{"id":37514,"date":"2011-12-20T16:45:45","date_gmt":"2011-12-20T16:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/the-fact-that-there-was-any-debate-over-whether-to\/"},"modified":"2011-12-20T16:45:45","modified_gmt":"2011-12-20T16:45:45","slug":"the-fact-that-there-was-any-debate-over-whether-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/the-fact-that-there-was-any-debate-over-whether-to\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>The fact that there was <i>any<\/i> debate over whether to call in experts on such a matter should tell you something about the integrity of Congress. It\u2019d be one thing if legitimate technical questions directed at the bill\u2019s supporters weren\u2019t met with either silence or veiled accusations that the other side was sympathetic to piracy. Yet here we are with a group of elected officials openly supporting a bill they can\u2019t explain, and having the temerity to suggest there\u2019s no need to \u201cbring in the nerds\u201d to suss out what\u2019s actually on it\u2026 The chilling takeaway of this whole debacle was the irrefutable air of anti-intellectualism; that inescapable absurdity that we have members of Congress voting on a technical bill who do not posses any technical knowledge on the subject and do not find it imperative to recognize those who do.<\/p>\n<p>\nThis used to be funny, but now it\u2019s really just terrifying. We\u2019re dealing with legislation that will completely change the face of the internet and free speech for years to come. Yet here we are, still at the mercy of underachieving Congressional know-nothings that have more in common with the slacker students sitting in the back of math class than elected representatives. The fact that some of the people charged with representing us must be dragged kicking and screaming out of their complacency on such matters is no longer endearing \u2014 it\u2019s just pathetic and sad. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class='attribution'>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/2011\/12\/16\/dear-congress-it-s-no-longer-ok-to-not-know-how-the-internet-works\">Joshua Kopstein, Dear Congress, It\u2019s No Longer OK To Not Know How The Internet Works<\/a> (via <a class=\"tumblr_blog\" href=\"http:\/\/drinkyourjuice.tumblr.com\/\">drinkyourjuice<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>It was ever endearing? Or even funny?<\/p>\n<p>(via <a class=\"tumblr_blog\" href=\"http:\/\/14kgoldnyc.tumblr.com\/\">14kgoldnyc<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The fact that there was any debate over whether to call in experts on such a matter should tell you something about the integrity of Congress. It\u2019d be one thing if legitimate technical questions directed at the bill\u2019s supporters weren\u2019t met with either silence or veiled accusations that the other side was sympathetic to piracy. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[],"tags":[1539],"class_list":["post-37514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-quote","hentry","tag-emergent-digital-practices","post_format-post-format-quote"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6PWot-9L4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}