[Air-L] gov. corruption issues Re: Air-L Digest, Vol 39, Issue 10

[Alexis Turner]

On Tue, 9 Oct 2007, Peter Timusk wrote:

::a thorny issue I better go check what Lessig is saying but if I come  
::back and say "oh another American pointing out how bad the rest of  
::the world is" then my point will only be stronger. Just because the  
::web makes things world wide does not make all issues global.

Thorny?  Really?

If you come back and say "oh another American pointing out how bad the rest of
the world is" your point will not be stronger.  It will still be just as 
boring as before, and about as useful as me saying "oh another non-American 
pointing out how bad America is." 

Look, quite frankly, taking potshots at America is taking potshots at the broad 
side of a barn.  It's easy to hit and it's probably satisfying (because you just 
hit something), but it's intellectually lazy.  There are a lot of interesting 
and relevant aspects to any ecosystem (intellectual, physical, natural, legal or 
other) that play off of each other in infintely complex ways.  Saying America 
sucks is an easy out because you don't have to work for it.  Appreciating IP 
issues for how they actually work at home, abroad, and between the two is a lot 
harder.  

There are some people on this list who have made interesting and useful 
observations.  Why not think about them and come up with an *actual* rejoinder 
to IP law, instead of one to a straw man?
-Alexis