On 12/26/2012 8:38 AM, Worrier Poet wrote:
On 12/25/2012 08:40 PM, Jerry Stuckle wrote:On 12/25/2012 5:12 PM, Worrier Poet wrote:On 12/25/2012 04:06 PM, Go Linux wrote:--- On Tue, 12/25/12, Max Hyre <max@hyre.net> wrote:From: Max Hyre <max@hyre.net> Subject: [OT?] Free Software petition on WhiteHouse.gov To: "Debian User mailing list" <debian-user@lists.debian.org> Date: Tuesday, December 25, 2012, 12:10 AM Dear Debianists: The U.S. president's website has a petition to support the use of Free Software in schools. It might be a good idea for us USAians to sign it: http://wh.gov/Rz6CToo bad signing requires registration with personal info. That's one DB I'd rather not be in. Of course I could fake it but deception is not in my nature . . .I think I understand these concerns. However, petitions used for getting bills started and placed before the U.S. House and Senate (or just for state legislatures or city councils) do have to have authenticated signature sources. Otherwise, it would be easy enough to fake a petition with almost any number of signatures. What's different about this (as compared to how we did it decades ago) is that the sign-up is done with an on line entity instead of with a local signature collector that you know, or are presumed to know. That's the additional risk. And, IIRC, whitehouse.gov has been compromised on at least one previous occasions. But so have many sites to whom many of us have given our credit card information. the worrierExcept this isn't how a bill gets introduced. The President cannot introduce any bill into Congress. Only Senators and Representatives can. The President can only request a bill be introduced. You want to get a bill introduced? Contact your Senators and Congressman. I, too, refuse to sign up on the White House site.Did you think I was trying to give a gov 101 course lecture? It's obvious that the whitehouse.gov site is interested in seeing what political capital any of the ideas might hold, and thus what ideas they might want to shop out for sponsorship. And the president obviously can get bills introduced to Congress. It's just done differently and less directly than the way a rep or sen does it -- for instance, by the process by which you allude to in your own message. And petitions signed at this site can have a real political effect.
Maybe you should live in the Washington, DC area like I do, and actually PARTICIPATE in the process. Have you ever spent any time in with the staff of either of your senators or your representative? Have you actually sat in the visitors' area during the session of either house? Have you ever attended a committee meeting?
Here's a bit of "Gov 101" for you. No, the President cannot introduce a bill into either house. Only the respective members of their houses can do it. The President can REQUEST a bill be introduced, and if someone agrees, they will do it.
As for the petitions. Just the fact they are on the White House site doesn't mean ANYONE is interested in them. These petitions are started by THE PEOPLE - not the White House - see https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/. The petitions are routinely ignored unless one party or the other needs them for political capital.
Sign, don't sign. Big deal. But just about everyone who's used the Internet for anything has "signed" in some way at even more "dangerous" sites -- and for less laudable causes. I don't think my point was that obtuse. People give their credit card data to poorly secured Web entities to buy Teletubbies, for pity's sake.
Maybe YOU do. I only give private information to known sites. You give your information to whomever you want.
You do have to take some risk in order to try to stand for any idea. One can argue points about where one can do the most effective risk-taking, but none of us really knows what's going to be done with even the best ideas and intentions, regardless of how one goes about trying to get them enacted -- especially when we're talking about government (or any other big industry).
I take risk. But I take it where it counts. And I participate in the government process. But I do it in a way that counts. Writing your congressman and senators has a much greater effect than signing a petition no one in the government cares about.
I've bought stuff at Amazon.com, and I signed the petition at whitehouse.gov. Just call me a serious risk-taker.
Or very naive.