Vote NO to Co-mingling Seats in Congress for SOTU Address This petition will be sent to members of both houses on January 24, 2011. Keeping the parties on their respective sides of the aisle is a form of checks and balances in this nation to prevent us from going down the road of showing so much over-the-top adulation for any particular leader that it begins to look NOT like America, but like some hideous form of government “worship” from Old Europe or other despotic regime in some third world nation. We don’t want that. We want lines clearly drawn that make it clear; “we will defend our rights to disagree” and they will not be taken from us, swept up in some pop culture moment of some populist president that is supported and driven by a lap dog media. In 1801, Thomas Jefferson discontinued the practice of delivering the State Of the Union (SOTU) address in person, regarding it as too self aggrandizing, too politically one sided, divisive and arrogantly monarchical as if it were the speech from the throne of an exalted monarch. Instead, the address was written and then sent to Congress to be read by a clerk. This suits most Americans fine. Just send it out electronically and save energy, money that would be expended on security, and the amount of “carbon and hot air gases that such an event would expend”. In 1913 Woodrow Wilson re-established the practice of delivering the address in person. This generated significant controversy and rightly so. Most folks think that the fake clapping and grand-standing that mark today’s SOTU address is largely a joke and few if any of the hot air spewed talking points ever come to fruition. Every word uttered is about growing the size of government in some way, shape or form. The majority of The People are now against this type of rhetoric and thinking. Today, we all know what a political grandstanding, Teleprompter-driven event this has become. It accomplishes nothing but political point scoring and is simply a prime bully-pulpit event and chance for one side to elevate the person they wanted for president to the status of an emperor, if not a “God”. Critically thinking Americans these days roll their eyes at such manufactured fanfare. We don’t want to see fanatical adulation of any of our elected representatives either on a house floor or anywhere else. Quite frankly, it makes us nervous at the least. We don’t like arrogance and over-reaching in government. To the average American these days, most in government deserve little more than a grudging nod. Those who champion our freedom and work to make government power smaller and less obtrusive – so that business might thrive - they are the ones who deserve praise and respect. Too much fanatical “worship” and forced clapping sends chills down the spine of most modern Americans who refuse to sit there and glad hand government any longer. Our founding fathers barely tolerated or even liked government and did NOT see it as something to be worshiped, or even trusted. Modern Americans are a far more pragmatic. Just send us the script by posting it online and get out of our lives and off our backs. Get on with the business of fixing this mess that four years of Democrat control of congress, and decades of Democrat control prior - have wrought along with wrong headed Republicans aiding and abetting. Signed, The People

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