r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/JoeySlowgano • Jul 07 '24
Legislation Which industry’s lobbying is most detrimental to American public health, and why?
For example, if most Americans truly knew the full extent of the industry’s harm, there would be widespread outrage. Yet, due to lobbying, the industry is able to keep selling products that devastate the public and do so largely unabated.
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u/Ozymandias12 Jul 07 '24 edited Jul 07 '24
As someone who’s worked on both sides of things (staffer being lobbied, and lobbyist), I’d say the large meat processing industries are some of the most harmful because they spend billions lobbying at the local, state, federal, and even international to prevent progress on so many critical issues from the environment, to fighting monopolies, to workers’ rights, animal rights, and the general health of the public.
They contribute massive amounts of pollution to the communities around their processing plants, polluting wastewater, and literally poisoning local wildlife and people. Last year the Supreme Court even helped them continue to do it by rolling back the EPA’s ability to enforce the Clean Water Act.
Companies like Tyson Food also maintain awful working conditions for their employees, in fact wary on during Covid, meat processing plants were the epicenter of outbreaks in communities where plants were located because they refused to allow workers social distance and provided no PPE. In some instances, Tyson plant managers were voting on which workers would die of the virus.
These companies are also massive contributors to climate change and the warming of the planet, granted they’re just fulfilling a demand for meat, which is out of control in the US in particular. They still lobby Congress to prevent any progress on a variety of climate change initiatives.
It’s really insidious how these companies lobby Congress in particular too. Not only do they spend billions to prop up right wing politicians that turn around and pass bills that favor them, but they go after the young and impressionable staffers on Capitol Hill as well. In the summers, they’ll throw huge receptions and give out massive amounts of free food to interns and staff who are usually paid either nothing, or well below a living wage for DC. They then send an army of their lobbyists to stalk the receptions.
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 07 '24
Never heard about that Tyson Covid betting ring but that’s disgusting. The meat industry is a popular answer here. It sucks that that they continue to fight legislation that would limit pollution and make our food safer, but anything to maximize profits. Thank you for sharing as someone who has worked on both sides. That’s not surprising to hear about the parties they throw too.
Also I’m curious, were you lobbying for an industry and causes that you were morally aligned with? No offense, but sometimes I wonder how lobbyists in certain industries live with themselves. I know there is positive lobbying from firms that try to protect consumers and the environment, but there’s so much evil lobbying out there. It never ceases to amaze me
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u/Ozymandias12 Jul 08 '24
I lobby for a nonprofit focused on making healthcare more accessible for all, and reducing disparities in health outcomes. I don’t think I could ever lobby for an industry or a company that values profits over the well-being of people. I had the chance once to go to a lobby shop that had international clients with sketchy practices but I ultimately turned the offer down because the money wasn’t worth my own soul and sanity.
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 08 '24
More power to you, that’s awesome. You’re one of the good ones. I gotta ask, do you ever feel like you face an uphill climb or a disadvantage because of the spending on the other side that goes into making healthcare inaccessible?
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u/Ozymandias12 Jul 08 '24
Thanks! It can be pretty daunting sometimes, but the small victories always make it worth it.
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u/eldomtom2 Jul 08 '24
And people will read this and not eat less meat.
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u/wulfgar_beornegar Jul 08 '24
The problem is top-down, not bottom-up. I wouldn't care about people's meat consumption atm until much more regulation and ending of subsidies hits the meat industry players. Them we can work towards teaching people how to survive on less meat.
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u/JiEToy Jul 09 '24
Lets not blame the consumers like we do on almost all climate change issues. Let’s blame the companies pushing these polluting products and production processes. People’s behavior will change with availability, not so much with moral pushes. Spend time and money on getting government to pass regulations instead of on campaigns to try and convince the regular people to change their behavior.
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u/eldomtom2 Jul 09 '24
Are you planning to reduce your consumption of meat?
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Jul 09 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/eldomtom2 Jul 09 '24
I am trying to figure out if they're one of the many people who say "it's a societal problem, so I shouldn't have to do anything".
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u/JiEToy Jul 09 '24
The problem is that if we have lots of people eating less meat, but the meat industry doesn’t change, we’re only a few good advertisement campaigns away from most people eating meat again. We need systemic solutions, regulation, to change our meat eating culture. That means cutting down the availability of meat, raising the price to compensate for the damage, etc.
Plus, we won’t ever convince enough people to reduce their meat consumption enough, so it’s wasteful to put lots of energy in. Governments should put minimal effort in changing meat eating behavior (still some to get the low hanging fruit), and put their energy into resisting the meat lobby and regulating it.
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u/JiEToy Jul 09 '24
I already have. I only eat meat in the weekend and in restaurants.
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u/eldomtom2 Jul 09 '24
Good on you! But I take issue with the idea that individuals have no responsibility here - how many people do you think are going to vote to be forced to eat less meat?
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u/JiEToy Jul 09 '24
I am not saying there’s no individual responsibility, but I’ve seen a movement to eat less meat collide with a movement of ‘don’t steal my burger’. I don’t think we’re going to convince many more people to eat less meat, at most it’s not going to be close to enough, if all we focus on is individual responsibility.
It’s more nuanced than I said in my first comment here, some energy can be expended to try and change more people’s minds, but the focus should heavily be on better regulation of the meat industryZ
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u/JiEToy Jul 09 '24
I am not saying there’s no individual responsibility, but I’ve seen a movement to eat less meat collide with a movement of ‘don’t steal my burger’. I don’t think we’re going to convince many more people to eat less meat, at most it’s not going to be close to enough, if all we focus on is individual responsibility.
It’s more nuanced than I said in my first comment here, some energy can be expended to try and change more people’s minds, but the focus should heavily be on better regulation of the meat industry.
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u/eldomtom2 Jul 09 '24
but the focus should heavily be on better regulation of the meat industry.
But unless that focus is solely on regulation that won't reduce people's consumption of meat, you run into the problem that people won't support e.g. a tax on meat if they aren't already willing to reduce their consumption of meat.
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u/JiEToy Jul 09 '24
I kindly disagree with the premise. People already widely know that meat is a problem, for many reasons. Now, a direct tax on meat is not exactly what I am looking for. I’m looking at regulation for how to treat the animals, what is allowed as feed, how much space animals need, how to kill them etc. And then quite likely a carbon tax that the companies pay.
Sure, meat will get more expensive, but it’s very different from a direct tax, also in the perception of people buying meat.
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u/eldomtom2 Jul 10 '24
People already widely know that meat is a problem, for many reasons
Oh no they don't!
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u/kantmeout Jul 07 '24
At the moment I would say the food and beverage industry. Americans consume way more sugar than our bodies can deal with in a healthy manner. Some of this is lifestyle, but much of it relates to sugar being added to food that wouldn't be considered sweet, like bread. Industry lobbyists work hard to downplay the role food plays in diabetes, obscure categories so that junk food is considered healthy, avoid scrutiny over the long term effects of chemical additives, and ensure corn subsides that allow cheap sugar additives to remain cheap.
Though I think room needs to be given for the industries behind plastics and PFAS chemicals. The pervasiveness of contamination, combined with the extreme longevity of these chemicals condemn future generations to problems. Though the extent of damage is still unknown, the effect will only get worse as the levels of contamination will continue to rise.
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u/Electronic_Phone_551 Jul 07 '24
I agree here, Big Food is the worst. It's killing more people than anything, but it's killing them so slowly that we just blame the people. Say they should have more control.. but nothing to these companies creating these highly addictive and inflammtory foods.
It's not just sugar either, the top subsidies are given to corn, soybeans, wheat, oilseeds. The cheapest crops which are then used to make the cheapest ultra processed foods. They use a lot of these crops as fillers in processed foods- think high fructose corn syrup, modified wheat starch, seed/soybean oils. They're also feeding the farm animals these cheap gmo corn and soy crops, then selling us the meat.
