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First step to action is communication. Politicians aren't mind readers, they need to communicate with their constituents to understand their wants. Whether or

First step to action is communication. Politicians aren't mind readers, they need to communicate with their constituents to understand their wants. Whether or not a petition is an effective means of communication I'm not qualified to answer, but it seems like a better option than doing nothing at all.

nateabele 14y ago
In response to both you and dragonwriter, those are all totally fair points. My thought is this might be a case of poorly-managed expectations. Specifically, people generally think of petitions as things where, given n signatures, some kind of action is going to be taken (as in 'the right to petition government for redress of grievances'). In that context, it's easy to forget that the most you can 'win' is a response. Hence, 'victory' feels hollow, which can take more energy away from a movement than not having had a petition to rally around in the first place. Hope that makes sense. I'm not arguing against the system itself, but I think it's overplaying its hand by calling itself a petition system.