SIS: It's too bad SB Nation didn't join in the internet blackout today

This issue is too important to not spread to the far ends of the interwebs. We face a very serious threat to freedom of expression this week, one that transcends party and ideological lines. SOPA and PIPA will, in effect, end the internet as we know it. If these bills were to pass, this site and many others would risk being shut down (nobody on this site creates those images of internet memes themselves.)

The Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, the US Chamber of Commerce, and a bunch of media conglomerates are leading the drive to censor the internet in a way that rivals what authoritarian regimes in other countries do. One congressman even said he WANTS to make the internet more like China's version.

Tech companies oppose these bills - you know, people who understand how the internet actually works. The dinosaurs in Congress who support these bills do so for one of two reasons: 1. they don't know how to turn on a computer, let alone use the internet (a series of tubes), or 2. they love money from the MPAA, RIAA, or Chamber (the author of the bill, Lamar from Texas, gets most of his campaign money from MPAA, for example.)

People are always using the phrase "freedom isn't free." Well, it's true. But it's not only soldiers who bear the responsibility. It's all of us. We've let our democracy run amuck because too many Americans don't participate in it. Democracy isn't just voting or putting a bumpersticker on your car. Heck, most of the world has elections, but you don't see too many real democracies outside of the Western world. Our representatives don't listen to us anymore because they don't have informed consituencies making sure they are representing them.

So participate. Don't let Congress ruin Red Reporter and the Internet. Call your Congressmoron and tell him/her to oppose SOPA and PIPA and any bill that attempts to censor the internet. And remember, under this bill, downloading one Michael Jackson song could get you five years in jail, one more than the doctor who killed him.