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SPOILER ALERT: the answer is 'lobbying'. That is, the free, democratic, and fully legal, bribery of government legislators and elected officials by profit-drive

SPOILER ALERT: the answer is 'lobbying'. That is, the free, democratic, and fully legal, bribery of government legislators and elected officials by profit-driven corporate bodies. I, for one, was not surprised.

CharlesW 4y ago
Is $1-2M/year all it takes? If so, that's a pretty great ROI. https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?cycle=2016&id=D000064447 https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary...
- gruez 4y ago
  I doubt it. Sam Bankman-Fried sank 11 million into getting a biosecurity expert elected in a Democratic Primary, and got less than 20% of the votes.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    Who was that candidate?
    - gruez 4y ago
      Carrick Flynn
Nanana909 4y ago
> lobbying'. That is, the free, democratic, and fully legal, bribery of government legislators and elected officials by profit-driven corporate bodies. That’s not really the definition of lobbying though. We should try to avoid hyperboles. Additionally, bribery is not legal and that’s not even remotely the form that the vast majority of lobbying takes today.
- sonofhans 4y ago
  Of course it’s bribery. Everyone involved knows it’s bribery. The money is given with expectation of reward. If the bribing entity didn’t expect a direct reward, they wouldn’t give the money. Now, everyone tries to hide behind levels of abstraction — “It’s just lobbying!” — but those are just fig leaves and reasonable people should see through them. E.g., “Exxon gave the money to my campaign committee, and I’m not involved with the finance end; my vote in favor of Exxon was just a coincidence.” That’s pure bullshit and everyone knows it. So yes it’s bribery. Calling it something else is disingenuous.
  - Nanana909 4y ago
    > The money is given with expectation of reward. If the bribing entity didn’t expect a direct reward, they wouldn’t give the money. Let’s say a lobbyist for a nonprofit cancer research group has dinner with a representative and discusses reasons for (lobbies) him to vote for increased cancer research at this dinner. Is this bribery? Because it is lobbying. But under your definition of lobbying and bribing being equivalent terms, they are the same! And to call such an action bribery isn’t really making your case - it’s just nuking the utility of both of the words. This is a problem with modern political discourse - all rhetoric is flattened. No - lobbying is lobbying. Bribing is bribing.
    - groffee 4y ago
      Of course it's still bribery. The definition doesn't change just because you happen to agree with what they're getting bribed for.
      - Nanana909 4y ago
        Okay, if you think having dinner while talking about cancer research is bribery, let me find you an even more bare bones example. Your representative has a town hall and afterwards you get a few minutes to speak with him. You argue that the number of stop signs in your neighborhood isn’t enough and causes danger. In other words, you lobby him to pursue increased stop signs in your area. He hears you out, you guys shake hands, and leave. As you have now engaged in lobbying, have you engaged in bribery? Clearly not. The two words are not synonyms.
rib3ye 4y ago
TFA mentions 102k signatures collected to petition to ban. Did you know the person with the clipboard gets paid per signature? All the incentives in these conversations are messed up.
- gaganyaan 4y ago
  This sounds like a variation of "both sides are terrible, so what can we do?". I'm not accusing you of anything, but that's often used by people doing terrible things to deflect criticism, so hopefully you understand why this doesn't come across as a useful comment. At any rate, I think it's good that people collecting signatures are being paid for their time. If there's something actually bad about the petition though, it'd be good to hear about it.
  - rib3ye 4y ago
    More like, "both sides are terrible, but America works, so let's keep going."
    - gaganyaan 4y ago
      That's not really a good argument. It can be used to dismiss any possible way we can improve our lives. I'm also still not sure why I should think both sides are terrible, given that you haven't stated any reason to think that the petition is terrible.
giantg2 4y ago
Sure, lobbying rules need to change (companies shouldnt lobby and gifts of any kind need to be reined in; but citizen funded, with cap, interest groups are probably ok). It seems like the other democratic thing, which is likely more impactful, is that most people don't give a shit about most issues like this. People have much bigger issues in their lives (and on the reps schedule), so there's no real pressure for regulators to changeover this issue vs others. For even more evidence of people not giving a shit, just look at voter turn out. Edit: why disagree?
- JoshTko 4y ago
