Isn't that how this country was founded?

> She can petition her elected representatives elsewhere

And then she will be told that they are busy and that petitioning should be reserved for city council meetings.

Have you never dealt with government bureaucracy?

And? The point remains: freedom of speech is not a guarantee that you'll have an audience. Like it or not, the city council has no obligation to grant an audience to her. That's probably bad for their reelection campaign, though, and like I said she can campaign for a challenger next election.

So what? They get paid to be civil servants. I've worked a continuous 40 hours fixing a firewall so the rest of the employees could work. It's part of the job.

Perhaps they should not block public comments if they don't want to cost taxpayers more money.

I did UX for over 20 years, and the profession is now cooked. Nobody cares about quality anymore. I'm angry and bitter.

If you have any avoidance techniques that are easy to articulate, please share them.

Quitting work years ago helped, even though I still enjoyed software development. I had intended to instead work on my own investments, but I stopped that after I figured out money is a joyless and meaningless motivator.

Mostly just saying no to helping anyone with computer problems. Fortunately changed from Windows 7 to Linux, so I can be mostly honest when I tell people I don't understand their laptop problems.

Said no to helping family with with any printer issues after ~2005. I often print stuff, but I use the printer at my local library or printshop.

I still occasionally dabble, but only for those people I dearly love. I'm still very good at tech support, I just don't do it.

I've got my tech frustration level down to about the background radiation level (as politics or taxes).

If you can disable the spying, then it's an irrelevant factor in the purchasing decision.

Would you prefer an A-grade quality appliance that can spy but that spying can be disabled, or a B-grade appliance that doesn't spy but needs replaced in three years?

I would prefer not to financially support a company that doesn't spy on me, even if it costs me a few hundred dollars more.

> If you open this box you agree to the EULA

That's especially ridiculous if you consider that many customers will never see the box if they have someone else install it.

Americans have been "starting to wake up" for at least five decades, and yet here we are.

The problem is our systems facilitate the rise of narcissists and sociopaths to leadership.

Just keep moving those goalposts while ignoring your cognitive dissonance that seems to reject the fact that humans are ultimately responsible.

Ah you must be one of those "Guns don't kill people, people kill people".

Great example, if someone is killed by gunfire, does the gun go to jail or does the shooter (a person) take responsibility?

I’m assuming you’ve never heard that slogan before. Google it. It’s an interesting read.