The White House's bullshit feel-good "We the People" initiative is, like all Internet petitions, worth the paper it is printed on.* Most of the petitions lodged there demand things the executive branch cannot effect on its own. The remainder are protest tantrums, like the secessionist fantasies a bored and distended mainstream media are indulging in the post-election news cycle. Today, I asked President Obama to unilaterally create Idahohiowa. If the proposal gets 25,000 YouTube comments signatures, the executive branch says the president will respond.
So far, Idahohiowa is 24,998 votes short of a presidential acknowledgment. But a movement to put a statue of Master Chief on the White House lawn is 689 times closer to getting on the West Wing's agenda. "Build a statue of Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan John-117 on the lawn of the White House," is this petition's plea, currently standing at 1,378 signatures. Though it too is ridiculous, it still calls for something infinitely more reasonable—and legal—than the Yosemite Sams who want Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, the usual suspects, to be allowed to secede following the president's re-election.
The petition is listed as relevant to the issues of "Firearms, Foreign Policy, Veterans and Military Families." It has until Dec. 14 to get the necessary 25,000 signatures. America has always shown great respect for those who have served. Now it is time for America to show respect to those who will serve, a couple hundred years into the future.
Build a statue of Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan John-117 on the lawn of the White House. [whitehouse.gov, thanks Nicholas R.]
* It is printed on no paper. Hence it is worth nothing.