This issue seems blown out of proportion. I see numerous sites and friends citing Google or Wikipedia as their guide to the decision to oppose this legislation. Hey, if dear Google is against it, I should be too, right?
In my younger days, when a big corporation opposed something, ‘we’ questioned the motive. Why would anyone oppose such great innovations as DDT or genetically modified seed? DDT kills pests. Genetically modified seeds produce crops that are drought tolerant. These are good things. Right?
We questioned that stuff and looked deeper. That doesn’t seem to be the case today. Google opposes this intrusion on our freedoms so we should too.
When I asked those who put up cute animated gifs and black boxes supposedly representing the dark hand of censorship coming to take my internet away, about the bill numbers or where I could find the actual bill’s text, not one could answer me. When I located the bills on both the House and Senate websites, I posted the links to the respective text. Only a couple of people read the bills, the rest said they weren’t going to read through all that …. Various terms were used to describe what took me all of 10 minutes to read.
I personally did not find the bills all that scary. What is scary, very scary, is the lack of depth of thinking that is too pervasive in this country. No wonder we are deeply divided. If we follow what our red or blue team spokespeople or organizations tell us to believe, without question, we will never come together with solutions on anything. We can’t even talk across lines without being ostracized by our ‘teams’. A conservative simply cannot support gay marriage! The very idea goes against God Himself! A liberal cannot see even a modicum of reason in why conservatives oppose Obama Care’s mandatory participation provision.
Take a side on this issue and stand by your decision. Base your decision on the content of the bills and not what Jesus, Google, or the late Steve Jobs would do.
SOPA bill number H.R. 3261
PIPA bill number Senate Bill 968 or S. 968
I would post the links but not sure that is allowed here. If Google hasn’t shut down in protest, you can use it to find the actual text of both bills