It's rather sad that knowledge and education is seen as elitist by so many here in the US of A. But this is an opportunity for those who are. It doesn't take a lot to get on someone's good side and gain their trust (then exploit the same for your own gain). As it stands, one need only quote a few Bible verses (preferably the ones that state that gays are bad) and you'll practically have the the vote of everyone south of the Mason-Dixon line (yes, I know that's not the end-all be-all north-south delimiter but, whatever). You can quote a few line of text from and environmentalist's (like Al Gore) book and/or speech, preach equality and the awesome power of diversity and gain the votes of city dwellers. It will help to say a few catchy words, such as "vote for me" or yes we can" in Spanish/Mandarin/Cantonese/Hindi/Arabic at this point as well. Once you get into office, make sure the economy is stable enough (if not, get it to that point) that people want to go out and buy things. If the primary political focus of the American people is on the who the president was getting a blowy from in the oval office, everything is fine. -- The Singular law of American politics: People have a very short memory span.

Interesting, but then the case could be made that every car company is enabling drivers to break the legal speed limit by allowing cars to go faster than 55 MPH (or, at least, had been since the 55 MPH limit was a nationwide law in the US until not long ago).
A good defense attorney should be able to get around the RIAA if they make this argument.

Seriously, all this comes down to is politics. He gains votes from his party folks come election time since he lifted a ban placed by someone who did so to gain votes from HIS party folks at election time. There's no morality here and more significantly there will be zero progress since every fund-raising organization will continue with the perpetual tag line, "we're very close to a cure for and many researchers believe we'll see a cure in our lifetimes... so please give generously".

Hello Computer People. I need some help. I had the Ubuntu installed on my computer. To get to the internets, I have to click a fox icon. I don't like foxes but I have no choice since this is what the Ubuntu installed on my computer. Since there are intelligent computer people here, please tell me how I can cope with this. I have written to my government people and I hope they can force the Ubuntu to remove the fox icon from my computer. I want to use something else but I cannot until the fox is gone - correct? The fox and Oprah cannot co-exist on the same computer (Oprah doesn't like foxes either - she said it on her show). Thank you in advance for your help.

The knife analogy, while a good try, is a bad one. A knife does one single thing and has a single interface (you hold the handle and slice away). A computer and it's operating system on the other hand have MANY moving part (literal and figurative). A better (not perfect, though) analogy would be an automobile. Would you be content with driving around in a Ford Model-T on todays highways and roads? Would you be willing to give heat and air conditioning in your car and go back to the "old" tried and true ways of road transport?

It's not extraordinarily difficult to gain access to the roof. Once one has reached THAT level of desperation, an alarm going off isn't going to stop them from opening the door.