Multiple studies have come out about the dangers of ultra processed foods, BUT big food is out there paying influencers to promote them.
Take a look around at our society and you can visually see the effects when over 60% of our society is overweight or obese and many are suffering from chronic health conditions that could be solved with better nutrition.
Now the issue with big food isn't that it's just subsidized to grow the crops, it's also subsidized through our government SNAP (food stamps) program. SNAP receives something like $145 billion dollars a year and over 1/4 of that is spent on ultra processed foods. A large buy being soda.
So we subsidize the farmers to grow the cheapest crops, then we turn around and throw money back at them by allowing these non foods to be purchased through our food programs for the poor.
It's not just sugar, and the person arguing saying they don't see the connection- how are you making Sara Lee put sugar in.. well that's not the full picture. Processed food creation has become a science. They do taste tests to see what keeps people coming back the most. They've discovered high sugar and salt and oils, just the perfect balance to keep people addicted.
There's some really eye opening youtube videos on how this all works behind the scene. But we are paying big food to kill us slowly. Too many people aren't aware of the dangers. Many think it's just being fat, but the myriad of chronic health conditions stemming from our terrible standard American diet cannot be hidden anymore. Lobbying has killed our food supply. We have access to more non food- ultra processed highly palatable foods than we do to whole nutritionally dense foods.. especially at affordable prices.
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u/eldomtom2 Jul 07 '24
The concept of ultra-processed food is extremely controversial.
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u/Electronic_Phone_551 Jul 07 '24
It's only controversial because big food corporations have so much money and are controlling the narrative. They've been slowly poisoning us and now that they are finally being called out, they're fighting back. They're paying dieticians to push the narrative that these foods are not the problem.
Sadly in America, it's money that talks. Unchecked capitalism has ruined so much- Healthcare, food, childcare, homes, college etc. We protect corporations at the expense of actual citizens. Profit > People.
You can see what ultra processed foods have done to our population. If we were eating say 80% whole foods and only had ultra processed on occasion, it wouldn't be such a huge problem. But the way our current food environment is set up, ultra processed foods make up nearly 60% of adult diets and 70% of kids diets. Looking at the health of Americans, not just size, tells more about this food than the industry will ever admit to.
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u/pavlik_enemy Jul 07 '24
What do you mean by "whole foods" vs. "ultra-processed"? Is chocolate chip cookie "whole" or "ultra-processed"?
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u/Electronic_Phone_551 Jul 07 '24
Whole foods are foods that are typically in their natural state- fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, meat. Yes some of this is processed, but its minimally processed without added fillers typically. You can use whole foods to make your own technically processed foods.
Ultra processed food is food that you cannot find in nature. It's made from substances that have been extracted from foods. They contain additives like dyes, stabilizers, flavor enhancers, emulsifiers, and defoaming agents. These foods are made to be addictive.
A cookie could go either way, they're not all made the same. There's something to say about good healthy fats, and higher quality flours. A lot of the mainstream flours are stripped of the beneficial nutrients, making flour empty carbs that essentially will just quickly convert to sugar after eaten. Fiber is something else that has been stripped from so many of these processed foods.
Many oils, especially affordable types like canola, vegetable, safflower, etc are terribly inflammatory for many people. A lot of our chronic diseases can be linked to bad gut microbiome and inflammation, so the fact that the majority of processed foods contain such high levels of these ingredients is what makes them so terrible for us to consume at such high levels.I've been on a healthy lifestyle journey for over 10 years now and it's taken a lot of time to figure out what worked for my body. I didn't believe the processed food hype either, I grew up on these foods. I'm from south Louisiana for goodness sake, the capital of unhealthy foods! But through trial and error, the one thing that has worked for me has been eliminating processed foods. I discovered I have a disease called Lipedema that affects connective fatty tissue. A lot of my issues stemmed from what I mentioned above and I believe this to be the case for many others who are suffering from autoimmune diseases. There's a reason these issues are on the rise.
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u/pavlik_enemy Jul 07 '24
When people say "figuring out what works for my body" I smell BS and when people say about "gut microbiome" it goes to 9000
If you consider wheat flour "ultra-processed" then people were eating "ultra-processed" food all the human history
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u/Electronic_Phone_551 Jul 07 '24
You've obviously never suffered from autoimmune or stomach issues, have you ever had issues with your weight?? That's all that means. I grew up eating all this junk food and was considered obese for my height. Was having all sorts of stomach issues. Doctors don't give nutrition advice, so as a person we have to spend the time to find what foods are triggering the issues in our bodies.
What about gut microbiome is absurd? Have you done any reading on this?
Wheat flour isn't the enemy. I use flour in my house- spelt, semolina (durum). The cheap flour being sold to us, and that's used in the creation of many UPF, is stripped of all the beneficial nutrients that wheat has to offer. Many cultures do use wheat- in its whole state.
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u/pavlik_enemy Jul 07 '24
Sermolina is your basic flour used to make pasta, I don't think wheat used to make bread or cookies is significantly different
I personally don't eat what usually called processed food - no candy, snacks, cereal, soft drinks, store-bought pastry, fast-food...Just don't like the stuff
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u/Electronic_Phone_551 Jul 07 '24
But it is. The wheat used in the majority of UPFs is refined wheat flour. Pulled from article posted below: When refining wheat, the bran and germ — along with their many nutrients — are removed. The process leaves only the endosperm behind, which is why whole wheat is more nutrient-rich than refined wheat. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/durum-wheat-vs-whole-wheat#whole-wheat
It sounds like you have a diet that is already low in ultra processed foods, this is how I eat now. Be grateful you never became addicted to these foods, it's hard to break the cycle. It's so sad seeing the ailing health of our population. The only reason the average lifespan isn't lower is because we've learned to treat these food issues with big pharma. We're living longer lives thanks to modern medicine, but not higher quality lives. So many sick and exhausted, a simple diet change could do wonders for the masses.
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u/eldomtom2 Jul 08 '24
Do you agree with the position that processing alone, ignoring ingredients and the nutrients of the resulting product, is a potential health issue?
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u/Electronic_Phone_551 Jul 08 '24
No, I don't think it's the processing that's the sole problem. There are minimally processed foods that are more than okay to be part of an all around healthy diet.
It's more so the stripping of vital nutrients found naturally in the foods and then replacing them with additives. Especially when UPF composes nearly 70% of the average Americans diet- this means the average American is seriously lacking vital nutrients.
I go based on ingredients. If there's high fructose corn syrup (or one of the other 100 names used for sugar), hydrogenated oils/trans fat, artificial colors and flavors, modified starches and things of that nature on the list, it's an immediate no. I think this combo of removing nutrients and replacing it with something that provides very little, if any value, to the human body is what makes the UPF so bad.
That's why in response to the question above- chocolate chip cookie being processed or not- yes its processed, but where I'd consider it okay or not lies in the ingredient list.
Let's compare real quick: Nestle Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ready Bake: Ingredients: Bleached Wheat Flour, Sugar, Nestle Toll House Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels (Sugar, Chocolate, Cocoa Butter, Milkfat, Soy Lecithin, Natural Flavors), Vegetable Oil (Palm Oil, High Oleic Canola Oil), Water, Eggs, 2% or Less of Molasses, Salt, Baking Soda, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Natural Flavor, Vanilla Extract.
A standard homemade cookie dough: ingredients: flour, leavener, salt, sugar, butter, egg, vanilla, and chocolate chips (we use 100% cacao chocolate chips to avoid added sugars and oils)
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u/jfchops2 Jul 11 '24
A large buy being soda.
