| "Why should I shoot myself in the foot to keep someone else from shooting me in the foot?" Because sometimes democracy is harder than just doing what you want to do. "This idea that the root cause of all bad legislation is political donations: it's wrong, and not supported by the data." Of course bad legislation has no root cause, but money surely contributes. $94MM in contributions last year focused on one issue. "No one raised more political money in the history of this nation than Barack Obama during his presidential campaign" I think you're confusing raising campaign money with taking political donations and going out to thousand dollar meals with lobbyists. "The tech industry, particularly on the Internet entrepreneurial side, has long prided itself on staying out of Washington." No we haven't, but we've certainly been busy working and trying to ignore it. Plus, they never really came after us directly before. "IP law is not a winnable war. It is an ongoing negotiation that must be managed forever." Thats a terribly lazy reason to not protest something. We give them power through direct consumer spending. One great way to reduce that power is to educate each other about where our dollars go. |