As you can probably guess just by having basic knowledge of how humans on the internet behave, the White House’s We The People website, which allows anyone to round up signatures and potentially secure a response from the U.S. government, is now basically just a repository of stupid joke petitions. The latest of these is a petition to have Barack and Michele Obama reenact the now-classic scene from The Incredibles in which Frozone begs his wife to find his super suit for him. Guys, come on. The man clearly has other stuff he should be worrying about.
We The People, which was first launched in September of 2011 just before Obama took office, was intended to be a legitimate way for U.S. citizens to engage with their government on issues they feel to be important. Since then, it’s become just another a way for people on the internet to get attention with catchy pop culture references and inflammatory statements. You might remember the petition to built a Death Star that made the rounds late last year, for example, or the petition put forward by professional conspiracy nut Alex Jones to get Piers Morgan deported for his views on gun control. There’s a lot of dumb stuff out there that the government is just not going to do, is my point.
Now, I’m not averse to the idea of wanting Obama to play at Frozone — it’s pretty much genius casting, and Obama’s got enough of a sense of humor that he’d probably enjoy the idea. But the more people make and propogate these types of petitions, the harder it is to get the White House to comment on petitions that are legitimately about important political issues. The website has already had to change the signature goal from 25,000 to 100,000 just to stall itself from having to consider commenting on the Death Star petition. Meanwhile, those who are interested in petitions like the one to ban creationism in public schools or the one to pardon Edward Snowden are going to have to work that much harder to qualify for a response in time, and this petition to condemn the actions taken against peaceful protesters in Turkey is probably not going to get enough signatures at all.
Anyway, since the petition currently only has a few thousand signatures and this probably never going to happen, enjoy a hypothetical Youtube edit of Frobamazone instead.
(via White House Petitions, image via Screened)
- Here’s their response to that dumb Death Star petition
- They’ve raised that signature threshold multiple times, by the way
- At least the White House has promised to reform the patent system
