Forum Post: When is bribery officially legal?
Posted 12 years ago on Jan. 26, 2012, 3:53 p.m. EST by ohmygoodness
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When it is goes by the erudite terminology - lobbying.
You have to call it Gift Giving not Bribery. 1) Congress has a different set of rules for receiving gifts than the rest of the government. 2) Campaign contributions have limits according to what entity is making the contribution. 3) Gift Giving is probably everything that is not a compaign contribtution: Hotel Rooms, Airplane Tickets or Free Rides in private airplanes, Dinners, conventions, vacations,...
If gift giving is to corrupt then would you call it bribery then?
If gift giving is to skew legislation would you call it bribery then?
Why does a person need to be "given gifts" to get a seat in Congress and then be "given gifts" again to fulfill her/his task?
Would you still stick with the semantics of the "gift giving" if it were not legislated by the gift-laden members of congress?
I'm not a lawyer, but I think "Bribery", "Corruption", and "Fraud" are conclusions. You can't start a dialog, discussion, investigation, against a congress person that way. First you gather facts and do research to start an investigation. So yes I think you have to stick with "Gift Giving" out of respect for the process.
Bribery by any other name is just as rotten/wrong. Hopefully we will all understand this soon and put a stop to it soon.
Lobbying, word definition: the candy coated bullshit form of Bribe.
See also: Corruption, Tyranny, Injustice, Prostitution.
I wouldn't say lobbying is erudite by any means, but it is a form of bribery.