So I'm an engineer for a living which means I'm probably about as politically (un)knowledgeable as most people here, but do all of our "calls to action" seem hopelessly naive to anyone else?

I mean take the first example: elimination of software patents. This is great and I would like this to happen, too. A pretty significant problem, however, is that some of the most successful and most powerful American companies are built around these laws and prop up these laws, help write these laws, etc.

Does anyone believe our legal system is going to say: "Sorry, Microsoft (Apple, IBM, whoever), all the billions you spent on software patents and legal fees and all the money you earn from them is gone. We've decided software patents are unfair so that massive part of your business is now invalid."

We can sit around all day outlining what we think would be the most fair policies. It is all irrelevant if we can't define a path to get there.