The Lemmings are Pimpin da Soap

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How much do you know about SOPA and PIPA?

Is what I thought. SOPA - Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act are two versions of the same idea. One is the House, t'other the Senate.

H'RAY! Wheres the cliff we can jump off?

Now how much do you know?

Is what I thought.

I have also not read either bill. But unlike what appears to be a very large number of people, I am NOT willing to accept the hyperbole being slung by Wikipedia, Reddit, Google and other websites. Yes. Hyperbole.

If you don't know what's in the bills, then how can you have a reasonable and well-considered opinion?

You believe all the websites? Suppose all the websites you believe conspired to tell you it's a good thing to jump off a cliff?

Just 'cause it's something your momma told you doesn't mean it's not common sense.

At the same time, I note Rep. Ron Paul has come out against the bills. OK. I'm a leeeetle more inclined to believe the bills are bad legislation. But just cause my man for president says it's a bad idea, I ain't abandoning my life jacket as the masses carry me with them into the water.

I also note the bill was sponsored by the movie industry and other other heavyweights in the intellectual property business.

Yes. Intellectual property. For a great many people I might as well be speaking Urdu-Croatian. But then, a great many people also have the intellectual reasoning ability of the aforementioned lemmings.

"Information should be free!" is the mantra some many people are shouting.

Way cool! As a man who has made his living for the past 27 years on this planet providing information, aka intellectual property, I am all for making it free. Just as soon as everyone who wants it to be free supplies me with a house (free), vehicles (free), food (free) and everything else my wages and salary currently supply for free.

"ummmm. Get a different job."

Ok. I could do that. So could all my other brothers and sisters in intellectual property business.

No newspapers. No magazines.

No worries.

No radio stations. No TV stations. No movies, at least none you really want to see.

No music, at least none you really want to listen to. Tom Petty? Gone, he's pushing papers at an insurance company. Rhianna? She's a model. Oops. Can't do that either. Pictures are intellectual property. Maybe she's an investment banker.

"Ummmm. You're an idiot, Baker." Ooops, 'scuse me. I'm quoting you and I'd best get it right. "Your a idiot Baker."

I may be an idiot. But these people I mention and many more make a living off intellectual property. They come up with the stuff you want. Do they deserve to get paid?

Everything you use to entertain yourself, unless you created it, started somewhere as intellectual property. Everything.

All the "news" you get? It all starts with some reporter, some person being paid to wade through mounds and reams of paperwork, sit through meetings, take time to interview sources and then collate that information. The music/tv/etc you listen you? Someone has to write it. Someone has to perform it. Someone has to record it.

This requires money. Someone gotta pay that power bill! Somebody gotta have money to put gas in that tank to go to the rally. Somebody gotta have cash to buy that video camera to shoot the next viral vid of some idiot.

While SOPA and PIPA may be bad legislation (I don't know), I do know I support protecting intellectual property rights. If I create it, I have the right to decide what to do with it.

You may disagree. That's your right. But if you steal my intellectual property and I catch you doing it, then you will be supplying a number of my needs out of your pocket while I sit back and do nothing.

The difference is you stole from me and I got a court order to take compensation from you.

Again, you ain't gotta like that either. Good if you don't. You go out and do everything I do and do it for free and see how well you manage to live.