Petition to Get Rid of Petitions.WhiteHouse.Gov | Hacker News Reader

Petition to Get Rid of Petitions.WhiteHouse.Gov

petitions.whitehouse.gov

57 pointsatuladhar29 comments

Bread & Circuses.

You've finally realized this is yet another circus, what are you going to do differently?

(And remember, this was from the hope & change guy in favor of transparency who now "personally signs off" (his words) on drone strikes on American citizens, extended & expanded the PATRIOT Act, and made indefinite detention an actual law.)

As long as you have an electoral system that erects such high barriers to entry for 3rd parties, there will not be adequate competition and the customers (citizens) will suffer.

I remember Bill Maher being very critic of Obama, then completely switching into full Democrats-must-win mode because the Republicains were way worse =/

Is it not possible to realize the lesser of two evils while still calling out the lesser evil on its faults?

I agree. I can't recount one serious thing that has come out of this petitions site. The only thing concrete to come out of this site is that they are not going to build a Death Star. Great. I can't believe they wasted money to answer that question. That being said, the Death Star question showed everyone that this site is a joke and likely won't result in any useful change.

I agree, though I'm not especially fired up about the death star question. If the site were taken more seriously it would have been nice to see a lighter side. Instead that seems to be the only side.

One sad thing is that this is one of the few petitions I've seen that actually should be addressed to the White House.

I think I'm a cranky old man, because here's how I read most of the complaints about this website: "I care a lot about our democracy, but not enough to leave the house, do anything, or spend any money. Why doesn't anyone respect my opinion?"

There are a lot of ways to get involved in our democracy, but most of them are harder than tweeting.

Clever, despite the flippant title, they make a point:

"It is clear that this annoying and utterly useless website is designed to nothing more than channel political activism into a cul-de-sac, and therefore we request you stop this irritating sideshow and shut down petitions.whitehouse.gov."

I misread the UI and thought they had a lot more signatures.

Another somewhat similar petition cleared the 25,000 sig threshold in October. Here is what the White House said:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/were-listening-ser...

I think you misread the UI. It currently has ~270 signatures, and needs the remaining 99730 to reach the threshold.

Yes, I originally misread it, and edited my reply.

Another reason to shut it down!

Petitioning to get answers from your government on all kinds of subjects is a ridiculous idea in the first place. It assumes that the Government is like your Mom or Dad and should have an answer to anything as long as enough of the kids ask the same thing. It is a sign that people are willing to delegate their responsibility to someone else making decisions (or answers, if you prefer, but that is the very same thing in the end) for them.

You do not need this. This is garbage site to entertain people in thinking they have a say in Power, while they clearly do not.

> It is a sign that people are willing to delegate their responsibility to someone else making decisions (or answers, if you prefer, but that is the very same thing in the end) for them.

This is basically the entire premise behind a representative democracy, is it not?

Yes, and I do not, personally, condone the current state of representation. There are several ways on how to manage decision-making in large communities and this is not the only one possible, especially in the 21st century with the communication tools we now possess. If the internet changes the way we shop, we travel, we connect with our friends, the way we entertain ourselves, why do we keep doing politics the same 18th century way ? (rhetorical question)

No, it isn't. The purpose of representative democracy is to add a layer of public accountability to political institutions, in order to pre-empt and suppress abuses of power.

The purpose of democracy is not to provide overriding legitimacy for any and every use of power, nor to create a nexus of external responsibility to which every question, irrespective of its nature or native context, can be outsourced without deleterious consequence.

Government is a single, well-defined institution within society, and democracy is a method for keeping that institution within its appropriate boundaries.

You know which site I check when I want to read about politics?

Hacker News.

I didn't think anyone could come up with a "petition" on this site that I would sign. I am delighted to be proved wrong.

This inspired me to finally sign up and read some of the other popular petitions. I am now vehemently in favor of this one.

(I like the one that wants to repeal the Bill of Rights so that you can't make fun of Moses, Mohammed, or Jesus. What? Who let these people onto the Internet anyway?)

The flaw of democracy is that the people can vote to end democracy.

No, the flaw of democracy is that people can't vote to end democracy.

Or perhaps, after the initial generation, nobody in the democracy voted to have democracy in the first place. We are slaves to the whims of men long dead.

Oh come on, the whole thing was worth it for that Death Star petition response.

;)

Is this really necessary for Hacker News to stoop to this level (politics)? Come on. The only relation the petitions site has to Hacker News is that it's on the internet. And, frankly, it's a childish gesture.

We can do better than this.

to be fair, of all the different petition.whitehouse.gov links that have popped up in the past couple of weeks, this is the only one i care about.

This I can understand.

so.. meta

yes

I should start a petition to end petition posts petitioning to end petitions.

Wow. Just, wow.

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