  Your perspective is perverse. the onus should not be on citizens to be informed about every possible toxin and regularly take action. This is victim blaming 101.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    "Your perspective is perverse. the onus should not be on citizens to be informed about every possible toxin and regularly take action. This is victim blaming 101." Perhaps you misconstrued my perspective. I'm just telling it how it is. There are plenty of issues that we should see action on, yet none is taken. The main reason is that there's only so much bandwidth in the system so things get prioritized. The high priority stuff is high priority because a lot of people give a shit about that thing. This is not victim blaming. Even if people gave a shit, the system is overburdened and they'd have to deprioritze other stuff. This is simply reality. Not to mention, we'd need proof that all these indifferent people are actually victims.
- supportlocal4h 4y ago
  The wisdom of the founding fathers of the U.S. impresses me. They didn't all agree on solutions and they didn't all agree on what was a problem. But together they chewed through a lot of tangly weeds. Many people think the foundations of the U.S. are outdated and ill-informed of modern society. Most of those people are poor students of history. The U.S. founders were not poor students. Regarding lobbyists and special interests in politics, the founders were not the least bit ignorant. In the end they settled on a clever mechanism to control them. The answer to special interests is special interests. It might be argued that some special interests have escaped containment. Big oil is too big? But Biden just sent massive funding into solar and batteries and electric vehicles. Big chemical is too big? Trump gutted EPA? What about Big Pharma? Well, any system is going to have pendulums, and none of them will be perfect. But can they self heal? History suggests the current system is pretty good at that even if any given moment seems a bit off-kilter. I'm not opposed to exploring other options. But to improve requires a recognition of the weanesses and the strengths of alternatives. Don't be too quick to dismiss the strengths of the current alternative.
epakai 4y ago
Lobbying is fine. The problem with the US is you can literally buy votes in the legislature. That's because the legislator's individual votes were made public via sunshine laws. As long as you keep those votes visible they can be bought no matter how much indirection has to be introduced. The alternative is a secret vote. Now only passed/unpassed legislation can be bought. This is a lot more expensive and requires a conspiracy, but it's a lot harder to hold the people in this conspiracy directly accountable since they can always plausibly deny how their vote was cast. I've yet to see another better solution for getting rid of the money to vote pipeline.
- kibwen 4y ago
  You can even have a middle ground. Make all votes secret, up until two months before someone's seat comes up election, then reveal all their past votes. Give voters information while reducing the window that lobbyists can use to buy votes.
  - epakai 4y ago
    Not worth it. Interest groups can have very long timelines. Think Federalist Society. Besides I wouldn't even expect a group as small as the senate to be able to record votes this way and keep it secret. Better to control who votes, but keep how they vote anonymous.
  - 93po 4y ago
    If the votes are visible at any time at all then it still defeats the purpose. There is so much revolving door and if you promise the person bribing, I mean lobbying you that you'll vote one way and it's revealed you didn't, then they lose their future lucrative private sector "jobs"
- Ptchd 4y ago
  Lobbying is NOT fine. It is bribery and is illegal almost anywhere else.
  - dahdum 4y ago
rayiner 4y ago
Do they not have lobbying in say Germany? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_Germany
webdoodle 4y ago
Citizen United destroyed politics in the country, by putting money above people.
theGnuMe 4y ago
It’s even worse, you have epa officials who use to work for pesticide companies. It’s collusion.
kreeben 4y ago
>> the answer is 'lobbying'. That is, the free, democratic, and fully legal, bribery of government Sure, it's legal, but how is it democratic?
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  Lobbying is an essential part of most democracies - how would you’re representatives know how to represent you if you weren’t allowed to tell them?
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
    If just telling them what you want is all that lobbying entailed, then it wouldn't be an issue. Of course there is more to it than that.
    - chrisseaton 4y ago
      What’s what ‘lobbying’ means. If you actually mean bribing then say that.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
  Because a democratically elected government created the lobbying rules. It's the same, somewhat paradoxical, reasoning that allow for governments to systematically put up barriers to voting or to dilute votes through gerrymandering. Since its a elected government, its all good.
diogenescynic 4y ago
I wish we'd just call it what it is--corruption. We've got to start holding our country to a higher standard if we want things to improve, instead of just making up new words to normalize it.
voisin 4y ago
What’s wild in my opinion is the unreasonable effectiveness of lobbying. Like $40k of lobbying can become $40 million is tax savings. I don’t understand why elected officials are so cheap to buy off.
- slim 4y ago
  because it's a job that anybody can do

