A passionate, educated, intelligent, and attractive mature woman attended a recent Lobby School to learn to lobby to stop pony rides. She says she can look at the ponies and see they aren’t happy so children must be denied pony rides. There is no convincing anyone driven by deep emotions of anything. I’ve “Lobby Schooled” animal breeders and those using animals for human benefit. Per them animals have been bred for centuries to do certain tasks and not doing their prime directives makes depressed animals. These owners make their livings with animals and treat them well as their economic “golden geese.” I’ve seen their love for their animals in their eyes. But “rest of the story” discussions are meaningless to true-believers of any ilk. It’s all or nothing.
Fortunately, 95 percent of seminar attendees are driven by money – they want more money or to keep what they have and so I can help.
But some organizations’ drivers are money and a moral superiority creating a structural conflict. Projecting moral superiority allows no give-and-take with opponents or the opposing political party. “Brothers’ and sisters’” dues keep flowing to the association, staff display in the capitol their organization’s colors, but members lose economically. I see reduced futures for the pony lady and these organization’s members – all of whom are good people. They could be so much more effective if they would appreciate that others have reasonable interests and work with rather than despise those with competing interests. “My way or the highway” politics is not sustainable except maybe in the reddest or bluest states.