The initiative has reached the required signature threshold in 15 countries, with Germany and France – the two largest – expected to follow suit.
The initiative has reached the required signature threshold in 15 countries, with Germany and France – the two largest – expected to follow suit.
No you aren’t.
There is absolutely nothing here indicating the people who care about this, don’t care about other issues, or only do so second. That is an assumption, and entirely on you.
If anything, this was so successful because it might actually work.
A bunch of EU citizen signatures wishing a war to end wouldn’t do shit.
Honestly (their) opinion needs to die. Any time people mobilise in big numbers to participate in democracy is a good thing on general principles, and unless people are signing a petition by the millions to like, make babies try cigarettes, it’s almost always going to be a good thing. It’s nirvana fallacy from top to bottom.
Exactly. And once people sign a petition and see it actually get implemented increases the chance that they’ll get involved next time.
This petition is great because it’s:
Something like homeless doesn’t have as clear of direction on solutions. Likewise ads, since that runs afoul of how tons of businesses make money, but this could be leveraged to reduce/eliminate ads in games that you pay for.
If this petition actually goes somewhere, I sincerely believe we’ll see more petitions from people who otherwise wouldn’t speak out. Ross was one of those people, and if he sees success, he’ll inspire a bunch of other people like him to act. I think it’s fantastic.
Frankly if people are petitioning the government en masse to allow babies to smoke, I think the government should at least seriously consider it. Democracy isn’t just for when ideas are good.
By that I mean that such petitions shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand, I don’t think that babies should be allowed to smoke, unless they can make cool smoke rings.
That’s what representatives are for, they hear the public and form a committee of experts, who then say no that’s insane, then we either go fuck ourselves or we riot. At some point down the line absolutely nobody’s happy, and that’s how you know you’re in a healthy democracy.
I mean ideally any proposed law would go to referendum if there’s a popular enough petition for or against.
There does have to be a formal process to make sure the voters are being asked a question that is sane to begin with, and not merely being offered the chance to wreck their economy on behalf of moneyed interests. It’s a truism that when the questions are insane, the answers don’t matter. Whether it’s Brexit or smoking babies, there’s always an issue with vested interests having their own say on the matter.