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  • 00:00

    3.5 billion dollars were spent on political lobbying in 2019 alone.

  • 00:05

    What’s more is that political donations funded presidential add campaigns that topped

  • 00:10

    14 billion dollars.

  • 00:11

    These astronomical sums are not reserved for the big leagues of federal politics either,

  • 00:17

    every year vast fortunes are spent influencing policy decisions from, the oval office and

  • 00:22

    federal congress all the way down to local city councils.

  • 00:25

    But why is this allowed?

  • 00:27

    Political lobbying combined with huge campaign contributions from wealthy individuals and

  • 00:31

    companies has started to seem tantamount to bribery, where the best interests of the voting

  • 00:36

    public are seconded to who can write the biggest donation cheque fundamentally undermining

  • 00:41

    democratic processes….

  • 00:42

    Right?

  • 00:43

    Well it’s time to defend the indefensible by learning how money works to influence politics

  • 00:48

    and why we should want it to stay like this.

  • 00:52

    Now before we get into the actual arguments in favor of pollical lobbying and campaign

  • 00:56

    contributions we need to get one thing out of the way.

  • 01:00

    That is that all of this is the law… the first amendment as discerned by the US supreme

  • 01:04

    court protects politicians and their supporters right to speak freely on political issues

  • 01:09

    and in support or opposition of political individuals, parties or ideas.

  • 01:14

    This right to free speech extends to using any legal means necessary to promote those

  • 01:19

    ideas as loudly as possible.

  • 01:21

    Now whether spending money really counts as a form of speech is still a bit contentious,

  • 01:26

    but hey I would like to think the supreme court is more qualified to make that decision

  • 01:33

    than you or I.

  • 01:36

    Setting all that aside lets explore why (constitutionally mandated or not), this whole process might

  • 01:41

    still be a really good thing.

  • 01:44

    So to get things started we need to make a distinction between political lobbying and

  • 01:48

    political donations, because they are two separate things.

  • 01:52

    Political Donations are pretty straight forward, it is the financial contributions paid to

  • 01:56

    a political party or candidate for them to use on their election or re-election campaigns.

  • 02:02

    Political Lobbying is a little bit different, it involves special interest groups operating

  • 02:06

    to actively sway the decision making process of a politician, a party or the entire government.

  • 02:12

    It sounds pretty nefarious on the surface, but think of it like this…

  • 02:16

    If you have ever attended something as simple as a town hall meeting, to voice your opinion

  • 02:20

    on what should happen to abandoned lot 48, well then you have engaged in political lobbying.

  • 02:25

    Political lobbying does not need to involve money at all and it normally doesn’t.

  • 02:30

    but

  • 02:31

    The larger special interest groups that take lobbying much more seriously will normally

  • 02:35

    be funded by large institutions or extremely wealthy individuals.

  • 02:40

    This money will be used for a few things.

  • 02:42

    It will normally be used to create some kind of awareness about the group, it will be used

  • 02:46

    to pay for office facilities and it will be used to pay the salaries of people that basically

  • 02:51

    turn complaining in a public forum into a full time job.

  • 02:55

    Of course this money can also be used for donations… now technically this can’t

  • 03:00

    be transactional, an agreement of something like $200,000 for a yes vote on an upcoming

  • 03:05

    bill would be illegal.

  • 03:07

    But that’s where that marketing from earlier comes in because lobbyists really walk this

  • 03:12

    rule right up to the line.

  • 03:15

    If a special interest lobbying group named Americans For Lower Taxes makes a contribution

  • 03:19

    to your political campaign and you later publicly vote to support new capital gains tax legislation,

  • 03:25

    well it should be pretty obvious to you that you aren’t getting anymore donations from

  • 03:28

    them in the future, and chances are they will probably fund your opponent instead… good

  • 03:33

    luck.

  • 03:34

    The types of people that can afford to fund these organisations tend to have different

  • 03:37

    objectives from the common man, and sometimes those objectives would even be at odds with

  • 03:42

    what the majority might want.

  • 03:44

    So obviously this is a pretty gross misuse of financial dominance to subvert the outcome

  • 03:49

    of the democratic process, right?

  • 03:52

    Well not necessarily.

  • 03:54

    For starters a good chunk of this money still does come from regular people but more so

  • 04:03

    than that, these organisations are actually limited in HOW they can make these donations.

  • 04:08

    Right of the bat federal law does not allow corporations to donate money directly to political

  • 04:13

    candidates so they need to find alternatives.

  • 04:16

    So what they do instead is use what is known as “soft money”

  • 04:20

    These institutions will pay to have a presence in Washington and a working personal relationship

  • 04:25

    with lawmakers through their agents.

