[Aunche]

It's not as if being elected is the end all and be all to being a politician. Politicians have a vague idea of how they want to shape society, but they can't be experts in completely unrelated subjects of healthcare, military, AI infrastructure etc. A good lobbyist will help a politician achieve these goals in the field of their expertise (or at least try to convince the politician that they're helping).

[throwaw12]

Why lobbyist can't just present their ideas publicly, like do a public free lessons to politicians and anyone who wants to attend, if they're so eager to teach politicians?

Let them publicly say whatever they're preaching to politicians, and instead of 'funding' politicians directly, let them just teach everyone all at once.

I would love to hear what AIPAC teaches politicians

[anthuswilliams]

That's literally what 90% of lobbying is. Powerpoint presentations to Congressional staffers, econometrics research publications, policy panels and conferences, and so on. Not everything is campaign donations and super PACs.

[throwaw12]

you can be good law obeying citizen 99% of the time and in 1% of the time bribe someone to do illegal things. what's your point with 90%?

Why any lobbyists should have 1:1 time with a politician, what are they hiding?

[twoodfin]

Why any lobbyists should have 1:1 time with a politician, what are they hiding?

For one thing because it’s a right in the First Amendment, there next to freedom of religion and speech.

If you have a grievance, you have a right to petition to have it redressed. Like other rights recognized in the Constitution, courts have interpreted it broadly, to include such things as a right for a private citizen to meet 1:1 with a willing public citizen.

[anthuswilliams]

I should think the point was obvious. It's not a percentage of behavior of a single participant, it's in aggregate. The point is 90% of lobbyists are not doing anything untoward.

[balarjin]

> Why lobbyist can't just present their ideas publicly, like do a public free lessons to politicians and anyone who wants to attend

Different people (including politicians) have different priorities, assumptions, biases, etc. The argument that convinces one person won't land with someone else. The true value of a lobbyist is her ability to understand what a politician values, and present the argument that is convincing to him.

As an example: I met an EU citizen who thought fishing with hooks was immoral. It seemed cruel to her to put a hook in the fish's face. She traveled to the US to ask senators to ban it. Amazingly, she went to a few effective altruist meetups, networked her way into contacting the staff of two US senators, and managed to get meetings with both of them. But neither one introduced legislation for her.

What arguments could she have made?

  1. The vegan argument:  It is wrong to eat animals or make them suffer.

  2. The environmental case: Humans should leave nature alone.

  3. The public safety case: Some rivers have toxins that may accumulate in fish.  Only a strict licensing system can keep people from fishing in polluted rivers, selling the fish to people who don't know the river had bad stuff in it, and getting sick.

  <<I could come up with many more, but you get the idea...>>

She believed in the vegan argument. No senator agreed with her. A good lobbyist would have told her:

"Senator X cares about the environment. Make the environmental case, and he is likely to listen to you. His constituents are not interested in veganism, and he wins elections by talking about standing up for the interests of ranchers. The vegan argument will not work, do not bring it up!"

Tailoring arguments to your audience can be dishonest if you take it too far. Not tailoring your argument at all is certain to fail: US Senators are busy. Handing them a 60 item list of all possible arguments, some of which they think are crazy, will cause them to ignore you.

[throwaw12]

I don't have any issues with them teaching politicians, but nothing should be hidden from public. let them do everything in public, because public needs to know what their representatives are doing.

this is also good for documenting and tracing arguments and facts.

[Aunche]

At your job, would you like your 1 on 1s to be publicly available to the world? Are you even able to have a productive discussion when you're second guessing how other may react to what you're saying? Now imagine you're a politician with an army of enemies ready to clip anything you say out of context.

> I would love to hear what AIPAC teaches politicians

Thanks for bringing AIPAC up because it illustrates my point. AIPAC has plenty of publicly available material for you to read. It's not going particularly specific, but it most likely broadly aligns with what their lobbyists discuss with politicians: Israel is a valuable intelligence partner, aid to Israel brings stability in the Middle East, Iran is a destabilizing force that needs to be kept in check, etc.

How much merit do these arguments have? Maybe some. Maybe little at all. Even so, there is no mistaking that APAIC is talking about Earth here. The same cannot be said about the pro Palestinian side in America. "Stop funding genocide" is a fundamentally contradictory. The entire basis for a overwhelmingly better armed Israel giving Palestinians any sort of autonomy at all rests on American security commitments to Israel.