Petition to Get Rid of Petitions.WhiteHouse.Gov

Bread &#38; Circuses.<p>You've finally realized this is yet another circus, what are you going to do differently?<p>(And remember, this was from the hope &#38; change guy in favor of transparency who now "personally signs off" (his words) on drone strikes on American citizens, extended &#38; expanded the PATRIOT Act, and made indefinite detention an actual law.)

I agree. I can't recount one serious thing that has come out of this petitions site. The only thing concrete to come out of this site is that they are not going to build a Death Star. Great. I can't believe they wasted money to answer that question. That being said, the Death Star question showed everyone that this site is a joke and likely won't result in any useful change.

I think I'm a cranky old man, because here's how I read most of the complaints about this website: "I care a lot about our democracy, but not enough to leave the house, do anything, or spend any money. Why doesn't anyone respect my opinion?"<p>There are a lot of ways to get involved in our democracy, but most of them are harder than tweeting.

Clever, despite the flippant title, they make a point:<p>"It is clear that this annoying and utterly useless website is designed to nothing more than channel political activism into a cul-de-sac, and therefore we request you stop this irritating sideshow and shut down petitions.whitehouse.gov."<p>I misread the UI and thought they had a lot more signatures.<p>Another somewhat similar petition cleared the 25,000 sig threshold in October. Here is what the White House said:<p><a href="https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/were-listening-seriously" rel="nofollow">https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/were-listening-ser...</a>

Petitioning to get answers from your government on all kinds of subjects is a ridiculous idea in the first place. It assumes that the Government is like your Mom or Dad and should have an answer to anything as long as enough of the kids ask the same thing. It is a sign that people are willing to delegate their responsibility to someone else making decisions (or answers, if you prefer, but that is the very same thing in the end) for them.<p>You do not need this. This is garbage site to entertain people in thinking they have a say in Power, while they clearly do not.

You know which site I check when I want to read about politics?<p>Hacker News.

I didn't think anyone could come up with a "petition" on this site that I would sign. I am delighted to be proved wrong.

This inspired me to finally sign up and read some of the other popular petitions. I am now vehemently in favor of this one.<p>(I like the one that wants to repeal the Bill of Rights so that you can't make fun of Moses, Mohammed, or Jesus. What? Who let these people onto the Internet anyway?)

The flaw of democracy is that the people can vote to end democracy.

Oh come on, the whole thing was worth it for that Death Star petition response.<p>;)

Is this really necessary for Hacker News to stoop to this level (politics)? Come on. The only relation the petitions site has to Hacker News is that it's on the internet. And, frankly, it's a childish gesture.<p>We can do better than this.

so.. meta

yes

I should start a petition to end petition posts petitioning to end petitions.

Wow. Just, wow.