Staffer axed by Republican group over retracted copyright reform memo
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Content is a $100Bn industry. Technology is 5-6x bigger, but the tech companies trying to disrupt content are an insignificant fraction of that industry.
Meanwhile, set aside whether you believe in the reforms proposed in the Khanna memo --- reducing statutory damages, increasing cost of enforcement, reducing copyright terms. Ask instead, "was this a politically effective policy memo?" Were its goals in the 113th congress realistic? Were its arguments persuasive? Something like 35% of all congresspeople are lawyers, and this memo starts out with a highly dubious argument about the meaning of the copyright clause.
It seems to me (and I am prepared to hear smart people tell me how wrong I am about this) that a reasonable short-term goal would have been to reduce the term of copyright, ratcheting it back to where it was, say, before Sonny Bono. Instead, this "RSC" memo proposed beyond that a gift basket of what seem like mostly not-useful policy trinkets for Redditors: expanded fair use for DJ culture (really? spend political capital to modify regulations on a $100bn industry for... DJs?), lower statutory caps for damages (the MPAA and RIAA already sue for a tiny fraction of the likely liability for many infringers), and punishing false copyright claims (the claims studios take to court are overwhelmingly not false; penalizing bogus DMCA takedowns wouldn't move the dials at all).
The real copyright reform is probably something like reduced term and compulsory licensing. What was the value to the RSC of trolling the Content industry for reforms that had no chance of happening, that wouldn't have actually kept people from being bankrupted by lawsuits, that wouldn't make it easier to launch tech companies, and that at the same time manage to almost uniformly enrage rightsholders?
Was this memo really "shockingly sensible"? A lot of smart people say it was. But I wonder whether they're more shocked that any conversation could have happened at all, and not really looking closely at the content of the memo itself.
What's dubious about it? Isn't that the standard constitutional interpretation? I've always heard that it's supposed to work like a balance with incentives for creators on one side and public domain access on the other side, with the goal being to maximize invention and innovation.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/an-anti-ip-turn-for-t...
tzs is probably correct, but he was actually responding to this:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4862752
(His comment is here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4862752)
So long story short, even if tzs is correct I don't think that means that khanna is wrong, as his interpretation of the constitution doesn't depending on the 'sciences' part in any way. In fact, the way he is using 'sciences' seems to be consistent with the way tzs defines it.
I guess I still don't see how you're getting that. Khanna's criticism of the current copyright law is that it is being used to enrich creators rather than to maximize innovation. TZS's comment is about what can be copyrighted or patented, which Khanna never takes issue with.
What specifically do you think he is wrong about with regards to his interpretation of the constitution?
Yes, you said that already. What you haven't said is why you believe this, except to cite an obscure (and not at all on point) comment on HN. I've done a little bit of searching, and it is easy to find extensive well-reasoned arguments that Khanna is spot on. e.g.:
http://open-spaces.com/article-v2n1-loren.php
I can't find a single coherent defense of the opposing position.
But in another sense, I'm saying something more about the memo; not only that it was inappropriate for its venue, but that its policy goals were dumb. The Khanna memo would not have made it any less fraught to run a consumer Internet company. It would not have prevented the content industry from leveraging potential bankruptcy against infringers. Apart from reducing copyright terms, it seemed to consist mostly of extravagantly costly political expenditures in the service of cosmetic goals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_111th_United_Sta...
http://www.crisp360.com/hosted-infographic/where-did-congres...
Exactly, Republicans' strongest constituency (rich white guys[1]) don't care all that much, if at all, about details of copyrights, something that costs their households a few hundred dollars a year at most. On the other hand, people who care either already lean libertarian enough to vote red, or will never, ever even consider voting for a Republican.
A senator will get more votes going door to door than by pushing through any reform like that.
[1] http://anepigone.blogspot.com/2012/11/2012-electoral-maps-by...
Here's the recent HN example of how idiotic these have gotten: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4867216 (Movie Studios Ask Google To Censor Their Own Films, Facebook and Wikipedia (torrentfreak.com))
He was stupid, but a friend lost a load of legitimate, original work; he'd been using it as an external hard drive and sharing mechanism for his large project files.
Megaupload may have been tuned toward being a 'piracy product' but that does not mean it was anything other than user-generated piracy.
