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"I appreciate the efforts of organizations like Move On, and I suppose there's lots of people who appreciate the actions of the opposing organizations. But it occurs to me that the very existance of these organizations is telling us that something is very wrong with our entire system.
"The purpose of a representative goverment is to send people to act in our interests. They're supposed to have a good idea of what we would want them to do. We shouldn't need to be browbeating them about 2 or 3 issues every week. If we need to constantly pester our representatives, telling them what we want, maybe it's because they don't really represent us; that's why they don't automatically know -- or care to act on -- what we want."
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addendum
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Well yes and no. Yes this does show a degree of distrust in the representatives. No it is important that people tell them what they want. These groups are nothing more the special interest groups. Which is to say they are gatherings of people who have certain interests. They represent the people within the organization. So when they speack they speak for these people to the representative, who need to listen and consider how much weight they want to give these groups. The only real danger of these groups is if they are no longer representing those they clam to be representing and they are taken over by a few people who choose to use it "image or representing" to forward their personnal wants and goals.
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This is not a perfect world. This is not how the game is played. No amount of screaming "baseball ought to be chess" will change baseball. They are two different games. Politics is its own game. The rules don't always make logical sense, just like baseball and chess rules don't make logical sense. However, everyone knows how the game is played, so we can all play by the same rules. A sensical game is played on the background of nonsensical rules.
Likewise, politics is played by an communally understood set of rules. You don't have to LIKE those rules. In this case, you lobby your representative because that's how the game is played. How else is the representative to know WHAT YOU WANT? He can't come around to you. He doesn't even know who you are. He only knows what you communicate to him, and how much money or pressure you can give. That's the game. That's politics. That's how it works in all it's ugly and inexact glory.
This works the same with SF writers.
FAN: Why don't the writers listen to what the fans want?
WRITERS: You fans want everything. When you say "fans", what united set of fans are you talking about? We get letters for and against every character. Which fans should we listen to?
It's the same with politics. Many people elect a representative. Now, who should they listen to? What single voice have the people spoken with? How clear is it? The practical solutions are to give money (influence) or pressure (creating a group of people with a loud voice), or both. That's the game. That's how it works. We have multiple groups with diverging and contradicting opinion attempting to influence our representatives. That's the game. That's why we need to be activists.
Just as important, our representatives don't know all the issues. How are they to be educated? By the newspaper? By the oppositing political party? By random chance? Again, it's up to the people to form groups and to petition their representatives with the vision of these groups.
Thus, Move On is playing the game as it is played, and they do good stuff.
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One day someone says, "My rep isn't listening to people like me", so he recruits a bunch of his friends together and gets the rep's attention.
Then likeminded individuals who disagree that the first group form their own group to compete.
And so on...and so one.
Eventually democracy devolves into a N-sided game of tug-of-war.