Open Left

The other day, I wondered why more tech-savvy lefties were not more outspoken against Michael Capuano's objectively dumb proposals for Internet use in the House. Matt Stoller has now spoken out pretty strongly against Capuano. He has followed up with a response to some internal criticism that's popped up on Open Left.

Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) was perfectly right in sounding the alarm about this. Even though the Capuano rules are technically a loosening of existing standards, they would create some very bad precedents, including a narrow focus on existing services like YouTube and an inherent distrust of advertising-supported Web startups.

For a minute, I was a little worried that we were seeing the tech-savvy Anti-Stupid Coalition balkanize into red and blue camps. What is the Anti-Stupid Coalition? It's a group of tech-savvy activists in both parties who will set aside party labels when one of our own does something objectively stupid with technology or government transparency. Republican online operatives like myself have been unafraid to speak out when the party isn't doing all it can to harness the medium. It's good to see that not every techno-progressive is circling the wagons around Capuano, as I initially feared.

But what strikes me about Stoller's rant against bureaucratic stupidity is that it could so easily have been uttered by a conservative "leave me alone" type: