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Zarathustra
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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 2:01 am Post subject:

wayfriend wrote:

Who writes all the laws that Dems support?

What, you don't know? Doesn't that bother you?

You asked us if it bothers us that we didn't know [until recently] who writes the laws which you've mentioned. The implication, I assume, was that you were surprised that we don't seem concerned about our ignorance in this area, because you think we should be just as bothered by it as you are. So I was wondering if you applied the same question which you asked us to your own ignorance of laws which *do* support, to see if you're actually bothered by the same thing which you think should bother us, or if it's a merely partisan worry. It's just a guess here, but I bet you're not bothered so much about lobbyists and special interest groups--like unions--helping to write laws which you support. I bet you're not even researching it to find out who is writing those laws, even though you think other people should be bothered about it when the tables are turned. (Feel free to post all your research if I'm wrong.)

wayfriend wrote:

Zarathustra wrote:

We get it, you don't like particular conservative laws. And that explains why you don't like this conservative lobbying group.

We get it, Z. You don't like anyone exposing how evil conservatives are, and so you want to assassinate the character of anyone who posts about it.

So you think conservatives are evil? Is that what you think you're doing here, exposing how evil we are? Is this like a religious crusade for you? Or is this some attempt at sarcasm that I'm not getting?

Wayfriend wrote:

(See what I did there?)

I saw that you still don't know what "character assassination" means, even though I've pointed it out to you in the Trayvon Martin thread. But using words improperly and often nonsensically to make accusations of malicious intent within others (usually those "evil conservatives") is pretty typical for you, so I don't expect this reminder to have much effect.

Wayfriend wrote:

Did you look at the laws that ALEC tries to pass? Did you see the one where they require every college to appoint an officer charged with preventing "liberal indoctrination" of college students, violating free speech seven ways to Sunday? Which is a more significant point, that I don't like that because I don't like conservatives, or that you do like it because you do?

What makes you think I like that particular law? Can you provide evidence where I've argued for such a law?

For the record, I don't think you're paranoid. I think you're "selectively outraged/indignant/suspicious." But that probably applied to most of us.
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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 5:30 am Post subject:

Murrin wrote:

I want to find something wrong with it, my instinct is to dislike it... but... well, these bills still have to be voted in. When it comes to passing law, the content should matter more than the source, and if bad laws are being passed, isn't that a problem with the people voting them in, not the people writing them?

Yeah, agreed.

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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 12:03 pm Post subject:

The Liberals don't need an ALEC-like organization; they've owned the legislative process for decades via the Supreme Court. EDIT: ALEC is simply a function of the American political process and as such is an expression of the human tendency to oppress others and gain pre-eminence for oneself and one's group. It's no more evil or shadowy than, say, Planned Parenthood with its agendas. _________________ Grand Reread Progress: Runes Of The Earth Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle. -Philo of Alexandria Ardinéa, my free e-book My songs

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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 1:11 pm Post subject:

Zarathustra wrote:

wayfriend wrote:

Who writes all the laws that Dems support?

What, you don't know? Doesn't that bother you?

Yes, it does.

Now can you tell me who writes all the laws that Dems support?

Or do you not have any point except to badger me and question my integrity? I notice all your replies are about me, leading us away from any discussion about ALEC.

Zarathustra wrote:

The implication, I assume, was that you were surprised that we don't seem concerned about our ignorance in this area, because you think we should be just as bothered by it as you are.

Everyone should be bothered by this.

There is so much that is wrong about this, without even needing to touch upon whether it is left or right side. There's simply no credibility at all to the notion that someone would only dislike it because it is conservative.

Who, though, are the people who would like this? Who are the people who say, meh? Can we credit that they are okay or blase about this for any reason other than they support anything conservative?

What is shocking is the yeah, so what response. In your rush to prove I am biased, you're only proving your own bias.

Zarathustra wrote:

wayfriend wrote:

Zarathustra wrote:

We get it, you don't like particular conservative laws. And that explains why you don't like this conservative lobbying group.

We get it, Z. You don't like anyone exposing how evil conservatives are, and so you want to assassinate the character of anyone who posts about it.

So you think conservatives are evil?

No, I think that you are inventing motives for me and taking it upon yourself to tell everyone about them. And now I also think you don't even know you are doing it.

By changing the content of my post to emphasise something I didn't actually emphasise, and dropping off the "(See what I did there?)" at the end of it, you cleverly did everything you could to hide that I was making a point by emulating what you were doing and doing it back to you - making up false motives and ascribing them to you. Don't edit my posts to change what I said and then claim I wrote it - that's real douchbaggery.

