Did you ever see anybody lobbying for stuff they consider bad? Of course everybody lobbies for good stuff, just definitions of good stuff differ between people.
Or you meant "As long as companies are gonna be able to lobby, might as well lobby for stuff I agree with"?
Yup, all that lobbying to be able to carry on polluting air and waterways, to keep tobacco sales and advertising legal, the people doing those things thought they were good and pure too - right?
There's lobbying that's evil, and the people doing it know it's evil, but it affects their bottom line so they do it anyway.
Only way to not pollute air and waterways at all is to cease all industry and somehow dispose of the large percentage of the human population. Otherwise, they'd have some impact on the environment, it's inevitable. This impact can be bigger or lesser, and can be measured against they usefulness of what comes out of it. Of course, producers argue that their products are very useful and their impacts on the environment are minimal and well controlled. They may be wrong or misrepresenting how actually good is what they in fact do, but I never heard anybody arguing, for example "let's destroy the environment, to hell with it, who needs it anyway". Did you?
Same for tobacco sales and advertising - of course, many people - especially those who enjoy smoking - think it is a good thing that it is legal. They also think it is a good thing that they, being sane adults, can choose how to behave and manage their own bodies and property. Some people think instead it is a good thing to deny certain people choice in what they can do with their bodies and their property, for their own good. There's obviously some disagreement on the topic, but again, I don't see how the former are more evil than the latter. If anything, I'd prefer a smoker over somebody that wants to control minute details of my behavior using government coercion any day of the week, but that's my opinion of what is good. But I'd really want to know why you not only claim it's evil but also claim everybody who disagrees with you on these topics knows they are evil. That's an ambitious statement, I'd like to see some substantiation of it.
The latter. But I think it's hard to argue with "let consenting adults do whatever they want with each other". The gay thing specifically is not important to me for any reason other than I think people who have found love should have no barriers to expressing that love. Even though watching two guys do what they want to each other would probably make me vomit.
Are you implying that pro-gay marriage sentiment is a universally held belief? Maybe amongst your peers, and that’s great. Globally, I’m not even sure if the sentiment has hit 50% yet.
Edit: Apparently I mis-understood, but I’m not sure what the correct understanding is, exactly.
No, that's precisely the opposite of what I said. In that, if Google is lobbying for it, then it must be something in contention enough to demand that they actively lobby for it.
The statement that something is good, without further qualification, does tend to imply that it is universally held to be good. Albeit the two aren't necessarily synonymous.
They tend to be taken as such in everyday conversation.
In my opinion "good" is subjective by default, not objective. Further, I would think that even when objectiveness is implied it would be that the speaker thinks it should be universally held, not that it necessarily is.
Gay marriage is not universally supported, this we know. Do you personally think it is "good"? If not, does that mean you think it is the opposite, "bad", just because not everyone supports it?
Think of it as a matter of communication. Everyone (or at least almost everyone) is lobbying for 'good stuff,' so it's not a particularly useful statement to make all by itself.
> Further, I would think that even when objectiveness is implied it would be that the speaker thinks it should be universally held, not that it necessarily is.
Hence the two not being synonymous. Perhaps I simply happen to know an unusually large number of people who believe that moral correctness implies a convincing argument.
I thought cheez was giving personal opinion, not speaking for the world. Is fairly obvious that it is not universally held to be good. The UN only recently removed homosexuality from the list of things states are not allowed to execute their citizens for and the arguments about gay marriage are currently tearing great holes in many of the major sects of christianity, accompanied by much public wailing and gnashing of teeth. To think that it was a universally held belief at this point in time would require an extremely restricted social circle and no access to any form of media, so given that cheez is posting on the intatubes, I doubt this is the case.
