Fallacies

Is Anyone Truly Original?

In Lawrence Lessig's TED Talk on laws that choke creativity he discusses the copyright laws that prevent modern artists to use online content to create new works. However works that use part of the content of copyrighted works are illegal and can be removed from websites. This is questionable because someone who remixes a song is not trying to pass the original song off as their own but use the inspiration and content of the original work and alter it to make it their own. This has been happening since the beginning of time. Artists always received inspiration for their works based on other content they have experience. Some works may be based off an original but it is impossible to that the original was not based off of something else. It is unfair for artists to create works with someone else's content and not credit the artist that they were inspired by. For example Vanilla Ice sampled part of Queen and David Bowie's Under Pressure for his song Ice Ice Baby and did not give credit to the original artists. That was unfair to Queen and Bowie as they worked hard to come up with that catchy guitar tune just to have it stolen. However they probably used some other artists work to inspire theres. No work is truly an original. Today copyright laws and websites prevent works from being published if they use a piece of another artists work. It seems like this is a new occurrence but has been happening forever only now it is able to be regulated. Artists should give credit where credit is due but still be able to create new content based on other's work.

We Want Your Vote, We Need Your Money

          Politicians are constantly calling supporters to try to get donations from them. While it sometimes seems as if they are doing this for their own personal profit or benefit they are actually required to raise funds for their political parties. John Oliver on his show Last Week Tonight discusses the topic of Congressional Fundraising. Oliver tells that the fundraisers themselves have become part of the economy of Washington DC. The restaurants that host the functions rely on the fundraisers as a main part of their income. While it is excellent for the politicians to be supporting the local businesses and helping the economy. Politicians are suggested to spend 4 hours a day making phone calls asking for donations. They do this in call centers that are set up with small cubicles and bad conditions. Oliver spoke with Senator Steve Israel who described the process as "a form of torture." These awful working conditions are similar to that of the early 1900s when workers we required to work long hours for low pay while being closely supervised by their employers. The politicians are so hard on the workers in the call centers because their political parties require them to pay fees that can total up 800,000. This money is often used to help the campaigns of less popular candidates in their party. While it is fair for the successful politicians to help the smaller ones they are required to raise ridiculous amounts of money. If a politician cannot win an office on their own they probably are not good enough to hold the office in the first place. The political party has created an almost socialist environment to support their democratic and republican ideals. The process seems to contradict itself and is ultimately unfair and ineffective.