Crackpot Petition Repository

[*Bob*]

I'm putting the Iaiaiain Duncan Smith one in.

Feel free to add any others as and when they arise.

[StraferJack]

Wouldn't you just go to a petition website and cut and paste 99% of them?

Suggesting the crackpot ones can be mined like hold nuggets is giving them too much kudos

[RosieH]

Why crackpot? No one actually thinks he'd do it. It's just a way of calling him out for being a cunt.

Without going to prison.

That's a good thing.

[*Bob*]

Fair enough - crackpot petitions with mass popular support then.

Not the 'we, the undersigned, call for for trepanning to be made available on the NHS' type.

[*Bob*]

RosieH Wrote:

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> Why crackpot? No one actually thinks he'd do it.

So you're reason for signing the petition has no relation or bearing on the content of the petition whatsoever?

Petitioning used to mean something. Now it's just like writing 'Jedi' on the census.

[Vicanna]

Has there ever been a documented case of an e-petition actually being put forward for Parliamentary debate?

[Burbage]

StraferJack Wrote:

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> Wouldn't you just go to a petition website and cut

> and paste 99% of them?

I'm not so sure. Although there's a depressing amount of duplication and iffy spelling, the e-petitions give a useful insight into the predilections of the angry, miserable and disappointed which, if we're honest, is most of us.

But, as well as more-or-less accurately reflecting our own fears back at us, the e-petitions aren't and entirely ceaseless stream of fretfulness. There are glimmers of irrational hope, too. Which, though clearly barking, is the only thing that keeps most of us away from Beachy Head.

And, to give credit where it's due, some of them have been debated in Parliament. Of course, triggering a few debates isn't much of an achievement, when Westminster's awash with think-tanks and lobbyists, and the dodgily invisible hands of their paymasters, capable not only of instigating debates, but of bypassing them altogether. But the petitions are a start and, although their achievements have been less than modest, that's a great improvement on the days when petitions 'meant something' and triggered no debates at all.

[Loz]

Burbage,

The pie petition is truly awesome. Made me laugh out loud.

[Chillaxed]

I went to the site to have a laugh and ended up signing one of the first petitions I read.

[*Bob*]

Burbage Wrote:

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But the petitions are a start and,

> although their achievements have been less than

> modest, that's a great improvement on the days

> when petitions 'meant something' and triggered no

> debates at all.

I make no connection between petitions meaning something and something happening - debates in parliament, laws etc. I meant in that they are meaningful, when they claim to be meaningful (which this one does).

I'm sure I could quite happily 'sign' something about George Osbourne being shot into space, or Duncan Smith being forced to muck-out a baboon enclosure or whatever. It's not meant to mean anything.. it's meant to be silly. But large numbers of people 'signing' something equally ludicrous which is pointlessly masquerading as something meaningful?

Has everyone on here signed it? Is it just me?

[Huguenot]

Slacktivism isn't it?

All the psychological benefits of 'doing something' without any meaningful action.

[Vicanna]

Huguenot Wrote:

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> Slacktivism isn't it?

>

> All the psychological benefits of 'doing

> something' without any meaningful action.

Would you apply the same 'logic' to voting? Sounds like you would.

[*Bob*]

I wonder what % of the people who signed this petition didn't vote.

[RosieH]

*Bob* Wrote:

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> RosieH Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Why crackpot? No one actually thinks he'd do

> it.

>

>

> So you're reason for signing the petition has no

> relation or bearing on the content of the petition

> whatsoever?

>

> Petitioning used to mean something. Now it's just

> like writing 'Jedi' on the census.

I agree that petitions can be knee-jerk and not-thought-through, and sometimes downright silly. But I disagree that signing has no bearing on the content.

Do I think IDS SHOULD live on ?53 a week to get an idea of how much he's fucking people over? Yes.

Do I think he will? No.

Do I think getting half a million signatories to a petition like this will get it talked about in the media, so that the people who blithely swallow the filth that's peddled by the likes of the Mail about benefit claimants might become aware of another side to the story? Yes.

It's making a point. Ergo, not pointless.

[Otta]

Vicanna Wrote:

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> Has there ever been a documented case of an

> e-petition actually being put forward for

> Parliamentary debate?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19266497

As of August 2012.

"So far, 10 petitions have reached the 100,000 signature threshold and of those, eight have been debated in Parliament, with a further one scheduled for debate when MPs return from their summer break in September."

[El Pibe]

"people who blithely swallow the filth that's peddled by the likes of the Mail" will never see the other side of it even if you scraped it into the weaselly eyes with broken plastic rulers.

[RosieH]

Well Pibe, there is that. Except it's not always the case.

My mum reads the Mail, and when she's told me stories of the nasty gypsies having sex with our swans and eating our children, I've been able to disabuse her of a few things. Only last night I was having dinner with a friend who'd read that benefits caused the death of the Philpotts children and swallowed a good deal of it. After protracted (and heated) discussion, she changed her mind.

The readers of the Daily Mail are considerably less rabid than the perpetrators.

[Vicanna]

You could say the same about readers of the Guardian. They're just as bigoted.

[*Bob*]

How feasible is it that secretary of state for work and pensions could live on ?53 a week? For a year. What does it prove if he can't?

The answers of course are 'not feasible' and 'nothing'.

Should this new system of testing (let's call it 'oi! you do it!') be rolled-out elsewhere? Everywhere, up and down the land, we could get people who *simply can't* (by virtue of bleeding obvious reasons) do something - to be made to do it and fail. To prove? - bugger all!

[RosieH]

What does it prove? Er, maybe that he's a liar who said he could do it, when blatantly he can't.

But, I repeat, it's not a test. He's not going to do it. No one thinks he's going to do it. It's a way for half a million people to call him a lying cunt. Which he is.

So I have no problem whatsoever with the petition, and think you're turning into Annette finding things to have a problem with, which aren't really problematic at all.

[Chillaxed]

Why wouldn't he be able to do it? Are you saying it's impossible, or that he doesn't have the skills or willpower or whatever to do it. Presumably there are a number of people on benefits who manage it.

[El Pibe]

of course vicanna, being dull and worthy is waaaay worse than being divisive and mendacious.

[*Bob*]

RosieH Wrote:

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> So I have no problem whatsoever with the petition,

> and think you're turning into Annette finding

> things to have a problem with, which aren't really

> problematic at all.

Not at all! Tbh this sort of thing comes out stuff people I know send me on FB. I look at it. I think about it. It's daft. I don't sign it. But I don't really want to get into some kind of FB debate with friends and colleagues so here it is instead. Perhaps I'm overthinking things, yes. But I like thinking about things.

[El Pibe]

time for this again

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/iain-duncan-smiths-53-a-week-diary-2013040264369

[Vicanna]

El Pibe Wrote:

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> of course vicanna, being dull and worthy is waaaay

> worse than being divisive and mendacious.

Partisan loyalty aside, both outlets project their own prejudices. On the assumption that you're attributing "dull and worthy2 to the Guardian's readership, that's fine. But readers from the other side of the aisle have a different slant on things. Personally speaking I'd say that the Guardian fosters an entitlement mentality, along with the views it espouses being unrealistic and impervious to logic. But others may disagree, though they'd have difficulty explaining why.