This is called "Doing it right."
If Showtime would sell me a license to view their content, I wouldn't even be tempted to download it for free. Since they refuse to, it's going to be tough to work up any righteous dudgeon towards Schmitz and crew, especially when they go out of their way to adopt a customer-oriented approach.
Copyright is a government entitlement that we spun from whole cloth. Capitalism, on the other hand, comes naturally. You can't fight Mother Nature.
That's... novel.
As humans we've always had the concept of "property" to some extent, independent of government. That's not true of copyright law. That was something we invented in response to a specific need, but we invented it at a time when few/no other legal or intellectual tools were available. Copyright should never be treated as the sacred cow that property rights in general are, IMO.
This "natural rights" talk sounds like theology to me. From an anthropological perspective, humans invented intellectual property around the time it became useful, just as humans invented land ownership around the time that became useful. You can say the same about owning shares of a business or owning currency. These are exactly the artificial property rights you need for capitalism, and you need government for those rights, and hence capitalism, to actually work.
As does the idea that governments are a magical prerequisite for property rights.
... just as humans invented land ownership around the time that became useful.
Try taking a bone away from a dog, and my point might seem clearer.
What you need for capitalism is centrally enforced rights to things like land and corporate equity. That is not a simple extrapolation for protecting one's personal possessions any more than copyright is. And like copyright, they require a government.
I just finished a Law 101 class so I'm by no means an expert, but I think the above explains the theory behind why we need laws. Whether you think the theory is legitimate or not is up to you. When I started the course, I was surprised to learn that our entire legal system was designed around the concept of property rights.
A few minutes later: Okay I just skimmed through the indictment again and I can't find what you're talking about. There's points 54 and 55 about how they didn't cancel the affiliate accounts of people that had uploaded infringing files, but I can't find anything about them actually arranging pirated material, or specifically encouraging its upload. Also point 69d says out that copyright-violating uploads were disqualified for rewards, though Megaupload rarely terminated the accounts.
This isn't reading-between-the-lines stuff. It's there in black and white.
If you uploaded a popular infringing file, you might get $100, or you might get disqualified.
If you uploaded a popular non-infringing file, you would definitely get $100.
Megaupload knew about some of the piracy. That does not mean they arranged it. They treated it like any other file.
Section 506(c) [1]:
Fraudulent Copyright Notice. — Any person who, with fraudulent intent, places on any article a notice of copyright or words of the same purport that such person knows to be false, or who, with fraudulent intent, publicly distributes or imports for public distribution any article bearing such notice or words that such person knows to be false, shall be fined not more than $2,500.
Section 512(f) [2]:
Misrepresentations. - Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section —
(1) that material or activity is infringing, or
(2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification,
shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys' fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner's authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it.
Why does issuing a DMCA counter-notification not automatically trigger an investigation by the FBI?
Then there is the problem that DMCA is woefully inadequate to deal with Fair Use. Fair Use is often cited inappropriately to justify unauthorized copying that does not rightfully fall under Fair Use exceptions. However. DMCA makes no such distinction, and it is up to the entity hosting the allegedly-infringing content (i.e., the one to which the DMCA notice is sent) to determine whether the content is actually infringing. Even when an unauthorized copy of a work passes each of the four parts of Fair Use test with flying colors, the DMCA takedown requester is still not in violation of the law you cited. So there is no disincentive to issuing spurious take-down requests.
Hello! Where do these numbers come from? Thanks.
http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?ReqID=5&step=1
>really? spend political capital to modify regulations on a $100bn industry for... DJs?
The point should be whether it's for the overall public good, not just for some industry. Lets assume the $100bn industry just rolls over and dies tomorrow, ignore the losses of art and entertainment for a second. What would consumers do with a $100bn extra in their pockets? Would they spend it on buying electric cars thus jumpstarting them? Would they invest it thus making new companies easy to start? Would it kickstart alternative business models that would employ some of the unemployed? Perhaps not. But the fact that it hurts a particular $100bn industry by itself should not be a veto against such a measure, or else we would still be riding horse buggies.
>Ask instead, "was this a politically effective policy memo?" Were its goals in the 113th congress realistic? Were its arguments persuasive? Something like 35% of all congresspeople are lawyers, and this memo starts out with a highly dubious argument about the meaning of the copyright clause.
