Answers from your Congress Critters

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JimmyDB

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email them saying you're a lobbyist for ecigs. tell them you'll buy them a new boat, bet they'll listen then.



free boats for all of congress, i bet they'd listen then. That is unless they still have the boats big tobacco bought them. Then we're outa luck.

Better yet, lobbyist for coke... lifetime supply free of charge... oh wait, I think they already get that from BT.
 

holy_handgrenade

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When are Americans ever going to wake up and realize that for the most part writing letters/emailing congress members is a monumental waste of time unless it's a deluge from a large segment of the electorate that threatens the politician's chance of being re-elected? They care only for themselves, their respective party and the oligarchs that fund and benefit from their office. They couldn't care less about the welfare of the nation or its citizens.

Wake up.

This is statistically not true. Each printed letter represents approximately 1,000 constituents. Each phone call can have the weight of 10,000 constituents. Emails are still kinda treated with an arbitrary weight, usually almost less than a 1:1 constituent ratio. It's specifically because of lazy, apathetic constituencies that don't bother to make their voices heard to their elected representatives. So yes, these letter campaigns, and phone campaigns actually do work. It's just we need to get on them and remind them that we're voters and that we put them in office to work for us. When they stop hearing that, they stop believing that.
 

Iffy

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Just imagine if the rest of the US were as clueless as our elected officials...

They are! Just look at whom the 'US' voters continue to elect/select!!!
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ETA: ALWAYS FOLLOW DA MONEY! <OK, waitin' fer da 'bold/shouting' monitoring Nazis! Sue me...
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>
 
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irwink

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This is statistically not true. Each printed letter represents approximately 1,000 constituents. Each phone call can have the weight of 10,000 constituents. Emails are still kinda treated with an arbitrary weight, usually almost less than a 1:1 constituent ratio. It's specifically because of lazy, apathetic constituencies that don't bother to make their voices heard to their elected representatives. So yes, these letter campaigns, and phone campaigns actually do work. It's just we need to get on them and remind them that we're voters and that we put them in office to work for us. When they stop hearing that, they stop believing that.
Source?.......
 

JimmyDB

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Your exercise in futility doesn't hurt me a bit! Vapers are not a large enough segment of society and the electorate to matter. An aid will read an email and mechanically send out a canned response. If writing those emails makes you feel better then by all means carry on!

BTW I'm 61 years old and have witnessed first hand this government devolve into the self serving oligarchy it has become. But go ahead and hammer your keyboard. Fixing what used to be 'our' government is going to take more than the minuscule number of vapers as compared to the general population. But keep tilting with those windmills!

Your funny... you think it was 'your' gov back then... LOL. It hasn't been 'ours' a lot longer than you have been around! Oh... thank you! Seriously, I needed that.

I'll keep on doing my thing... you keep doing yours. I hope you are around another 61+, just hope that you get to see things returned to the way they should be, and I mean that. We need just about every elder/elmer we can get.

BTW: I'm not 61, but I'm not a whipper-snapper either... nor a rug-rat.

I don't care about being out-numbered... just means I have to yell louder and kick some knees in, no worries, I bring duct tape to every party.

So... any one (including you Irwink) have any responses from their ELECTED officials to show?
 

Iffy

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This is statistically not true. Each printed letter represents approximately 1,000 constituents. Each phone call can have the weight of 10,000 constituents. Emails are still kinda treated with an arbitrary weight, usually almost less than a 1:1 constituent ratio.

Ummm, let me guess where ya got these statistics... your representatives and senators?
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AndriaD

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When I emailed my Congressman about this back in June, I got this reply:

Dear Mrs. Duncan:

Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition to regulating electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes). It is good to hear from you, and I can assure you that we are in complete agreement about additional federal regulations.

I generally believe we need to move away from the idea of the Federal government regulating in a broad and expansive way. If e-cigarettes are to be further regulated, such measures should be developed and implemented at the state and local level rather than by unelected bureaucrats in Washington.

Thank you again for contacting me. If I can ever be of service in the future, please don't hesitate to call upon me.

Sincerely,

Rob Woodall
Member of Congress


He doesn't totally dismiss the idea of "more regulations," but he does say that he feels it should NOT be handled by "unelected bureaucrats in Washington" -- he's a Republican, as is apparently much of this state, and one of their main rallying calls in recent years has been 'smaller government." I didn't vote for this guy, but I find I'm very pleased with him nevertheless -- his office has lasted longer than my brief excursion into "progressive" politics, which i see now seems to only want to "progress" into "bigger government."

It's starting to seem that GA may be one of most vape-friendly places to be -- the tax credits given to new businesses is undoubtedly a factor behind all the many vape/eliquid businesses here. The more businesses that open, the better they like, and they don't much care what kind of business it is. Smoking has also remained at far higher levels in the deep south than in many other places, so it's a real god-send around here.

