The real issue is that it's a perpetual problem -- there are NGOs that literally pull out the same one pager, an endless dance of having some 1L repeat the same points over and over and over.

(Why is it called a 1 pager you ask? Because your elected officials won't read more than that.)

I made a grand total of one hill visit.

I told them I'm tired of repeating the same things over and over, and if you make my interns come back here ever again, I'll see to it if you're lucky you only lose your seat, not face a mob outside your window, and when that happens lose my fucking number because I'll be sitting by the TV with popcorn.

Exactly that happened, a few years later.

Whether you're a public interest lobbyist or just another activist, we need to be more willing to TELL congress things. Not ask. Not lobby. TELL THEM.

We need to remind them that the Soviets raced to Berlin to seize brains like ours, that we will flourish whatever regime is in power, and that you can ignore us at your but we, the hackers, will no longer grovel before narcistic neurotypicals to stop misunderstanding on purpose.

Politics is like poker -- soft play is unethical.

Play to win.

Because the pushback works, for a spell.

You’re wrong. Even if the regulator ignores them, they allow third parties to bring a suit under the APA.

Exactly. Often they're not even real https://www.kcra.com/article/more-sacramento-victims-discove...

They require your name and address, so they will have a nice database of anyone who dares voice an objection.

It lets politicians see how unpopular something is and how many votes they will lose.

I'm nearly certain commenting, at least from my monitoring of commenting on ATF rulemaking, achieves the opposite of what the commenters hope.

While there is ~zero chance that commenting can help you, it absolutely is used against you as their lawyers sharpen their claws by crowdsourcing possible sources of challenge and use your comments to predict them and determine how to undermine such positions.