I’m a moderately active person when it comes to petitions. Originally, as a kid, I didn’t really care for it that much. Politics wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, and that could be due to the fact I wasn’t into tea as a child either. With the mentioning of Bill S.978 through Notch’s tumblr blog, I soon learned more about our government’s actions and ways to have a bigger voice in the debates. This was my real introduction into politics and the importance of petitions.

Shortly after the current time victory over SOPA, I soon got another email from a different petition service called CREDO. The email was stating its ties with my original petition source, DemandProgress. I believe this was due to signing the NDAA petition, but I wasn’t really bothered by it at all due to the ties with DemandProgress, who helped fight a strong battle with SOPA along with many other important sources. I continued to get petitions for various things, but soon I began to run into some I actually decided to not sign.

It started when I received this petition involving a statement from Rush Limbaugh. I’ve heard quite a few good things about him and have listened to his show on a few occasions. Political talk isn’t really my favorite subject but from what I do listen from time to time, they are always interesting. This is where the petition gave me an impression of overreaction; the petition was to push his supporting advertisers into pulling back after Limbaugh’s recent statements regarding a Georgetown Law Student (for more details, read the petition’s information yourself). I understand the actions of human decisions and know that mistakes happen, and ultimately from the quote they are basing their petition on, I can see it as just a quick statement that does prove some points, though in a negative way. They go as far as to state his apology and admitting his “choice of words [were] not the best.” (See source below)

My reading of this petition came from after receiving this petition for going against the use of ‘pink slime’ meat for school lunches. As a graduate from Sussex County Technical School, I know how good food at schools can be; we had it lucky that the culinary class was next to the cafeteria so sometimes their meals were also the lunches. From my elementary school experience however, I know how bad it can also be. At this very moment, I am remembering when my classmates would take the cheese off their cheese burgers and use them as rubber balls to bounce around the place. I would like to also add they were also rather effective at that.

There have been a slew of other petitions that have popped up that have given my inbox a few gifts, and some that were just local and ‘social’ propaganda like the Invisible Children event. As a tweet received from one of my favorite music artists, C418, he stated that ultimately, it is you who should do the research about something before simply signing a petition or joining the crowd. For most petitions I’ve received, I agree with them and do sign them in support, but sometimes it’s better to be the sheep who left the herd than part of a pack of lemmings running off the side of a cliff.

-Flame

Sources
Limbaugh Sorry for Attack on Student in Birth Control Furor, New York Times, March 3, 2012

Link to mah tumblr post

edit: Fuck, Fuckity, Fuck Fuck! Damn you FA text parsing! Y U NO LIKE HTML?!