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No doubt about it. I think that's great. I think societies are better served by a lot of passionate defenders of rights who don't quite get it right than by we
by xbar 3y ago
No doubt about it.
I think that's great. I think societies are better served by a lot of passionate defenders of rights who don't quite get it right than by well-educated, apathetic lawyers who watch their actual rights get trampled.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> societies are better served by a lot of passionate defenders of rights We don’t have this when it comes to privacy. Keyboard warriors, yes. Folks willing to make a call or write a letter, no. (Not in New York, Pennsylvania, Arizona or California, at least.)
- jkestner 3y agoResist.bot and 5 Calls make it easy. I find half the friction is finding the contact information.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> Resist.bot and 5 Calls make it easy Duplicate comms work if they’re a significant fraction of likely primary voters. If ten people send a form letter in, it gets shredded. It’s not enough to signal organisation potential, yet enough to signal the people won’t take the next step of organising themselves. Practically always, going to the elected’s website and submitting a short blurb is better than using a form. (Getting contact information usually involves just searching for the elected.)
- jkestner 3y agoCheck them out—they aren't form factories. Resist.bot is just an SMS-based interface to send emails or paper letters to politicians, designed to minimize friction. (At least the way I use it.) When I get pissed about some issue, having a single, quick interface where I can text any relevant politician my position is the difference between sending it and not.
- andy_ppp 3y agoI'm not convinced this will make much difference? When I have contacted my MP in the UK I get back very poor responses that are either generic or completely disputing everything I suggested. For example, if you have an evangelical member of congress there's little point in writing to them about a woman's right to choose. Can you name a time when letter writing or calling successfully changed the law? If we are honest only violent protest has ever really changed anything.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> Can you name a time when letter writing was successful? Yes, I’ve gotten text passes into federal law in America. People who call and write are willing to be organised by a primary opponent. Electeds take them seriously. (No clue for Britain.)
- andy_ppp 3y agoText passed? Okay I think people are further removed from democracy than in the states, as I understand it lots of options are voted on by people locally in the US. We have zero direct democracy in the UK, only representation. There is zero way for me to get text put into a UK law as far as I am aware!
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> as I understand it lots of options are voted on by people locally in the US Yes, absolutely. But I’m talking about federal law. Two foreign policy pieces and a number of domestic laws. In this respect, our Congressmen are as local as your MPs.
- andy_ppp 3y agoI really do not think the MPs write the actual laws (a civil servant does that with some quite vague direction from elected officials) let alone allow the people contribute to them.
- username332211 3y agoThat's an interesting viewpoint. Can you name other public policy issues, where it's preferable that decisions are made by the emotional and ignorant?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]