If you truly believe what you wrote in this post, then you have taken drooling idiocy to a new level. Your freedom of expression is not infringed in any way, shape, or form by the White House e-mail policy. Christ, even if they stopped accepting ALL e-mail, that wouldn’t infringe your freedom of expression. Your “treasured freedoms” are not affected because you’re asked to complete a form that will make it easier for the staffers to sort through the 15k e-mails they get each day. Get a goddamned clue. You could start by reading Johnathan Chance’s posts in this thread.
My Falknerian sentence basically means “just because you have to label your email, if you go through the white house web page, as pro- or anti-administration, doesn’t mean you have to label it accurately.” There’s a joke or two thrown in there, but if nobody’s laughing it was only funny to me (still pretty funny). As such, I am laughing at you. HA HA!
[sub]I think I left my sense of humor at the other house.[/sub]
See the link in the OP? To the article that spawned this whole discussion? The one you didn’t read?
Why do I know you didn’t read it, you ask yourself?
BECAUSE IN THE ARTICLE HE CLEARLY POINTED OUT THAT IF YOU EMAIL DIRECTLY TO president@white.gov NOW, YOU GET BACK A FORM LETTER TELLING YOU YOU HAVE TO GO THROUGH THE WEBSITE LINK.
Duh.
Now having read the rest of the thread (I should read all the way through before responding, but I don’t appreciate being talked down to in tones of such snotty condescension), it appears that what Gr8Kat received in reply to an email varies from what the reporter who’d written the article cited in the OP received. Hmm. Maybe they thought nobody would notice their little change, and decided to change it back only after they got publicly called on it?
I might also mention that interesting little phrase, “petition the government for a redress of our grievances.” Which is the foundation of my concern. I still stay that the constant and chronic attempts by the Bush administration, embodied in their attempt to limit email communication to subjects only of THEIR choosing, to stifle our ability to communicate with our government in any critical fashion is a genuine threat to our basic liberties.
Maybe I’ve become too much of a cynic in my old age, but the current adminstration’s attempts to limit our criticism of it – and the sheer jingoism level surrounding the current war-for-four-more-years-in-the-White-House in Iraq – truly concerns me. I don’t appreciate being treated by my government as a mindless idiot who, if I disagree with what they’re doing, am not even worthy of their contempt. YMMV.
-What part of In Addition To don’t you understand?
It’s symbolic, man. That’s what it is.
It’s symbolic, man. That’s what it is. It’s about symbolism, man.
Good lord. I agree with Dewey. Practically every word. This might be a good time to go to Hell and do some skiing.
Not for nothing, but I seem to recall that president@whitehouse.gov was bouncing mails when this new system went up. It was probably a little quirk they had to work out, but some people may have taken it as an actual policy change.
… What happens if you walk up and ask to petition the president, anyhow, at his front door? It’s inna Constitution.
I’m certain your petition would be taken by the guard at the gate and handed off to the secret service. Then they would start a file on you (just in case) and pass your petition off to someone many rungs down from the President.
I don’t believe I have ever seen such rampaging stupidity and lunacy in a thread here for nigh on a year. The fact that most likely all the people in here are voters scares me quite a bit - people with that much rage, fear, paranoia, conspiracy-persecution complex, inability to comprehend or read, and total disconnect from reality over a complete non-issue, especially when the ability to send the direct mail was never removed in the first place (of course, now we have the snide implication with no proof whatsoever that it was removed, just secretly changed back).
You know, I’ve slogged through more than 200 pages of the “proofs” presented at hundreds of witch trials from 1200 to 1750 this last week, and most all of them had far more logical cause and effect than the assertions in this thread. Sure puts into perspective how people can delude themselves into thinking they are persecuted and tormented by demons. If anyone here starts vomiting up bent pins and having mysterious burning scratches on their genitals from Lord Satan, please do start a new thread to tell us all about it…
What’s even more ironic is that even the OP apparently was too lazy to even attempt to use this “cherished freedom” somehow guaranteed by the “Constitution”, by actually clicking Mr. Mouse on e-mail to send mail to the “president@whitehouse.gov”. Else they would have had a similar experience to Gr8Kat.
Seriously, isn’t there some sort of award that can be given for such a shit-all stupid thread as this? Mods?
Anthracite -
Just wait. When the jack-booted thugs break down your door and drag you off to the re-education camps, you’ll be singing a different tune.
When they changed the White House e-mail system, I didn’t say anything, because I wasn’t a Web designer.
When they added a drop-down menu, I didn’t say anything, because I wasn’t a complete idiot.
Then, when the federal government was taken over by giant, mutated sloths from the Eighth Dimension, there was no one left to speak for me.
Mark my words…
Regards,
Shodan
You forgot (d): Filling your e-mail with sensitive key words that will trigger the Echelon spy software.
You know, stuff like kll Bsh, black helicopters, bomb NORAD, World Domination, and Bubba the Love Sponge …
“sluzhba”?
Sunnabitch! They’re on to swears in different languages now! When will the freedom-crushing end?!
Among other words on the list: freedom, Roswell, credit card, fraud, package, snuffle, Golf, Maple, Mexico, football, Rand Corporation, Starr, Becker, Nerd, fangs, nowhere, Pretoria, evil, tax (hah!), bootleg, Speakeasy, speedbump, quarter, Cornflower, Daisy, eavesdropping, government, terrorist, terrorism (how the fark are you supposed to write a letter to the President without metioning “president”, “government”?) Fax, finks, Stephanie, Sphinx, honor, Reflection, Standford, William Gates, Playboy, Sex, warez, Porno, Bubba the Love Sponge (oh yes, it’s in there), ninja.
Ninja.
I thought about cutting-and-pasting the whole list into an email, and sending it to the White House. 
But i’m an international student here on an F1 visa, and fucking around with stuff like this could get me deported in the current paranoid atmosphere.
Completely unrelated story here.
The first time I heard “lumpenproletariat” was at Marxist discussion meeting in school, don’t panic this was in Cuba. It was used to refer to a group of people who had demonstrated publicly in Havana against the government, and promptly sent to jail for life. Anyway, the discussion leader called them “lumpenproletariat”, and later as “lumpen”, I dug out my marxist rhetoric book and looked up the term only to find that it was supposed to be something like social scum. But it also said that Marx considered them to be an integral part of the worker’s revolution, and a sure sign that a society was in decay. I raised my hand and asked the discussion leader if he should be using a different term. By way of explanation he told me to shut up.
Back to your regularly scheduled discussion.
Heck, I don’t really see a problem here. And I wouldn’t really qualify as an ardent supporter of Bush. I’ve written past presidents and received the generic-to-topic response letter. Both times it was clear that my letters meaning was mis-interpreted and pigeonholed into a slightly related topic or overly broad topic. They probably just have you jump through the additional hoops so they can cut down on the porn spam.
I do find it a bit creepy that you have to select wether you are for or against the WH policy. It makes me think that if you select “against” your email is filed into the electronic equivelant of the circular file.
I called the white house after the SOTU and told them just what I thought. My son’s in Iraq and I am PISSED. Told 'em that. I HATE the fact that veterans benefits are being cut. Told 'em that too. They hung up on me. 
But, seeing as I gave my name and address, I just might get a visit from a few of Ashcroft’s playmates…