Hacker News Reader

Comment by easymovet | Hacker News Reader

Lets keep the discussion positive. Understand I'm not a political science major or a fancy debater, I don't claim to poses more than average intellegence, I'm just asking a question, hoping someone with more knowledge on the matter has an answer. After working to provide for the family I don't have a lot of free time to commit to politics if that's what you mean by 'participate more actively', is that the only course of action?

View on HN

Do you contact your congressman, local government, or other representative body about how you want them to vote on any particular law? They're a phone call away.

That's a good idea. I've written a few letters before, but never felt like I had the skill set to argue about these points on the phone, I'm also an introvert so cold calling is not something that I choose to do very often.

Fortunately/unfortunately, there's no arguing on the phone involved. What happens is a junior staffer answers the phone and keeps a tally of which constituents come in on either side of an issue. Of course, if you're willing to make an extra effort, you can make an appointment to visit the congressperson's office, though unless you're a donor, you're unlikely to have much success meeting with the congressperson in person, but your voice would probably be heard louder nonetheless.

> After working to provide for the family I don't have a lot of free time to commit to politics if that's what you mean by 'participate more actively'

FYI, this is effectively deliberate. You're more useful to companies as a business asset rather than as a political force. It may be worthwhile for you to look into ways to pool resources with other people in order to get enough free time to commit more to politics.

Politicians (left and right) are pushed by strong forces. You can't just vote for someone who you believe is ethical and walk away, expecting that the power of that vote is sufficient to oppose those forces.

In other words, you were asking about a way to vote to fix this, and it's not fixable by a vote.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com