Senator Allen, thanks for your on-point response (LONG)

The BBQ Pit
1

Or; why do I still think I will ever actually get one of my elected government officials to read a letter I write and understand my opinion (but that’s a bit long for the Title box)?

I was up semi-late a few days ago (an occurence that, up until the last day or two, has been the norm) and began writing a letter to the editor to send to the local semi-big paper (Kingsport Times-News). Upon completing it, I say to myself “Self, why not send this to your elected officials?” And so, as I have done in the past and with little to no result, I fired up emails to the POTUS, VP, both Senators and my Representative.

I got stock “thank you for your email [which will never find its way to GWB’s/DC’s eyes, but thanks for playing” responses from the POTUS and VP, and I’m pretty well used to that. Unless I write him a letter and either paypal or otherwise send some money in same letter, or I make some mention of terrorism/911/etc, I’m pretty confident I’ll never get more than same response. It’s annoying, and it begins to seem rather pointless to email either of them, but I figure if I don’t tell them what I think, I can’t complain (as much) when they do things I don’t think are wise.

From my Rep I got “we need your full contact information before we can properly address and respond to your concerns”. I thought I had included everything in the initial letter to them (I’ve written this guy before and got an identical response), but I sent it again as they requested with everything but my SSN, Blood type and three non-family references. Nothing since. Again, something I’ve come to expect.

From Senator Warner I have received nothing. For all I know there is a secret conspiracy and there is no actual Senator Warner; he is a Turing Test that somehow managed to get elected to office and has since been turned off. Again, the lack of response has been the norm as far as I can remember.

From Senator Allen, on the other hand, I got a letter today. I wouldn’t call it a response, unfortunately, because of the “re” in there … addressing something that I, previously, had addressed.

I wrote Senator Allen a very brief letter detailing a timeline of rights given (or bigotry removed from) black people and openly asked how long it would be before the current DOMA (and other) practices would seem as arcane as segregation and slavery do.

His letter to me, it is my guess, was based on a filter applied to the letter. This filter saw that I referenced black people several times and guessed that my letter was about black rights. It further guessed that a relevant answer to my letter would include information about improved technology classes and access to schools serving minorities. While this information is indeed useful, it responded to little, if any, of my letter. I also received information about steps being taken to thwart efforts to impose an Internet tax. I am guessing that this part was included because my letter was sent to him online; obviously, as a denizen of the Internet, I am interested (in theory, at least) in keeping resources avaialble gratis to the state/nation as a whole.

What his letter did not address, in any significant manner, was the actual issue I raised. I’m having a difficult time tying in “schools that serve minorities are getting better access to current technology” with “how long will it be before we who are writing the laws realize how backward DOMA is” (both, especially the latter, loosely paraphrased).

So, Senator Allen, here is what I did not say to you (word for word, anyway) in my response to your letter:

Either A) get a better filter for your letters (I suggest some interns) such that your replies to constituents’ concerns are actually on-point, or B) do not operate under the haughty premise that I was born yesterday, and as such believe that you have actually read my letter or at least have the faintest clue what I talked about in it. And if C) you expect my vote this November (unlikely since I rarely find my views on anything important to me are in line with espoused Republican views), I suggest that you D) toss the filter and actually read a letter sent from someone whose tax dollars go, in part, to both the schools getting increased technology and your personal (and office) wallet.

In conclusion, may your voting base move to Gary, Indiana, and may your car break down in its general vicinity, and may your service person comprehend at least as much about your car as you did about my letter.

[sub]Lest anyone think that he stopped reading the original letter because it of a similar length to this OP, the original was two paragraphs, and I’ll happily post them both here if anyone cares. My response to his letter is, shall we say, not quite so short. He had the option of saving us both the trouble by actually reading the first.[/sub]

2

I’d be interested in seeing the original letter.

