NMFS proposes to reduce the hake possession limit

[Gerry Zagorski]

Originally Posted by reason162

This is so convoluted I don't know where to begin.

Sure, our system allows moneyed lobbying for policy. It doesn't have to be this way (plenty of Western democracies don't allow anything close to our scale of pay to play), but it's the system we have.

So when it comes to fishery regulations, cut away all the bullshit and you have two competing "special interests" locking horns: the commercial, for-profit fishery vs. the conservationists.

If the commercial guys win, they get to keep more fish; hence, they make more money. If the conservationists win, what do they get? Do they get more money? It seems to me like you're saying they do (or someone, somewhere in that camp is getting rich), and that's what I find hilarious. The argument doesn't even begin to be coherent.

I'm confused here but that's nothing new and I think maybe we are looking at this from a totally different perspective and we might be saying the same thing.

My argument is not about the money being made by Commercial Guys or the Conservationist. It's about how those groups can influence our political system.

Yes, the Commercial Fishing Industry makes more money if the laws and quotas are favorable to them. What I'm saying is the politicians making the laws are the ones who are profiting by taking money from their Lobbyists.

Conservationist group motives are a bit different... It's not money they are after it's promoting their ideology. If they win their conservation agenda gets advanced. However that is not to say these groups don't throw money and votes around and influence politicians making the laws just like the Commercial interests do.