Kasz216 said:
makingmusic476 said:
But this raises the question of why candidates are so often doing things that are at odds with what is best for their constituents and which only provide a benefit to themselves via the money recieved by lobbying groups.
Corn subsidies, military spending, privatized prison system, war on drugs, and so on. SOPA would be on that list if the technology industry hadn't helped raised awareness to the bill via WIkipedia, Google, etc.
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A) Because those are what's bset for their constitutents.
1) The politcians who are pro corn subisdies, 75% of the time are in districts that happen to grow corn.
For example, Obama is a HUGE guy for corn subsidies, because he's from a corn producing state. This helps their individual distrcits and states.
The other 25% come from areas where citizens extremly worried about global warming.
Corn subsidies being used for Ethanol production
2) Military spending is supported by a bunch of people because they have military bases, factories in their communtities, or have the ability to gain those things. Additionally, a LOT of Americans support increased military funding. Most tend to most of the time.
3) Privatised Prison systems. It's cheaper the public prison systems and the only people it might negativly effect are prisoners, people are for this because it means their taxes stay lower.
4) War on drugs. Most people are for the war on drugs. Public opinion has shifted notably in like... the last 3-4 years but not nearly as much as you'dt think.
5) SOPA. See how many pro-sopa people there were on THESE boards, where there shouldn't be any, or people who still insist piracy = stealing etc. Again, most people are for anti-piracy methods, and relativly strict ones. Ironically, if anything the STOP of SOPA would of been a better arguement. since it was an actual case where politicians changed their minds rapidly. Though they really didn't, they just dropped this unpopular bill, and are waiting for another queit bill to pass.
B) Lobbying groups don't give senators and congressmen money. Lobbiests are paid sweet talkers with inside connections that try and explain to congressmen why their ideas are good ones.
For example, say I was Barak Obama's tennis partner. Standard Oil might pay me to talk to Obama about why their new oil subsidy is great, and he'll talk to me because i'm his tennis buddy.
Might that change his opinion? Sure, still it's not through any nefarious means, unless you consider paying someone to make your point for you nefarius. The worst parts outside actual bribery which is illegal, is someimtes they'll make their points at expensive events.
Which, I don't see being a big factor for most congressmen considering what they are paid anyway.
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I'm inclined to think the bolded is a case of politicians influencing their constituents, by using their political soap boxes to espouse the threats of other nations and whatnot. If people were told "look, we pay more on defense than the next 20 countries combined, and we're in a great position, so maybe we could spend some of this money elsewhere" they might have a different opinion. But they're not. Instead we get unneccessary sabre rattling about Iran. And the whole Iraq debacle.
Same for healthcare, where people like Rick Santorum tell their voting base that the Dutch euthenize old people left and right, and they all gasp in disbelief. The politicians, of course, have reason to support such ideas given influence from the industries they end up protecting with such statements, or so I'd assume. I doubt they tell their constituents such BS because that's what they want to hear or something.
I mean, the disdain for things like a heavily regulated healthcare industry ala Japan or a single-payer system like Taiwan don't happen because these other systems legitimately aren't working as well as ours, but rather because people are constantly fed misinformation about such systems. Like Paul Ryan's recent quote about government healthcare. Or the e-mail my dad forwarded me claiming Japan has no welfare system whatsoever, and further claiming their lack of such a system directly lead to their swift recovery post-WWII.
I'd also argue that the decades long propaganda campaign against drugs via the War on Drugs has significantly influenced voters to support the continuation of the war.
And then there was that story a couple of months back about the reporter that sat in on a meeting beetween a congressmen and a lobbyist, and the congressmen straight up said "how big of a check will you cut me if I vote for this?" Googling generic terms like lobbyist and congressmen isn't turning any articles, however.
I can't help but feel that in many situations, a corporation influences a congressmen, who in turn influences their own constituents, and in others a corporation directly influences the voter. And in many more the congressmen's simply voting on an issue their constituents probably won't care about or ever even hear about, and thus they know it won't really effect their chances for re-election either way, but it still negatively influences the voter.
Given your post in the Russian thread, I guess you'd feel that congressmen seemingly not voting in our best interests all goes back to our FPTP system? That, while a lot of people may not support increased military spending, most people do, and that manifests itself in both major parties?
I suppose that could partially cause the problems I'm talking about. The major parties adopting a platform probably creates a sort of feedback loop where that then influences parts of the population to support such positions when they otherwise might not, simply because they are unaware of decent alternatives. Thus if, for example, the Green party gained some significant presence on the national stage, we'd also see an increase in support for something like single-payer healthcare as Green politicians talk about its benefits in speeches, etc.
So following this line of thinking, in the end it would all boil down to what politicians are runnning, and the current limit on which politicians do well has to do with FPTP instead of corporate influence.
:D