Haj

3

My mother wrote a letter to her member of Parliament and to the Minister of Finance after a federal increase in cigarette taxes. Unlike the OP, my mother is a blunt little instrument of destruction, and her letter ended on this note: “Is the reason that you upped the taxes on cigarettes because more MPs drink than smoke?”

She heard nothing from the Minister of Finance’s office, but a couple weeks later she received a response from the Right Honorable Larry Schneider’s office, signed personally by the MP himself. Obviously written by some staffer, it went on for almost two pages about the health dangers of smoking being greater than those of drinking. Not a form letter, though a somewhat stock, politically acceptable response.

However, the last paragraph made it worth framing: “If it’s any consolation, I understand that the wife of Finance Minister is a chain smoker, so the decision to raise taxes on cigarettes was not without personal consequences.”

4

All for your delight, haj, it is … well, here:

139 years ago we finally realized enslaving black people was inherently evil. 56 years ago we realized that there was no rational reason to keep our armed forces segregated. 50 years ago we realized that separate but equal is indeed separate but by no means equal. 40 years ago we realized that both segregation and discrimination based on race were pointless and cruel. 39 years ago we realized that a literacy test given only to black people didn’t measure much more than the bigotry of white men. 37 years ago we realized that barring multiracial marriage was nonsensical. 16 years ago we realized that federal money given to programs that were allowed to discriminate on the basis of race was despicable.

How many years will it be before we realize that the current backward thinking (DOMA, nonsecular definition of marriage becoming a legal definition) is of no more merit than those practices, some 50 years or more removed from our country’s legal code?

Addendum: so as not to completely hijack this thread, I make two humble requests: if you wish to take me to task for something written in the above two paragraphs, feel free to make a new thread in this very Pit. If you wish to earnestly debate what I have written, take it to GD.

5

Just so you know, had you actually sent this in to the Times-News, I at least would’ve paid attention…possibly even blessed the ground you walked on. Six letters in today’s paper ranted about morality and sanctity and religion. The same bloody thing all the time. They’re practically form letters…insert popular buzzwords here and all.

Thus, it’s not really worth the effort to actually read letters from your constituency. Half of them are following form letters from their local pastor, the other half are old women who don’t have much else to do besides complain about something. They don’t write letters making comparisons to other issues! Filters are much simpler. (Of course, not responding would be even easier…but then, people wouldn’t think you cared! So you have to send something back that looks like you care and have all the answers.)

You, however, decided to put actual thought into your letter. Surely you don’t expect a real answer to a thoughtful letter? It throws too many cogs into the machinery. How dare you whine, you non-automaton! Just get right back in place, shut off your mind, and listen to the nice soothing statistics. Even if they are irrelevant.
I think I lost my idealistic side too soon.

6

Well, I’ve been sending letters to Senators Allen and Warner for a while now, and, of course, I’ve only been given form letters. Nowadays, they’ve been ignoring me. So much for trying to be a good citizen.

Of course, most of my letters have been modified form letters from the ACLU and the EFF, so I may have deserved it. But these senators tell us to get involved in the political process by giving them feedback, and then ignoring it out of hand when they do get it. It’s silly.

But don’t let it get you down; Allen was an ass, he is an ass, and he’ll always be an ass. Don’t stop pestering the Powers That Be! And do your damndest to throw his ass out on the street come Election Day (forget trying to get Warner out; he’s entrenched so firmly that the Democrats don’t run against him).

And to top the insane preacher story, there is a preacher in Charlottesville that believes that there is an atheist plot to turn kids into homosexuals. And this guy gets space in the local paper. There’s a scary story.

7

I did that very thing. The post I wrote for hajaro is verbatim what I wrote to the KTN. I have gotten mighty tired of people mistaking their religious beliefs for what is standard legal practice. If I read “why are they trying to take God out of our schools?” or some variant once more, I will be a displeased reader.

I got a call from the KTN to verify that I actually wrote the letter I sent them. Sounds silly, I know, but the reasons are good enough (they want to make sure that the person to whom the letter is attributed is the acknowledged source). So I told them I wrote it. If they’ll run it now I have no idea. Maybe they just do that with all letters. Maybe they only do it with letters they’re going to print.