Wayfriend wrote:

Zarathustra wrote:

We get it, you don't like particular conservative laws. And that explains why you don't like this conservative lobbying group.

We get it, Z. You don't like anyone exposing how evil conservatives are, and so you want to assassinate the character of anyone who posts about it. (See what I did there?)

Avatar wrote:

Murrin wrote:

Yeah, agreed.

That doesn't hold when, for example, people believe they are passing a law to stop illegal immigrants, when what they are really passing is a law to boost the prison business. That's one of the problems.

deer of the dawn wrote:

The Liberals don't need an ALEC-like organization; they've owned the legislative process for decades via the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court that's leaned conservative for decades? This claim can't be substantiated in any way.

deer of the dawn wrote:

It's no more evil or shadowy than, say, Planned Parenthood with its agendas.

I'm sorry, but Planned Parenthood has always been very much in the public spotlight.
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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 1:33 pm Post subject:

wayfriend wrote:

Avatar wrote:

Murrin wrote:

Yeah, agreed.

Sounds like them not understanding the laws they're voting for, which is again their problem, not the law in question.
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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 1:51 pm Post subject:

There's no such thing as "understanding the law". Understanding comes from your biases. Two people can "understand" the same law in different ways. Who's right? Wayfriend, there is discussion around your OP. You just don't like the discussion, you want it to go a certain way.You're bothered that evil conservatives exist and don't know about ALEC. And you've asserted there's no equivalence from liberals (you love your labels BTW). Where was the link? _________________ --Andy "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur." Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound. I believe in the One who says there is life after this. Now tell me how much more open can my mind be?

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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 2:50 pm Post subject:

Cybrweez wrote:

You just don't like the discussion, you want it to go a certain way.

Yes. Specifically, I would like the discussion to be more about ALEC and less about me.

Cybrweez wrote:

You're bothered that evil conservatives exist and don't know about ALEC.

No. I am bothered that all the replies are about me and not about ALEC. You're information about what bothers comes from what other people are saying about me, and not me. Probably because this post has been way too much speculation about what bothers me. I think the topic about what bothers me should be completely off the table.

Here's what I think. Everyone has a gut-based reaction to disagree with anything I post. But, not being willing to go so far as to disagree with my assessment that ALEC is bad, they instead choose to disagree with the way I post about it.

I hope you are now clear about what bothers me.

Cybrweez wrote:

And you've asserted there's no equivalence from liberals (you love your labels BTW). Where was the link?

Base post. I not only linked the article I quoted it in it's entirety.
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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 3:05 pm Post subject:

wayfriend wrote:

Here's what I think. Everyone has a gut-based reaction to disagree with anything I post.

I disagree! Laughing

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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 3:06 pm Post subject:

wayfriend wrote:

Now can you tell me who writes all the laws that Dems support?

I know that Obamacare was written by the insurance industry. But no, I don't know every single law.

wayfriend wrote:

Or do you not have any point except to badger me and question my integrity? I notice all your replies are about me, leading us away from any discussion about ALEC.

This line of questioning began from you making a point about us, instead of the topic. Allow me to refresh your memory:

At the beginning of this tangent, YOU wrote:

No one's bothered that they don't know [until recently] who's creating the laws that we vote for?

It is disingenuous to complain about a line of questioning that addresses the integrity of those involved in a discussion when you're the one who began the line of questioning. If you're going to judge us [like this: "Everyone should be bothered by this."] then expect to be questioned on your status as a judge.

wayfriend wrote:

There's simply no credibility at all to the notion that someone would only dislike it because it is conservative.

As soon as you start a thread complaining about lobbyists who write Democrat laws, I'll consider that. Until then, I'll remain skeptical of your claim, especially when the laws in question are laws which you've already gone on record as opposing elsewhere.

Do you really think that--after 39 years of existence--it's a coincidence that ALEC has come to your attention now (during the Trayvon Martin case, voter ID debate, etc.)? Why do you think the sources which brought it to your attention dug up the information now? Why do you think those particular sources are ones which would come under your attention? This entire topic is partisan, through and through, from the motivation to reporting it, to the selective nature of not reporting liberal lobbyists.

wayfriend wrote:

Who, though, are the people who would like this? Who are the people who say, meh? Can we credit that they are okay or blase about this for any reason other than they support anything conservative?

