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Comment by fecklessyouth | Hacker News Reader

Biggest surprise among supporters: Al "Net Neutrality is the 1st Amendment issue of our time" Franken.

Among opponents: Bachmann.

Al Franken is totally owned by Hollywood and the music industry. The RIAA loves Al Franken. He's a complete hypocrite. Mr. "Net Neutrality" my ass.

Al Franken is a joke. Initially I thought he had good intent, but then I realized he's just another shit "actor" turned "politician". Unfortunately those words are more interchangeable than ever and reflects the current state of dismal affairs that is the United States government as a whole.

Actors possess most of the skills required to get elected. A successful actor starts out being well-liked, well-known and rich. They also have an easy time getting press and experience dealing with them.

Knowing what the hell you're doing is, sadly, not required.

> Knowing what the hell you're doing is, sadly, not required.

This sentiment is exactly why they can keep doing it.

It reflects an implicit (and unfortunately, widely held) assumption that they're trying to get elected to help their fellow men, constituents and otherwise do good.

Sadly, there is no supporting evidence for this assumption, and endless supporting evidence against it.

While I value competence and indeed vote with it in mind, it has not proven to be a prerequisite to getting elected.

Understanding the problems is an important first step towards solving them, but understanding alone is, obviously, not enough to fix the problems here.

"competence" on its own does not exist. Congress has shown time and again that they are competent investors (it helps to not be bound by insider trading rules, and to be exposed to non-public info, and actually vote on the results of your investment). They are also competent with their money - 50% of them are millionaires.

> understanding alone is, obviously, not enough to fix the problems here.

Which problem? Are you implying that elected politicians are trying to fix things for the average citizen? if so, why do you think that?

I thought it obvious that I was referring to the problems of the electorate and competence at solving them. Apparently you did not find that to be quite so obvious as I had thought.

There aren't any former actors, other than Franken (who was really a comedian, not an actor), in Congress. So I'm not really sure what you are talking about.

Those limits are a bit arbitrary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_actor%E2%80%93politici...

Sociopaths make the best actors, having no emotions, they act every second in an effort to appear human.

This is a big problem in USA. Actors turning into politics, Americans voting to get actors elected.... This is simply weird.

Whoa whoa, easy there partner. The guy if nothing has held to his Minnesota-first media policy.

Sadly the support for it is directly connected to where they get their money from (For democrats and republicans).

Here is Bachmann's top sources of donations:

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N0002...

Notice no Movie/Music Industry in the top 5

Then here is Franken's:

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N0002...

Time Warner is his number one supporter. I would imagine that they are for it.

Just checked, and Time Warner is on the list of supporters of SOPA:

http://theoriesofconspiracy.com/2011/11/list-of-major-compan...

Time Warner is his number one supporter

OpenSecrets:"The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organizations' PACs, their individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families."

The first clause is in red and bold.

(Edit:I apologize to the reader(s) who felt that directly quoting the links cited by the parent comment was objectionable.)

What is your point?

> Sadly the support for it is directly connected to where they get their money from (For democrats and republicans).

Chicken or egg?

Yeah, Bachmann stood out to me, too. Really shows that even a broken clock is right sometimes.

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