Aren't Senators fairly good at detecting people spam? I wonder if it actually productive to have a bunch of people who don't understand the bill or its risks and/or benefits showing up to just regurgitate what they read on the internet.
Wouldn't it be better to have a small number of people who ACTUALLY understand the bill go and offer independent arguments?
I know if I were in a decision making position the latter would impress me a lot more than the former.
I wonder if it actually productive to have a bunch of people who don't understand the bill or its risks and/or benefits showing up to just regurgitate what they read on the internet.
senators and congresspersons probably don't understand many of the bills they vote on, either.
do you really think most of those lawmakers suddenly decided that copyright infringement was a problem and banded together to create SOPA and PIPA on their own? organizations lobbied them to form an opinion. if nobody challenges those opinions, they just vote how the money tells them to.
if enough constituents tell them to change their opinion, they probably will. not because they really care personally, but because it will look favorable to the people that are in charge of reelecting them, and that will allow them to continue getting money from lobbyists over issues like SOPA and PIPA.
godaddy was in favor of SOPA for whatever reason, and only when they started losing money from it did they suddenly reverse their position and come out against it. lawmakers will do the same exact thing for the same exact reason if enough people call them about it.
I worked in DC at a PAC for 3 years, and I can confirm that, without a doubt, lawmakers in Washington vote where either a) the money leads or b) the most ruckus gets stirred up, at least 90% of the time. Every congressperson has their pet causes (the other 10%) but for the rest, they're voting in large part based on those two factors. How could they not? There's simply too much going on to really learn about every issue that comes across their desk.
Because senators want to get reelected, volume is incredibly important. I do hope that the less knowledgeable yield to the more knowledgeable if senators do grant meetings.
Wouldn't it be better to have a small number of people who ACTUALLY understand the bill go and offer independent arguments?
I know if I were in a decision making position the latter would impress me a lot more than the former.