Sorry, didn't phrase that well. I just meant there was not a topic that my questions fit into exactly and so I assigned "additional issues" to them. They were not marijuana related. They must have been posted as there have been votes on them. The tool that puts questions up for votes at the top of the page has lots of marijuana related questions cycling through for votes. I really don't think you need to feel this issue is being shunted to the side.
Personally I don't think this helps. It could make some people a lot less sympathetic with an issue if it is posted in all the wrong categories. I have been finding that it is really helpful when people stick to the topic of the particular discussion or in this case, question category. I have many issues that I am passionate about that are not the concern of the majority of people at this time, but I've seen over and over that in time really good ideas eventually find their way into the mainstream. I don't mean to minimize the importance of this issue. I'm just hoping we can use this change.gov tool in a way that will work for everybody and it gets really hard to use the tool when the same issue is repeated over and over everywhere.
To put this in perspective, I posted two questions both of which were not assigned a category. I doubt that there is an attempt to hide issues.
Here's a link to an ingenious idea by a 13 year old girl for bailing out the auto industry. It involves the government purchasing fuel efficient cars which are then given to people with cars older than 10 years old (by lottery), thus helping the auto industry, helping the environment and more. I can't do it justice with a summary -- it's well worked out and worth reading and considering!
http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10171
Yes, I assume they have the General Discussion so that people can stay on topic on the focussed discussion. It makes it easier for them as well as for those interested in following a particular topic.
It does get difficult to follow. It would be great if there was a way to search for topics in the General Discussion so that you don't have to go through everything to find what you're interested in. With a limited amount of time, I usually give up pretty quickly!
We do need some kind of reform in the way debt is marketed!
All of the previous discussions on change.gov have been closed after a period of time with new ones started. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the content of the discussion -- they just don't keep them going forever.
You asked what discussions we would like to have on change.gov. Here are my main interests:
-- how to incorporate the best of alternative and holistic medicine into our healthcare system
-- organic farming
-- separation of church and state -- looking at what that means, where we might need to revise how we do things, etc.
-- developing ways to bring multiple viewpoints together for thoughtful and constructive discussion -- how can we really learn to work in a "non-partisan" way?
-- reform of government
-- civil liberties
Most people are not educated about marijuana -- the scientific research on its effects and so on. If what is most needed is that the majority of the people want it legalized, then perhaps the focus could be on education, through ads, TV shows. There could be info on effects of marijuana (with comparisons to alcohol for example that is accepted by most), also on the cost of it being illegal (prison costs and so on). Make a good case for why it should be legal. Take away peoples' fears.
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Opus