Hatch's Idea

Orrin Hatch's desire to destroy the computers of people who download copyrighted material is going over about as well as Bill O'Reilly's recent talking points about the Web.

Comments

[Anonymous]

I generally don't listen to anyone who uses the phrase "talking points". Sounds like consultant-speak.

[Kevin Carson]

dude:

I'm sure Hatch will refine his proposal to include all of those measures. After all, "if you're not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about."

Hatch is one of the most repugnantly authoritarian slime in Congress. It's quite according to pattern to see him promoting TERRORISM against genuine private property in order to defend fake property rights (the egregiously misnamed "intellectual property"). Hatch is also one of those calling for making the sunsetted provisions of USA Patriot (gag!) permanent.

Fred Woodworth has some hilariously on-target rants against Hatch ("Mormonoid zombie," among others") in The Match!

Utah is just the same old theocracy of Deseret, with enough protective camouflage adopted in the late 19th century to keep the U.S. army from blowing SLC to smithereens. They're like pod people, concealed in a horrible Lawrence Welk-esque disguise of jello mold, tuna casserole and "good, respectable Republican cloth coats," to distract us from their mission of incorporating America into the Mormon Borg collective. Hatch is leading the advance guard.

One of these days, someone who looks just like me will stop talking about the evils of statism, put on a short-sleeved white shirt, and start calling himself "Elder Kevin."

Say, I just dug up these golden plates in my backyard.... Can I talk to you about Heavenly Father's plan for your life?

[amr]

anti-mormonism: the last acceptable prejudice

[Sean]

amr,

Since when can't we mock the Scientologists as well? I never got that memo.

[Slippery Pete]

Yeah, Kevin, you're laying on the anti-Mormon bigotry a little thick.

I suggest y'all write a letter to the esteemed Senator from Bing Crosby Land. I'm a big supporter of intellectual property law (big, huge), but comments like this - and Big Media's fascistic attempts to literally destroy those who oppose it - are about to push me to the other side.

Hatch is a lunatic. Even I - a supporter of intellectual property rights - have a use for Kazaa. I just tried to reinstall Office 97 after a virus ate my system, and I discovered that my LEGAL, LEGITIMATE cd had become corroded. I stored the goddamn thing in a leather pouch, for chrissake. Yet there they are - tiny brown spots, all over it. What am I supposed to do now? I paid for it. Will Microsoft let me exchange my corroded CD for a new copy? HELL NO.

That's the way they like it, I guess. Property rights for me, but not for thee. Screw em.

[Slippery Pete]

Sean -

You've stumbed onto the Scientology Exception. It's ok to mock without limit any "religion" that sues everybody who dares to criticize it.

[PLC]

Office 97? Come out of the cave and join this century...

[Douglas Fletcher]

Hatch is usually harmless enough. He seems to spend most of time trying to generate enough wind to spin the prop on his beanie cap, but once in a while he says something that makes him come off like a real jackass. This is one of those times.

[joe]

Freaking Mormons bought one block of SLC Main Street. Now, for one block of Main Street, the Mormon Church is allowed to eject you for religious speech they dislike. No swearing, no smoking, no handing out pamphlets they don't like. And the Mormon-controled government went along with selling it to them.

Tell me again about freedom and privatizing the public sphere?

[Slippery Pete]

I guess theocracy is bad when it comes dressed in turbans, but it's ok if it's dressed in short-sleeve white shirts and 6 ounces of Brylcream.

PLC - That's a good point. All I need Office 97 for is to install the UPGRADE I paid for, for Office 2002. So that's TWO programs I've paid hundreds of dollars for that I can't use because their crappy CDs begin disintegrating after 5 years, and now some a55hole in Utah wants to (lemme make sure I find the right quote...oh yeah, here it is) DESTROY MY COMPUTER if I attempt to replace it.

[LB]

"No swearing, no smoking, no handing out pamphlets they don't like."

Joe,
Sounds like my sister's house. Private property is a bitch. My objection to the deal was that SLC should have gotten a better deal - not what the Mormans want to do on it.

[joe]

LB,

"What kind of a lady do you think I am?"

"We've already established that, madam. Now we're just haggling over the price."