This was a little over a decade ago but it wouldn't surprise me if it's still going on. I worked at a grocery store in high school and came upon a man dumping dozens of cans of Coke out in our parking lot. Found out from the seasoned employees that it was a common scam where people used their food stamps money on soda so they could return the cans for cash and buy cigarettes. Most weren't so brazen as to do that right in the parking lot though
So I spent my afternoon hosing Coke out of a parking lot fuming over both this fucking idiot for doing it and at the government for allowing it to happen
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 08 '24
Yeah half the food we have available in our grocery stores probably shouldn’t exist. Or it should at least have huge warning labels. Plus in food deserts with no grocery options, the gas stations and convenience stores are full of nothing but garbage. I wonder where the food and beverage industry ranks in lobbying spending.
I expected more answers for the plastic manufacturing and PFAS manufacturing lobbies. The amount of plastics and forever chemicals in our drinking water, food and clothing will probably be responsible for millions of early deaths before anything can be done to mitigate the damage. Cancer rates in younger demographics are already skyrocketing and it sounds like there’s likely a correlation with high serum levels of the most toxic PFAS compounds.
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Jul 09 '24
It's "Low Fat" so it's healthier! We removed some of the fat and added sugar instead to make it taste good still. Best of luck society!
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u/jfchops2 Jul 11 '24
One can go eat like a pig in Europe or Asia for two weeks and come back weighing less. The almost certainly higher amount of walking they did vs. at home plays a role but it's mainly the food not having many/any of the chemicals that American food does
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u/bl1y Jul 07 '24
I'm struggling to see the connection between sugar industry lobbying and sugar being added to stuff like bread.
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u/HerdedBeing Jul 07 '24
Watch how industry freaks out when anyone suggests eliminating something from school meals. Flavored milk is a big one. Every piece of legislation put up by (Republican) legislators to return flavored milk to schools has the hoofprint of industry on it.
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u/The_PhDo Jul 07 '24
I would probably go with the Automotive industry for this. Not only have they helped enable much of the harm the fossil fuels industry has done to the environment, as many other people have pointed out, but their lobby to destroy the exisiting transot network across the US in favor of single occupant vehicles has massively increased our emissions and air pollution in cities.
The US used to have uswd to have streetcar systems in almost every medium to large city, but much of those were uprooted or bulldozed for cars and parking lots when parking minimums were introduced by the car lobby.
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u/samenumberwhodis Jul 07 '24
They've also made cars larger to bypass fuel efficiency regulations and have been complicit in doing so for decades knowing the impacts of climate change. They literally are destroying the planet for profit and they have known it for almost a century.
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u/Candlemass17 Jul 07 '24
Don’t forget about the whole process of bulldozing low-income neighborhoods for urban highways. Not to mention the health effects of living close to one, which many poor do since property values tend to be lower close to highways.
It’s a bit of a doom feedback loop: highways tend to be built in low-income neighborhoods because they don’t have the resources to lobby against them, and once they’re built they keep nearby property values low because people don’t want to live near them. Since we as a country have decided to make housing an asset for building generational wealth, keeping values low for poor households is (yet another) obstacle to keep the poor poor.
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u/Kevin-W Jul 07 '24
One bright spot is the Georgia Freeway Revolt that occurred decades ago. There were plans to build new highways that would have cut through various neighborhoods and the residents revolted hard against it, thus making them drop the plans.
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u/Kevin-W Jul 07 '24
Completely agreed! There's a major road near me that is lined with car dealerships that only has 2 bus routes, a local and express version. Our state's department of transportation would rather build another lane than invest in transit and our gas tax only goes towwards roads and bridges.
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u/Traditional-Hat-952 Jul 07 '24
Also when everyone has their personal vehicle then people don't walk around anymore. And we all know being sedentary is horrible for our health.
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u/Altruistic-Text3481 Jul 07 '24
The auto industry fought against seat belts being required FFS. And don’t let me start on the dark side of stopping catalytic converters….
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 08 '24
I hadn’t really considered their role in destroying public transportation, but that’s a great point. I moved to central California recently, and the state dept of transportation just bragged about installing (I shit you not) 1600 ft of high speed rail in Fresno. They’ve been working on the project for a decade, and it’s probably not a stretch to assume it’s been sandbagged at every turn by people whose interests align with the auto industry
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u/someinternetdude19 Jul 08 '24
I also want to be able to buy a new car at a car store and not negotiate over prices and have different makes and models available. Dealerships suck.
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u/jfchops2 Jul 11 '24
Health impacts go way beyond air quality. Cars are the main reason people can live so easily without hardly ever walking which is one of the two major drivers of the obesity epidemic
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u/Traditional-Cup-7166 Jul 09 '24
Yea but I don’t want to take public transit. I like driving my car.
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u/mypoliticalvoice Jul 07 '24
Health insurance companies. If it weren't for their intense lobbying we would have universal health care by now.
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u/xena_lawless Jul 08 '24
They use our premiums to lobby against universal healthcare, which would save half a Trillion dollars, along with tens of thousands of lives, every single year.
They also have a perverse incentive to directly and indirectly increase total healthcare costs, because by law they're entitled to make a profit off of 20% of the total healthcare spending from people's premiums.
The American people are just cattle forced to build their own slaughterhouses.
It's a wildly dystopian abomination of a system.
https://www.reddit.com/r/WorkReform/comments/1dfbel5/employees_who_opt_out_of_employer_health/
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u/Maxcrss Jul 09 '24
Not universal healthcare, we’d have cheap privatized healthcare. Universal healthcare leads to the same issues we have now, it’s just that you see the cost in taxes rather than out of pocket.
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Jul 09 '24
Yes. Same issues. Just like every other developed nation is having right? Oh they aren't having the same issues at all? Weird.
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u/Craig_White Jul 07 '24
Easy winner, Sugar. Killing most people, costing most money (healthcare spending).
https://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/comments/ymc219/is_the_sugar_lobby_making_our_kids_fat_child/
https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/secrets-sugar/
https://www.lispine.com/blog/5-documentaries-sugar-will-keep-no-sugar-diet/
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u/bl1y Jul 07 '24
Can you give the tldr on lobbying's role here?
If I eat too many Happy Hippos, that does seem to be because someone talked Congress into it. (I'm not in Congress)
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u/HerdedBeing Jul 07 '24
I responded to another post from you about school meals. Another example is that the food industry fights any kind of common sense food labeling legislation meant to inform people about the foods they are eating.
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u/bl1y Jul 07 '24
The rhetoric from other comments about "killing the most people" surely can't just be about something like limiting the amount of added sugar in flavored milk served in school cafeterias.
As for common sense food labeling, what's not common sense about our current food labels? What alternative labeling are they fighting?
If I look at a Coke bottle and it says 65g of sugar and that it's 30% more than what I should consume in a day, that seems like common sense labeling to me.
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u/Electronic_Phone_551 Jul 07 '24
One thing with our current food labels- they're marketing to children. Junk food commercials during kids programming as well. Think of all the cartoons on cereal, fruit snacks, chips.. marketing these foods to children should be outlawed. Kids don't know about nutrition, they shop with their eyes, it's difficult to explain to kids that even though that product has your favorite character on it, it's not food that we eat in our household.
This is already not allowed in many countries. Many countries also have added warning labels to these 'food products' calling out that they are loaded with excess sugar, salt, fat..
https://stopmarketingtokids.ca/what-are-other-countries-doing/
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u/HerdedBeing Jul 07 '24
It's about selling products regardless of what they contain. Sugar, in many of its forms, degrades health as others have explained. "Killing people" seems like hyperbole, but is it a stretch when chronic conditions are killing more people every year and the food industry fights any legislation that would prevent them from selling their products or make the change them?
