Constitutional Libertarianism

Constitutional Libertarianism

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

The Voters are speaking, but who are the politicians listening to?

The anti-SOPA/PIPA activity is going into action today with many major websites joining smaller websites in completely blacking out or bringing attention to the nightmare that is our lawmakers latest concoction.

Many lawmakers say "but, IP theft is a real problem and something must be done."

You know, IP law has gone beyond all credibility in that our lawmakers have allowed corporations to own IP (which I think only "real" people should be allowed to do.  They don't allow corporations to vote do they?  No.) and have extended the lifespan of IP protection well beyond any use or need of the lifetime of a "real" person.

So, they have allowed corporations to dominate IP and keep things from entering the public domain in a reasonable amount of time.  At the same time, they seem to not understand why people are sick and tired of putting up with IP laws that favor corporations and essentially punish "real" people.

Trademarks, copyright and patents were intended to allow real people to gainfully profit from their own works for a reasonable length of time that was tied to the lifespan of a real, living and dying person.  After a certain point, that work then enters the public domain so that all people may benefit freely from it.

But not when corporations get involved.  First of all, the gov't recognizes corporations as "people" to a limited extent.   Corporations can "own" property and IP.  Here's the big difference, corporations don't die and they don't have other people ""inheriting" property.

Corporations like Disney have lobbied the gov't to extend IP protections for way longer than the life span of a real person and they keep pushing to have  it extended further.  Why? Pure profit motive, that's why.

If something finally leaves IP protections and enters the public domain, they can't squeeze another penny out of us for it.  They would rather see something destroyed than to let it enter the public domain.

Now, corporations are in a limited way, seen as a "person" by the gov't.  However, they are not allowed to vote in elections. no, they cannot.

Yet, our elected representatives seem to pay little attention to the real people who vote for them and give far better service and attention to those who line their pockets so that they can run an expensive campaign so that real people will vote for them.

No, there's no reason real people, voting citizens, should be upset that the politicians represent the corporations interests moreso than "real" people's interests is there?

Like the Supreme Court recently said,  corporations are recognized as people with rights too.  They just upheld that corporations have the right to unrestricted free speech.   We all know that corporations speak the language of money.  This means they can dish out as much money to politicians as they want to.

Good to know that the politicians have got the voting person's back on that.

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