Petitions Galore

I don't know who Allen Jacobs is, but it would be much appreciated if he were to stop using my e-mail address when signing on-line petitions. You see, just the other day I noticed something distinctly odd amongst the penis enlargement and home loan advertisements in my E-mail folder. There was a message entitled, "petition signature confirmed - I'm With Busey". This sent up a red flag in my head. Are they talking, I thought to myself, about that stupid reality show with Gary Busey and that guy who claimed to be a comedy writer even though he showed no sign of a working sense of humor? And, by the way, I have no idea why I use the 'they' pronoun, I guess I like to think of a vast underground network of people filling my inbox, instead of single, solitary nerds. Anyway, with my curiosity sufficiently piqued I opened the e-mail, and to my abject horror discovered that someone, this so-called 'Allen Jacobs', has signed, using my e-mail address, a petition to bring back the show 'I'm With Busey'.

I was truly horrified. Trust me if 'I'm With Busey' makes it back on the air, I had nothing to do with it. I'm absolving myself of all guilt right now. It was all a horrible, horrible mistake. Whoever this Allen Jacobs is must have mistyped his e-mail address and come up with mine. Please, you have to believe me. I don't want 'I'm With Busey' back on the air. I would never knowing aid in unleashing such a devastating evil onto the world. I mean, this blog is bad enough, but, then again, I'm pretty much convinced no one reads this, so there's no harm here.

Eventually, after much renting of clothes and gnashing of teeth, I calmed down and became quite curious. What is this petition? Where'd it come from? Are people actually signing this thing? Shouldn't Gary Busey be dead by now anyway? So, I read the entire e-mail message and found that the petition - and the e-mail - originated from PetitionOnline.com. So went to the sight and found the Busey petition. Apparently 'I'm With Busey' has - had? - fans, and they cannot imagine why this "innovative and creative" show would be canceled by Comedy Central "without any given reason." Apparently, these people are unfamiliar with a little thing I like to call the Nielson television ratings.

Sufficiently satisfied the 'I'm with Busey' petition was mostly harmless, I decided to explore the site a little fuller. Let me tell you, a whole world opened up before my eyes. A world populated by obsessive dorks and losers with too much time on their hands and internet access. I felt right at home. People have petitions for everything. Some of them even made bringing back 'I'm with Busey' seem like a good idea. Why would anyone in his right mind sign a petition to keep 'On Air with Ryan Seacrest' true to its name? And that's not a rhetorical question. I really want to know. If you can fill me in, please do.

There are a lot of odd petitions. Most of them having to do with bringing back canceled shows on sci-fi and stuff having to do with video games - which gives you a pretty good idea who the average users are. Mixed in amongst these typical internet type concerns where things such as a petition to prove that someone's ex boyfriend is a real 'Dick Eating Dick Face' and someone who desperately wants to see Bob's Big Boy make a comeback in the worse possible way - although, I'm pretty sure, Big Boy can't come back any other way. There was one really quaint petition entitled 'Stop the Hate' which was obviously posted by some well meaning, but utterly clueless liberal teenager. This ranks right up there with putting those stickers that say 'hating' at the bottom of stop signs. Sure, it's a swell message and all, but it doesn't really do anything but help the person who put it up feel good about himself. It's not as though a Klansman is going drive by one of those stop signs or see a petition against hate and all of a sudden clap his palm to his forehead exclaiming, "Stop hating, why didn't I think of that" - but then again I didn't actually look at the petition, just the name, it could be quite different from what I expect.

Now, here's the part which really got me thinking. PetitionOnline.com bills itself as 'a premiere free speech forum.' While I agree that free speech is one of the most important rights reserved for us in the constitution, and that this site is certainly a forum for free speech, I would be a little wary about calling it premiere. Now, maybe the PetitionOnline creators started with noble causes, to, say, petition the government - which is expressly protected by the 1st amendment - but when the founding fathers added the first amendment I'm sure creating a petition to get a lame TV show back on the air wasn't high on their minds. I'm not saying that they'd be against it, but if they knew that people where using free speech to save 'I'm with Busey', they would most likely answer with a yawn - of course you'd first have to explain television to them and then give them some sort of idea what Gary Busey's like and then describe the show to them. "By Gum," they may say, "Sure we fought for freedom of speech, and your silly little petitions are cute and all, but doesn't anyone have anything real to say? Aggrievments to the government perhaps?" People fought and died for serious issues, not so some moron could sign a petition as 'BUTTSEX' - the same person listed his location as 'BUTTSEX' and left, as a comment, 'No, seriously, I like BUTTSEX'.

It just seems that people use the term freedom of speech too loosely anymore. I don't think anyone should even mention it until they are seriously being quieted by the government. I'm tired of hearing people whine about freedom of speech because no one wants to listen to them. You're guaranteed the freedom to express, but not the right to a major forum or a willing audience. Although if there's one thing I've learned from OnlinePetition.com, no matter how lame an opinion you have, some idiots are going to be with you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm bringing back 'Who's the Boss'.

Shalom