10-15 years ago he was a good guy. We voted for him a few times. What’s happened to him?!
26 years in DC. That’s what happened.
He caught Washingtonitis. This is why we need term limits.
RIAA and MPAA money. NBCUniversal also supports SOPA/PIPA, so expect the drool-a-thon to continue from *those* idiots.
I'm watching the conversation at Twitter now, and Julian Sanchez is awesome. Mike Masnick is doing his best to help stop this, and now Google will be contributing something on it's US page. More blackout notices to come.
Anybody hear from Jim Rob on this?
A lot of so-called American conservatives make the mistake of assuming whatever is good for corporations is conservative, and it looks like Smith is one of those. There is something conservative in a European, old Tory, sort of way about propping up antiquated business models through government action, fighting against the law of supply and demand (that drives the price of goods that can be produced in arbitrary quantities at no marginal cost toward zero) on behalf of monied interests. Unfortunately, it is not what American conservatives, who should be conserving the American Founding, and thus be pro-market rather than pro-business, should be doing.
This is actually one of the reasons the theft of the word “liberal” by the left was a truly inspired act of evil (and you know what spirit inspires evil). In its original meaning — supportive of liberty, esp. of free markets — we who want to conserve the American Founding were the liberals (cf. party names in Australia), and the notion that we ought to be supporting status quo in commerce against innovation (in this case Hollywood and dead-tree publishing houses against the internet) would have been anathema to us almost reflexively.