3 ms·
Lobbying in its most basic form is simply free speech. I should have the right to assemble with like minded people and say whatever I want. We should also be
by jcampbell1 15y ago
Lobbying in its most basic form is simply free speech. I should have the right to assemble with like minded people and say whatever I want. We should also be free to contact politicians with the message, or pay for ads on TV with our message. How do you stop this and claim to be a free country? I don't much care for Citizens United, but I am certain the founding fathers considered political speech to be covered in the 1st Amendment.
I agree with the idea, but the devil is in the details. Congress should start with a cooling off period for staffers to work for lobbying firms, but I don't even know what it means to "criminalize lobbying".
- chiaro 15y agoAnother way to look at it is that lobbying distorts free speech. Instead of each person having an equal, free, say, a person with more money has a 'greater say', if that makes sense. Sooner or later we'll have to work out whether free speech or true (as far as representation goes) democracy is more important to us.
- jerf 15y agoTrying to "equalize" free speech just hands vast swathes of power to the people who get to define "equal". Speech is intrinsically unequal in effectiveness and there's no way to make that go away.