I saw my local MP in a Tim Horton's once and as I was leaving I yelled at him to stop flipping people off in parliament. (which he did)

Canada if it wasn't obvious.

Your MP flips off people in Parliament?

That sounds pretty awesome, actually.

Except for the whole, ensuing, 'nobody respects what he has to say' bit.

Nobody here lets their elected representatives know their opinions?

Does anyoe here even vote?

I do. I campaigned for my local mayor, Corey Booker of Newark and frequently go to town hall meetings etc. I also write my senators and governor, especially now that that fat asshole Chris Christie is in office.

Feels good being part of democracy.

My dad got a handjob from John Mccain

I vote but I don't bother sending letters or any shit like that, I did that once talking about this bill that would cut finanical aid for kids arrested on minor drug charges.

I got back a reply that read some shit like "Thank you for your concerns (insert senator) is also very concerned about this issue and is also concerned about (insert completely unrelated party-line issue) much like his/her constituants"

Its fucking pointless. You'll see when your guy mails you one.

>>7356570

Yes, but they still use these letters to get a feel for how their constituency feels, so they can, if they are a good representative, better represent their constituency's views.

Also, for a better response, write an actual letter, not an email.

You can better expect personally-written responses from your representatives, and elected officials in your state legislature, rather than your Senators. Senators get a LOT of letters. There simply isn't time for them to respond personally to each one in a timely fashion, and still do their jobs.

>>7356712
It was a signed letter, which is why I didn't get like "autoreply, do not respond" e-mail back from the guy.

I got some shit printed out and mailed to me from one of his volunteer workers or someshit.

But your right, I suppose if there is enough letters sent, it will influence the guy in question, but 9/10 the guy will just tow the party line and vote for whatever he thinks is best.

I thought about contacting my representative about the health care bill, but I realized it would be totally pointless.

when big companys are involved in "democracy", writing these people is useless

I think it depends on the politcian.

The higher up they are, the more likely that are just ideological crusaders and "i know whats best" generallissmo types.

The lower you go, the more representitive they tend to me. Mayors and shit run on "I have good ideas and I'll fix what the last guy fucked up"

Conversely, the higher up they are, the less corruptable they are exactly because of this. Instead your typical Senator will want to convince YOU what you want, rather then the other way around.

Lower-level elected officials tend to be in the local good-ole-boy network and are corrupt as shit and easily influenced.

Officially, congressmen only care about paper letters that come in. They want proof that citizen X is in fact writing from their zipcode, 90210, before they alter their agenda.

Unofficially, they take email, but they don't read it or take it seriously. It's easy to forge and the real emails are always buried under a torrent of viagra spam.

>>7356845

When people of voting age are apathetic and non-participants, democracy is meaningless.

>>7356114

>implying that letter isn't just going to go straight into a garbage can

>>7357289

>implying that while the system is shitty, being so apathetic as to not even try or have the slightest faith in it makes it even shittier, by orders of magnitude, and removes any legitimacy your bitches, gripes, and complaints about the system might have.