I don't think anyone has said they like this. We've said that it's not a problem, unless lobbying itself is a problem. I'm open to that debate, but it's not about any particular lobbyist. If your concerns are truly non-partisan, we should be talking about lobbying in general, not a conservative lobbying group. You can shift the discussion any time you want, if that's your true focus. But the way you've began this discussion would make such a move seem dubious, at best.

Wayfriend wrote:

In your rush to prove I am biased, you're only proving your own bias.

I loudly proclaim my bias. I have no intention of hiding it. But I try to hold myself to the same standard by which I judge others, and try to refrain from judging them as deficient in areas which I'm also deficient. If you had not questioned and judged our lack of outrage over this, this entire tangent never would have happened.

Quote:

By changing the content of my post to emphasise something I didn't actually emphasise, and dropping off the "(See what I did there?)" at the end of it, you cleverly did everything you could to hide that I was making a point by emulating what you were doing and doing it back to you - making up false motives and ascribing them to you. Don't edit my posts to change what I said and then claim I wrote it - that's real douchbaggery.

So you acknowledge that the motives you ascribed to me were false, and therefore I wasn't doing a character assassination. That's great. Thanks for clearing that up.

However, I wasn't ascribing false motives to you. You actually do dislike the particular conservative laws in question here. You've explicitly stated your dislike. While it's true that it's only my theory that you dislike this lobbying group for this reason, it's also true that it's a theory which you can disprove with counter-evidence which you have yet to bring up. All you have to do is agree that unions helping to write pro-union legislation is bad, for instance, and you prove me wrong. It's not hard.

Wayfriend wrote:

But this is speculation. Why would people not connected to the prison business have any interest in boosting the prison business? As Cail pointed out, the correction to your own linked source had to admit that the prison business had no connection to the push to get this law passed.

Every law which is enforced by putting people in jail has the potential to increase the prison business. Even Obama's "Buffet Tax." If millionaires don't pay the tax, they can go to jail for tax evasion. To claim that any particular law is designed to increase the prison business is like saying that every traffic law is designed to increase ticket revenues. It's an extremely easy argument to make, since the violation of such a law always carries the relevant penalty. But it's quite a bit harder to prove, and in the absence of evidence such an argument just looks conspiratorial and excessively (and selectively) suspicious.
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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 3:20 pm Post subject:

wayfriend wrote:

Yes. Specifically, I would like the discussion to be more about ALEC and less about me.

No. I am bothered that all the replies are about me and not about ALEC.

I said nothing about you personally, WF.

Quote:

deer of the dawn wrote:
The Liberals don't need an ALEC-like organization; they've owned the legislative process for decades via the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court that's leaned conservative for decades? This claim can't be substantiated in any way.

The SC has "slouched", not leaned, conservative, but not on the issues that really matter. The liberals seem to get the decisions that affect real ethical issues; the "conservative" decisions are all about crap that no one cares about. (Well, I guess someone does, cuz they made a federal case out of it. Razz

)

(I'm neither a conservative nor a liberal, really. I'm very leftist about some things and very rightist about others.)

Quote:

deer of the dawn wrote:
It's no more evil or shadowy than, say, Planned Parenthood with its agendas.

I'm sorry, but Planned Parenthood has always been very much in the public spotlight.

Do a quick Google on "Planned Parenthood hidden agenda" and find all kinds of substantiation. Nope, I'm not going to provide specific examples because lots of people would just give counterexamples and I would get bored and the discussion is not about PP, but about the fact that political groups all have agendas and are not usually up-front about all of them. ALEC is just business as usual.

And Hug

for you, WF. Carry on.
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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 3:31 pm Post subject:

Zarathustra wrote:

wayfriend wrote:

Or do you not have any point except to badger me and question my integrity? I notice all your replies are about me, leading us away from any discussion about ALEC.

This line of questioning began from you making a point about us, instead of the topic. Allow me to refresh your memory:

At the beginning of this tangent, YOU wrote:

No one's bothered that they don't know [until recently] who's creating the laws that we vote for?

It is disingenuous to complain about a line of questioning that addresses the integrity of those involved in a discussion when you're the one who began the line of questioning.

That's an undefendible interpretation of that response, now isn't it? I asked who was and was not bothered? I didn't [then] question anyone's integrety for not being bothered, or for being bothered. With less douchbaggery involved, you would note the context of my disbelief at all the "who cares?" comments that preceded it, instead of trying to make out I started something that you started.

Zarathustra wrote:

wayfriend wrote:

There's simply no credibility at all to the notion that someone would only dislike it because it is conservative.