Just like in courtcases, even in Congress you need to push for the extremes in order to get something done. If you push for realistic measures, it is sure to get watered down to essentially nothing. It's like a salary negotiation, if you start with a reasonable number, HR will never agree to that and will themselves offer a very low offer which you will have trouble in getting it where you want. You need to shoot for 10 to 20% more than what is "reasonable" in order to have any hope of getting a reasonable offer. Same with the bill here. Have you not been keeping up with how bills are negotiated in Congress? If anything reasonable is suggested, the Hollywood lobbyists with bags of cash in their hand will water it down. Hollywood spends a ton of money on lobbying, and legislators are cash strapped at election time with candidates raising millions.
On the former point, about DJs: making it simpler for DJs to sell music with rights-encumbered samples isn't going to fundamentally change the economics of either the content industry or the consumer Internet. Fair use for DJs is an issue that applies to a subculture of a subculture of a subculture, and even more weirdly, is an issue that has mostly been metabolized by that subsubsubculture: Girl Talk, for instance, wasn't going to make a lot of money selling his currently non-salable tracks, because almost nobody makes money selling recorded music anymore.
Now. Why is the first point about the size of the industry relevant? Unless you're talking about their ability to bribe...I'm sorry..."lobby" Congress to pass the laws they like? That shouldn't happen anyway, regardless of their size. Laws should be passed on common sense and what's good for the people at large, not based on how big is your bank account.
What is dubious about his argument about copyright? First off, copyright is not "property", and shouldn't be treated as property. It's more like a permit. The government allows you to use a certain idea for a "limited time period" as it says in the Constitution. Unfortunately, because of the bribing..sorry, again, I meant lobbying...the "limited time period" turned from 14 years to almost 10x more. That doesn't sound limited at all to me. Copyright was meant as an "incentive" system - not as a welfare system.
Ideas can and should be reused. Whoever gets something copyright, most definitely got "inspired" or copied parts of someone else' ideas. That's why there isn't really something like "intellectual property", because nobody owns an idea 100%. And since you used someone else' ideas, you have to get paid for whatever you added only for a limited period of time, and then allow others to benefit from it, too, and expand the public knowledge. The whole point of the copyright system was to benefit the "public". It doesn't say "the creators" in the Constitution.
The fact that you dismiss DJing and remixing so easily shows that you have zero understanding about why fair use even exists in the first place. I suggest going through these, and hopefully it will change your mind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83lhAlmp5vY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyf_0SMAsFA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q25-S7jzgs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL2FOrx41N0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAmmtCJxJJY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq5D43qAsVg
And here's a law professor discussing some of my points above such as why copyright is not real property:
So, your comment actually doesn't have much to do with mine. I am well aware that HN is full of copyright doves, and I respect that position (I feel like I'm going out of my way to be respectful of them). All your comment says is, "there's the opposite side of this copyright issue". Which is about as banal as telling me that water is wet.
If you can't defend a position, perhaps you shouldn't be taking it.
I mean look at what mtgx said: "Now. Why is the first point about the size of the industry relevant? Unless you're talking about their ability to bribe...I'm sorry..."lobby" Congress to pass the laws they like? That shouldn't happen anyway, regardless of their size. Laws should be passed on common sense and what's good for the people at large, not based on how big is your bank account."
This is an absurd response to what tptacek said. If mtgx wants to advocate some kind of political revolution that is fine, but it is not an appropriate response to what tptacek is saying about Republicans spending political capital to effect change.
From your quote about DJs your copyright values seem to be at the opposite side of openness (whatever the antonym of openness is), but having been reading and enjoying your comments for a while I suspect that comment might just be misguiding. I think I'd like to read more about what your values on copyright are.
It's very nice that you dragged this into HN's millionth debate on whether copyright is property or not (seriously, don't people ever get tired of the same rehashed arguments?). But this has nothing to do with tpacek's point. At least, that's how it looks to me.
Is an argument only valid when it's fresh? Is e no longer equal to mc^2 because so many people keep rehashing the same tired formula over and over again?
