Pay-to-Play

This is a political terms that speaks to quid pro quo, or if you scratch my back I'll scratch yours. There are any ways to get things done. When a gift is offered the likelihood or swiftness with which the favor is completed is often expedited once a gift has been received. If you want to know more or its relationship to scripture, press play.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Hello, this is Bobby with another episode of Yup, it's in there. And today we're gonna cover Pay to Play. Or some may know it as quid pro quo. And I know I can hear you now. Bobby, is pay to play in scripture? And my response is what it always is. So let's get into it. So pay to play is a term that primarily has been used in politics, the political arena is where you hear it most often. And I would say probably for about the past 10 years, the term quid pro quo has been used instead of the term pay to play. And what these terms mean, they're speaking, they speak to the idea that you know a physical gift that we give to someone for an opportunity. Some call that pay to play, and others call it quid pro quo. It has been inflamed in some of the uh poorer communities. It has been looked at as bribery in poor communities, and that was an attempt basically to cheat them out of you know the opportunity to play in the game of pay to play politically, and there you see the chasm between the amount of advocacy for issues directly dealing with the poorer urban communities receiving less legislative support, and even when so-called parties who are supposed to be partial to the poor or urban communities, even they are subject to pay-to-play, meaning that when you receive a gift, then you know I'm gonna take care of you. Quid quo quo is you do something for me, I do something for you. It's an exchange that happens, and it's an exchange that is oftentimes understood. So, what do I mean when I say an exchange that's often understood? Well, let's cover the scripture uh first, and I think the scripture will lead us right into the second part of the discussion. Proverbs 18 and 16 says, your gift will make room for you and bring you before great men. And so how that plays out in politics. There is a side of politics where money is involved, and it's called political contributions. I worked for a government relations firm, and we actually, you know, did the work of actually calculating the contributions that came in to the specific that came from specific corporations to legislators. And so it was uh political contributions, and political contributions plays a huge role in some of the legislation that we've seen since Reaganomics, since the Reagan era, how corporations broker in DC has changed a lot. And you see a lot of lobbying on behalf of corporations happening at the uh state and federal level. And you know, they teach us early, you know, in education about monopoly and different things like that, and they, you know, try and sell us a bill of goods that we live in a free market and that there are parameters that have been put in place so that that doesn't happen. Well, we have large corporations who around election time they're able to give a very large gift, and oftentimes that very large gift becomes a determining factor in who gets elected, who's raised the most money. And that's why President Barack Obama was an anomaly. Because not only was he able to raise funds from the common citizenry who made contributions well under the million-dollar gifts that corporations were able to give to fund some of the people that he ran against. And so what he was able to do and why he was able to secure his seat is because he didn't pander to the 1%, but he engaged the 99%, and the 99% were in fact able to make a contribution at their level as well as put in a vote, and so what I love about that is President Obama showed us what is possible, and uh for those who are in the fight to maintain democracy, and democracy by definition is governance by the people, they work very hard to do that. And so I just want to give you it's not meant to be a political conversation, it's not meant to pick one side or the other, but it is to, in fact, make you aware that pay to play and quid pro is in fact in scripture. And so it is a principle that is in operation, it is a principle that I've tested myself on a very basic level. We've all been in the space and the place where we purchased some two-minute heels and we kept them on for two hours. And then afterwards, after the event is over, we go to a restaurant, and then you know, we're there at the restaurant, and it looks like they want to tack on another 30 minutes or 20 minutes to my weight in these two-minute heels. Well, I've taken the liberty to grab a$20 bill out of my purse, walk up to the Maitre D or the hostess, and say, Hey, I know it's a very long wait, but I am really tired and I'd really love to get a seat as soon as possible. And I'd slip the 20 in their hand, and before you know it, the next name on the list is me. And I've gotten a seat, and so it is a principle that is understood, and it's almost like a reflex to those who understand it. You release a principle in operation, and that is in fact what I saw happen on the very basic level, you know, by doing that at a restaurant. But it is often and most certainly used in the political system here in the US. And so my response, again, is what it always is, and that is yeah, it's in there. See you next time.