this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2024
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ITT: people so used to lobbying that they got convinced it's a necessary evil so that minorities and common folks can lobby as well.
It's clearly absurd. Many places call lobbying with its real name: corruption. And there are laws in place to fight it. Are they perfect? No. Is it then more effective to legalyze corruption? OF COURSE NOT ARE YOU INSANE?!?
Lobbying isn't the same as corruption.
Lobbying is informing politicians about an issue while pushing your agenda.
Corruption is giving a politician an incentive to vote as you want.
In what universe a politician does not have, nevermind intrinsecally in its raise to popularity, but explicitly active tools and relationships that keeps him up to date with the issues and needs of his community?
I guess in a monarchy.
Very few politicians have the time get down and understand the issues enough to make an informed decision, which they have aids and use lobbyists to learn about the subject.
A decision about deciding about subsidiaries for specific crops for instance, lets say that a farmer used to farm wheat, but then realized that he could get more money by farming tobacco, ok, so he switches to tobacco, but the nation still needs a stable supply of wheat, so wheat needs to be subsidized by the government to make it worth it for farmer to farm wheat, most politicians won't know if there is a need for this or how large it needs to be.
This is where lobbyists come in, they inform politicians about what they believe is needed, show reports and other data, to influence the politician about how to vote and what to argue for. Wheat farmers and baker advocacy groups will argue for high subsidies, tobacco farmers and cigarette companies will argue against it.
Is that a government for ants?!?
No dude there's experts, specialists, entire departments within any (?) human government that knows shit, talks with experts, calculate and runs stuff.
They don't just wait for farmers to walk up and explain what vegetables are.
And why would you think it's normal that cigarette companies are at this whymsical table? Why put cancer inducing products in a debate with food with baby politicians that knows nothing and wait for the "debate" to play out?
No this is normal.
Yes there are departments for healthcare, having reports full of stats, that no politician will ever read, lobbying can bring attention to demetia and bring some context to the data.
Correct, but they want farmers to come up and talk to them about problems that they see that might be missed, for example, how young people can be encouraged to go into farming, or if there is something killing the crops that they can see faster than the governments experts can write a report about.
Because they are a huge industry.
Because farmers need money, and if tobacco pays more than wheat, then the farmer will farm tobacco.
You are blind to so many options...
They ignore the reports? So why would they not ignore the "people"? Because money? Then it's just corruption and the policy won't reflect any genuine need.
Why being a "huge industry" has any political weight? Drugs cartel move tons of money, do they get a say in the matter too?
You are blind to reality.