America Speaking Out

Several weeks ago, the Republican party launched a new website: America Speaking Out. It is designed to let the American people relay their opinions to the Republican party. On this website, you can ‘speak out’, vote and review other people’s opinions, and even..earn badges! What could be better?

While the website states that it is for those of every political affiliation, it also states ‘As Republicans, we are committed to our principles of limited, more accountable government; economic freedom; lower taxes; fiscal responsibility; protecting life, American values, and the Constitution; and providing for strong national security.’ Coincidentally, the categories for opinions that are provided happen to coincide exactly with those views and values. Am I the only one who thinks that sounds suspiciously like ‘Any suggestions that don’t conform with our values will be ignored?’ Also, it states that this is a way for people to speak to Congress. But wait..this is a Republican website, run by and primarily used/read by Republicans. Last I checked..that wasn’t all of Congress.

I decided to explore the various opinions put out there by ‘the American people’ and/or whoever else can access the site. One..unique opinion under American Prosperity: Job Creation was ‘we need to bring back pay toilets. We can use this "whiz tax" to balance the budget’ Another was ‘Let's close the budget deficit by selling illegal immigrants to arab slave traders.’ A third was ‘The federal government shouldn't spend my money to "help" people. Obama betrayed us with his healthcare bill and now he's going to betray us by helping the people along the gulf coast. My tax dollars should be MY POCKET MONEY. If people get unlucky and die TOO BAD.’ I found these three suggestions in around five minutes, while browsing the first page of ideas. Also, on the side, I discovered a helpful little sidebar which identified the top five tags for posts. Number two most popular tag? Bums. The fifth most popular idea on the site? Decriminalization of marijuana, because having it illegal ‘wastes the taxpayers money.’ I mean, if it was legal, we wouldn’t have to waste money on drug busts, etc..and we could even tax it! Those were the main sentiments expressed by reviewers of that idea

Next, I decided to check out the whole point and badge system the website institutes. You submit an idea? Great, you’ve got 75 points, right there. Vote on an idea? 25 points for you. Submit all your information in a user profile? You get a grand total of..100 points! Despite the fact that your user profile has nothing to do with expressing your opinion. If you respond to an idea, you get fifty points, if you’re a member for a year, you get two hundred, and so on. I have yet to figure out the myriad world of the site’s badges, but I’m sure it’s equally fascinating and rewarding.

To finish up my tour of the website, I decided to head over to the charmingly titled ‘Open Mic’ section, where people are encouraged to debate on any and everything. The main topic of this was best expressed by one submitted idea ‘This website is taxpayer funded. Follow the right to free speech and stop removing ideas’ Most of the other ideas in this category were in the same vein. Either that, or they were demanding that child beauty pageants be outlawed, because they are ‘super creepy’ or that ‘We need to help our friends in Mexico with their war on drugs. The problem they have is not enough guns, if every Mexican had a gun they'd think twice before shooting a place up or kidnapping folks. Our government should help honest to goodness gun makers here in the US like Springfield or Glock by buying as many of their guns as we can lay our hands on, and giving then to the good people of Mexico to defend themselves.’

All in all, I am not a fan of this site. While I do admit to some possible bias on my part; I am definitely more of a Democrat than a Republican, I feel like it really isn’t worth anyone's time. The site layout itself, while slightly kitschy, is fine, and it works decently, though when I tried to send a test idea in it got denied for no apparent reason. There are a lot of reports of Server 404 errors as well. However, disregarding the layout and technical issues, the opinions actually expressed are, for the most part, ludicrous. Any decent opinions have been lost in the crowd. Also, the point and badge system is, for me, icing on the cake. Why should I have to be bribed with virtual gains to supply my opinion? This seems like it would encourage mass posts of not very well thought out ideas, just so the poster could rack up points and/or badges. While it was an interesting experiment on the part of the Republican party, this concept needs a major overhaul to see if it was even ever a feasible idea.