What's new
By:
USCHO Fan Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • The USCHO Fan Forum has migrated to a new plaform, xenForo. Most of the function of the forum should work in familiar ways. Please note that you can switch between light and dark modes by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right of the main menu bar. We are hoping that this new platform will prove to be faster and more reliable. Please feel free to explore its features.

SOPA and PIPA: Your thoughts on free speech!

Re: SOPA and PIPA: Your thoughts on free speech!

bronconick said:
It's a chicken and the egg issue. If corporate speech wasn't allowed in our system, SOPA and PIPA wouldn't exist, at least not remotely in their current form. There would be no need for useful corporate speech like yesterday in that fairyland world.

I'm supposed to feel bad or hypocritical that someone on my side pulled out their nukes yesterday in response to what's been going on for years in Washington? Fark you and the horse you rode in on.
Click to expand...


To me it comes down to what should corporate free speech encompass?

Taking your site down as a form of protest is one thing.

Being able to make unlimited donations to elected officials to essentially "buy" them is another altogether.


I realize that it could be argued that sites such as Google could hold us all hostage by taking down their site when they wanted something or other to happen, but that would be detrimental to their bottom line and they wouldn't be able to do it for long.
 
Re: SOPA and PIPA: Your thoughts on free speech!

bronconick said:
It's a chicken and the egg issue. If corporate speech wasn't allowed in our system, SOPA and PIPA wouldn't exist, at least not remotely in their current form. There would be no need for useful corporate speech like yesterday in that fairyland world.

I'm supposed to feel bad or hypocritical that someone on my side pulled out their nukes yesterday in response to what's been going on for years in Washington? Fark you and the horse you rode in on.
Click to expand...

Could you expand on the first paragraph? I realize it's a hypothetical, but I highly doubt it. Edit: To expand, 30 years ago, the MPAA was comparing the VCR to a serial killer:
I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone…
Click to expand...
- Jack Valenti, head of the MPAA
I'm not sure what this world without corporate speech would look like, but you really think businesses wouldn't want ridiculous degrees of protection in that alternate universe?

As for the second one, no, you shouldn't feel bad. I don't know about hypocritical, but "corporate speech is bad - unless it's for something I like" strikes me as a pretty crazy position.

Gurtholfin said:
To me it comes down to what should corporate free speech encompass?

Taking your site down as a form of protest is one thing.

Being able to make unlimited donations to elected officials to essentially "buy" them is another altogether.
Click to expand...

That's fine. But then you at least admit that corporations do have some speech rights. That's more a lot of people are willing to do.
 
Last edited:
Re: SOPA and PIPA: Your thoughts on free speech!

Gurtholfin said:
To me it comes down to what should corporate free speech encompass?

Taking your site down as a form of protest is one thing.

Being able to make unlimited donations to elected officials to essentially "buy" them is another altogether.
Click to expand...

Corporations cannot make unlimited donations to elected officials. In fact, corporations cannot make ANY donations to elected officials.

Let's not take liberties with the facts of the Citizens United v. the FEC ruling.
 
Re: SOPA and PIPA: Your thoughts on free speech!

Plante26 said:
Corporations cannot make unlimited donations to elected officials. In fact, corporations cannot make ANY donations to elected officials.

Let's not take liberties with the facts of the Citizens United v. the FEC ruling.
Click to expand...
Legally, no. But there is always the bribe.
 
Re: SOPA and PIPA: Your thoughts on free speech!

Plante26 said:
There has always been the bribe. Citizens United didn't change that possibility.
Click to expand...
RICO made a mess of things. You could always count on your local elected flunky to do the right thing and then the bleepin bleeding hearts and civic do gooders get involved! Now you never know what your elected officials are going to do because they think they have all the answers, when before you KNEW they had no clue and John D. Rockefeller or Frank Hague did.
 
WeWantMore said:
Could you expand on the first paragraph? I realize it's a hypothetical, but I highly doubt it. Edit: To expand, 30 years ago, the MPAA was comparing the VCR to a serial killer:

- Jack Valenti, head of the MPAA
Click to expand...
And the RIAA whined for years that people taping songs off the radio was killing sales for them and tried (and successfully? IDK) to put a tax on blank cassette tapes.

These industries are faced with a new way of doing business and they're threatened by it. Heck artists are starting to realize they don't need record companies now.
 
Re: SOPA and PIPA: Your thoughts on free speech!

Looks like this Megaupload thing is legit. E-mails being leaked - apparently the folks in charge were paying prominent account holders for uploading pirated stuff. Yeah, if that turns out to be true, they're going down.

ETA: It gets better. Apparently they were close to the release of a publishing format which would have allowed for free downloads while still paying the artists. Universal in particular wasn't too happy about it.
 
Last edited:
Re: SOPA and PIPA: Your thoughts on free speech!

Where they burn books, they will ultimately also burn people - Heinrich Heine
 
Re: SOPA and PIPA: Your thoughts on free speech!

Plante26 said:
Corporations cannot make unlimited donations to elected officials. In fact, corporations cannot make ANY donations to elected officials.

Let's not take liberties with the facts of the Citizens United v. the FEC ruling.
Click to expand...

My bad. They can make unlimited donations to super pacs that get officials elected. I'm sure that when they do that, said elected officials don't do anything to pay back the favor. In addition, I'm sure that there is no coordination between these corporations, the super pacs and the candidates.
 
Re: SOPA and PIPA: Your thoughts on free speech!

bronconick said:
I'm supposed to feel bad or hypocritical that someone on my side pulled out their nukes yesterday in response to what's been going on for years in Washington? Fark you and the horse you rode in on.
Click to expand...

So you admit it's bad if the other side uses it, but good if people you agree with use it? Glad you cleared that up for me.
 
Re: SOPA and PIPA: Your thoughts on free speech!

goldy_331 said:
So you admit it's bad if the other side uses it, but good if people you agree with use it? Glad you cleared that up for me.
Click to expand...

My team's been getting interfered, clutched, grabbed and held for seasons, and the refs never call it. So, finally in disgust my coach tells my team's players to go ahead and do the same.

I don't like the rules and wish they would be changed. Since that's not happening, the only thing you can do is play within their rules as best you can.

This isn't exactly quantum physics.
 
Re: SOPA and PIPA: Your thoughts on free speech!

SOPA withdrawn, PIPA postponed.

Internets: 1 Congress: 0

The tubes live to fight another day.
 
Re: SOPA and PIPA: Your thoughts on free speech!

Plante26 said:
Corporations cannot make unlimited donations to elected officials. In fact, corporations cannot make ANY donations to elected officials.

Let's not take liberties with the facts of the Citizens United v. the FEC ruling.
Click to expand...

ROTFLMAO

Woooooooooooooooooooooooooosh.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top