Very well. I will do that as soon as you do that. From now on, you should not comment on anything unless you prove you researched every possible person who could choose to do it and report on who does it and who does not.

Shall we start with you demonstrating all your research on the quality of everyone elses comments in this thread?

The depths you go to, to defend your indefensible comments, is quite amazing.

Zarathustra wrote:

Do you really think that--after 39 years of existence--it's a coincidence that ALEC has come to your attention now (during the Trayvon Martin case, voter ID debate, etc.)?

It came to my attention when they were involved in Arizona last year.

And it's not a coincidence when ALEC is associated with the Stand your Ground laws that are the heart of the Martin case.

Zarathustra wrote:

If your concerns are truly non-partisan, we should be talking about lobbying in general, not a conservative lobbying group.

Then please do so. I really would not mind, in fact I would prefer, if the center of the discussion wasn't what I do and why I do it.

Zarathustra wrote:

You actually do dislike the particular conservative laws in question here. You've explicitly stated your dislike.

I dislike the laws. I don't dislike them for being conservative laws.

Zarathustra wrote:

All you have to do is agree that unions helping to write pro-union legislation is bad, for instance, and you prove me wrong. It's not hard.

I agree that unions writing laws and delivering them to state legislaters to be passed is bad. And that state legislaters who sign up to do that is bad. I agree that unions who subsequently try to pass off these union-written laws as something else is bad. And I agree that unions doing this in secret is bad.

Has that happened?

Zarathustra wrote:

Wayfriend wrote:

But this is speculation.

No, enough has been reported about it that I do not consider it speculation.

Zarathustra wrote:

Every law which is enforced by putting people in jail has the potential to increase the prison business.

But we should not create laws merely as a means of generating prisoners.
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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 3:36 pm Post subject:

deer of the dawn wrote:

wayfriend wrote:

Yes. Specifically, I would like the discussion to be more about ALEC and less about me.

No. I am bothered that all the replies are about me and not about ALEC.

I said nothing about you personally, WF.

Yes, I was incorrect to say "all". "Most" was more accurate.

I appreciate that you weren't part of the ganging-up.

deer of the dawn wrote:

The liberals seem to get the decisions that affect real ethical issues; the "conservative" decisions are all about crap that no one cares about. (Well, I guess someone does, cuz they made a federal case out of it. Razz

)

I thought, for example, the ruling on corporations corrupting elections really mattered, was an ethical issue, and did not come out in favor of any liberal position.

deer of the dawn wrote:

And

for you, WF. Carry on.

What are you doing here? Smile

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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 4:32 pm Post subject:

wayfriend wrote:

Yes. Specifically, I would like the discussion to be more about ALEC and less about me.

Well, put me in the camp that would love to stop talking about you. You're responses to people's reaction (big deal, this is the way of the US, its not unique to ALEC) are twofold - I've proved its unique (which is BS), and stop talking about me. I don't know who wants to keep talking about you but you.

wayfriend wrote:

No. I am bothered that all the replies are about me and not about ALEC.

Let me sum up the replies - ALEC is not unique, legislation is written by all types of people/groups, and is not illegal. This "expose" just sounds like paranoia. Now, respond to that, and stop whining about you.

wayfriend wrote:

Everyone has a gut-based reaction to disagree with anything I post.

\
Great, I'm sure I can come up w/a different reaction. But let's stick w/yours for now. What are people disagreeing with you about? Specifically?

wayfriend wrote:

Base post. I not only linked the article I quoted it in it's entirety.

Yes, I read it. It must be this?

Quote:

As of yet, there are no ALEC imitators on the left. Instead, liberal interests like organized labor groups

Sorry, I cut the quote off. Reading someone say their interest groups isn't an imitator b/c their interest groups promote things they like doesn't interest me. Its not objective reporting but biased bunk. Is that your "proof"? Quite a ways to go there WF.
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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 4:50 pm Post subject:

Rawedge Rim wrote:

I'm still not sure it's all that different, any more than being a member of the various legislatures and being a member of the NRA,
or AARP, or even the Southern Baptist League.

I think it's different because legislators line up to say, hand me lots of legislation to sponsor.

Z, above, wants to try and trick me into agreeing that lawmakers should never get anyone's input when making a law. I don't say that though - you should get input from stakeholders before making any law. However, asking someone else to write a law which you will then submit as your own is a whole different level of complicity. And holding out your hand and saying I will submit any law you send me is another level yet again.

