I know you are oozing with jealousy, but that blur just to the left of the blur that is my face is the senior senator from Utah. This snapshot was taken at a taping of The Music and The Spoken Word where somehow I ended up about six seats and a small aisle away from the senator. This, I have to say, is the extent of my physical exposure.
However, there is slightly more to the story. As we drove into Salt Lake City last weekend, something sparked a chain of thoughts that ended with “You know, I hate Orrin Hatch.”
The response: “Why?”
The witty return: “Uhh.. I.. uh.. I.. don’t know. I.. uh.. think he did something I didn’t like.”
I sat for a few moments and I couldn’t think of one single reason. This smacked of ill-formed, ignorant opinions and generic biased thinking, so I started to do some research. To be honest, I have not put a big amount of research into the senator, but I did a little research to try to understand who he is a little better.
So I found what he did that made me feel some kind of dislike for him: his staunch view on copyright laws. Now, for the record, I am not a zealot about copyright law. I do think the system is broken, but I don’t really know why–and, really, I have not put a lot of time to study it. But what I know is that I believe people should be paid for their work–and really, it is up to the individual artist to decide this. If they want to give it away, great. If they want to charge you ten cents for every second the music is played, great. I won’t spend money on the latter and the artist probably won’t make any money.
Orrin Hatch aggitated a lot of people (let’s call them The Internet) because he sided strongly with big music and movie companies in the debate surrounding filesharing, which of course still rages strong today. I couldn’t tell you what they are anymore, but the things I read about what he was doing certainly made me angry. But, uhm, I don’t remember what they were. Should I still be angry? Hey! It turns out I’m not angry anymore, just biased, thought I find myself using such a strong word like hate. I don’t really approve of that, it turns out.
And, lo and behold, the man is a musician in his own right and has several music copyrights and has actually made some money from the business. I remember people clammoring about how he was in the pocket of the RIAA/etc and that may even be true, but I think it’s not a small detail that he has a personal interest in the process. Now, many people would stand up and shout about conflict of interest and such, but I think I’d have to disagree. We need people with passion and vested interest to be in government service. That’s part of what this country is built on: it’s supposed to be regular people in government. Now that’s totally not how it works and I’m not even trying to suggest that someone like Orrin Hatch is a “regular person”… clearly he’s spent his life in government and he plays the game, but I can’t support an argument which would tie his personal interests and pursuits to a conflict of interest with his legislative aims. That doesn’t mean, though, that I agree anymore with his strong stance.
Okay, so now I feel sheepish for really uncovering my own failing and I find myself feeling much more neutral about the senator. What is there to learn? He sponsered the “Hatch-Waxman” act. What’s this? From the unverisal fountain of truth that is wikipedia, it is apparently the law which made our modern system of generic drugs. Now, again, our drug and health care system is completely out of whack–that is to say almost broken beyond repair–but I don’t know anyone who does not appreciate generic drugs. And, in fact, I find it pretty amazingly how quickly generic drugs can make it to the market and so I find this in potential conflict with the efforts he has made with copyright reform. But, then again, I hardly know anything about the generics and pharmaceuticals, so I could be totally and completely wrong.
It also turns out that, and I did some research on this one after reading it wikipedia, he’s a supporter of stem cell research! That’s pretty awesome. He is pro-life, yet pro-stem cell research. That’s refreshing. For the record: I am 100% in favor of stem cell research.
So what did I learn about Orrin Hatch? Not much, really. I learned there are some things I like and some things I dislike. That’s really true with most people. If I looked closer at the issues and his positions, I’m sure I’d feel much stronger about my view of him as a legislator, but the truth be told, this wasn’t about Orrin Hatch. It was about myself and my own biases. I learned more about the fact that I took a few headlines and turned them into disdain for someone which I never even bothered to research. That’s not cool. It’s that kind of attitude which makes bickering, fighting, and war. People don’t taken enough to learn about the people they are dealing with or the reasons those people do what they do–and that ignorance is used as a foundation to build hate and further misunderstanding.