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Comment by zinkem | Hacker News Reader

Hopefully everyone in Lamar Smith's district knows who Lamar Smith is and what he stands for. SOPA triggered a mainstream debate and you don't need to be 'really involved in politics' to know that.

This sentiment that people with political agendas need to inform their potential constituents is what has created our current political problems in America. When people don't pay attention, anyone who can attract eyeballs and make a reasonable sounding argument gets to do as they please. If we were paying attention, we wouldn't let these people wreak havoc in our society.

edit: What does it mean to live in a democracy where nobody knows whats going on? I know we're all familiar with and jaded to the current state of affairs, but I'm asking that we spend more time thinking about that state of affairs and what we expect of ourselves and our politicians.

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"Hopefully everyone in Lamar Smith's district knows who Lamar Smith is and what he stands for."

That's some misplaced hope.

That's some misplaced hope.

Considering he was elected I kind of assume a lot people like what they think he stands for.

Highly unlikely, but a lot of people like what party is listed next to his name on the ballot. They probably couldn't even tell you his name.

They probably couldn't even tell you his name.

Or maybe they could.

I'm amazed at some of things some Arizona[0] politicians support, such as the NDAA, things that should properly outrage the average citizen. But they don't, indeed these people get re-elected, and I believe it is precisely because of the outrageous things they support.

Even if the average Texan knows that Lamar was behind SOPA they may, for whatever reason, still think SOPA was a good idea.

0: Where I live.

To the people who down voted, do you honestly think my comment was an expression of support for him?

There are clearly some number of people who support this guy, and assuming that everyone who sees his name is also aware that he's a bad person is naive at best.

Nope. Some people downvoted because your assumption that people know the positions of their representatives is wrong.

The average person on the street is has a level of understanding that's closer to "Keep the government out of my medicare!!". People typically don't know the names of their representatives, the policies they stand for and the impact those policies are going to have in practice. They have to know all of those things in order to understand the meaning of "Don't mess with the internet".

Nope. Some people downvoted because your assumption that people know the positions of their representatives is wrong.

Fair enough, but it's naive to assume that simply equating Lamer Smith with SOPA is sufficient.

Texas's 21st congressional district had 651,619 people in 2000. The district contains parts of the Austin and San Antonio metro areas, which grew 37% and 25% respectively in the intervening decade. Let's use the lower value since there are rural areas in there as well. That gives a 2010 estimate of 814,523 people. 27.3% of Texans were under 18 in 2010, which gives a voting age population of 592,158.

In 2010, 236,284 people voted in the district, of which 162,763 voted for Smith. Let's assume all voters know who he is and what he stands for, and that everyone else probably doesn't. That gives us 40% of the district's population that know what's going on. Fewer voted for him, and even fewer like what he stands for, since voting is usually a compromise.

This is an overestimate.

Thanks very much for this.

SOPA/Internet Regulation is a pretty obscure issue. I doubt most people know anything about it, let alone where their rep stands.

I live about ten feet away from his district (literally, I'm on the line) and I can assure you virtually no one in San Antonio knows what he stands for or knows about SOPA.

that's not entirely true, as his district also has part of Austin where anti-SOPA/PIPA sentiment is quite high.

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