Comment by hristov | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hristov | Hacker News Reader

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I disagree with your main point. The petitions are a good idea. We know that some petitions are not going to change the government's mind. But just having a mechanism for getting the government to consider something and provide an official response is a good idea. Previous administrations would simply ignore things they were not interested in. And journalists who get admitted to white house press conferences can often be counted on to completely ignore subjects that were of no interest to either political party.

That being said, petitions do not solve everything and the other political actions you mentioned may be called for. But even then the petition helps, as it provides an official government response which may galvanize other political action.

The existence of a petition site is better than absolutely nothing. I'll even grant that a petition response isn't the right forum for addressing a personnel question. But like user 'btilly' says below, "The wording of the petition may have been very specific, but it still provides an opportunity to address the issue."

There are smart people at the White House and they understand the intent and emotional response behind the petition. To lean on the TOS to avoid a substantive response to issues raised by Aaron's case is callous disregard for the 60,000 people who signed.

I would say a petition site that almost always results in nothing changing is worse than absolutely nothing. People signing a useless petition makes them feel as if they've done something, which usually leads them to do nothing more on the matter. When, in fact, they've actually done nothing to help the cause they think they are helping. Without the useless petition some of these people might have done something else that might have actually helped in some way.

At the very least it provides a venue to gauge support, allows people to spread awareness of an issue, and causes the petition signers to think more about the situation than a passive dismissal.

Yes, those are wonderful best case examples. I, on the other hand, don't have much faith that those things happen all that often.

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