In the United States organized political lobbying does more harm than good.

Thank you for posting an argument. It seems that, besides generally failing to understand the nature of even one of my arguments, My opponent has a few confusions about the burdens of both sides of this debate. 1) That it is my only task and option to provide a list of good things about structured lobbying, his only task and option for this debate is providing bad things. and 2) I cannot be on the offensive even though I am 'CON'. My opponent is PRO and as such has the burden of proving anything to do with the resolution. As CON I rather have the luxury of remaining on offense. I have chosen a different path though to argue than just giving a list of the good done from lobbying, and this alternate path is just as valid. My opponent wants me to keep your minds in a box that concerns itself only with good and bad caused in organized lobbying current existence. But I say that it is equally important to consider the good and bad caused by organized lobbying un-existence, witch I gave. without organized lobbying all the bad my opponent argued would be far worse, and the good would be non-existent. So we have a net increase in bad without organized lobbying, and removal of any good as well. By having organized lobbying we are preventing this thus causing good just by making the bad less bad and by allowing there to be good at all. That is in essence my case, in essence organized lobbying is 'a necessary evil'. And it is in this sense that it does 'less harm than good'. I cannot see where he got 'no evidence that lobbyists that fight for you would be getting their voice heard because congressmen can decide to ignore it ' out of that. My opponent also reduced one of my rebuttal's to 'corruption is mere coincidence' but that is not what I argued. I argued that that particular conduit being used for corruption is coincidence. I do not deny that organized lobbying can be used corruptly, just as I would not deny the bible can be use corruptly. Is it relevant if arguing if the bible is overall good, No. What we are are purely concerned with in finding out 'more harm than good' is not if it can cause corruption, but rather 'if without would corruption go away'. but it would not, whatever system that fills the void will be the new conduit of corruption. The system of structured attempts to influence or sway (as a public official) toward a desired action cannot be said definitively to cause corruption, corruption exist independently and finds away to use that system. My opponent put a random defense to his position in the middle of his rebuttal's to my arguments, witch is okay, and I will deal with that hear. My opponent stated 'If congressmen really need information they do not need to get it from lobbyists. The congressional research foundation solves such problems. They give congressmen the information that they need. No bias no corruption.' But you also left out 'no empathy'. If you want information about, lets say statistics on the poor for example, to be delivered as if it should matter to your elected representatives, then it will need to be given to them by someone who cares and can preach it with passion. And that is really what all our lobbyist are people who preach. Preaching the gospel of whatever there particular political view is. The data that our congress draws upon should not lose its heart. My opponent then defends his third point with a ridiculous source for comparing good and bad earmarks as it gives only three and calls that a statistic. I can easily add on more example to upset the 2-1 ratio making it 2-2 http://defensetech.org... . But this is utterly unimportant as that was not the point of my argument. My argument was about the role my opponents hypocrisy plays in this. If you, audience, where to have a problem with earmarking, would you go onto a debate website and complain about it to people who don't live anywhere near your district or state, or would you hold a rally in your county encouraging your neighbors to vote the incumbent out? would you write your complaints to your representative or to me, a random redneck from southwest Virginia? Witch option being taken would show true concern about earmarking? The nature of this argument that my opponent missed is that his voice and the voice of business owners are being represented perfectly at the same time. the reason that looks the same as just listening to the business owners is because they are the only ones who are speaking up. We cannot hold our representatives accountable for failure to represent our voice's when our voices are mute to start with. Now if my opponent was more open to holding that rally, aka organized lobbying, then maybe his voice might have a real chance of being represented. To me that sounds like more good than harm. My opponent then claims I said 'money isn't bad' and that I said he claimed vice verse. This is absolutely false. He again failed to understand the nature of my argument. It is not 'money isn't bad' it's 'people with most money being the ones who's voices are heard isn't bad' the website was to show how money is often enough a sign of wisdom, if you end up with a lot of it because you practise thriftiness to acquire it. building wealth is hard and is not something accomplished by those with bad judgement. My opponents case is that only the rich can get there voices heard in our government thanks to organized lobbying and I bring Dave Ramsey's website up to point out that if my opponent is write on that one point its all the better! In essence I am equating the scenario he's presented 'only people with money get there voice represented' to 'only smart people get there voice represented'. That is a good thing. if things were not that way as my opponents wishes things were not, then all of the stupid people who cant be wise with there money would get there voices heard as well. I will state again organized lobbying does more good than harm. It has made sure only the thriftiest individuals of our society can affect how our country is run. I would now like to point out among all my opponents rebuttal's to 'my arguments' not one of dealt with the fact that he has not justified is calling corrupt as being thought of as bad. It alone rest on the hope that you to carry the same moral system, and I doubt you do as his definition of a corrupt system seems only to need that his particular view is not taken over other peoples opinions. Regardless of organized lobbying existence this is to tall an order to demand of his representatives, they will always be corrupt by his use of the word because they can never represent everyone contrary views especially people like my opponent who have none that they ever bother to share with the representative. I am calling my opponent out on this do please give an answer to this question 'HAVE YOU TOLD CYNTHIA LUMMIS YOUR CONCERNS?' I would hope the reading audience members who live in the USA ask themselves this same question, replacing Lummis's name with there congressman. I would hope you are inspired by the answer you have to give yourself even if its a negative answer. As many can easily become cynical towards there control over the direction there country is going basing the excuse on organized lobbying, But if you stop for a minute, remember that the only people you have ever spoke your ideas and thoughts too are your buds at work, or family members, and that you have indeed not actually begun to try to get your voice heard to people in charge you might realize the new options you have before you. Go, get people together and get somebody that writes for a newspaper there to cover your group. Become a visible swing of votes in the statistics they take of the poles of who gets voted out of office and for what reasons. Embrace that first amendment right. HAVE A VOICE THAT CAN BE REPRESENTED. BE SILENT NO LONGER!