Rockstar
02-19-2008, 03:28 AM
Online petitions are a nice idea and can often help to increase public awareness of a particular issue, but outside of that they are a complete waste of time. The value of an online petition for anyone in a position to institute change is absolute zero. It may as well be printed in invisible ink because no one is going to look at it anyway.
A tangible petition with real individual signatures signed in ink by the voting public and delivered to a politician dependent upon the opinions of that public can sometimes -but only sometimes- be effective, but a printed e-document containing names like Zebo79 and BPK holds no merit whatsoever. Even if the online petition lists actual names, cities, email addresses, phone numbers, etc, there is no assurance that the list wasn't faked by a single person with a lot of time on his hands or random generator software. Trust me, an online petition is worth significantly less than a generic roll of toilet paper.
If you truly desire to make a difference, you can start by writing letters to politicians, news people, and anyone in a position of influence. Beyond that, there are a million things you can do to be heard...use your imagination. Online petitions are nothing more than a way for slackers to feel like they've done a good deed when in fact they've done nothing at all.
A tangible petition with real individual signatures signed in ink by the voting public and delivered to a politician dependent upon the opinions of that public can sometimes -but only sometimes- be effective, but a printed e-document containing names like Zebo79 and BPK holds no merit whatsoever. Even if the online petition lists actual names, cities, email addresses, phone numbers, etc, there is no assurance that the list wasn't faked by a single person with a lot of time on his hands or random generator software. Trust me, an online petition is worth significantly less than a generic roll of toilet paper.
If you truly desire to make a difference, you can start by writing letters to politicians, news people, and anyone in a position of influence. Beyond that, there are a million things you can do to be heard...use your imagination. Online petitions are nothing more than a way for slackers to feel like they've done a good deed when in fact they've done nothing at all.