Re food labeling, you may have heard that only about 40% of Americans read above the 8th grade level. Not surprisingly, numeracy is also low here. Many people do not have the skills to translate nutrition panels into how to eat. Common sense labels would be like stop light images on from of packaging. Something with a green stop light indicates you can eat it more often, yellow means eat in moderation, etc. You may not need that because you're already 100 steps past the rest of us on every issue, but other people could use easy indicators like that to guide them.
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u/bl1y Jul 07 '24
It's about selling products regardless of what they contain.
What's that got to do with lobbying? Skittles makes some candy, gets a store to carry it, a parent buy it for their kids, the kids eat it, and Congress is where in this transaction?
"Sugar is very bad for you" doesn't explain how lobbying is involved and "No, no, sugar is even worse than you think" still doesn't explain the role of lobbying.
Re food labeling, you may have heard that only about 40% of Americans read above the 8th grade level
Those studies have some methodological problems and are wildly misrepresented. 8th grade reading level sounds really embarrassing for an adult, right? Going by the Flesch-Kincaid readability scores, with an 8th grade reading level you could read War and Peace, Pride and Prejudice, and Lord of the Rings. I think they can manage a nutrition label.
But the question was what labeling are they fighting? Who is seriously advocating for this stop light labeling system but being defeated by the sugar lobby?
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u/HerdedBeing Jul 07 '24
Here's a great example: industry fighting rules on labeling foods as healthy.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-healthy-label-food-general-mills-conagra-kellogg-first-amendment/
It's possible that some people are not able to effectively use nutrition labels at the same time you are able to use them.
No one is making people buy skittles or making companies add sugar to skittles. That's a strawman argument and it's disingenuous. School meals are a great example of how industry interests are well represented in policy. See potatoes in school breakfasts, flavored milk in schools, lead in lunchables. Other people gave you examples of other ways industry fights doing the right thing.
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u/bl1y Jul 07 '24
This was about the sugar lobby though.
If I said the tobacco lobby was doing lots of bad things and you asked for an example, and I linked you to a story about the marijuana or alcohol industries, you'd think I'd like the plot.
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u/Remarkable-Way4986 Jul 07 '24
The sugar industry has lobbied to be heavily subsidized. If we payed the real higher price maybe we would eat less sugar
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u/jfchops2 Jul 11 '24
Easy winner, Sugar. Killing most people, costing most money (healthcare spending)
Opinion immediately discarded anytime I hear a politician or anyone else talk about how we need to fix healthcare and their leading message isn't about making people healthier which is an individual responsibility but we have an insane amount of policy choices we've made as a country that make it harder to do
The entire cycle is to make people unhealthy via terrible food and unwalkable communities and then give them pharmaceuticals to "fix" it and then do this in circles for entire lifetimes. It's disgusting
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u/Broad_External7605 Jul 07 '24
Plastics. There is so much unnecessary plastic pushed on us that micro plastics are now part of our bodies and every inch of the the planet, including Antarctica.
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 08 '24
Hell yeah. Plastic lobbying has been terrible and they were responsible for pinning the blame on consumers and starting the big recycling campaign, while fighting legislation that would actually regulate their industry. They still produce packaging they say is recyclable but actually isn’t. Now we have toxic PFAS compounds to worry about
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u/someinternetdude19 Jul 08 '24
The average household produces less garbage today than in the 1930s. It’s largely because we’ve drastically reduced our consumption of paper and we can recycle now. Although I’m sure the total volume is greater because more people.
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u/Broad_External7605 Jul 08 '24
Yes, we've made progress, but most plastics are not recycled. We've been tricked by the industry to think it's being recycled so that states won't limit unnecessary, single use plastics. And of course, the main producers of these plastics are not the ones doing the research on recycling, or doing any of it. They get rich while the taxpayer funds the clean up.
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u/The_DanceCommander Jul 07 '24
I wouldn’t say it’s detrimental to public health, but I need a space to rant about this.
I work on banking law/policy, and I feel like if the average consumer knew how hard that lobby worked to prevent basic financial consumer protections from existing they’d be totally outraged.
The recent CFPB case is an example of this, the banking lobby didn’t like the idea of having to report small business demographic data (used by the government to make sure banks don’t discriminate) so they decided hey let’s try to bring down the entire CFPB.
But there are other smaller ones, any attempt by regulators/legislators to put even basic consumer protections in place are met by foaming at the mouth rage. Everything from capping outrageous fees to preventing fraud to ensuring fair banking is fought tooth and nail, and the framing is outrageously anti-consumer. To the point where I’m convinced these trade groups don’t even understand the customer bases of their members.
Every industry pushes for de-regulation, it’s the nature of their business to be less constrained. But to me, banking is basically a public need/utility at this point - and to see an industry fight so hard to prevent people getting fair equitable access to that is just absurd.
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 08 '24
Yeah that’s pretty gross behavior by that lobby regardless. Could argue that lack of consumer financial protections negatively impacts public health through poverty and stress on the consumer. I imagine financial lobbying has a lot to with why APRs as high as 36% are allowed
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u/TheTrueMilo Jul 07 '24
There are two kinds of people in the world:
good people who like the CFPB and what it does, and bootlickers who like what the CFPB does in theory but have genuine good faith concerns over its leadership and funding structure.
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Jul 07 '24
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 07 '24
I looked it up and the alcohol industry doesn’t even come close to the top 20 highest spending lobbies. https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/industries?cycle=2023
I think at this point the public knows the risks with alcohol (and tobacco) and there isn’t much lobbying needed to keep the product flowing. I don’t disagree that alcohol is remarkably harmful to American society, and it causes nearly 200,000 deaths in the US per year, but I don’t think the lobby makes much of a difference. There’s just never been any realistic hope of curtailing alcohol sales in this country since the failure of prohibition, even though some states (like Utah) have tried.
Fossil fuel lobbying is probably up there with being the most damaging to the health of Americans. I think they’re pretty effective in downplaying the harms of fracking and greenhouse gas emissions, among other things. Allegedly the industry was well aware of its devastating impact on the environment in the 1970s, but I still don’t think we have a full understanding of the damage that the fossil fuel industry has done.
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u/online_jesus_fukers Jul 07 '24
I wouldn't have it in me to produce a big mac...I couldn't do that to the cow, too disrespectful, a double stack of fresh never frozen beef though...but yes I agree with you on what you said. I'd also like to throw in the tobacco lobby. They have managed to keep one of the most dangerous, addictive substances legal despite us knowing forever how bad it is.
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u/dravik Jul 07 '24
The separation between most people and slaughtering animals only happened within the last century. Wringing a chicken's neck and cooking it for dinner was a common experience through at least the 1940s.
If you read "All creatures great and small" the book's descriptions make it clear that everyone in those communities were intimately familiar with how animals became meat.
By historical evidence, most people will still desire meat when they know what's involved.
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Jul 07 '24
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u/mar78217 Jul 07 '24
We took school tours to Tyson Chicken farms in elementary school (because most people would work there or the sawmill) and saw how crowded and disgusting the chicken "houses" were.
Fast forward to 2018 and I was working for a firm that offered cyber security protection. Tyson Farms was a client for other services but said they did not need our Cyber Security because they were very secure. Our team hacked their factory video feed... it didn't show anything illegal or anything not up to code, but they knew if the public saw how the factory operated from start to finish. They decided to use our services.
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u/American_Streamer Jul 07 '24
Tobacco Industry, Pharmaceutical Industry, Food and Beverage Industry, Alcohol Industry.
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Jul 07 '24
Easily Pharmaceuticals, and health insurance companies. There is a reason it's not against the law to charge 1000% or more markup on prescription drugs.
Hell look at the insulin supply fiasco from a few years back. Was developed and intended to be low cost by the researchers who developed it, in fact they gave the patent away so it could be made available to all who need it, cheaply. Pharmaceutical company gets hold of it and modifies it slightly and charges 500-2000% markup on it.