All I asked was whether people are tired of having the same argument over and over. The reason I asked that is because tptacek was specifically not doing so, and someone was dragging the conversation in that direction. You have to understand, people like tptacek, myself and others that have been on HN (or anywhere on the internet) for a while, have seen these exact threads, with these exact arguments, probably hundreds of times. At some point, you realize that no one is bringing anything new to the table. Then someone like tptacek comes along and does bring something new (and relevant) to the table, and he can't even do that without the same old debated coming up.
It's tiresome, is all I'm saying.
But aside from that, I thought it was a fairly sensible move, precisely because the policies were a) pretty benign - they're not really going to hurt the interests of the content industry, b) neutral politically - they won't offend the conservative base, and c) naturally appealing to a constituency that's outside the typical G.O.P. base.
We do a good job appealing to married, religious, older, self-employed, or rural voters - if only we could run a competent campaign, we could potentially win on the strength of those constituencies alone. But that doesn't mean we can't find simple ways to appeal to other groups of voters that are consistent with (or at least don't contradict) conservative principles.
I don't expect 'the Redditor vote' to ever go Republican, but policies like this can shift it a couple of percent, lower donations, and reduce turnout - all quite-useful things.
If you initially propose something "middle of the road," you get negotiated to 3/4 down the road. If you propose something idealistic and way far to one side, then you give the opposition things to negotiate away. Then they feel like they win, and in reality you come up with something much more moderate and "middle of the road" than you would have otherwise.
I wish I could find the article, but I once read a story about a web designer who knew his clients ALWAYS had to have some feedback. "I love it, but can you change the color of this" or "make this bigger." No matter how perfect the design was, they HAD to give feedback to feel like they were doing a good job.
So the designer would make a beautiful website, and then put a really ugly snowman in the background. Then the clients would say "I love it!" But can you remove the snowman?"
Say you want reduced copyright terms, reduced damages, and expanded fair use for DJs. Then give up the DJs.
You know you have to give them something, so add things in you're okay giving up.
Where did you get that number? Americans spend that much on cable TV alone.
I think we can probably stipulate that information technology is a larger industry than entertainment and media; to the extent that it isn't, though, my point is stronger, right?
(For example, right now the committee’s Web page links to an op-ed advocating a flat 15% income tax. The President—any President, of either party—will sign a flat income tax into law some time after the Air Force trades its fighter jets for flying pigs.)
If I'm a photographer, do I need to pay extension fees on all my thousands of works? Does my neighbor who makes movies only need to pay one fee? What if I make a book containing my photographs -- is that just one free? Can Disney make one long 40 hour movie containing all their stuff together and count that as one work?
Maybe you can declare the value of your IP and the government taxes you like 2% on it. I don't think this would really work but I'm tossing it out anyway.
This is just a way of saying that the vast majority of individual photos don't represent a lot of creative work, and hence are a lot less worthy of protection. I would imagine that even a major photographer such as Ansel Adams wouldn't have more than a dozen photos earning good money more than a decade after the photo was first published.
My objection to steko's idea would be more that it is precisely the most important works that we are going to want to copy / create derivatives from, and yet these are precisely the works that will be the most able to perpetuate their protections.
There was copyright renewal until 1992. It seems like a useful requirement. I'd support increasingly-onerous payments and renewal requirements -- maybe you get free copyright for 14-28 years, and then each year renewal after that costs an exponentially increasing amount of money.
I'm supposed to care... why? Horse buggies, beanie babies, etc.
The copyright debate isn't about one industry against another, it's about an industry versus the rights of individual citizens.
The long-term political goal for the Republican Party is to win elections, praticularly the presidency.
Younger and tech-savvy voters tend to vote Democrat. This is a problem for Republicans because their voter base is literally dying. If they embraced copyright reform and pushed it as an issue, there may be a lot of votes in it for them. I would regard that as "politically effective".
Another point is that Holywood and the music industry massively support the Democrats. This would mean that if the Republicans adopted copyright reform as a policy, the Democrats would be in a bind: either adopt copyright reform too (and annoy the copyright industry, and give up all the money it gives) or don't (and annoy lots of Democrat-leaning voters). It's therefore a wedge issue that could be tactically effective for the Republicans.
