they should have had a petition to decide if they want to raise this!
White House raises petition signature threshold to 100K
61–70 of 133 posts
Re: White House raises petition signature threshold to 100K
#62Makes sense. In the UK we need 100k signatures and the population is obviously much smaller. The government probably got tired of having to respond to things like building the Death Star.
> got tired of having to respond to things like building the Death Star. Their loss, really. I'm half joking - putting more money into space research might net us interesting things like cheaper energy (solar panels with no atmosphere or clouds to obscure them) and materials (asteroid mining). A major space station would certainly help with that.
interesting you mention space research - the only real reason the US of A made it to the moon is because of the cold war.
Perhaps it does take an "enemy" to focus the efforts of a nation. And with the fairly peaceful times now (at least, for the major powerhouses), that doesn't seem at all likely.
Re: White House raises petition signature threshold to 100K
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Representative democracy is just that: representative, not direct. You have people who represent a whole body (district/state/whatever), not a drone that will pull a lever when you tell him to. They should try to determine what their whole electorate wants, not just the majority of it, and then faithfully represent that point of view in various ways, which is not just voting or fielding new laws. Petitioning, per se…
> They should try to determine what their whole electorate wants I'd argue that they should determine what they whole electorate wants... but they should be striving for what their whole electorate needs. It may not get them re-elected, but getting re-elected isn't "supposed" to be their job, doing what's best for the people they represent is. Sadly, none of that seems even close to common practice.
Yeah, there is an ongoing debate on the meaning of "representation", of course. After all, most electoral systems are based on geographical locations, but actual politicians usually belong to specific parties "representing" different political philosophies, so there's a friction even at a theoretical level. Add to that the vagaries of actual electoral rules (first-past-the-post etc etc) and an inevitable dose of human nature (corruption, ambition etc), and you have a recipe for the clusterfuck that is modern representative democracy.
Unfortunately, the few alternative models emerging in the last century (usually just variations on one-party rule, really) backfired quite spectacularly, so we're nowhere near finding better solutions to the problem.
Re: White House raises petition signature threshold to 100K
#64It started out at 5,000 signatures. Then it went to 25k. Now it's 100k?
For some reason I'm reminded of Colonel Carthcart in Catch-22[1], who continually raised the number of missions crew had to fly to complete a tour of duty. It's almost like the Whitehouse put the site up to listen to and respond to the people that elected them, but has to raise the barriers so that it doesn't have to listen to and respond to the people that elected them. If that's not Catch-22 in the US government, t…
Oh, i thought he was the guy in charge of copyright expiration!
Re: White House raises petition signature threshold to 100K
#65Petitions are encouraged precisely because they're completely ineffective: a safety valve to allow people to believe they're effecting change when in fact nothing is changing. If petitions actually worked, they'd be banned.
Maybe that's how their interpreted by many but my personal interpretation is optimistic, but different.
Pretend you're a government official. Every day you have several dozen, if not hundreds or more "requests" made of your office. Fix this. Change that. Ban it too!
It all just blurs together. Eventually you need to filter the noise, "these quacks are all just in it for themselves. I represent the people, I need to know what the people want!" you may say to yourself. How can you tell what the people want. Well, get them to rally together, show that there is support for the clause to "Ban it!"
How could we do that? Perhaps by getting everyone interested to express said interest. What's the threshold of people you're willing to listen to though? 25,000? That seems right. But suddenly, every cause can rally 25,000 people without issue, we're back to the initial issue: too much signal:noise. So we increase the threshold; only the issues that people really care about will make it through.
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I never actually believed the petitions were doing much good. The 80% "legalize pot", 5% "admit you have aliens", 5% "no really, legalize pot", and another 4% of equal garbage petitions seemed to ruin the system for everyone.
Re: White House raises petition signature threshold to 100K
#66FWIW, I highly doubt that this has anything to do with the Aaron Swartz petitions. It's more likely because of the recent petitions to build a Death Star, secede from the Union, protect the Sasquatch as an indigenous species, and (I shit you not) petitions to "stop white genocide".
Wont this kind of petitions always get more votes than ones about serious issues? If so what does raising the bar help?
Re: White House raises petition signature threshold to 100K
#67Whether the threshold is 100K or 100M, nothing has happened yet as a result of a "successful" petition. Sure, the stupid petitions give them a chance to giggle at the rubes. The most reasonable petitions get essentially the same reaction, however. ["Legalize pot? I think we can guess what they were smoking when they signed that one! Hahahaha!"] As much as I wish it were otherwise, I expect the same for the current "f…
> Whether the threshold is 100K or 100M, nothing has happened yet as a result of a "successful" petition.
This isn't true. For example, the White House had been intentionally silent on the issue of SOPA until two petitions pushed it to take a stand, which had a not small impact on the outcome of the legislation.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/01/14/obama-administrati...
> The most reasonable petitions get essentially the same reaction, however. ["Legalize pot? I think we can guess what they were smoking when they signed that one! Hahahaha!"]
Please cite examples. I am aware of two responses to marijuana legalization petitions. Both were reasonable, respectful, and laid out why the White House disagreed with the petitioners.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/support-law-protec...
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/legalize-and-regul...
Re: White House raises petition signature threshold to 100K
#68Whether the threshold is 100K or 100M, nothing has happened yet as a result of a "successful" petition. Sure, the stupid petitions give them a chance to giggle at the rubes. The most reasonable petitions get essentially the same reaction, however. ["Legalize pot? I think we can guess what they were smoking when they signed that one! Hahahaha!"] As much as I wish it were otherwise, I expect the same for the current "f…
Representative democracy is just that: representative, not direct. You have people who represent a whole body (district/state/whatever), not a drone that will pull a lever when you tell him to. They should try to determine what their whole electorate wants, not just the majority of it, and then faithfully represent that point of view in various ways, which is not just voting or fielding new laws. Petitioning, per se…
We have direct democracy in California and the world isn't ending. I think essentially you just gather enough signatures for an issue and it gets put to a direct vote on the same ballot as the presidential elections.
Although it's by no means perfect (what is?), it does help solve the problem of special interests being able to buy politicians.
Re: White House raises petition signature threshold to 100K
#69Petitions are encouraged precisely because they're completely ineffective: a safety valve to allow people to believe they're effecting change when in fact nothing is changing. If petitions actually worked, they'd be banned.
Petitions for Ballot Propositions have radically reshaped California's government over the last several decades.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_ballot_propo...
Re: White House raises petition signature threshold to 100K
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Representative democracy is just that: representative, not direct. You have people who represent a whole body (district/state/whatever), not a drone that will pull a lever when you tell him to. They should try to determine what their whole electorate wants, not just the majority of it, and then faithfully represent that point of view in various ways, which is not just voting or fielding new laws. Petitioning, per se…
We have direct democracy in California and the world isn't ending. I think essentially you just gather enough signatures for an issue and it gets put to a direct vote on the same ballot as the presidential elections. Although it's by no means perfect (what is?), it does help solve the problem of special interests being able to buy politicians.
I'm not incredibly familiar with CA, but I'd argue you probably have some provisions for direct democracy, akin to referenda or people-proposed laws in some European countries. The main system is still fundamentally representative in nature.