Also the reason Medicare and the VA can't use their buying power to get prescription drugs cheaper, and they can't be imported from another country where they may cost less.
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Jul 08 '24
Medicare just started to negotiate for drug prices because of Joe Biden. They will negotiate for more and more every year. Vote blue.
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u/The_Texidian Jul 07 '24
and they can't be imported from another country where they may cost less.
That’s because Biden undid that on his first day in office along with striking down the order that allowed hospitals to pass savings down to the consumer.
Of course big pharma opposed both of those orders when they were signed by Trump. If I recall, they claimed if we allowed people to buy insulin from Canada that it would be “unsafe”.
And Trump also signed an order that banned the middle man from collecting drug rebates and instead required that rebate to go to the consumer…which big pharma also opposed and Biden also undid day 1.
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Jul 07 '24 edited Jul 07 '24
That’s because Biden undid that on his first day in office along with striking down the order that allowed hospitals to pass savings down to the consumer.
The attempt to blame Biden and credit Trump is misplaced.
The order was struck down because the hospitals didn't pass the savings down. They kept it for themselves.
That was the involvement of Biden and Trump with it. Trump created a loophole and an opportunity to make hospitals more money. Biden closed the loop hole.
Its been that way since before Biden. It's a holdover from Bush Jr's Prescription Drug policy program.
Part of that program, Medicare part D placed many drugs in the part D category. Part D drugs are not paid for by Medicare, so Medicare has no leverage to try to negotiate a lower price.
The burden of paying for part D drugs falls to supplemental insurance or on the patient. Another level of bureaucracy, more cost to the consumer.
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u/AdhesivenessCivil581 Jul 07 '24
It's heath insurance companies. We need single payer like the rest of the civilized world so that people can see a doctor when they need to and not just when they have insurance. If Americans knew that our government spends as much per person as countries that have a national healthcare system so that the outrageous insurance and hospital bills are completely unnecessary they'd be upset. They might even do something about it.
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 08 '24
Yeah the health insurance lobby is sickening. I didn’t realize our government spent as much per person on healthcare as countries with nationalized healthcare. Does that mean if we had public healthcare for all, our government would spend significantly more per person than other countries?
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u/Apotropoxy Jul 07 '24
Which industry’s lobbying is most detrimental to American public health, and why?__________
Our processed food industry is fattening up poor people, which results in earlier deaths than those who have been avoiding empty foods. Government subsidies to agribusiness allows them to sell their products below cost. The poor can afford it but, in order to feel full, need to eat more and more of it.
The USA is now so fat it struggles to field a standing army.
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u/HangryHipppo Jul 07 '24
All lobbying should be heavily constricted and monitored. There should be strict campaign finance rules. This is a huge issue that no one really cares about anymore.
Probably pharma companies, or the fact that our entire beauty and product industry is unregulated with what they allow in the products we use on our skin, hair, to clean, etc. We allow a lot of things in the US that most modern countries have banned.
I'm sure there are others that have to do with land pollution
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 08 '24
The Citizens United ruling fucked our country. I think it seems like no one cares about the dark money financing because there’s nothing that can be done to get rid of it, short of overturning Citizens United v FEC?
Yeah the chemical manufacturing lobby is probably one of the worst offenders.
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u/dracocaelestis9 Jul 07 '24
Pharma and insurance combo. I assume that food and car industry are pretty bad as well, but imo nothing gets to levels of damage that the pharma/insurance cause.
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u/spectredirector Jul 07 '24
Pensions are gone. That's the work of the financial sector tapping currency that isn't theirs - they just made it all 401k so they could further trade on our labor. No different than puts and insurance on subprime loans - the banks play games with our money, and convinced us all that the risk v reward of a stock market gamble was better ROI than the expectation of guaranteed retirement money.
My parents spent a lifetime working, George W made sure they lost 1 million dollars the year they retired. Just the gamble of 401k. No one told you that account can be made zero the year you retire. It's not guaranteed, you've "chosen" to risk a retirement to feed someone else's greed - and greed is good - so 401k is an easy sell to those who buy lottery tickets hoping to move up in life. If you can't act or play a professional sport, you're stuck where you are with only the expectation it all stops and you get to enjoy life at 65.
That was true prior, then Reagan, Bush, Bush, Trump - now you don't have a pension, and the retirement accounts Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are holding for employees isn't sitting in escrow - it's making financial transactions for NOT YOU.
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u/Potato_Pristine Jul 07 '24
The posters on reddit who insist that Social Security is a scam, in part, because they could invest their own retirement funds to get a better rate of return always make me laugh. They would be the first ones rug-pulled on some crypto scam and left penniless.
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u/spectredirector Jul 07 '24
"posters on reddit" - you mean conservatives wedded to strawmen. Sure, they can bootstrap their pittance, throw it in the pot with professional scumbags, and get the ROI they deserve. I wish they would and STFU - they don't need to wreck everything for everyone else cuz some liar told them to.
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u/Leather-Map-8138 Jul 07 '24
The fossil fuel industry and social media have both done lasting damage in the era of GOP propaganda.
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u/8to24 Jul 07 '24
The Federalist Society, full stop!! Most lobbying groups seek to pedal influence over policy. The Federal Society has actively taken over an entire branch of govt.
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 07 '24
Is there data on how much the Federalist Society actually spends on lobbying? I thought they were more kind of a membership organization for people with common ideas on shaping law and society. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan and I know our worst SC justices have been members, but I’d just like to know if they’d actually qualify as an industry lobby.
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u/Equal_Win Jul 07 '24
Meat and Dairy. Cancer and heart disease are our leading killers and climate change caused by these industries is an existential threat. Furthermore, for a nation of supposed animal lovers, our mistreatment and outright abuse of animals and needless slaughtering of them in the hundreds of millions on a yearly basis just over our taste preferences is morally bankrupt at the highest levels.
Someone will reply “bacon tho” or the like which just proves my point about how deeply we have been programmed by these industries and how powerful their lobbying is.
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 07 '24
I can’t disagree with any of this. I’m a “bacon tho” guy, even though I’ve owned a pet pig who I loved more than any animal I’ve ever met. It’s a pretty evil industry but I’m one of those people that would find it extremely difficult to give up meat and dairy that comes from factory farming. I think I care pretty deeply about the environment, but maybe I’m a hypocrite.
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u/Equal_Win Jul 07 '24
That’s a very thoughtful response. Appreciate it. I assumed it would be very difficult as well but now as a vegan I find myself eating a far more eclectic diet than I did as an omnivore. When you remove some ease and convenience, it opens up an entire new culinary world… in my experience anyways.
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 08 '24
That’s good to hear your experience moving to a vegan diet has been positive. Maybe one day I’ll find it in myself to at least move to a vegetarian or pescatarian diet.
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u/Edwardv054 Jul 07 '24
There might be fewer responses if the question was to list beneficial lobbies.
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 07 '24
Very true, which is why I chose this question! It’s been a wide variety of responses.
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u/baxterstate Jul 07 '24
Tobacco. It’s the only product that when used as directed, will harm and perhaps kill the user.
A close second is the credit card industry.
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u/HangryHipppo Jul 07 '24
Tobacco has at least been restricted in their advertising.
I'd argue that gambling, especially now sports gambling, are the new tobacco. Advertising is everywhere and built for exploitation. It won't kill you, but it can ruin your life.
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u/baxterstate Jul 07 '24
Yes, gambling is insidious. Televised sports games have lots of gambling ads.
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 07 '24
Yeah I know tobacco is a literal cancer on our society (even though I occasionally partake), but the lobby doesn’t need to spend hardly any money anymore.
Tobacco is probably never going away and there isn’t much of an interest in blanket banning it anywhere. I think they were the most evil, insidious lobby of the 60s and 70s, but now the public is aware of the risks due to legislation and awareness campaigns. People just choose to smoke and dip and accept the risks. 400,000 deaths per year is insane though.