And as I told my mother and at least one other person, I gotta have hope. I still believe in Santa Claus, after all. If I get a similarly on-point letter from Sen. Allen after this latest letter I wrote (which I can email to you if you need something to put you to sleep), he’ll be getting a VERY pointed letter from me. I can be polite and forgiving and turn the other cheek. I have not lost the art of flaying someone without using 4 and 5-letter words. “Reading comprehension of a prenatal pygmy elephant combined with the integrity of of Jayson Blair” comes to mind, though I hope I don’t have to get down to such a brutal factual analysis.

8

I suspect he’s going for (E) - giving up on people who require intellegent responses to letters, and concentrating any time and money on people who are convinced by pre-written pap.

OT1H it’s pretty insulting to respond to a letter without reading it. Worse than ignoring it or saying “Thank you for writing. Unfortunately, we don’t have the time to…” But OTOH it’s about the only way to deal with such a volume of mail.

9

I wrote a letter to Queen Elizabeth once, and got a response from her secretary. It was on official Buckingham Palace stationary and everything. […drool…]

10

I have little to say about Senator Allen’s response. That just seems like a very poor job of relating to constituents.

On Senator Warner’s non-response, if you did indeed send your message several days ago, you might note that the Senate was shut down last week because of the ricin scare. Hopefully he will respond in a more thoughtful manner.

I loved the comment about the Turing Test, though. Very funny.

11

Every time I’ve written a Letter to the Editor to any newspaper on any topic, they’ve contacted me to verify I wrote it. That’s pretty much standard practice before they print a letter.

Texas Governor Rick Perry responded on-topic to a letter I sent him last year. He uses a felt-tip pen and prints his name.

12

Wait a minute. Can a libertarian even be a closet monarchist? :wink:

I sympathize iampunha. The problem seems to be scale. If only 1% of the electorate write to a MP/Senator/Rep. just once in a year, that’s a lot of email. I’m wondering if there’s even a point to writing. Party membership at least gets you in the same “room” where decisions are made and/or debated. Problem is I don’t want to restrict myself. Irritating.

13

I once wrote a letter to Bush Daddy in 1991 regarding his budget cuts to public libraries. I received a letter with his signature (yeah, right) thanking me for my support for the troops in the Gulf War.

14

I sent a valentine to Dorothy Hammill and she sent me an autographed picture. Pretty heady stuff when you’re 8. If only Dorothy Hammill were in the Senate.

15

It hasn’t been discussed in a couple of years, I guess, but my government of choice would be a libertarian monarchy.

16

Bravo, then. I double-checked to see if it had been published recently and I hadn’t noticed (though I’m sure I would’ve remembered it), but I didn’t see it, so I wasn’t sure if you had actually sent it in or not. A friend of mine got a letter published during the evolution uproar a few months ago. (Even got a mention in an irate letter a few days later! I was so proud.) The next time I talk to her, I’ll ask how long it took for her letter to be published after she sent it in.

17

Actually, it was probably his interns (or paid staff) that read/replied to your letter in the first place.

Doesn’t say much for his hiring abilities, though.

18

One of the best political response letters I ever saw (and yes, I suppose it could have been faked but read on) was from Dennis Kucinich responding to someone’s concern over President Bush’s Mars plans and “the terrible secret of space” (an ICQ prank from Something Awful and later a flash video). The response was dead serious about it. Fake? Maybe, but again, this IS Dennis Kucinich.

19

The paper ran the letter today. link. It’s not my letter verbatim, but the basic idea is there. We’ll see what happens from there. The paper ran a letter yesterday from a guy who outed himself in the last line, and he had a similar point to mine. I have no doubt that some of the more conservative of the populace here will see two consecutive days of pro-gay letters and decide that the KTN has a gay agenda.