Comment on Movie industry demands US law requiring ISPs to block piracy websites

• CosmicCleric@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  There was a study recently that showed legislators’ votes are affected by like .3% by input from constituents. I’ll try to find it again, but I can’t say I’m surprised.

  I’ve seen it, but it doesn’t take into account what would happen if the percentage of the electorate that actually participated in the system were to increase by large amounts.

  Right now there is so little interaction done by the electorate with their representatives.

  I guarantee you that if 50% of the electorate all started contacting their senators and house reps often, on different various issues, things would matter/change.

  So my point still stands.

  If you just sit at home reading Lemmy, they’re not going to take you seriously, and they’re not going to look out for your best interest, but instead they’re going to look out for their own best interests, which is usually getting money from corporations that they used to win elections, because they know they can still get re-elected even when they disrespect their electorate. Unfortunately.

  TL;DR: If you don’t engage, nothing will change.

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  • TheFriar@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    But during the trump years, those figures spiked big time. Especially with services like resistbot. The amount of form letters and shitty Republican legislators using my contact as some sort of consent on my part to join their fucking mailing lists?

    Not to mention, these legislators are insulated from their constituents pretty effectively. If you do manage to get someone on the phone (I never did. Ever.), it’ll be an aide that might summarize the general tone of the calls and e-mails. I mean…the system is rigged for people with money.

    I get the feeling of wanting to change that. But I don’t think the system that has been further and further adulterated to those will ever provide us the solution.

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    • CosmicCleric@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      But during the trump years, those figures spiked big time.

      [Citation required.] [And define ‘big time’.]

      Not to mention, these legislators are insulated from their constituents pretty effectively.

      No, they are not. You can contact them directly.

      But moreso, they are not policed. If they started losing elections because the electorate actually participated in the system, with more than just sometimes voting, that would change. It truly comes back to them being able to get away with doing their jobs poorly because they are not held responsible for their (bad) work.

      But I don’t think the system that has been further and further adulterated to those ends will ever just hand us the tools to upend that system.

      The whole point of my argument is that we have those tools today, we’re just too lazy/not-caring to use them.

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      • TheFriar@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Umm…have you ever tried contacting your representatives? You seem to think it’s so easy to get them on the phone. Why. How can you possibly think that? Those numbers don’t ring in their pockets. Their aides are the only people receiving and sorting through those calls and emails and letters.

        There are a great many ways to petition the government, including with actual petitions, but, short of showing up in person, the one reputed to be the most effective is picking up the phone and calling your congressional representatives. In the weeks following the Inauguration of Donald J. Trump, so many people started doing so that, in short order, voice mail filled up and landlines began blurting out busy signals. Pretty soon, even e-mails were bouncing back, with the information that the target in-box was full and the suggestion that senders “contact the recipient directly.” That being impractical, motivated constituents turned to other means. The thwarted and outraged took to Facebook or Twitter or the streets. The thwarted and determined dug up direct contact information for specific congressional staffers. The thwarted and clever remembered that it was still possible, several technological generations later, to send faxes; one Republican senator received, from a single Web-based faxing service, seven thousand two hundred and seventy-six of them in twenty-four hours. The thwarted and creative phoned up a local pizza joint, ordered a pie, and had it delivered, with a side of political opinion, to the Senate.

        Americans vote, if we vote at all, roughly once every two years. But even in a slow season, when no one is resorting to faxes or protests or pizza-grams, we participate in the political life of our nation vastly more often by reaching out to our members of Congress. When we do so, however, we almost never get to speak to them directly. Instead, we wind up dealing with one of the thousands of people, many of them too young to rent a car, who collectively constitute the customer-service workforce of democracy.

        newyorker.com/…/what-calling-congress-achieves

        That doesn’t offer cold data, but it’s a pretty well known fact that this was an explosion of sudden political participation. And I don’t remember things going particularly well. Do you.

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