Big Corporations, Lobbyists and Morality

This blogger was reading the Sunday Greensboro News and Record today and found this article by Bloomberg News. Let's see, Tobacco-maker Lorillard (based locally in Greensboro, NC) was facing a government ban on menthol in cigarettes. Since 90% of Lorillard's sales involve menthol cigarettes (Newport brand), the corporation spend $900,000 lobbying the government to stop its effort to ban menthol in cigarettes. An advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in March stopped short of recommending an outright ban on menthol cigarettes, and the stock price surged.

Interestingly, the article also mentioned that the 50 corporations that lobby government the most have outperformed the S & P 500 index by an average of 12.4% annually since 2002.

Is there anyone else that has a problem with this situation on multiple levels? Here is a product, menthol cigarettes, that may even be worse on the health and longevity of people than other cigarettes, allowed to be legal, at least in major part, by the lobbying of the major corporation that would be effected by the illegality. This blogger would very much like to hear from conservative-minded people, many who are Christians, who defend this situation.

This blogger remembers the tobacco lobby that was promoting the opinion that tobacco was safe. Many of the people who today are saying that there is no problem with climate change are financially backed by the same people who were involved with the tobacco lobby then (see here). How moral is lobbying by corporations when health issues are involved? Does it comport with "Christian morality?" It certainly does not comport with this blogger's morality.