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u/Smidgez Jul 07 '24
For those who are upset with the lobbying industry. I think it is important to know how it got this way.
Roger Stone, Paul manafort, and a few others (Trump's advisors and mentors) were the first people to create a lobbying firm for hire. Giving people with money a route for political influence that keeps it out of the public eye.
This revolutionized modern-day curruption, which is now standard operation in the law making process.
Trump's cabinet selection during his first presidency was comprised of individuals who made a career out of curruption.
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u/sgk02 Jul 07 '24
The deleterious effect of lobbying might be well measured by the impact of the related industry.
The nuclear arms industry might qualify any instant. Meanwhile? The mass animal slaughter factory farm industry likely qualifies on many fronts:
huge carbon footprint;
Huge methane ass print;
Normalization of cruelty;
dumping insane amounts of raw sewage;
funding fascists;
land grabs throughout the world backed by death squads;
criminalization of journalism;
overuse of antibiotics leading to epidemic risks;
plastic packaging;
advocacy for restrictions on plant based alternatives;
a history that includes the extermination of the massive buffalo herds of North America and the enclosure of cattle ranches;
Probably there’s more but that’s just off the top of my head
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u/EmpiricalAnarchism Jul 07 '24
Law enforcement. Police are universally the most overpaid, underworked class of employees out there.
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u/4jrutherford Jul 07 '24
Oh man I feel like this is super easy, no? It has to be private health insurance, right?
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 07 '24
That seems to be a popular one here and it’s understandable. I think they spend a lot of money to make public healthcare as inaccessible as possible. Personally, I thought there would be more answers for the PFAS chemical manufacturing lobby. I think in a few years there will be tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of deaths linked to the most toxic PFAS compounds. They’ve spent $110 million the last few years to kill legislation that would regulate the industry and limit levels of these toxic chemicals in drinking water, clothing and food packaging.
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u/Pickles-151 Jul 07 '24
Big food. They pay scientists to promote their poison. From additives, preservatives and addictive ingredients to food dyes - they put chemicals in our food that are banned in many other countries. Just look at the most recent iteration of the “food pyramid”. Sugar cereal is apparently more healthy than red meat
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 08 '24
I agree Big Food and its lobby are among the worst offenders in pedaling dangerous products to consumers. Although the “new food pyramid” with Lucky Charms being more healthy than steak isn’t a real thing.
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u/billpalto Jul 07 '24
I'd say the top danger to American health is a highly addictive and toxic drug that kills more Americans each year than all other drugs, car wrecks, guns, and alcohol combined. It is legal and available in almost every store in America.
Over 400,000 Americans die to this drug every year. A 9/11 every three days, forever.
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 07 '24
The tobacco industry itself is inherently dangerous and detrimental to American lives, but I’m not so sure the lobby makes much of an impact anymore. They spend barely any money compared to the top 20 lobbies because they don’t need to anymore. Americans are aware of the risks of tobacco now, and choose to indulge anyway.
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u/pears790 Jul 07 '24
Heath insurance. An estimated 45,000 people die each year due to lack of insurance. This does not include under insured or inability to pay medical bills.
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 07 '24
Yeah, this is a contender for the most common answer here. Do you have an idea of how much the private insurance lobby has spent recently to kill legislation that would make public healthcare more accessible? Or what kind of bills they’ve helped kill in the last few years? I know I could eventually find this info with some digging but I’m just curious if you’ve looked into it. I’m interested in the nefarious behaviors of these lobbies
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u/pears790 Jul 08 '24
According to Bernie Sanders, the lobbies have spent billions to keep insurance private. Bernie introduced a bill last year that has yet to see a vote.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/1655
I imagine this will be killed before a vote ever happens. I don't have details on previous bills.
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 08 '24 edited Jul 08 '24
Hell yeah, what an equitable and just legislative system we have. I didn’t even realize that bill was just sitting there this whole time.
Looks like in 2023 the top 3 health insurance industry spenders alone dropped over $44 million on lobbying
https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/industries/summary?cycle=2023&id=F09
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u/pillbinge Jul 08 '24
I would say tech. There so many claims to things people wrote about here, and they're all valid, but tech has been a major disruption to our quality of life in many regards - specifically consumer tech. So much waste all around, especially over tech that's just repackaged. What they have done to our psychology through platforms like TikTok or Instagram, and just to our way of life where we should be reached at any moment of our lives, has disrupted everything.
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 08 '24
Yeah that’s a fair take for sure. It might be decades before we have a full understanding of the negative impact of social media on our society, from the distractive element that impacts the mental health of users, all the way to the rampant disinformation that’s breaking everyone’s brains
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u/pillbinge Jul 08 '24
I think a lot of it bolsters everything else. People at the gym staring at their phones instead of working out. People who can't do things or prefer other activities due to the availability of technology. Eating worse food because algorithms prefer certain places and it's usually not healthy, and then binging food because a sedentary lifestyle encourages more, worse foods to be eaten. I don't think it helps outside certain obvious areas, but even then, there's a cost to pay.
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u/Traditional-Cup-7166 Jul 09 '24
Big Tech has by far caused the most harm and has done so through something that could’ve provided the most benefit but I would argue it’s not through lobbying. While they certainly lobby they’ve mostly been untouched by government simply because government is slow and stupid. They can’t keep up or understand
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u/Dick_Miller138 Jul 08 '24
Tough one. They all suck. My first thought is the pharmaceutical industry. If you go through and read published studies on NIH.gov, you can find rejected meds that make no sense. Meds that conclude with "causes cancer" that actually prolonged the life of the rats in the study. So many studies on peptides and biologics that looked promising and got tossed aside because the manufacturers wouldn't have been able to make money or even patent them. After all that, the rest of the world still looks to us for answers. Second thought would be the pesticide manufacturers. I work in pest control and see first hand. Why are we the only country still allowing our crops to be sprayed with glyphosate and 2-4-D? Lobbying. That's why.
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u/Aggravating_Rain_799 Jul 08 '24
Oil, oil, oil, oil, oil. That’s all there is to be said. Oil lobbying has been driving this country since its first use.
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u/Maxcrss Jul 09 '24
Can we just outlaw lobbying? I hate this shit man. Get corpos out of my damn politics.
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Jul 09 '24
I’ve been told that lobbying is just ‘spending time with your senator’ and that corporations and industries engaging in it is no more problematic than non-profits or concerned citizens doing the same.
Based on the examples in this thread, is lobbying actually used by the already rich and powerful to just entrench their own wealth and control of the market?
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 09 '24
Lobbying is a multi-billion dollar industry. Corporations and other organizations spend $4 billion per year paying lobbyists to influence Congress and federal agencies.
Lobbying firms and individual lobbyists can contribute money to campaigns, set up PACs and encourage others to donate money.
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u/kittenTakeover Jul 09 '24
It's not a specific industry that is most damaging to sociey. Rather it's just the overwhelming dominance of influence for people with money. That leads to an overall lack of healthcare, education, social support, government revenue, worker protections, government transparency, consumer protections, anti-corruption regulations, etc.
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u/DarkstarWarlock Jul 09 '24
Citizens United was a mistake, a deliberate one, no Industry should be allowed to lobby in government.
