When I was younger nude beaches and back country hiking were a great experience. Now that I'm older I don't hike and getting to the beach usually involves too much physical effort. (We frequented California's Blacks Beach and that 300 ft cliff climb was pretty rough going down let alone coming back up, so we haven't done that in quite a while.)
Signing the petition was not about me getting more privileges on public lands. It was more about getting nudism recognized as a wholesome life style. Nudism is an issue that needs to be addressed more by the general public and this is one way of doing that. This will help people to realize that we're out there and we also have rights.
When I was younger nude beaches and back country hiking were a great experience. Now that I'm older I don't hike and getting to the beach usually involves too much physical effort. (We frequented California's Blacks Beach and that 300 ft cliff climb was pretty rough going down let alone coming back up, so we haven't done that in quite a while.)Signing the petition was not about me getting more privileges on public lands. It was more about getting nudism recognized as a wholesome life style. Nudism is an issue that needs to be addressed more by the general public and this is one way of doing that. This will help people to realize that we're out there and we also have rights.
Well said!
I agree with what the petition asks for but I am just not comfortable giving out the personal information required to create an account at White House.gov so that I can sign it.
This is a tricky one and I can emphasize with people that feel this way. You are required to create an account before you can sign the petition and that requires entering your name and an email address. The website also asks for your zip code although I've heard from several people who have confirmed it will allow you to create an account and sign even if you leave the zip code field blank.
After all the recent revelations people really have lost trust in our government. Many no longer believe the government is looking out for them and in my opinion they are right. It is really sad that people are so distrustful of the government that they don't even want to provide any personal data to create an account on a government website. If you really feel strongly about it as a privacy issue, I respect that and wouldn't try to talk you into doing something you aren't comfortable with.
But it has to be said, that living in this post-Edward Snowden world, we are all going to have to accept a new paradigm. Privacy as we once knew it, pre-9/11 privacy concepts no longer exists and will never exist again. Snowden revealed that the government routinely harvests and stores vast amounts of personal data from the Internet on every person in this country. There is actually plenty of proof that supports the veracity of his claims. There is an interesting article that explains it pretty well at this link:
https://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/09/18863448-lawmakers-americans-dont-know-how-carefully-the-government-is-watching
The bottom line is the government already knows everything they want to know about every one of us. If you have ever registered on any website, including this one, the government already has your information. Yes, many people as I do have regular email accounts that we use for work or to email our friends and then we have alias email accounts that we use for things like registering on websites. We also often use alias monikers for usernames.
Still, most of us when we do ordinary things like placing an order at Amazon or emailing our cousin in South Florida, use our authentic information. Every computer has a unique identifier. So no matter how many aliases a person uses, if you have every used your real information on the same computer that you have used alias accounts and identities on, you can believe that has all been collated and somewhere, someone has all that information connected. Chances are they also know every website you have ever visited no matter what username or email you used to sign on to the Internet or to register at a website.
All this data massive data collection has been going on for at least the past five years we're told. The intent the government tells us is to keep us safe. Actually I am not a conspiracy theorist and so for now at least I'm willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt. I haven't yet heard how any data collected has been used to inappropriately target any innocent person. Unless information comes to light that indicates the data collected is being abused, I'm willing to accept that the government is using it responsibly.
It isn't against any law to be nudist or naturist or to favor something like this petition. Laws regulate conduct not thoughts, beliefs or in most cases speech. So the truth is, by creating an account to sign the petition you aren't giving out any information the government doesn't already have. The only way you could have any real privacy these days with respect to big brother is if you decided to go completely off the grid. That means no computer, no cell phone, no credit cards, no job where you get a paycheck and have withholding taken out, no purchasing any train or airline tickets, no utilities accounts, no drivers license, no bank accounts, no nothing. It just isn't possible anymore to fly under the radar so to speak unless you are willing to go to some pretty extreme lengths. It's sad but true. Something was taken from us on 9/11 that we will never get back.
But in the final analysis, if you feel strongly about not giving up the information to create the account necessary to sign the petition then that is your decision and I'll respect it. But you really should understand that privacy is no longer a factual expectation but merely an illusion and that isn't ever going to change.
If you were willing to go to a lot of extra trouble, you could go to the public library and use a computer there to create a burn email account under an alias, create your account at White House.gov and then sign the petition. Depending on how the library administers computer use, there might not be any electronic bread crumbs leading back to you that way. But of course as mentioned that would be a lot of trouble to go through just to spend three minutes to sign a petition. It basically just comes down to whether this issue is important to you or it's not.
For those willing to create an account at the site, please help make a difference by joining with those who have already signed the petition.
