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Comment by kulahan | Hacker News Reader

This is such an annoying attitude. Who is against the concept of an industry being able to say “are you aware this will decimate the jobs of tens of thousands”?

Catch phrases like this, I swear, are half the reason so many people have a mind an inch deep and a mile wide.

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The issue is that lobbying extends to PAC and Super PAC campaign donations. Which is pretty close to a bribe.

Lobbyist giving opinions, isn’t anywhere near corruption. Lobbyist giving campaign support by the $100,000 is a lot closer though.

Ok, so complain about PACs and super PACs. Who goes "Sandwiches are bad. The issue is that sandwiches lead to buffets and WEIGHT GAIN!!! BAN SANDWICHES!!!"

Because lobbying in the US is realistically dominated by money. We’re not stupid here - I think we all know money works better than words.

So... the solution is to ban speaking to your representatives to tell them how their actions will affect you? I dont get it. If you don't like the money aspect, take that out. It's not like it's inherently required for the overall concept to work.

It sure seems like we're pretending to be stupid, if the only solutions we can come up with are "unabated lobbying with infinite money" and "constituents must be outlawed from speaking with their representatives".

I mean in our current legal framework yeah - those things are equivalent. Money IS free speech. Maybe that’s dumb, but it’s not an argument we can ignore because it’s the predominant argument.

Yes, it’s dumb, and yes, that’s the topic of discussion here.

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