Blackout Notes

Now reading this:

SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act): Text of H.R. 3261 as Introduced in House

and this:

PIPA (Protect IP Act): S.968 (Introduced in Senate)

I wonder, sometimes, if the only people practically capable of effecting change are those willing to replace complexity with simplicity as a means to an end. Witness yesterday's Internet blackout by prominent sites such as Wikipedia and Reddit to protest the above bills. In consequence, representatives' websites were crashing, NPR was describing alternative ways to access Wikipedia content using Google's caching system, and (I can imagine) students all over the U.S. were praying that their research papers would not be due today. The solidarity was impressive.

And yet.

Disclaimer: I've only skimmed the two bills in question, and I would need to read more closely with a better knowledge of legal terminology to fully understand what is at stake. To my untrained eyes, however, while the language of the bills is ambiguous and in places troubling, it is by no means the simple "censor the Internet" message that has produced such enormous response. That slogan is far more compelling and accessible to the general public. It prompts action. It calls up negative associations. It creates buzz.

And yet.

I have a difficult time watching political debates for the same reason. On one hand, I'm stirred by the appeal to more jobs, lower taxes, and greater freedom. I want to argue back in short witty phrases and biting remarks against the candidates with whom I disagree or whose rhetoric seems to me to be especially short-sighted. I can play that game too.

And yet.

When we set aside the competition, the "winners-and-losers" denomination, the rhetoric itself is ambiguous, vague, and has little in common with the complexity that marks individuals' day-to-day lives. That conversation, which is missing from the public political arena, doesn't fit in thirty seconds of air time. It doesn't spur immediate response. It doesn't win elections. It doesn't stop the passage of a bill.

And yet.

Winning elections is our nation's way of choosing new leaders. Speaking out against restrictive laws and censorship creates the very space that allows me to muse about these things. Sometimes immediacy has to be a priority.

And yet, at what cost?

Call it a signature move of my generation, but I don't have a confident answer. If nothing else, this gave me something to ponder while I waited for Wikipedia to return.