Forum Post: Need a cause, stop the lobby process,
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 17, 2011, 8:29 a.m. EST by steve201
(2)
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it lets big money controll the government. Thats why jobs leave the country banks are robbing you , leaderscant do the right thing if there paid not to
Lobbying is important to democracy, but it must all be documented for public view. No parties, no dinners, no juckets, but publicly scheduled meetings that are recorded and representatives of opposite concerns can attend if desired
Bull shit lobbying is the cancer the ruins the democracy. Lobbying has bought our entire political system. Remove lobbying, remove the bribes and the people can be heard
Direct lobbying by citizens is important. Corporate lobbying should be banned, as should all paid lobbying.
Lobbying is not important to democracy. Lobbying is special access that is denied the average person. Lobbyists already have rules which they break regularly. Lobbyists are insiders who have established relationships and knowledge which they use to gain access and to persuade. Lobbyists can represent foreign interests, so they actually get double access to sway our legislative process because they have access through diplomatic channels and the administrative branch, as well. Why should a foreign country or business have better access to my elected representative than I do? How is that democratic??
Watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB7PwcC9qzw&feature=player_embedded#!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCRnkamitVk&feature=related better version,
spread the word, congress is bought. its all corrupt, all just acting for the american people. its sad
Protected by free speech.
I have the right to contract another to speak for me because I may be busy.
we gotta stop treating companies like People.... companies create goods... they shouldn't have this much impact on policy... come one... Hundreds of Millions of dollar lobbying... can't anyone think of a better way to use this money? We are bs-ing ourselves to the poorhouse.
Sure we can end corporations being treated as legal persons - that is surely a step in the right direction or at least facing it. That is entirely different than stopping the lobbying.
No, you don't actually.
Yes I do. I am deeply saddened by your understanding of individual rights.
Which right do you believe I don't have - the right of speech or the right of contract or the right of association?
You have no right to contract with other people to conduct business where that business interferes with the fundamental democratic rights of other citizens. If you pay 1000 people to lobby Congress on your behalf, other citizens' access to their representatives is impeded.
If you want to lobby Congress, do it yourself.
Exactly how does me making my concerns known to legislators somehow violate the rights of other citizens to do the same? Your conclusion does not logically follow your statement.
I just told you. Paid lobbying impedes access to representatives by other citizens. Paid lobbyists consume representatives' time and attention. Why do you think one citizen should have greater access to our democratic institutions than another just because one has more money? That is anathema to democracy.
We are a Constitutional Democratic Republic - the Constitution is the highest law and it protects the rights of the individuals and minority against the tyranny of the majority.
Nobody hires a thousand lobbyists. Even large corporations tend to hire one or two. It makes no sense to hire 1,000 lobbyists because most won't ever get heard.
How can you say that you don't know if everyone should have proportional time (good that you recognize that 16.06 seconds per year is not much face time) and say this in the preceding paragraph :"as one full-time lobbyist would be consuming a disproportionate amount of time and attention than the one citizen himself or herself-"?
You present that disproportional is bad but cannot say we should have proportional access...
We aren't a democracy - we use some democratic systems in our government that is all.
So if I instead went and talked to my representatives instead of my lobbyist aren't I also consuming representative's time and attention? Should everyone be reserved their proportional time to have their concerns known?
We are a democracy. We are a democratic republic. That makes the principle that citizens and constituents have equal access to their representatives all the more important, not less important. If this were a direct democracy, everybody would be his or her own representative.
If you go and talk to your representative instead of your paid lobbyist, you are indeed consuming his or her time and attention. But that is your right as a citizen to do. However, a person can hire two, three, or a thousand lobbyists, and that obviously takes up much more time than one citizen.
If you are suggesting that the principle should be that everybody may hire one and only one paid lobbyist, that still would not work, as one full-time lobbyist would be consuming a disproportionate amount of time and attention than the one citizen himself or herself--who presumably has other work and social obligations to which to attend--would consume.
I don't know that everybody should have proportional time to have their concerns known, as that would be unworkable. Moreover, not everybody may be interested in doing so. But I think the principle that a person is not entitled to more democracy than another just because they have more money is important. And that our representatives should not be distracted from the concerns of those citizens who wish to present them by hordes of paid lobbyists for those with more money.