CharlesW 4y ago

Is $1-2M/year all it takes? If so, that's a pretty great ROI. https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?cycle=2016&id=D000064447 https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary...

gruez 4y ago
I doubt it. Sam Bankman-Fried sank 11 million into getting a biosecurity expert elected in a Democratic Primary, and got less than 20% of the votes.
- pjc50 4y ago
  Who was that candidate?
  - gruez 4y ago
    Carrick Flynn

Nanana909 4y ago

> lobbying'. That is, the free, democratic, and fully legal, bribery of government legislators and elected officials by profit-driven corporate bodies. That’s not really the definition of lobbying though. We should try to avoid hyperboles. Additionally, bribery is not legal and that’s not even remotely the form that the vast majority of lobbying takes today.

sonofhans 4y ago
Of course it’s bribery. Everyone involved knows it’s bribery. The money is given with expectation of reward. If the bribing entity didn’t expect a direct reward, they wouldn’t give the money. Now, everyone tries to hide behind levels of abstraction — “It’s just lobbying!” — but those are just fig leaves and reasonable people should see through them. E.g., “Exxon gave the money to my campaign committee, and I’m not involved with the finance end; my vote in favor of Exxon was just a coincidence.” That’s pure bullshit and everyone knows it. So yes it’s bribery. Calling it something else is disingenuous.
- Nanana909 4y ago
  > The money is given with expectation of reward. If the bribing entity didn’t expect a direct reward, they wouldn’t give the money. Let’s say a lobbyist for a nonprofit cancer research group has dinner with a representative and discusses reasons for (lobbies) him to vote for increased cancer research at this dinner. Is this bribery? Because it is lobbying. But under your definition of lobbying and bribing being equivalent terms, they are the same! And to call such an action bribery isn’t really making your case - it’s just nuking the utility of both of the words. This is a problem with modern political discourse - all rhetoric is flattened. No - lobbying is lobbying. Bribing is bribing.
  - groffee 4y ago
    Of course it's still bribery. The definition doesn't change just because you happen to agree with what they're getting bribed for.
    - Nanana909 4y ago
      Okay, if you think having dinner while talking about cancer research is bribery, let me find you an even more bare bones example. Your representative has a town hall and afterwards you get a few minutes to speak with him. You argue that the number of stop signs in your neighborhood isn’t enough and causes danger. In other words, you lobby him to pursue increased stop signs in your area. He hears you out, you guys shake hands, and leave. As you have now engaged in lobbying, have you engaged in bribery? Clearly not. The two words are not synonyms.

rib3ye 4y ago

TFA mentions 102k signatures collected to petition to ban. Did you know the person with the clipboard gets paid per signature? All the incentives in these conversations are messed up.

gaganyaan 4y ago
This sounds like a variation of "both sides are terrible, so what can we do?". I'm not accusing you of anything, but that's often used by people doing terrible things to deflect criticism, so hopefully you understand why this doesn't come across as a useful comment. At any rate, I think it's good that people collecting signatures are being paid for their time. If there's something actually bad about the petition though, it'd be good to hear about it.
- rib3ye 4y ago
  More like, "both sides are terrible, but America works, so let's keep going."
  - gaganyaan 4y ago
    That's not really a good argument. It can be used to dismiss any possible way we can improve our lives. I'm also still not sure why I should think both sides are terrible, given that you haven't stated any reason to think that the petition is terrible.

giantg2 4y ago

Sure, lobbying rules need to change (companies shouldnt lobby and gifts of any kind need to be reined in; but citizen funded, with cap, interest groups are probably ok). It seems like the other democratic thing, which is likely more impactful, is that most people don't give a shit about most issues like this. People have much bigger issues in their lives (and on the reps schedule), so there's no real pressure for regulators to changeover this issue vs others. For even more evidence of people not giving a shit, just look at voter turn out. Edit: why disagree?