It most be pretty obvious to intelligent, thoughtful Republicans that their current strategy -- of getting lots of white men to vote for them by exploiting prejudice against blacks, Hispanics, women, and gays -- has no future. So they're going to need a new one; copyright reform as part of an overall libertarian agenda might be part of it, and by shutting down the debate on the issue, the Republican Party is not doing itself any favours.
But I suspect it will take them one or two more election cycles before it sinks in to them that they need to do thinks differently.
I also think a tactic like this one could be extremely valuable to a rational Republican party. However, that doesn't mean the numbers work for this particular wedge. Thomas's point is that it isn't politically effective if it costs more than you make in profit and this particular policy position costs more than it's worth. You have to count the voters you gain versus the ones you lose, but you also have to worry about your cash flow.
Say this move netted the Republican party 4% of the vote. That would probably be enough to swing an election by itself. But if the move costs them $10B in funding, we have to weigh how much of that 4% the Democratic party can win back with a $10B advantage (or more, if Republican donors become Democratic donors). If they gain 4% of the voters but lose 2% due to cashflow problems they wind up in more-or-less the same place they were before. Following this example, it would have to gain them more like 6%+ to be worth the cost, and unless 6% of our country would swing on this one issue it's not likely.
If Thomas is right and the reforms weren't well-posed (I'm in no position to judge, but his point is well made) then it's a high-risk proposition of dubious value.
I wouldn't be surprised if they returned to this topic with a more modest proposal that doesn't anger all of their copyright-holding donors but still has a certain kind of appeal. But like you said, I would be surprised if it happened in the next four years—maybe in more like 6-8.
Khanna's specific proposal says:
A. Free 12-year copyright term for all new works – subject to registration, and all existing works are renewed as of the passage of the reform legislation. If passed today this would mean that new works have a copyright until 2024.
B. Elective-12 year renewal (cost 1% of all United States revenue from first 12 years – which equals all sales).
C. Elective-6 year renewal (cost 3% of revenue from the previous 12 years).
D.Elective-6 year renewal (cost 5% of revenue in previous 6 years).
E. Elective-10 year renewal (10% of ALL overall revenue – fees paid so far)
This proposal would terminate all copyright protection after 46 years.
A bit of a decrease would be possible, from life+70 to life+50, but since the U.S. acceded to the Berne Convention, it's committed itself to terms no shorter than life+50. I think expanding statutory protections for fair use would probably be a more effective approach, although expanding compulsory licensing is an interesting possible alternative.
That said, it's not sensible in terms of political capital; even if the Republican party decides to leap in the 21st century and propose radical reforms, there are bigger fish to fry in the next Congress, like tax/entitlement reform, immigration and so forth.
Of course I think we need a third party and my occasional hobby is drafting its manifesto, but that isn't exactly a short-term project either.
But of course, this memo doesn't just say "reform copyright terms". It also says, "we need to address the problem of DMCA abuse" (everyone in the content industry and lots of reasonable outsiders, although by no means most of them in Internet circles, would say the opposite --- that's it's so hard to address blatant outright "no copyright intended" infringement today that new vectors for suppressing piracy are needed) and "we need to enable DJs".
I like Girl Talk O.K., and "It Takes A Nation" is among my favorite albums, but the needs of DJs and remix artists are (a) not at the top of the national agenda even for copyright reform, and (b) mostly not a real problem given the economics of electronic/remix music today anyways, most of which isn't and, like most music, can't be compensated through traditional label-style recorded music sales anyways. It's not like DJs are being raided at live shows for their samples.
Why settle on the pre-Bono copyright term? Why do you pick that instead of the original 14 years + 14 year renewal?
I think you've already decided you want copyright more or less the way it is, so you throw copyright doves a bone (breadcrumb?) by offering a single undo, and hope someone bites.
If you try to examine copyright law from basic principles, rather than from the perspective of the status quo, it becomes very tough to support even the pre-Bono copyright terms of life+50 years (personal) or 75 years (corporate), automatic, with registration only required to collect punitive damages, but not required to sue (harass) arguably legitimate fair users of content.
How does compulsory licensing work without capping license fees? Content creators have a monopoly. Forcing them to charge something for licensing does no good; they can set the price arbitrarily high.
If you cap the fees, you have to have a very complex formula so that you can arrive at a maximum license fee, given an arbitrary piece of intellectual property, and some arbitrary proposed licensed use of that IP.