It's tough to argue about private property being the great equalizer when one well connected organization gets to have MAIN STREET as its private property. OK, you have security guards forbid tresspass to Democrats on MAIN STREET, and I'll stand in my kitchen and talk my toaster, and we'll have a wonderful marketplace of ideas going.

[Kevin Carson]

OK, you guys caught me. I've got about thirty bicycles in the crawl space under my house. You'll see my neighbors on the six o'clock news describing me as a "nice guy, real quiet, kept to himself."

P.S. Making fun of Jehovah's Witnesses is OK, too.

[Slippery Pete]

There's some cult (actually, numbers-wise, a sizeable religion) in Vietnam that worships Victor Hugo. They may safely be made fun of, too.

(Not that there's anything wrong with Victor Hugo.)

[Anonymous]

Take it easy on Kevin. Even the Puritans kicked the Mormons out.

[Sean]

I'm pretty sure Christian Scientists and the Amish are fair game too. And while not socially acceptable in some circles, it's pretty much ok to mock Quakers (sorry, Friends); like the Amish, they won't punch you.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Aw christ, leave the Amish out of it. They're cute, polite, and great at good old home-style cooking. Love those pretzels!

[Slipper Pete]

The Amish kids here in Ohio have taken to (I swear to GOD I am not making this up) loading their wagons up with car batteries, installing bitchin stereos with huge amps and subwoofers, and cruising up and the streets.

God bless America.

[Warren]

Slipper,
ROFL Simply unbelievable. I guess the practice of contorting your religion into a grotesque parody of itself just never gets old. I'd say we're only another three or four generations away from Amish death camps.

[quaker120]

Hatch's subtle understanding of due process is remarkable. Yeah, we need this guy on the Supreme Court.

More importantly, Hatch himself reported $18,000 in songwriting royalties last year. This raises conflict of interest concerns, but more importantly it raises a more ominous question: who the hell is paying money for this horrible, horrible shite music???

[M.Osmond]

Where did we take the turn toward bashing RELIGIONS?

We should be bashing POLITICIANS!

(As if either would do any good.)

[Sean]

What we need is a Capitol Hill staffer to start downloading music from Hatch's office, get his computer wiped outby some RIAA virus and get the bastards labelled as terrorists. Metallica would then have to be stripped searched every time they want to board a plane. Then the commercials,
"Buying corporate music supports terror,"

"I know, but it's kind of a complicated issue,"

"What's complicated? You buy the new Britney Spears album and some 7 year old girl takes two to the back of the head, any questions?"

Some one just needs to explain to Hatch that his way of thinking isn't helping the children, isn't that what it's all about?

[pong player]

You're right, Marie. Orin Hatch is simply another Beltway Bandit who happens to have been hatched in Mormon Country.

By the way, Slippery Pete, is Windows 97 any good?

I've been contemplating upgrading for a while now. I use Windows 95 with a dial-up connection, but find everything going much too slow. I get blue screens a lot, and when I play PacMan, it sometimes tends to freeze. Could you sell me your copy of Windows 97?

[Anonymous]

It would help children if Britney was still a minor.

[Kevin]

Hatch's next plan: exploding beer bottles for underage drinkers. Or have beer bottles already been outlawed in Utah?

[dude]

Kind of a tech question: In order to do this, the RIAA or the government or someone would need to hack into your computer. (We'll gloss over the fact that, at the moment, it is illegal for a private party to do that, if I understand correctly. . .)

So for this scheme to work, any sort of security measures(firewalls, etc.) which are designed to keep out hackers would also have to be illegal too? Or at least have a back door for the "good" hackers?

[joe]

Life imitates "Judge Dred."

[Anonymous]

Kevin, shut up and eat your spinach!

[Douglas Fletcher]

Is there a glossary somewhere for all these annoying abbreviations you see on discussion lists, like ROFL? I hate crap like that.

[joe]

Kevin, you are a fount. A fount, I tells ya.

Anyway, many religions have had genuine changes in philosophy (not just smokescreens) as a result of historical events.

[Kevin Carson]

That Quaker pacifism is just a smoke-screen. They were a militant sect that provided volunteer companies in the English Civil War. They just turned to political quietism after the Restoration to avoid attracting negative attention from the State.

Besides that, they threw a fit over a Quaker Oats commercial in which Popeye said "I'm Popeye the Quaker man!" and beat the shit out of Bluto. Any religion that objects to Popeye is me emeny!