  • 04:27

    These agents can work as experts on certain issues and even draft legislation for lawmakers

  • 04:31

    to put before congress.

  • 04:33

    Again this might sound bad but in reality our political system relies on these agents

  • 04:38

    to operate effectively.

  • 04:39

    I don’t know if you have noticed but a lot of lawmakers are f s.

  • 04:54

    A majority of them are ex lawyers at best, or cranky old businessmen looking for something

  • 04:59

    to do in retirement at worst.

  • 05:01

    Imagine if you put the issue of something like “encrypted data collection” in front

  • 05:05

    of your grandparents to debate over and you might start to see the issue.

  • 05:09

    Sometimes these guys have no idea what they are legislating.

  • 05:12

    For what it’s worth that’s fine, it’s impossible to expect all lawmakers to be experts

  • 05:17

    on all things which is why they are free to ask for help.

  • 05:21

    A political lobbyist from the tech space will be able to explain in depth the ramifications

  • 05:25

    of a proposed piece of legislation.

  • 05:27

    They will also be able to speak about this using the kind of legalese jargon that only

  • 05:32

    lawmakers, lawyers and judges really understand but is still important for creating robust

  • 05:37

    legislation.

  • 05:38

    Of course these lobbyists are paid by tech companies so they will always try to spin

  • 05:43

    any proposal in favour of the tech companies they represent but lawmakers know this, and

  • 05:49

    a good ongoing relationship requires a bit of honesty from these lobbyist otherwise the

  • 05:54

    politicians aren’t going to ask for their help anymore.

  • 05:57

    Now you might say well why don’t we just pay to have public experts advise politicians

  • 06:02

    in order to take out the special interests of these pieces of advice?

  • 06:06

    Well you might be able to guess it, that would be really expensive, people that are qualified

  • 06:12

    enough to speak with confidence on the legislative process while also being experts on topics

  • 06:16

    ranging from technology to medical research, all the way up to environmental sustainability

  • 06:21

    attract fat salaries.

  • 06:24

    You would also need lot’s of them, because not all of them are going to be experts on

  • 06:28

    all issues.

  • 06:29

    You would also need enough to go around between all of the lawmakers considering an important

  • 06:34

    issue.

  • 06:35

    It’s just not feasible…

  • 06:37

    But perhaps this is all skirting around the main issue.

  • 06:40

    As hard as I try to defend it, there are loopholes in place that allows massive piles of money

  • 06:44

    to flow into election campaigns that are costing more money than most peoples entire extended

  • 06:49

    family will see in 100 lifetimes.

  • 06:52

    Ok but consider the alternatives.

  • 06:54

    There ARE a few options here

  • 06:57

    State funded election campaigns

  • 06:58

    Exclusively self-funded campaigns

  • 07:00

    Or no funding allowed at all…

  • 07:03

    Lets start with that last one.

  • 07:05

    Some groups have floated the idea of eliminating campaign funding all together.

  • 07:10

    Instead candidates would be invited to attend a series of public forums where they could

  • 07:13

    debate issues and that would be the extent of the process.

  • 07:17

    The problem here is that it disproportionally favours incumbent lawmakers because they will

  • 07:22

    be the person that people know.

  • 07:24

    By the same logic it also favours people who have a strong public image outside of politics,

  • 07:29

    eg celebrities, and if there is one thing we don’t need it is more celebrities in

  • 07:34

    politics.

  • 07:35

    It also doesn’t necessarily stop someone else with a big audience swinging the result

  • 07:39

    of an election.

  • 07:40

    Think of someone like Casey Neistat who made two videos supporting Hillary Clinton and

  • 07:44

    Joe Biden in their respective presidential elections.

  • 07:47

    He was well within his rights to do this of course (first amendment and all that good

  • 07:52

    stuff)… but he could get that message out to millions of potentially undecided voters,

  • 07:57

    and if the actual politicians didn’t have a platform to share their counter argument,

  • 08:01

    well then politics would quickly turn into a game of who has the most famous friends.

  • 08:06

    Well ok, what if instead the government gave these candidates a budget that they could

  • 08:10

    spend anyway they liked on promoting their campaign.

  • 08:13

    Sure it might cost taxpayer dollars but maybe that is worth it to get corporate influence

  • 08:17

    out of politics.

  • 08:19

    The problem is, how do you distribute this money?

  • 08:22

    You could distribute it to parties based on the seats they currently hold in government,

  • 08:25

    but this can cause drastic and irreversible chain reactions that favour one party over

  • 08:30

    another.

