I'm just fine! And how are you?
I had to read that over and over to get the significance of it through my head. Not a good precedent, at all. The implications are so scary that I simply discredited what I was reading.
If I were a high school student, say, and aware that any petition I signed could be located via a searchable data base that would allow any neighbor (or classmate, prospective employer, teacher, college admissions officer, landlord, etc) of mine to seek me out and slash my tires, toss an egg, give me a hard time in some way, any way, I might begin to be more careful, self conscious -- self-protective -- about what petitions I signed. There are a lot of crazy people out there, and the country is becoming more and more polarized. I might, at 16 or 18, decide that I didn't want to be included in a data base searchable by anyone interested in my past positions on their trigger-issues. My parents might have warned me, by the time I was 14, never to sign a petition.
If I were a doctor trying to build a practice, I wouldn't sign petitions. Or a dentist. Or a psychologist. Or a lawyer. Or a salesperson. Or a real estate broker. Or a teacher. Or any service person. Or singer.
If I felt myself vulnerable to reprisal or to being discriminated against in the future for my current views, I might sign no petititions.
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