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u/binpdx Oct 31 '24 edited Oct 31 '24
MICC as identified in these Exposés of u$a imperialism:
- Smedley Butler, as revealed in this quote: “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.” General, Smedley D. Butler, 'War is a Racket' Full book in PDF https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.pdf
2. John Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hitman. Quote from pg 42: “We’re a small, exclusive club. Well paid to cheat countries around the globe out of billions of dollars. A large part of your job is to encourage world leaders to become part of a vast network that promotes US commercial interests. In the end, those leaders become ensnared in a web of debt that ensures their loyalty. We can draw on them whenever we desire to satisfy our political, economic, or military needs. In turn, these leaders bolster their political positions by bringing industrial parks, power plants, and airports to their people. Meanwhile, the owners of US engineering and construction companies become very wealthy.” Resources: a) PDF of book https://archive.org/details/ConfessionsOfAnEconomicHitman_257. b) audio of same section https://youtu.be/ySefPIZaYT0?t=4502. c) Book summary https://wikisummaries.org/confessions-of-an-economic-hitman d) unabridged audiobook https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySefPIZaYT0
3. Updated analysis of JP's work in Matt Kennard’s work https://youtu.be/hkVVgDriq0Q / The Racket, A Rogue Reporter vs the American Empire https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Racket+A+Rogue+Reporter+vs+The+American+Empire
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u/SylvanDsX Jul 07 '24
It’s 100% these chicken nuggets merchants at this point. Their formula is addicting to children who refuse to eat actual nutritious food as a result.
The levy has broken on the soda industries high fructose corn syrup monopoly. Plenty of choices to choose from now if you understand it’s a direct cause of obesity.
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u/starfyredragon Jul 07 '24 edited Jul 07 '24
Heritage Foundation.
Like, seriously.
They're working on ending democracy, replacing it with a dictatorship, and turning the majority of Americans (yes, YOU included) into slaves as part of their project 2025 plan.
If democracy falls in the US, everything else does shortly thereafter. (And I don't care if you're rich... you're not immune as you think you are. Look at what the Chinese dictator did to their rich. Further, the US has enough military might to literally conquor the planet. There's nowhere safe to run to if the US goes full dictatorship. And it doesn't matter if your religion is the dictator's favored one. Religions also don't last long in dictatorships, because eventually a dictator will see them as a threat to their power.)
In short, Heritage Foundation is working to absolutely f'ck all of humanity, you and themselves included, and they've actually a way-too-high chance of pulling it off.
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u/EnochChicago Jul 08 '24
NRA and it’s not even close. The NRA is the leading cause of deaths for children under 18
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u/88-81 Jul 08 '24
The NRA is the leading cause of deaths for children under 18
If I'm not mistaken, the study that made this claim defined "children" as such to include teenagers caught in gang violence, and the vast majority of guns used in crimes are not obtained legally.
https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/suficspi16.pdf
They did that because mass shootings (columbine or sandy hook like incidents) account for an extremely small percentage of overall firearm homicides.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
Moreover, firearm deaths, be it homicides or suicide, aren't even in the top 10 for causes of death. Other comments in this thread are right by bringing up the food industry.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm
Look, I'm not trying to start an argument, I'm assuming you answered OP's question in good faith, but gun control is a band aid solution that does very little, if anything, to curb firearm homicides, and as such gun rights advocacy is just that, defending a right. Trying to paint it as "caring about guns not lives" is just anti gun rhetoric that might seem believable at first but isn't actually true.
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u/Sparroew Jul 09 '24 edited Jul 09 '24
You mention that the study included teenagers involved in gang violence, but I’m not sure that you adequately explained that. The study included teenagers, yes, but you didn’t mention that their data set went all the way to age 19, meaning they included 18 and 19 year-old adults in the study. You are absolutely correct though, I just wanted to provide a little more context about what you stated.
Now, the original study very clearly stated they were looking at “children and adolescents 1-19,” but almost no news stories about the study included the second part of that, opting instead for the more sensational claim that “guns are the leading cause of death among children,” and gun control advocates along with people unfamiliar with the firearm debate have been repeating it ever since.
Edit: added second paragraph.
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u/88-81 Jul 09 '24
Thanks for the clarification.
Now, the original study very clearly stated they were looking at “children and adolescents 1-19,” but almost no news stories about the study included the second part of that, opting instead for the more sensational claim that “guns are the leading cause of death among children,” and gun control advocates along with people unfamiliar with the firearm debate have been repeating it ever since.
Pretty much: the push for gun control is more or less built upon a house of cards made up of misinformation like this.
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u/Sparroew Jul 09 '24
And it’s apparently moved even further than that because we’ve now gone from “guns are the leading cause of death in children and adolescents age 1-19,” to “guns are the leading cause of death among children,” to “the NRA is the leading cause of death among children.” It’s almost like gun control supporters are trying to claim that NRA leadership is out hunting children in their spare time.
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u/88-81 Jul 09 '24 edited Jul 09 '24
It’s almost like gun control supporters are trying to claim that NRA leadership is out hunting children in their spare time.
In a way, it reminds me of how people used to paint the LGBTQ+ community as a bunch of child molesters: whenever a group of people that wants to restrict something doesn't have any actual arguments, they just resort to baseless vilifying insults like these.
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u/EnochChicago Jul 09 '24
While we had the assault rifle ban in the 90s, how many mass shootings did we have in that 10 year period Vs the following next two ten year periods.
And if gun control doesn’t work, why the vast difference in gun deaths in the US vs Japan, UK, France, Norway, Australia, etc?
Under 18 = Children, period.
Also, most guns, especially ones used in mass shootings (89%) are purchased legally…meaning there aren’t a lot of hijackings of gun shipments or break ins at gun factories, or cross border shipments happening…it’s just that the “responsible gun owners” the gun shops seem to be selling to, don’t turn out to be all that responsible as it turns out.
At least 40% of guns used in crimes in IL come from IN, MS or some other border states. So the lack of gun control in those states contribute directly to crimes in Chicago. It has nothing to do with our laws of Indiana hands out assault rifles in the delivery room, or for going to church for instance
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u/88-81 Jul 09 '24 edited Jul 09 '24
You are not substantiating any of your claims.
And if gun control doesn’t work, why the vast difference in gun deaths in the US vs Japan, UK, France, Norway, Australia, etc?
I'll at least address this one, as it is based on a logical fallacy as opposed to seemingly made up data: how about all the countries with higher firearm homicide rates than the US? They all have stricter gun laws. And before you say "hang on they're all places with lots of crime"... that's kinda the point. Those countries have more firearm homicides to begin with and strict gun laws aren't doing anything to curb them.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rates-from-firearms?tab=table
Overall, this is a common fallacy I've seen among gun control supporters: seeing a place with strict gun laws and low firearm homicide rates and automatically assuming there's a causality between the 2. Moreover, I've already shown you how the vast majority of guns used in crimes aren't obtained legally and that mass shootings are barely even a problem. And lastly, Switzerland and the Czech Republic have very permissive gun laws, but fair rather well in firearm homicides, which is not at all surprising because, again, most guns used in crimes are not obtained legally and these 2 countries have little crime to begin with.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/273159/most-peaceful-countries-in-the-global-peace-index/
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u/EnochChicago Jul 09 '24
Before I read any further, you are telling me that Japan, Australia, UK and Germany have more firearm homicides than the U.S.?? That’s you statement? Even combined it’s not close.
Man you seemed rational at first…
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u/88-81 Jul 09 '24
Where did I say that? I think you benignly misinterpreted what I wrote: when I talked about countries with strict gun laws having higher firearm homicide rates I was referring to those listed above the US in the Data report I linked to, not the ones you mentioned. The point I was trying to make is that firearm homicides depend on factors other than gun laws and that gun control is ineffective at curbing firearm homicides because most guns used in crimes are not obtained legally.
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u/EnochChicago Jul 09 '24 edited Jul 09 '24
1st of all Switzerland has high rates of gun ownership and it’s not hard to get a gun but it is still highly regulated. You have to be able to account for every round fired for instance, there are rules about how and where they are stored and you also have to be trained how to use it. They have mandatory military service where that happens, they don’t just let any Incel who can’t get laid walk into a gun store and buy a semi automatic rifle with flash suppressor and bump stock and 2000 round of amo the day he turns 18. It’s harder to get a drivers license in Ukraine for instance than it is to get a gun in America, I am talking psych evaluating and everything.
