Legal Online Gambling May Return to US 231
According to a story on News.com, legal online gambling may return to the US. The ban, put into place last year, is now in jeopardy thanks to the efforts of folks like Barney Frank, the Democratic chairman of the House Financial Services committee. Frank is of the opinion that adults should police themselves for excessive gambling, and the government should stay out of their way. "Friday's hearing included witnesses from companies that process online payments. In general, they echoed the arguments once used in favor of ending alcohol prohibition and that are now being invoked to decriminalize marijuana: It's better to legalize, tax and carefully regulate an industry than let it flourish with far less oversight in the black market. Some countries already do just that. In the United Kingdom, for instance, Internet gambling is legal and strictly regulated. Some of the larger online casino operators are publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange. "
hmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Reversal? (Score:5, Insightful)
About that, Mr. Frank... (Score:3, Insightful)
""In the end, adults ought to be able to decide for themselves how they spend the money they earn themselves," said Rep. Barney Frank"
Yeah, about that. You see Mr. Frank, you arrange the taking of a very large percentage of the money I work hard to earn every year, and you decide how it should be spent for me. So if you could go ahead and look into that while you're at it, that'd be great, mmmkay?
So it takes online gambling to get Barney to come around? Looks like someone must've spent a lot of time playing online poker.
With all due respect ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I happen to like Barney Frank a lot -- he's often the no-BS guy in a flock of honking geese in suits worth more than my car. And sometimes he's an arrogant jerk. But I rarely feel like I'm getting the D.C. sugar-coating treatment from him. So perhaps I'm biased. But still, I just don't see that this is a bad thing.
In a free society, people are responsible for themselves (and their children). If they can build a boat here in Illinois (we can't have land-based casinos, but we can have permanently docked unseaworthy boats -- go figure) where people can freely walk in and piss away their money, why should this be outlawed on the Web? It's a silly, unenforceable, and reactionary law that deserves to be repealed. The Reverend Lovejoys of the world had their year or two of cleanliness on this one, and it's time to go back to rational laws about things that the government should be focused on.
Taking things out of the black market (Score:4, Insightful)
The side effect would be the companies selling the drugs, just like the cigarette companies today, but it is the lesser of two evils when compared to the mafia or a street gang.
Re:READ YOUR BIBLE! (Score:5, Insightful)
The government is all for gambling... (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:With all due respect ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not from themselves. You should look into who is REALLY being protected with prohibition laws.
Re:Taking things out of the black market (Score:5, Insightful)
That's all well and good except for one thing: You cannot show that a "huge chunk" of the population would become addicted to drugs.
And it doesn't matter if the dealer is selling their crack for $5 a pop, or $2.50 from the gov't, the addicts need to find the money to buy this crap somewhere.
Right. Everywhere I've lived there are roaming gangs of alcoholics and cigarette junkies breaking into apartments and stores, stealing items, and selling them in the pawn shops to support their habit. Give me a break.
Re:hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
1) restore bankruptcy laws to something sane. there's no grounds for the government to be stepping in and restructuring the law such that it's much less consumer friendly and applying it retroactively to pre-existing debt. it's the fault of the credit card issuers for not having enough of a clue not to extend so much credit to people likely to default.
2) fucking get rid of seat belt laws. if we're supposed to be smart enough to manage our money wisely, we should be smart enough to protect our, infinitely more valuable, lives.
3) let the airlines fail. if they can't come up with a rational business model, they need to die.
Re:About that, Mr. Frank... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm all for legal gambling, alcohol, and drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is a wild thought, instead of trying to micro-manage every industry where businesses could endanger the health of individuals with poor standards or swindle individuals we start making the executives and investors in ALL businesses criminally liable for the actions. If food or drug processor took an action that harmed or endangered people then the ones who made the call should go to pound me in the arse prison. The same is true of casinos that use rigged machines that constitute fraud. Right now a company can use a dangerous chemical that will hurt people to cut corners and make hundreds of millions doing so. IF they get caught, the worst they face will be a few million in fines and lawsuits and probably will make a net profit on the affair. Even if they break even they will profit from the practice overall since any punk kid can tell you that the cops don't even know most crimes happen let alone catch the bad guys. If you make white collar decision makers subject to the same sort of consequences as the hungry crack addict on the street you can bet the decisions they make will reflect that.