Complex regulation like that invites abuse by anyone with the resources to lobby, so it becomes a lobbying contest rather than an attempted equitable settlement (how do you judge what's fair pricing for license of IP that's held by a monopoly?). If that wasn't bad enough, by capping fees you've effectively partially socialized the IP content industry: The free market and private industry would no longer be the primary drivers of the economics of IP.
I think everyone, even copyright doves like myself, fantasize about creating some incredibly desirable piece of IP that we can live off of for life. We just differ in the judgment of effectiveness, actual financial benefit, and collateral damage related to taking legal action against non-for-profit filesharers.
I am only addressing the political and legal problems here; not the practical, ethical, and technological enforcement problems, of which I think there are many.
The GOP had the opportunity to position themselves on the opposite side from the Democrats. And failed to do so. :-(
I know hearing this upsets HN, and lots of smart people think I'm completely batshit when I say this, but copyright reform is a fringe issue. There are probably more people who vote for the gold standard, or to ban mosques.
Clearly the GOP is doing some soul searching and this one issue wasn't going to make a gigantic impact, but it could have been one piece of a bigger strategy. As they (potentially) move away from traditionally social conservative issues and start focusing more and more on personal liberty and the free market, this could have been a good contrast to Democrats as part of a broader picture.
The GOP is no more likely to move away from being the party of social conservatism than the Democrats are to move away from being the party of public school teachers.
(Fair warning: I'm a casual browser of libertarian policy positions, but I am most definitely not a libertarian. My libertarian friends would call me a liberal statist.)
In this case it seems like the discussion was stifled because of the big money behind copyright questions.
So regardless it seems a shame that the GOP couldn't use this memo as a starting point for a good debate around policies and where the party stood/stands.
(Source: Against Intellectual Property, by Stephan Kinsella)
Even I, being very dovish on foreign policy, am beginning to question this point when I see for example the current negotiations on the ITU Internet regulations. All this does for me is demonstrate, that values such as free speech and individual liberties are worldwide under attack, and almost entirely depending on America's strenth.
The bigger issue here though, the reason I'll go out on a limb and call copyright reform a fringe issue, is that it's supported by crazy people. For instance, in the "purported reasonableness" camp in the house, you have Darrell Issa, who has generally been a source of supported nods towards copyright reasonableness. Sounds great, right? But Issa is also a crazy hard anti-abortion crusader who has chaired panels in the house on funding for contraception and, recently, to give a new hearing to the vaccine-autism connection.
Single-issue voting is a great way to empower crazy people.
I'd never thought of it that way, but it's a damn good point.
It doesn't.
5 years ago, it was. Today, after the SOPA/PIPA thing, it's much more mainstream. People who 5 years ago thought I was weird for talking about Lessig, today are familiar with Sonny Bono and feel strongly against copyright extensions.
It's a subset of the software engineering crowd, the one that works in web space for companies that make money off other peoples' creative work, that sees copyright reform as an important problem. And I think there is a total lack of acknowledgement among this crowd that maybe there are more stakeholders in this issue than just themselves or the big evil music/movie companies. I think there is also a denial of how much certain web companies really depend on other peoples' copyrighted material for their viability (cough Youtube cough).
Political parties are not full of people who agree with the party on everything. They are full of of people who agree with more of one agenda than another. There are a lot of people who the Republicans could attract. And even if the demographics are not that big for this group, some of the people who they would pull in are exactly who they need to make an answer to Narwhale.
As for how big this issue is likely to be nationally, the Pirate Party in multiple countries regularly polls over 0.5%, and has thrown up several election results where their candidate scored in the 6-9% range. No, that's not enough to win an election. But that is enough to be a significant wedge issue in a tight election. (And US elections are all tight these days.)
It's a bit frustrating to see the term 'believe' used with respect to global warming. Global warming has been described using sound science and 99% of climate scientists agree on this. Using belief suggests that it's a matter of faith like choosing to be catholic.
But the case for the urgency of addressing global warming versus other world problems or the case for addressing global warming through carbon reduction are less well-made.
In 2016, is the Republican Presidential candidate (whoever he or she may be) going to capture a majority of this demographic? Not bloody likely. But all other factors being equal, if that candidate only loses the youth vote by 10 points, it’s that much easier to win the election as a whole.