  • 08:31

    If one part has a really good election cycle they would get more money in the next election

  • 08:36

    and likely win more seats which would give them more money in the election after and

  • 08:40

    so on until they control the entire government.

  • 08:44

    The other alternative is just to give money to every candidate, but this causes other

  • 08:49

    issue, mostly people just running for office to get money from the government.

  • 08:53

    Now some states actually run what are called “clean elections” which is basically what

  • 08:57

    has been described here, and this problem of non-serious competitors is a really big

  • 09:02

    deal.

  • 09:03

    If this became widespread enough people could just make it their full-time job to run for

  • 09:07

    every election out there and secure themselves some campaign funding.

  • 09:11

    Now you might say this sound simple to solve, just throw these fraudulent candidates in

  • 09:16

    jail, and yeah sure I suppose that could work, buuuuttt no great government in history relied

  • 09:22

    on throwing political candidates in prison in order to run proper elections.

  • 09:27

    Alright alright, what about only allowing self-funded election campaigns.

  • 09:34

    Well this is the worst solution of the bunch, this is how you get nothing but billionaires

  • 09:39

    being president, because they are the only ones that can afford to pay for all the tv

  • 09:43

    ads, rallies and public appearances across the country.

  • 09:47

    The current system of political lobbying is far from perfect, and yes there do look to

  • 09:51

    be some policy decisions made in the past that work more to secure political funding

  • 09:56

    more so than acting in the best interests of the public, but as the great Winston Churchill

  • 10:00

    once said, it’s the worst system of government, except for all of the alternatives.

  • 10:06

    … This was the second video in our series of defending industries that look to be indefensible,

  • 10:11

    if you enjoyed this topic go watch the first video in this series which defended the multi-level

  • 10:15

    marketing industry and explored how they have managed to avoid being classed as pyramid

  • 10:19

    schemes, despite clearly being pyramid schemes.

  • 10:23

    And as always please consider liking and subscribing to keep on learning How Money Works.

All

The example sentences of INDEFENSIBLE in videos (3 in total of 4)

their possessive pronoun judgments noun, plural are verb, non-3rd person singular present inevitably adverb shaded verb, past participle by preposition or subordinating conjunction their possessive pronoun own adjective self noun, singular or mass - interest noun, singular or mass , often adverb in preposition or subordinating conjunction ways noun, plural that wh-determiner seem verb, base form indefensible adjective
well adverb it personal pronoun s proper noun, singular time noun, singular or mass to to defend verb, base form the determiner indefensible adjective by preposition or subordinating conjunction learning verb, gerund or present participle how wh-adverb money noun, singular or mass works noun, plural to to influence verb, base form politics noun, plural
now adverb , we personal pronoun will modal hopefully adverb continue verb, base form to to defend verb, base form the determiner indefensible adjective if preposition or subordinating conjunction this determiner video noun, singular or mass does verb, 3rd person singular present well adverb by preposition or subordinating conjunction looking verb, gerund or present participle at preposition or subordinating conjunction

Use "indefensible" in a sentence | "indefensible" example sentences

How to use "indefensible" in a sentence?

  • Respecting other people's cultures is well and good, but I draw the line at where some branches of Islam, what they do to women. It's indefensible.
    -Jello Biafra-
  • Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.
    -Clive Owen-
  • The lines we draw that make us who we are are potent by virtue of being non-negotiable, and even, at some level, indefensible.
    -Walter Kirn-
  • In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.
    -George Orwell-
  • It is hard for a black man to just be himself. We spend so much time in defense of something that is indefensible because there is nothing to defend.
    -Kevin Eubanks-
  • Those who back the Syrian regime from now on will find themselves in an even more isolated and indefensible minority.
    -William Hague-
  • You can't defend the indefensible. Anything you say sounds self-serving and hypocritical.
    -Diane Abbott-
  • God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.
    -Rebecca West-

Definition and meaning of INDEFENSIBLE

What does "indefensible mean?"

/ˌindəˈfensəb(ə)l/

adjective
Incapable of being justified or explained.

What are synonyms of "indefensible"?
Some common synonyms of "indefensible" are:
  • inexcusable,
  • unjustifiable,
  • unjustified,
  • unpardonable,
  • unforgivable,
  • inexpiable,
  • unprovoked,
  • gratuitous,
  • unreasonable,
  • unnecessary,
  • regrettable,

You can find detailed definitions of them on this page.

What are antonyms of "indefensible"?
Some common antonyms of "indefensible" are:
  • justifiable,
  • excusable,
  • defensible,

You can find detailed definitions of them on this page.