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WSJ?OTD

Should Congress ban Internet gambling?

Here we have one of those 'sin questions' again.

If the net could serve booze, the question would be "Should Congress ban drinking on the web?".

Or sex. "Should Congress ban fucking on the web?

Well, that one is not too far fetched as they dearly want to ban pornography to a high water mark.

So. Gambling.

Let's start wide. First of all, gambling is a social problem to the extent that it is commercialized and run as 'gaming' and available widely to most people in the country. The big money involved attracts crime and fraud.

We have the so called indian casinos in our town.

I don't gamble, but I have been there for the buffet. It is just like Vegas.

I know people who gamble. They seem to enjoy it.

Just because I think that it is stupid, mind numbing, and sure to induce poverty doesn't make them wrong. They win enough, occasionally, to justify it to themselves.

Then there is the state-sponsored lottery. Lottsa people pissing away their money there and getting in my way as I try to check out the groceries.

If that is OK, then what? The internet? At least they would stay home and leave me to my produce.

Yes there are addicts. But, as there is AA for alcoholics, there is GA for gamblers.

Prohibition does not work. We saw that with alcohol.

I believe, in fact, that it is the quasi-legal aspect of gambling that energizes the social problem aspect. We all love to be a little bad. Gambling is just a little bad. No one gets drunk and pukes on the floor. No one gets high and kills someone on the freeway.

Now, narrower.

What about the internet?

Well, everything is on the internet that is out there in the real world. There are scams galore. It is a jungle.

Gambling?

They always mention little kids. Well, try to collect $$$ from a little kid. It is pre-screened by the site managers.

Again, no one else is harmed.

I am not too big on the notion that government should protect us from our own impulses and the impulse to gamble is ancient. How we act on the impulse and what we do with our money is a basic part of being free.

Social regulation sucks.

So. I will vote NO.

Let's see what the others did.

It is 63% NO and 37% YES.

Even the church ladies read the WSJ.