Just found out that non-US citizens are allowed, even encouraged to participate in change.org - but it is a private venture not connected to Obama's administration, so participating in it may have limited value.

I did not ask them, just in case they had forgotten to forbid non-US citizens to participate and my comment would remind them of that fact.

Instead, having read the rules and seen that there was no such prohibition, I simply applied reason and logic:

1) The US are proud of their democracy, and in a democracy anything which is not forbidden, is automatically permitted.

2) The US government is always giving advice (to say it mildly) to other sovereign countries about what they should or should not do, therefore it is evident that citizens of other sovereign countries must also be allowed to give advice to the US government.

So I concluded that if I didn't consider myself authorized to use the site, I would be presuming grave hipocrisy on their part. Since I always try to think well of others unless proven otherwise, I voted and even wrote quite a few comments, without my conscience being in the least disturbed.

Regards,

Daniel

Miland:Just found out that non-US citizens are allowed, even encouraged to participate in change.org - but it is a private venture not connected to Obama's administration, so participating in it may have limited value.

ok, good news, This is 9th place. If there enough people vote again later this could be put into action. Be ready again jan 5 -15.
--Phil

Their response is one line:

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Hi James,

Yes, non-citizens are eligible to vote in the project.

Simple and straight forward.

Putting Esperanto in US primary schools (and whatnot) is now 2nd in education on change.org with something like 2100+ votes. Last time I checked a week ago I swore it was like 500 ^_^

jawq81:...Esperanto: A reply to some arguments against Esperanto, by Don Harlow
http://esperanto.org/us/USEJ/world/kontraux.html

Q. Esperantists all agree that Esperanto should be made the official language of the European Union . . . Don't they?

A. Fortunately, I'm not a citizen (first-class or second-class) of the European Union, so I don't have to look at what would be most advantageous for the EU. I am an Esperantist, and tend to look at what would be most advantageous for Esperanto. And, as far as Esperanto becoming a tool of the EU gov't, I just don't see it.

1. Esperanto doesn't belong to anybody -- and hence it belongs to everybody who wants to use it. Unless a couple of other heavyweights were to decide, at the same time as the EU, to make Esperanto their official language (and I don't see that happening!), the EU would, in effect, become the new owner of Esperanto; so, farewell, our vaunted cultural and political neutrality.

2. And, once the EU had decided "in principle" to adopt Esperanto, who's to guarantee that a couple of Eurocrats, munching at a McDonald's in Brussels, would not decide to "repair" the language. A century of use has shown that "repairs" (they are commonly called "reforms") are generally the products of people who read through Teach Yourself Esperanto once, decide that because Zamenhof didn't do it in the same way the French do he was dead wrong, and set out to fix up the language. In other words, most proposed reforms of Esperanto are definitely not for the better. Mostly they end up in the garbage can ("dustbin", if you prefer) of history. The EU would have the clout to ensure that, good or bad, this would not happen.

I think that the adoption of Esperanto by the EU would be a step toward resolving a multitude of problems that plague the organization -- including the serious one of making it more democratic. But I don't think that it would do Esperanto any good, and so I'm not terribly enthusiastic about the idea. And I know that there are other Esperantists -- including many in the EU itself -- who agree with me.

I don't know what thinking about this article, and it disappointes me :

- Waiting for a state (or international states) organisation which will adopt Esperanto as work language. Ok that's the actual situation.

- To pray that it will never happend (!) because of the fear that the language could be "captured" and repaired by one's! So it would be an elitist, sectarist language ? How could it rise if there is not political decision about it?
Do you realy think that if some countries adopt esperanto as one of governmental languages, esperanto will be the same? I'm sure it won't and specific dialects will appear, and it's not so important, it's human...

This idea is currently in 31st Place and needs 2268 more votes to be part of the final 10 ideas presented at our event in Washington, DC

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/introduce_esper...

Frankp:This idea is currently in 31st Place and needs 2268 more votes to be part of the final 10 ideas presented at our event in Washington, DC

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/introduce_esper...

Surely that 2268 vote requirement will become even greater as time goes on?