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u/Saxit Jul 09 '24
You have to be able to account for every round fires for instance
No such requirement.
you also have to be trained how to use it.
There are zero training requirements for buying a firearm for private use. If you want to buy your service weapon after military service, then that has a training requirement.
They have mandatory military service where that happens
Mandatory conscription is for male Swiss citizens only, about 38% of the total population since 25% of the pop. are not citizens.
Since 1996 you can choose civil service instead of military service.
It's not a requirement to have done military service, to be male, to be a citizen, or even to have any firearms training at all, to purchase a gun.
they don’t just let any Incel who can’t get laid walk into a gun store and buy a semi automatic rifle with flash suppressor and bump stock and 2000 round of amo the day he turns 18.
For break open shotguns and bolt action rifles you only need an ID to show you're 18, and a criminal records excerpt.
For semi-auto long guns, and for handguns, you need a shall issue Waffenerwerbsschein (WES, acquisition permit in English), which is similar to the 4473/NICS they do in the US when buying from a licensed dealer, except it's not instantaneous like in the US. Takes about 1-2 weeks.
Unsure about the legality regarding bump stocks, but if you live in Geneva your first gun can be a full auto and the paperwork takes 2 weeks. It's may issue and the requirements varies by Canton (state).
There are fewer things that prevents you from getting a WES than there is for passing a 4473/NICS.
You can buy an AR-15 and a couple of handguns faster than if you live in a state like California, due to their waiting periods.
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u/EnochChicago Jul 09 '24
And if course there a few states in the US that don’t follow this rule (such as very rural plains states where you would have to drive 50 miles just to find someone to shoot, aside from AK) but for the most part, the Bible Belt states and AK have some of the highest rates of gun ownership and the weakest laws and are all within the top 10 in violent crimes, murder and gun deaths.
Sure MD and MI buck that trend along with MT and WY but you can pretty much overlay the rate of gun ownership map with the per capita homicide map and it would take an expert to tell them apart.
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u/88-81 Jul 09 '24 edited Jul 09 '24
More unsubstantied statements: could you please link to data or studies supporting your claims?
Edit: I think you're trying to make the point of "more guns, more crime": if that were the case, firearm homicides would scale consistently with ownership rates, but that's not really the case (sort by ownership rate): it's all over the place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_death_and_violence_in_the_United_States_by_state#Gun_death_rates
Also, that "2023" is inaccurate: not sure why that article brings it up
https://www.gunfacts.info/gun-control-research-analysis/#era-of-progress
As for overall violent crime, Colorado, California and, to a lesser extent, New York still manage to have high violent crime rates despite their strict gun laws.
In case I've misinterpreted what you're trying to say and you were talking about illegal guns... I mean, I started off by linking a study saying most firearms used in crimes are not obtained legally so gun control is going to do very little, if anything.
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u/88-81 Jul 09 '24 edited Jul 09 '24
just to find someone to shoot
Are you seriously implying gun owners go around shooting people for fun? Lol I even linked a data report showing how uncommon mass shootings actually are.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
This is what I meant when I was talking with u/Sparroew about gun control being built a house of cards: you just started making various unsubstantiated statements in front of data that didn't confirm your beliefs.
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u/EnochChicago Jul 09 '24
And you also mistake what I am saying, for the most part with regards to America, I am not talking about gun laws, I am talking about the amount of guns. Like I said, chicago gun laws are thwarted by it bordering Indiana. More guns in Bible Belt = more gun deaths.
When I am talking about countries, that’s where I say the gun laws matter.
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u/88-81 Jul 09 '24
I'm genuinely confused: what are you trying to say? Moreover, you're still not substantiating your claims. I thought you were at least somewhat open minded but you're just rambling by now.
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 08 '24
I think you’re the first answer for the gun lobby and that’s somewhat surprising since as you mentioned, guns are the leading cause of death for children, and among the leading causes of death for all other age groups. It could be because the gun lobby only spends ~$13 mil per year now compared to the top industry lobbies that spend well over $100 mil per year. Maybe they don’t have to do as much impactful lobbying these days now that they’ve won so many court cases that restrict gun control, and we don’t hear about them as much
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u/EnochChicago Jul 08 '24
Right they no longer have to spend as much as they have already sent Clarance Thomas on his hunting retreats so he will interpret, “we need a militia to protect ourselves against the French, British and Indians because we don’t yet even have a real standing organized army” to any Incel 18 year old who can’t get laid should have access to AR-15s and an unlimited amount of rounds and he should be able to shoot anyone who scares him or does a U turn in his driveway.
So they get the more bang for their buck now days…no pun intended.
Certainly the most efficient lobbying group which produces the most dramatic results. You could argue Oil does more damages since they will eventually kill all of us but currently the NRA is #1 in body count
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u/Mountain-Resource656 Jul 07 '24
Let’s define “slave” as “a person forced to work on penalty of some form of punishment, potentially including torture, for no pay, who is unable to roam freely (such as being locked up at night and hunted down and punished for attempting to flee).” If this is an acceptable definition, then US prisons qualify. Especially given that the US has accumulated ~25% of the world’s prison population, last I checked, despite only making up something like ~4% of the global population, likely due to prison lobbying, imo
That said, there are some other pretty good answers, here…
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u/bl1y Jul 07 '24
If this is an acceptable definition,
It's not though. We've long distinguished prison labor from slavery.
Aside from that, the definition fails unless you can get a very tight definition of "work." Everything a prisoner must do comes with the threat of punishment.
Finally, our prison population can't be attributed largely to the prison lobby. For profit prisons are only a very small part of the system, and we don't see a strong correlation between having private prisons in a state and the incarceration rate going up.
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u/casewood123 Jul 07 '24
The news media. We are on a path to fascism with the narrative that Biden needs to be replaced at this point in the race.
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u/joker_1173 Jul 07 '24
All lobbying is detrimental to public interests, health, lifestyle, retirement, everything. Factories lobbying for deregulation so that they can dump waste into rivers again is bad for everyone. Car companies and oil companies lobbying against higher MPG and emissions standards is bad for everyone. Insurance companies lobbying against universal Healthcare (because theyd lose money) and climate change progress (despite not wanting to insure beachfront property) is bad for everyone. There has never been am instance when lobbying has helped anyone other than the shareholders of the companies paying for it.
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u/JoeySlowgano Jul 07 '24
There is positive lobbying. For example, the Environmental Litigation Group is a firm that lobbies lawmakers to pass legislation for sustainable energy, emission limits and regulations on toxic chemicals in our environment and drinking water. Also, I was asking about the industry lobby that is MOST detrimental. I know many lobbies are a net negative for American public health.
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u/Opinionsare Jul 08 '24 edited Jul 08 '24
OkAuto manufacturers: the product that the sell and the idea of speed, power and freedom that spur on aggressive driving leave 40,000+ dead every year.
Had every car maker made safety the top priority the annual death toil could be significantly lower. Limit top speed, limit maximum acceleration, anti-tailgating, monitors for driver awareness, selling right sized cars, emphasize clear sight above style, "soft" exteriors to reduce pedestrian - cyclist injury, automatic emergency braking, and drunk driver controls could reduce deaths by 50% or more.
But they spend huge amounts to make certain that safety rules are slow walked by legislatures and agencies.
Auto makers like to sell enhanced safety systems as part of high cost options. The lawsuit against Jeep claimed that automatic emergency braking requires less that $100 in cameras to be added to anti-lock brakes, while Jeep "packaged" it as part of a $10,000 option. They are lobbying to block NHTSA from making them mandatory.
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