Comment by jlangenauer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jlangenauer | Hacker News Reader

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It's not an argument that "democracy" doesn't work, it's an argument that the current institutional arrangements aren't really democracy - at least in the sense that the public are actually directly or indirectly governing themselves.

Now, in that sense, let's review exactly how "our"[] government measures up: Individual citizens or groups of citizens have minimal means of influencing their own government through the means of the system - i.e. their representatives. Petitions change nothing, letters to representations to MPs / Congresspeople will receive a form reply and will usually be ignored. Occasionally, when public sentiment doesn't conflict too badly with economic interests, minor tweaks can be made, but that's about it.

Where real change has occurred, it has been done so outside* the institutional parameters of the system. The abolition of slavery took a civil war, and the vote for women and civil rights took massive public protests, illegal acts and (in the case of the suffragettes in the UK) hunger strikes.

So yes, change is possible. But it was never achieved within the confines of a system largely designed and evolved (I contend) to limit public participation, and certainly not by online petitions.

[*] Not everyone is from the US, y'know.

> Not everyone is from the US, y'know.

Incredibly valid point. The angry rant above was hastily written (typos and all) in response to a thread about a change to US public policy. That's my excuse as to why I got it wrong, not an attempt to say that I actually got it right.

> The abolition of slavery took a civil war

The actual passage of the amendment took an act of democracy, however, that still had to overcome mountains of entrenched interests even with the South temporarily out of the picture.

> and the vote for women and civil rights took massive public protests, illegal acts and (in the case of the suffragettes in the UK) hunger strikes.

All of which worked to change public opinion, and pass those bills through the democratic process.

My angry rant was probably less towards your statement than similar ones that I've heard too many times. So I apologize for directing it all at you.

I do strictly disagree that if petitions worked, they'd be banned, however. Petitions are nothing new; the only thing about Obama's site is the ease with which they can be made and the promise of a response. And petitions have worked in the past to effect change either directly, by making those in power aware of people's strongly held petitions, or indirectly, by helping to raise awareness and eventually changing policy by swaying opinion. They do work, if they have enough support.

I know you weren't explicitly making this argument, but many were complaining about how terrible it was that 25,000 signature petitions weren't effecting real change. The US is a nation of over 314,000,000 people. It would be madness if any 25,000 member subset of them could meaningfully coerce the government to action. I'm happy that the bar is being raised to 100,000. I kind of hope it gets raised to something higher. Once you start being able to describe the number in terms of millions it starts carrying real weight. And if people know that that's what they have to shoot for, they'll be more likely to achieve to it.

There's a follow-on effect too, that organizing to get 100k signatures for anything, even the death star petition, creates networks of activists. Some of them stay active afterwards.

Petitions are like polls. And politicians certainly follow polls.

Big ships turn slowly, some patience is required to see the effect of steering. Many changes in society look quick and immediate only when clouded by the shortened perspective of looking tens or hundreds of years back in the history.

> the current institutional arrangements aren't really democracy

Well, not in the Greek sense; the US system was designed to lead to good governance, and to protect personal freedom, neither of which are preserved in a true Democracy.

the US is not a democracy; it is a constitutional republic. Some states have more of a democratic bent to them with initiatives, but you will never see the federal government institute initiatives. As we all know: we do not vote for president, we vote for representatives to vote for president. We also do not make laws: we vote for representatives to make our laws.

While the opposition against SOPA was not a petition, would you not argue that it was a democratic victory?

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