Comment 84218

By arienc (registered) | Posted December 20, 2012 at 09:07:36

State sponsored gambling is an essential corruption of democracy, because it violates the most basic premises that make democracy unique: that you're in this together. That's what a compact of citizens is. And the first step away from that is to play each other for suckers. We're going to trick them into thinking that they're going to get rich, and they're really going to be paying my taxes.

Great quote! I also think this one from James Howard Kunstler applies:

What's wrong with state-sponsored gambling is simple: it promotes the idea -- inconsistent with the realities of the universe -- that it's possible to get something for nothing. It is unhealthy to an extreme for a society to make this idea normal because it defeats another idea that a society absolutely depends on for survival -- namely that earnest effort matters. It conditions the public to magical thinking -- a characteristic of children -- and disables their ability to function as adults. The expansion of gambling is especially tragic at a time when this society faces epochal economic problems that threaten its existence, and by this I mean the permanent global energy crisis that will require us to reorganize virtually all the crucial activities of daily life. This is a time when the nation can least afford to disable adult thinking and earnest effort.

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