I personally think the President's power is limited enough, and have enough faith in the judiciary (and overall faith in the bureaucrats who make up the government) that I'd go single-issue on any of a few issues. If there were a Republican or Democrat who wanted to "fix" firearms, IP, debt, entitlements, end foreign occupations and the drug war, and/or fix the tax code, I'd consider working for him for a campaign, donating the max to superpacs, etc., if I thought he could win. I'd be ok if that candidate was against gay rights (since the courts would protect the gains so far, and could extend them), was short or ugly, etc.
And holy caricature Batman! You should get out and meet some real-life Republicans. I get that you think they are evil baby-eaters, but they do have many thoughtful people and good ideas that Democrats could learn from.
And also the internet.
At least one thing is certain - there is vehement opposition to any sort of copyright reform, and it is embedded deep into the political system. I don't think I've ever heard of a policy proposal being met with this kind of reaction. Really pushed some buttons.
> His firing is a surprising move for a party that has
> been looking for ways to attract younger voters.
The GOP leadership seems to have forgotten that this week with its shuffle of budget committee members.
> I cannot find the figures for this last election
I think that first word there is probably the main problem "we" have with the whole notion.
You even go on to list examples how our historically unrivaled well-funded government[1] has failed to do anything "effective" of the sort:
health care, energy reform, infrastructure, social safety net
You should really add in "education and housing" to the list of extraordinary government failures.
By the way, the Heritage Foundation has gotten to the point where it's about as bad as DailyKOS. They've given up even the pretense of objectivity and descended into blatant ideological demagoguery.
It's impossible to find any news site, reporter, researcher, or article that doesn't have some angle.
If I find information on the DailyKOS that appears factual and is worth considering then I do so. The Heritage article linked to has a wealth of research pulled from easily verifiable sources, mostly the government itself.
I wrote them off for their recent trumpeting of the fact that 47% of people have no federal income tax liability to falsely imply that half the country doesn't carry any of the tax burden. This goes beyond having an angle, it's just plain intellectually dishonest. The standard of discourse for an ostensibly respectable academic organization should be higher than that of a political campaign. At one time Heritage Foundation adhered to a higher standard. It no longer does.
That writing off reflects your own bias.
I could find a similar omission of the whole truth for any "think tank" or independent issues group you'd care reference.
I could find similar omissions in the questions being asked and the stories being reported upon in every single news agency.
The government spends 1 out of 2 dollars in the "market" for health care.
As the security apparatus becomes increasingly intrusive, perhaps a new party could be swept in with the promise of dismantling it.
Right? It seems that's why neither party will ever lessen. It's like an arms race in which parties will never intentionally weaken their numbers by any means. It's led to piecemeal parties that would probably be better as separate-but-aligned than being a small voice in a large party.
I just can't imagine anything to begin such a split at the same time. If, say, fiscal conservative/social liberal people all actually made the jump to Libertarian (or another party), maybe a further left liberal faction of Democrats party might follow, but probably not. I just can't imagine anything that would incite a sizable group to give up that balance.
Shame. If large enough, and they pulled a few members from the other side, there's the potential they would become king-makers.
Certainly there's a lot that liberals and libertarians have in common (drug war, religious freedom, wars), but they have very, very different principles and premises motivating their policy positions.
For example, suppose I want to leave government spending where it is, but take fifty billion dollars a year from Medicare and spend it on student loan forgiveness and basic research grants. Which quadrant does that put me in?
We need to give up on the tired old categories and start over. We built parties around heuristics like "government spending bad" or "social programs good" instead of evaluating specific programs on their merits.
Ideologically pure libertarians are really anarchists. I've encountered people who advocate private police forces and private roads. People who don't understand that there is no difference in the harm that can be caused by de facto and de jure governments when they go bad.
But if you allow public roads and a public police force, why not public schools? Why not public universities, or public parks? Why not publicly financed scientific research? The answer to any of these questions is, at bottom, "because that program is better or worse than allowing private enterprise to handle it." But you have to answer that question on a case by case basis -- and it changes with demographics and technology and everything else.
And of course, you have to throw in the nature of coalition politics. Publicly funded universities are an extremely valuable program for college-aged voters and those with college-aged children, but seen as a complete waste of money by childless retirees. So sure, you have to build a coalition, but the existing parties exist as they do only by historical happenstance.