Cybrweez wrote:

Yes, I read it. It must be this?

Quote:

As of yet, there are no ALEC imitators on the left. Instead, liberal interests like organized labor groups

Sorry, I cut the quote off.

Too bad. The rest of the quote was the whole point:

Quote:

Instead, liberal interests like organized labor groups — notably AFSCME — have begun trying to counteract the group by pressuring its corporate members [...]

So as you can plainly see, the author isn't saying there are liberal versions of the same thing but they don't count because they have different things they promote. He/she is saying there are no liberal organizations that do what ALEC does. Period. Rather than compete with ALEC, they fight against ALEC.

Groups that are actually similar - may be coming though. Although one must respect that trying is not succeeding. [link]

I am not pleased by this idea either. Then again, I don't think one side should fight with one hand tied behind it's back. I'd rather the whole thing got squashed unilaterally.

However, you can take the news that the Dems are scrambling to create an ALEC as evidence that they don't have one.
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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 6:48 pm Post subject:

Wayfriend wrote:

... asking someone else to write a law which you will then submit as your own is a whole different level of complicity.

Bank lobbyists writing Dem legislation

Quote:

... it's disgusting that banks are writing the legislation, watering it down so it is meaningless with the help of Ellen Tauscher and the New Democrat coalition.

Dems do it more than Reps in California

Quote:

Everybody does it. Out of 122 legislators who served at least partial terms in 2007-08, just one — Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks — refused to introduce any sponsored bills. Democrats introduced more sponsored bills than Republicans, but Republicans introduced a larger percentage of bills sponsored by private interests.

Energy lobby writing Dem climate change bills

Quote:

Democratic lawmakers who spent much of the Bush administration blasting officials for letting energy lobbyists write national policy have turned to a coalition of business and environmental groups to help draft their own sweeping climate bill.

Lobbyists write Dem bill to ship jobs overseas

Quote:

It is mere months after Democrats won the election on a promise to defend America's middle class. The nation demands action to address burgeoning health care and environmental crises. But somehow, the first significant initiative the newly empowered Democratic Party is likely to pass into law is a lobbyist-written trade pact to help Big Business ship jobs overseas.

Unions writing Dem amnesty bills

Quote:

When S.9—the 2007 version of Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid's 2006 effort to import 100 million illegals from Mexico into the United States is presented to the Senate floor for a vote in late March or April, the liberal mainstream media will refer to the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 as a bipartisan effort to solve the problem of illegal aliens and the porous borders between the United States and Mexico. S.9, which has one GOP cosponsor, is also cosponsored by Senators Edward T. Kennedy [D-MA], who drafted the bill with John McCain [R-AZ], will introduce the legislation. Other cosponsors are Patrick Leahy [D-VT], Charles Schumer [D-NY], Maria Cantwell [D-WA]. Debbie Stabenow [D-MI] and Barbara Boxer [D-CA]. You might say the bill was also cosponsored by the lobbyists for the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Center, the National Council of LaRaza, the Service Employees International Union, the Essential Workers Immigration Coalition and the US Chamber of Commerce (lobbying on behalf of US business owners who are attempting to drive down the cost of labor in the United States) since the lobbyists actually wrote the language of the legislation that will legalize 10 million more illegal aliens over the next two decades. .

This is how law works in America, and it's no different for either side. So should we end lobbying all together? Is there a significant difference between writing the laws and advising how the laws should be written? If the end result is the lobbyists influencing the laws, I don't see how saving the Congressman the trouble of typing it up makes any difference. The problem is lobbying, not the "level of complicity."
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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 7:31 pm Post subject:

After his last post, I thought that was WF's angle, its not the influencing, but the actual writing, and I was thinking, so what? I don't see why that matters. But it appears even the writing is not unique. So I need clarity. What is so terrible about ALEC - in terms of it being somehow different than anything else? (nice research Z. I honestly didn't bother b/c it wasn't a question of that happening, but may have been a question for others) _________________ --Andy "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur." Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound. I believe in the One who says there is life after this. Now tell me how much more open can my mind be?

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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 8:08 pm Post subject:

Notice that Zarathustra didn't claim that was the same as ALEC. Because it's not. He came up with 5 examples, going back to 2007, against an organization that brags it writes a thousand laws a year for legislators. So by scale it's different. I keep pointing that out. And in Z's examples, saying that the lobbyists wrote the bill is usually figurative, not literal. He even includes cases of merely sponsoring. So that's another difference. ALEC hands out bills that are merely forwarded over to the state Senate or House for a vote. And it STILL doesn't address that ALEC is an organization that state legislators sign up for because they want ALEC to write bills for them. None of Z's examples show this. So that's another difference. That all being said, I'm not saying that any of Z's examples are okay things to do. _________________

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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 9:02 pm Post subject:

Zarathustra wrote:

So should we end lobbying all together?