Aside from enforcing criminal law, the only time the government needs to interfere with industry is fix the fundamental flaw in the free market. The flaw is of course companies that are too large to allow real competition. Of course single company monopolies aren't the only problem that needs to be solved, it is common practice now for several supposed competitors to collude in a manner that has the same effect as a monopoly. In both of these situations it is necessary for the government to step in and the right to property has to be considered secondary to the interests of the nation as a whole.
Re:Taking things out of the black market (Score:5, Insightful)
Prior to Prohibition, there were a handful of saloons in New York city, and they were male only. Drinking was a social event, and virtually nobody drank alone. After prohibition was passed, there sprang up thousands of speakeasy saloons across New York, and they popularized drinking among women as well. The desire to leave no evidence lead to more solo drinking at home.
After prohibition ended, rates of drinking did NOT skyrocket, but rather began a long, slow slide. Even better, alcoholism became recognized as an actual illness that deserved treatment. In the prohibition era, suggesting such a thing marked you as a prohibitionist; it was impossible to talk about the subject rationally for as long as the insanity of the prohibitionists was in force.
And it doesn't matter if the dealer is selling their crack for $5 a pop, or $2.50 from the gov't
Try "free." The drug market regularly sees 100% markups, since the majority of drugs have a negligable cost of production. Sure you could charge $1.00 or $0.50 or something for clinical fees, but it makes no difference. Provided at cost, a heroin addict can afford his necessary levels of heroin on a McDonald's salary. (What's more, heroin has very little ill effects when clean and administered properly. People have lived for decades and been productive and valuable members of society while addicted to heroin in the past, but our current law turns them into parasites instead.)
You get rid of the relative few BIG criminals and make tons of small criminals.
Actually trial runs of this sort of thing in Britian showed a twelve-fold reduction in crime rates. So no.
It also showed a drop in current numbers of addicts, a reduction of new addicts, lower rates of prostitution and consequently lower transmission rates of stds and aids.
But I'm sure your idea would work really well.
You *NEVER* get rid of the blackmarket by legalizing something.
Tell that to all the prohibition-era gangsters who went legit after the law was repealed. The mafia dropped in size to less than half its previous numbers. The only thing that saved them was the illegalization of narcotics.
he cure for criminal behavior is making certain folks with these traits can never reproduce again (thats as far as I'll advocate, you can take what ever opinion you wish beyond that).
You really have NO FUCKING CLUE how many people you're talking about, do you? Here's a hint: We haven't got enough police to even hold that many people, much less line them up and push them into incinerators.
Asshole.
Re:Taking things out of the black market (Score:5, Insightful)
Legalization will just get rid of the criminals (thugs, murderers, etc), and stop criminalizing the victims (those prone to addiction, etc).
Why we would want to spend thousands of dollars a year per person (for sometimes many, many years) putting people in jail because they have a psychological problem defies any sense of logic (to me).
Re:With all due respect ... its more to do with... (Score:3, Insightful)
Its more to do with this ban being an illegal act under the WTO rules, with two judgements against the US and the threat of sanctions and fines. As has been reported before, US companies could lose international IP protection via Antigua if something isn't done.
The US HAS to move, otherwise Microsoft faces legal copies of software and Hollywood faces legal movie copies. It was always a stupid law, an illegal law - now there is a scramble to save face.
Re:READ YOUR BIBLE! (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Reversal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Reversal? (Score:2, Insightful)
The Democrats have been getting steadily more libertarian...
When I stop finding Democrats picking my wallet clean, I'll believe that. I live in California where the Democrat controlled state government seem hell bent on controlling my every waking moment and action. I'm sure legislature involving dreams will follow.
Unless you're in the country illegally. Then they want to hand you the keys to the city for some reason while they kick legal citizens repeatedly in the teeth. Oh, but it's racist to even think that. Oops! That's the thought police knocking at my door!
The real pisser is that we seem to have TWO authoritarian flavored parties now. For the first time in my life I have started considering retirement outside the USA.
Re:wow (Score:2, Insightful)
Now I'm a big 1st amendment supporter, but I'm also of the belief that one persons freedoms should stop when they directly infringe on the right of someone else. and holding a loud hateful protest at a funeral where people are trying to grieve for their loved one definitely falls under that category.
Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know much about Ben Frank's other political views, but he definitely seems more pragmatic (as opposed to dogmatic) than most high-profile US politicians I know of. I think that's a good thing. Where I come from (the Netherlands), the attitude against for example softdrugs, smart drugs, alcohol and other possibly harmful things people can do to themselves is comparable, and from 27 years of experience I can tell this has lead to lower softdrugs usage than in the countries surrounding us, less health issues, less drugs-related crimes etc.