Y'all come on down. :D

Andria
 

JimmyDB

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I Certainly Hope It Doesn't!

Unless you are talking about the fight to keep ecigs from being obliterated...then in that case... yes it could :evil:

Who let the mods in?! All is well, thanks for stopping by.

<quietly> really, who clicked the report button... come on. </quietly>

I didn't realize you had your own emoticon until recently.
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James Wilson

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While we do need to step up and take actions. Emails only accomplish so much. It is easy for them just to skim through them, have someone skim through them or just delete them. If and when they do read it and respond it is the same kind of response every time. They go for the people paying them off. The ones paying for their elections. Hand written letters could be better if they ever reach them. Or typed and mailed through snail mail. But they only accomplish something if you get enough people sending them in that they leave huge stacks of letters sitting on their desk. Hard to ignore them then. Another good way would be old fashioned protest. Which would be pretty fun to do actually. We can vape while we do it. Our voting will actually only accomplish so much. Especially when the majority don't seem to know much about vaping to begin with. A lot of them only know the negative hype that is being spread. This is assuming our votes are properly counted at all. I wouldn't trust anything they tally into a computer since that can easily be hacked by the government and changed. As for maybe getting a president who would be for it. Our votes definitely don't matter there since they use electoral votes instead of the popular vote. This is definitely an uphill battle. One that won't be easy for us to win.
 

twall

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I happen to think they've been doing this "war on tobacco" *wink wink, nudge nudge* just to make everyone who chooses to accept the risks of smoking feel as bad as humanly possible. Make them ashamed about what they CHOOSE to do. Not so they will quit, but. So they won't complain when the cigarettes are taxed at a combined rate of over 200%. WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. We fought a war over taxation without representation.

But, no: "Well, it is a filthy habit, so I guess I deserve it". Beaten wife syndrome, or whatever PC term it goes by these days. They want to do it to us too.

Nobody in government wins by us quitting. The BT lobbyists are mad that we're cutting in on their business, and nobody in government likes to lose tax revenue. There is nothing to poke them into action about seeing this as a serious smoking cessation/alternative.

Nobody really wants us to quit - just to feel guilty enough to let them keep abusing us.
 

twall

Moved On
Sep 10, 2014
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While we do need to step up and take actions. Emails only accomplish so much. It is easy for them just to skim through them, have someone skim through them or just delete them. If and when they do read it and respond it is the same kind of response every time. They go for the people paying them off. The ones paying for their elections. Hand written letters could be better if they ever reach them. Or typed and mailed through snail mail. But they only accomplish something if you get enough people sending them in that they leave huge stacks of letters sitting on their desk. Hard to ignore them then. Another good way would be old fashioned protest. Which would be pretty fun to do actually. We can vape while we do it. Our voting will actually only accomplish so much. Especially when the majority don't seem to know much about vaping to begin with. A lot of them only know the negative hype that is being spread. This is assuming our votes are properly counted at all. I wouldn't trust anything they tally into a computer since that can easily be hacked by the government and changed. As for maybe getting a president who would be for it. Our votes definitely don't matter there since they use electoral votes instead of the popular vote. This is definitely an uphill battle. One that won't be easy for us to win.


....But with all that positive thinking, I can't see how it could do anything but rally the troops. ;) Don't worry, I feel the same way. I get my negativity pointed out to me all the time. LOL

If you listen to talk shows (or watch them on TV), that's all you hear. "Email your representatives, call and light up the switchboard, vote, blah blah blah. I used to get so fired up at these calls to action. All so nothing changes. It's easy to be discouraged. The tough truth of the matter is there isn't a lot we can do. We are actually a very minute segment of the population, and we're spread out all over the world. You can hoard all the nic and flavors you want to, but eventually the supply will run out.

Enjoy it while it's here - the Tsunami is coming, and our little sand castle won't withstand it. Just gotta face reality sometimes.
 

Kaezziel

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Who let the mods in?! All is well, thanks for stopping by.

<quietly> really, who clicked the report button... come on. </quietly>

I didn't realize you had your own emoticon until recently.
hippy.gif

Ya know.... mods do read through posts without them having to be reported, right?
 

joesquid

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Irwink,

I have a question for you. If you don't believe congress pays any attention to vapers, why are you a member of CASAA?

I can tell you you are wrong. If our representatives receive enough comments over an extended period of time they have to start taking it seriously because they understand folks that take the time to write also take the time to vote. How many folks do you think are writing anti vaping letters? Most folks could care less.

I heard the same thing here in Virginia about Sunday Hunting. We kept up the letter writing, showed up at the hearings and guess what? I'll be taking my son hunting in Va for the first time this Sunday. There were alot of folks that said it would never happen but if the citizens get involved, you can make a change. Won't happen overnight, but persistance pays off.
 
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