Yes, yes, and a thousand times yes.

Lobbyists do one thing--cajole politicians into drafting legislation that benefits only them. Yes, some legislation might benefit average citizens but that is only ancillary.

Putting an end to all corporate lobbying immediately will do the following:

1) make politicians more accountable to their constituents

2) give us more reasonable laws that do not so clearly (or sometimes not so clearly) favor only a small group of people

3) give us fewer laws overall. There should never be a "pipeline" of propsed legislation.
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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 9:03 pm Post subject:

wayfriend wrote:

Notice that Zarathustra didn't claim that was the same as ALEC. Because it's not.

He came up with 5 examples, going back to 2007, against an organization that brags it writes a thousand laws a year for legislators. So by scale it's different. I keep pointing that out.

I don't see why that's relevant. I thought the issue was lobbyists writing laws. Perhaps no single lobbyist is as big as ALEC (I don't know ... there are 1000s ... no one can make this claim without comparing them all), but taken as a whole, the entire lobbying system is likely much larger, since most laws are written this way. Given the fact that Dems and Reps are split roughly down the middle in control of our country, and each side is writing roughly half of our laws, there's no way ALEC--by itself--can be responsible for the majority of our laws, not unless they're writing the Dem laws too. Factor in all the other lobbyists who contribute to Rep laws, and ALEC must necessarily be just a fraction of overall influence.

But I did expect you to find ways why this is different, rather than agree that it's a pervasive problem influencing both sides. You don't seem interested in the pervasive problem of lobbying as much as this specific one ... which, again, leads us to wonder why. The reasons you give here are all superficial.

wayfriend wrote:

And in Z's examples, saying that the lobbyists wrote the bill is usually figurative, not literal.

Prove it.

wayfriend wrote:

He even includes cases of merely sponsoring.

Did you read the articles? From the one in question here:

Quote:

The lobbyist writes the bill, shops for a willing lawmaker to introduce it and lines up the support. The legislator? He has to do little more than show up and vote.

This is the path of the "sponsored bill," a method of lawmaking little noticed outside California's capital but long favored on the inside.

"Sponsoring" is code word for writing the law.

wayfriend wrote:

And it STILL doesn't address that ALEC is an organization that state legislators sign up for because they want ALEC to write bills for them. None of Z's examples show this. So that's another difference.

Again, so what? If laws being written by lobbyists is becoming the norm, such that you don't even need to be a member of these groups to have them write laws for you, then what difference does it make if some Congressmen are members of ALEC? The end result is the same ... which I thought was the problem here: laws written by entities who are not part of the legislature, in order to give special privileges/access/profit to special interest groups. If this can be done without group membership, then group membership makes zero difference. I suppose group membership adds to the impression of conspiracies and "shadow governments," but in reality it just makes it *easier* to track down the source of the laws in the case of ALEC, than it is to track down all the 1000s of other sources from the 1000s of other lobbyists. Which is probably another reason why this particular lobbying group is getting attention that the others aren't getting: those others fly even farther under the radar because the ties between them and the Congressmen who use them are even more clandestine and "shadowy." Thus, harder to track down.
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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 9:09 pm Post subject:

Hashi Lebwohl wrote:

Putting an end to all corporate lobbying immediately will do the following...

Just corporate lobbying? All other lobbying is okay?

I don't understand why capitalists should be restricted in their access to government more than any other group. We're a capitalist country. Our government regulates our economy. Why shouldn't the very entities which are being regulated have a say in the proposed laws meant to regulate them? That's like ordinary citizens having no say in laws which affect ordinary citizens.

If you're going to let some interest groups have influence and access, you can't bar others.
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Meaning is created internally by each individual in each specific life: any attempt at *meaning* which relies on some kind of external superstructure (God, Satan, the Creator, the Worm, whatever) for its substance misses the point (I mean the point of my story). -SRD

Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue. Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth ... Do not let them fly away from earthly things and beat with their wings against eternal walls. Alas, there has always been so much virtue that has flown away. Lead back to the earth the virtue that flew away, as I do–back to the body, back to life, that it may give the earth a meaning, a human meaning. -Nietzsche

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