Thoughts on Intellectual Property

Dennis Prager is adamant - if you use an idea that you first heard from him, you should essentially cite him in your conversation. I disagree entirely. If I am turning in an academic paper, or attempting to publish a work for income, I agree. However, in verbal conversation and blogdom, I think it is actually counterproductive.

Here is why: If I propose an idea, and note that I got the idea from Josef Stalin, I expect to receive a very different response than if I note that I got it from Teddy Roosevelt, John Locke, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Plato or Christ. In each of those cases, the response is more likely to be a result of the source of the position than the actual position.

Mark over at The Moderate Liberal tries (he says) to consider GWB ideas as if they were proposed by Clinton. However, I don't think we are able to separate our consideration of ideas from the emotions we have about the personality.

Thus, I am a plagiarist. Sometimes I will hijack an entire block quote and use it as my own here. Why? Because I seek people's reactions to the idea, not the personality. I suppose I should add a disclaimer on my site that mentions this. Incidentally, if I used Google Ads to try to make money from my blog, I would have to stop this practice.