Yes, Erick Erickson of Redstate.com and Kos are both advocating for the same thing: the defeat of the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House. Now Erickson is upping the ante - he wants to raise funds to primary the bill's Republican cosponsor, a winger he otherwise "loves."
More below the doodle.
What's the problem with a bill to stop online piracy? The goal is to protect copyright holders and the bill would allow government shutdowns of violating websites. But the implications are far reaching. Here's Kos on SOPA:
It is literally an existentialist threat for Daily Kos and any other site with user-generated content, from Facebook, to Reddit, to tumblr, Sound Cloud or YouTube.
Why? Because of what I'm doing right now, publishing a diary. What if I decided to republish an entire Maureen Dowd column in this diary? (I would never do that - not worth the pixels). That could be deemed illegal piracy and the site could be blocked in the U.S.
Here's Erick Erickson's proposal to target the bill's cosponsors on the left and the right:
This battle is so important — and is one of those rare fights where the left and right are united against Congress — that I suggest the left and right unite and pledge to defeat in primaries every person named as a sponsor on H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act.
It’s actually a simple idea.
Everyone on the left and right who is interested should pledge $10.00 per candidate, or $321.00. If that’s too much, just pledge $10.00.
A fund should be created and the left should go out and find candidates to take on the Democrat sponsors. The right should go out and find candidates to take on the Republican sponsors. Heck, maybe Act Blue would let us on the right come by and we can all use their pre-existing platform (a platform no one on the right has even been able to really compete with. Seriously, I’m a big admirer).
If the liberal blogosphere decided to adopt this approach one target would be the bill's Democratic cosponsor, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the current head of the DNC - a big fish indeed.
More from Kos:
In the House, Nancy Pelosi has come out against the bill, which proves that this is not an ideological battle. And it shouldn't be—no one outside Hollywood is served by destroying the internet. Social media has been key in the rise of both the tea party and the Occupy movements, as well as pro-democracy movements from the Ukraine to Egypt.
Erickson concludes this way:
This might mean some allies are taken out. It might mean we take out Marsha Blackburn on the right and Debbie Wasserman Schultz on the left.
But sometimes a fight is that important. Killing SOPA is that important.....
Congress has proven it does not understand the internet. Perhaps they will understand brute strength against them at the ballot box.
If members of Congress do not pull their name from co-sponsorship of SOPA, the left and right should pledge to defeat each and every one of them.