--] https://wh.gov/lIUyG
We have had petitions like this before and they never get enough signatures to accomplish anything. I think signing these petitions is just a waste of time.
Candidly there is some truth to the above statement. I've heard these sentiments expressed by several folks, if in slightly different words. I wasn't aware of it but someone told me the other day that they signed a similar petition to this one posted at "We the People" website this past summer and that it didn't even manage to meet the 150 signature threshold. I checked into it and while the petition is closed and no longer available for viewing I did find the title of it on an Internet search and it was evidently about something quite similar. All I can say is that is a situation that as a community, we nudists should be ashamed of if the petitioners made a reasonable attempt to get the word out about that previous petition and no one bothered to sign it.
The fact is there is a good deal of apathy among nudists and the reason for it is that most people believe it's too difficult to have an impact and/or they dont believe they personally can make a difference. It is just easier to take the path of least resistance, throw up our hands and quit without even trying and then to blame the national organizations for not doing enough when our rights to enjoy our lifestyle continue to shrink.
An online petition drive is about the easiest way imaginable for individual nudists to get involved in activism and to try and make things better. All it requires is the willingness to spend a few minutes to create an account and sign. No one is asking you for financial support, asking you to show up for a rally in front of the White House or asking you to commit an act of civil obedience that might land you in jail. Just a few minutes of your time is all that is requested.
Petitions alone rarely accomplish everything a community like ours might be asking policy makers for, but a petition drive often can motivate more people than ever before to start speaking up and taking action. And that's a good thing. Any hardcore activist will tell you that their first action isn't something like storming the White House. Usually they start a movement with something simple that gets some positive feedback and then take it to a higher level.
If we want a more engaged nudist community, we need to make it easy for as many individual nudists as possible to feel the joy of those first simple steps and an online petition is one way to accomplish that. If you make activism relatively painless, people will do more of it. If you make it painful, they'll do less.
It's easy to rationalize not signing a petition by saying it isn't going to accomplish anything anyway. But none of us can foresee the future so that really isn't a justifiable assumption. Maybe we will get the 100,000 signatures and maybe we won't. But it is a lead pipe cinch we won't if too many people don't bother signing because they assume it won't do any good.
I'll leave you with a quote from Margaret Mead, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Think about that.
Try to make a difference by signing the petition https://wh.gov/lIUyG
I sent to following e-mail to our local radio, TV and newspaper under the subject Nudists petition the White House. Will it do any good? I don't know, however, if everyone reading this thread did the same in their area, there is the chance that it would catch the right persons attention and give usthe exposure (no pun intended)which we need."Nudists across the Nation are petitioning the White House for greater access to Federal lands and beaches. For additional information, please click this link."https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/designate-portions-public-lands-under-management-federal-government-clothing-optional-recreational/15TLkVMJP.S.Below is the link to the article which was published due to my efforts to promote The Record Skinny Dip.Individual effort can make a difference.https://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/2010/07/08/1574518/cover-story.html
I signed it. Privacy? Pffft! Doesn't matter, they'll find out who I am anyway, if they want to bad enough. What are they gonna do? send a drone after me? Armed USAF drone versus naked man hiking. I can see that exchange happening!
I wouldn't sign it for one reason: It would force our ideals on others that do not share in those ideals.
There are a great many people that are very uncomfortable with nudity. Forcing nudity on them is akin to an assault. Federal lands and National Parks are open to everyone and shouldn't place ANYONE in a situation where they would feel uncomfortable or even threatened. It would cause the use of the lands to drop drastically and that is not good. It would give nudism a black eye and nudism is already viewed in a very negative light in this country.
Not to mention that no politician in their right mind would support this. And I do not blame them!
I wouldn't sign it for one reason: It would force our ideals on others that do not share in those ideals.There are a great many people that are very uncomfortable with nudity. Forcing nudity on them is akin to an assault. Federal lands and National Parks are open to everyone and shouldn't place ANYONE in a situation where they would feel uncomfortable or even threatened. It would cause the use of the lands to drop drastically and that is not good. It would give nudism a black eye and nudism is already viewed in a very negative light in this country.Not to mention that no politician in their right mind would support this. And I do not blame them!
Are not textiles ideals forced on us? Federal lands and Parks are for everyone to enjoy. You said it! Should nudists not enjoy it as much as someone clothed? The idea was to set aside small areas of federal land to be used as clothing optional. In national forests now, this exists. Areas are sign posted, "you may encounter nudes in this area". Then it becomes that the explorer has 2 options. Continue along and not be offended, or perhaps avoid that small area all together. Nudists and the textiles can get along, as long as everyone behaves.
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