Facebook extends tentacles into D.C., forms political action committee --- recent internet news headline
For quite some time organized lobbying has become a devastating curse in our republic. All PACs (Political Action Committees) should be outlawed. It ought to be considered a criminal act for a person to be paid high wages plus outlandish perks for engaging in activity which attempts to influence elected officials to vote on matters that are highly favorable to a certain group of individuals but not so to others.
There are solid reasons why professional lobbying and persons paid for engaging in such should be charged with committing criminal acts.
1. Professional lobbying is basically a very selfish activity and cannot qualify as being highly ethical in nature. A group pays one or more individuals to influence congressional members' votes in their favor. The view is simply this: "We should have top priority and be given first consideration when it comes to legislation that will affect us one way or another. Other people outside our group do not matter - we do not care in the least what happens to them -- we are first in line and our cause should be given first consideration before anything else!"
2. Many persons who have served in the Congress have ended up in intense lobbying activity. There was effort to restrict how soon a person after leaving office could engage in professional lobbying activity. But who knows how much money has gone under the table as one waits out the time limits until being able to become a professional lobbyist with all the advantages and connections such a position offers!
3. Professional lobbying blunts and often obliterates entirely the efforts of private citizens to make appeals to their elected representatives regarding impending legislation. The "group" (in whatever form it may exist) becomes the priority due to influence and financial support. The private citizen does not have that kind of clout when it comes to influencing an elected official.
Lobbying should be strictly limited to the private citizen and his/her personal appeals to elected officials by phone, letter, email, personal visit to the official's office, etc. Citizens certainly have the right to unite in their efforts in exerting influence in regard to legislation but the line is drawn at paying huge sums of money to individuals whose only job is to run up and down the halls of buildings containing offices of elected officials and seek to influence the outcome of pending legislation!
It is very obvious that in the realm of lobbying activity there has been an intentional rejection of what is required for government to function at its greatest and very best for the health and ongoing survival of our republic. Jesus Christ, Who created this world a long, long time ago, said it this way:
"If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what advantage is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father's, and of the holy angels." --- Luke 9:23-25
Will there come a time when professional lobbying will cease to exist? Will there be a time when not one person is paid lavish wages and "perks" for the sole purpose of influencing the votes of elected officials in favor of certain organized groups? Highly unlikely so long as present conditions continue politically -- money is the name of this game and the stakes are very high! It is best viewed as one views a patient with cancer in its terminal stages! There will eventually be an end to it, but it will require God's direct intervention to bring about such a desired result as that!
But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! --- 2 Timothy 3:1-5
