these reasons can be hard to access through all the layers of empty, judgmental rhetoric.
I've been trying to think about whether or not the world is going to end if articles like this keep getting posted -- and the answer is, of course not, it's a fucking blog post. Neither is the world going to end if a bill regulating the Internet is passed, however, and the world certainly isn't going to change for the better if people can't learn to advocate their beliefs without sounding like unhinged prophets of doom. I realize Fight for the Future is attempting to...well, fight for the future - but I know I for one would respond a lot better without the hyperbole. And I also fully realize that I can only speak for myself; I've just become so frustrated with the forms that political discourse takes - to me it makes sense why many Americans seem to have no interest in politics at all. It's not that they don't care about things like the Protect IP Act, it's just that whenever anyone talks to them about it, they sound like a terrible car salesman.
So, in conclusion, I'll just say I don't think the Protect IP Act is a great idea. As Google chairman Eric Schmidt said, "I would be very, very careful if I were a government about arbitrarily [implementing] simple solutions to complex problems." Notice he forgot to mention the part about how the world as we know it will be UTTERLY DESTROYED by the bill's passage. Okay, rant over.
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