What could be interesting it to start a party with the following principles: First, for any given issue, evaluate what the majority of the population would want. Then, evaluate whether that position is manifestly unjust or based on assumptions contrary to the evidence. If not, adopt it as the party's position. Repeat for all issues.
Take the platform that party puts out, it's pretty much guaranteed to win a majority of the votes by definition. Then the other party can try to pick off a group of minority positions to form an opposing coalition, but any success they have is liable to just change the majority's view on that particular issue -- which changes the first party's position on it going forward from the date of the next election. And if you want to change policy, get on your soap box and convince the majority, which will chance the party's position.
It's kind of like direct democracy, but with a filter for extremely bad ideas.
(Also Ron Paul not really being socially liberal but rather just being kind of "state's rights"-ish hasn't helped... but I think that is more of a particularly sharp edge-case and not a systemic issue. A social conservative wanting to cut back government isn't a Libertarian, it is just a Republican being what Republicans have always claimed to be, but rarely are.)
The label is toxic now. Everybody knows that Libertarians exist, the reason today that they don't have the numbers is that nobody really wants to associate with the label.
Romney got less votes than McCain. Romney was more fiscally conservative and more socially liberal.
He wasn't as "cool" as Obama, though.
Unfortunately, issues have very little to do with the outcome of national elections. It's mostly about party identity and other groupthink cue following like hipness. It's not very surprising that our news media continues to be less and less distinguishable from our entertainment industry.
I am not sure what to make of McCain getting more votes than Romney, but I think it is telling. Telling of what? Beats me.
Was he? McCain had always been kind of a moderate -- he only went crazy to secure the 2008 Republican nomination after the failure in 2000, and apparently once you go crazy it sticks. And Romney was the same way: He sure didn't look very socially liberal to moderates during the 2012 primaries.
It seems like that's what doomed both of them, actually. To get the nomination they each had to move substantially to the right of their own previous positions, which convinced just enough of the base in order to secure the nomination while alienating the moderates. Then the general election comes around and neither the moderates nor the extremists like the candidate because he at one point or another expressed a number of positions they strongly disagree with.
Romney also had a couple of issues McCain didn't: He was a notorious Wall St. guy running at the bottom of a recession notoriously caused by Wall St. guys, and he was running following the 2010 census which gave more electoral votes to typically Democratic population centers nationwide (which, unlike the Congressional elections, couldn't then be gerrymandered by Republican state governments for the presidency since states typically don't allocate electoral votes by district).
The problem is that the same process is likely to play out again. Fox keeps giving airtime to the Huckabees and the Trumps to try to get out the base against the Democrats, but with those people going to the polls and voting on those issues, it makes it impossible for a moderate Republican to get nominated without taking positions that alienate moderate voters, and then they lose the general election.
Am I the only one that remembers that Bush ran as a moderate in 2000 and won? It was only after 9/11 that he went cowboy, and then only won in 2004 by beating the terrorism drum that has, by this point, worn out and lost its effectiveness.
I certainly don't mean to imply we need another Bush, but at some point the Republicans need to realize that pandering to crazies loses elections. (And in the meantime I'm happy to help them realize that by not voting for them, and I don't think I'm alone.)
Not true, the vote count just wasn't completed yet when people said that.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2012/12/03/romney_beats_mcc...
[1] http://blog.heritage.org/2012/12/04/huelskamp-amash-say-hous...
http://www.politicususa.com/fireboehner-hashtag-trends-war-e...
Not sure, but I think they're more open to military cuts, which is kinda 'further to the left.'[1] They think the leadership would rather raise taxes than cut a growing defense budget. You could say the leadership is more establishment-left (compromise by raising taxes) and the 'younger members' are more anti-establishment-left (compromising by cutting defense). From my bias I see it as more of an anti-establishment thing than a left-right thing; it's not that they weren't moderate enough, they weren't the right kind of moderate, which is why I think the GOP leadership is cutting off their only chance at courting the younger demographics.
[1] https://twitter.com/repjustinamash/status/273070039597461504
Drawing attention to the existence of "corporate welfare" does not go over well in the GOP.
And I was so proud of them for making a sensible stand on this issue!