JoshTko 4y ago
Your perspective is perverse. the onus should not be on citizens to be informed about every possible toxin and regularly take action. This is victim blaming 101.
- giantg2 4y ago
  "Your perspective is perverse. the onus should not be on citizens to be informed about every possible toxin and regularly take action. This is victim blaming 101." Perhaps you misconstrued my perspective. I'm just telling it how it is. There are plenty of issues that we should see action on, yet none is taken. The main reason is that there's only so much bandwidth in the system so things get prioritized. The high priority stuff is high priority because a lot of people give a shit about that thing. This is not victim blaming. Even if people gave a shit, the system is overburdened and they'd have to deprioritze other stuff. This is simply reality. Not to mention, we'd need proof that all these indifferent people are actually victims.
supportlocal4h 4y ago
The wisdom of the founding fathers of the U.S. impresses me. They didn't all agree on solutions and they didn't all agree on what was a problem. But together they chewed through a lot of tangly weeds. Many people think the foundations of the U.S. are outdated and ill-informed of modern society. Most of those people are poor students of history. The U.S. founders were not poor students. Regarding lobbyists and special interests in politics, the founders were not the least bit ignorant. In the end they settled on a clever mechanism to control them. The answer to special interests is special interests. It might be argued that some special interests have escaped containment. Big oil is too big? But Biden just sent massive funding into solar and batteries and electric vehicles. Big chemical is too big? Trump gutted EPA? What about Big Pharma? Well, any system is going to have pendulums, and none of them will be perfect. But can they self heal? History suggests the current system is pretty good at that even if any given moment seems a bit off-kilter. I'm not opposed to exploring other options. But to improve requires a recognition of the weanesses and the strengths of alternatives. Don't be too quick to dismiss the strengths of the current alternative.

epakai 4y ago

Lobbying is fine. The problem with the US is you can literally buy votes in the legislature. That's because the legislator's individual votes were made public via sunshine laws. As long as you keep those votes visible they can be bought no matter how much indirection has to be introduced. The alternative is a secret vote. Now only passed/unpassed legislation can be bought. This is a lot more expensive and requires a conspiracy, but it's a lot harder to hold the people in this conspiracy directly accountable since they can always plausibly deny how their vote was cast. I've yet to see another better solution for getting rid of the money to vote pipeline.

kibwen 4y ago
You can even have a middle ground. Make all votes secret, up until two months before someone's seat comes up election, then reveal all their past votes. Give voters information while reducing the window that lobbyists can use to buy votes.
- epakai 4y ago
  Not worth it. Interest groups can have very long timelines. Think Federalist Society. Besides I wouldn't even expect a group as small as the senate to be able to record votes this way and keep it secret. Better to control who votes, but keep how they vote anonymous.
- 93po 4y ago
  If the votes are visible at any time at all then it still defeats the purpose. There is so much revolving door and if you promise the person bribing, I mean lobbying you that you'll vote one way and it's revealed you didn't, then they lose their future lucrative private sector "jobs"
Ptchd 4y ago
Lobbying is NOT fine. It is bribery and is illegal almost anywhere else.
- dahdum 4y ago

rayiner 4y ago

Do they not have lobbying in say Germany? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_Germany

webdoodle 4y ago

Citizen United destroyed politics in the country, by putting money above people.

theGnuMe 4y ago

It’s even worse, you have epa officials who use to work for pesticide companies. It’s collusion.

kreeben 4y ago

>> the answer is 'lobbying'. That is, the free, democratic, and fully legal, bribery of government Sure, it's legal, but how is it democratic?

chrisseaton 4y ago
Lobbying is an essential part of most democracies - how would you’re representatives know how to represent you if you weren’t allowed to tell them?
- Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
  If just telling them what you want is all that lobbying entailed, then it wouldn't be an issue. Of course there is more to it than that.
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    What’s what ‘lobbying’ means. If you actually mean bribing then say that.
Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
Because a democratically elected government created the lobbying rules. It's the same, somewhat paradoxical, reasoning that allow for governments to systematically put up barriers to voting or to dilute votes through gerrymandering. Since its a elected government, its all good.

diogenescynic 4y ago

I wish we'd just call it what it is--corruption. We've got to start holding our country to a higher standard if we want things to improve, instead of just making up new words to normalize it.

voisin 4y ago

What’s wild in my opinion is the unreasonable effectiveness of lobbying. Like $40k of lobbying can become $40 million is tax savings. I don’t understand why elected officials are so cheap to buy off.

slim 4y ago
because it's a job that anybody can do