Funny thing is, the Dutch government still has a really stupid and dualistic stance on (online) gambling. Online gambling is specifically prohibited here, as is organising (for example) small-scale poker tournaments etc. The *only* institution that is allowed to offer legal gambling opportunities is 'Holland Casino', which is a government-controlled (but still commercially exploited) casino that has a monopoly on all things related to gambling. This includes, for example, all variants of poker, even though the most popular variants don't even qualify as gambling. Now, over the last few years, playing poker has become a real hype here. Lots of people play it now, and they want to play tournaments against different opponents. What's happening right now, is that small-scale 'illegal' poker tournaments (with buy-ins in the $10-$50 range, or $0.5-$2 cash games) get busted every now and then, and the people entering and organising them are criminalised. This has lead to more people finding their ways to 'Holland Casino' for playing poker, which only offers tournaments starting at $100 buy-ins, or $5-$10 cash games. Just yesterday a study was published that showed a lot of dutch students have gambling debts from playing poker on limits that are way too high for their skills...
Re:READ YOUR BIBLE! (Score:2, Insightful)
But you should enslave, murder, rape, and pillage to excess...
As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you.
I'm a Democrat. Sorry. We're not Libertarians (Score:5, Insightful)
Democrats are not libertarian in the sense that Libertarians use the word. Democrats don't subscribe to the "negative" theories of liberty in which liberty is precisely an absence of government constraint. We have a more utilitarian view of liberty in which opportunity plays an equal role. This means we support interfering with the freedom of the powerful when it constrains the opportunity of the less powerful. Most of us recognize that opportunities will never be equal in society, and in fact for most of us equality of outcome is not a goal; but where the physical well being of the median person can be improved; where that person has the ability to better himself through education or culture; where greater scope of action can be offered through greater opportunity -- there we have no problem taxing people or acting to balance the liberties of the powerful against the liberties of the average person.
For example, our philosophy doesn't have a problem limiting the number of broadcast outlets an individual can own in a market. If somebody has a soapbox, we are happy to see him use it. But also see no problem in denying him the right to buy all the soapboxes in town if that would pose a problem for the average person in getting his voice heard. It's purely a matter of utility for us.
This is a divide in philosophy between us and Libertarians that cannot be bridged.
At first glance, it's hard to see any consistent philosophy in the modern Republican leadership. It alternately talks a libertarian game, then paternalistic, then authoritarian. They also are anti-elitist when it comes to every virtue that does not touch on power or wealth: they are particularly hostile intellectual or education distinction. This alone makes them a pratical enemy of the principled Libertarians.
The most consistent explanation of Republican policy seems to be that they, like the Democrats, subscribe to a utilitarian combination of negative and positive liberties. The difference is that the liberties they favor are for the deserving. The deserving are by definition those that can obtain, hold and wield power, or who are useful to those wielding power. Aside from the lack of economic or political egalitarianism, the Republican political philosophy operates much like the Democratic political philosophy. This explains why it is so easy for a Democrat like Lieberman to become a crypto-Republican. The imperative of holding on to power is a corrupting influence.
So, overall, I'd say principled libertarians have little reason to trust Democrats, but very good reason to distrust Republicans. Democratic ideology is incompatible with libertarianism, but it is restrained (in principle) by political egalitarianism. There is one positive reason for libertarians to support the Democrats in the short term: the increasing fusion of private economic and state power. This is a fundamental principle of fascism, and if allowed to continue on this route much longer our country will become a de facto fascist state. Democrats are not immune to this, as I pointed out. Nobody is. But at least we Democrats in principle oppose this fusion. The blogosphere, for all its faults, may give the Democratic party activists some ability to pull our wavering politicans from the brink.
In my opinion libertarians will have little opportunity to sway the course of events from within their own party, not until they can capture at least one Senate seat. If they could capture one in 2008, and if the Senate remains about as divided as it is, the Libertarians would become very powerful i
Re:About that, Mr. Frank... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Taking things out of the black market (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that with heroin at your local CVS, you're going to have a hard time convincing people that drug use is morally wrong, and you can't scare them anymore with jail time, etc. You, honestly, are crazy if you think that most people don't use drugs because of a levelheaded decision involving the relevant health related pros and cons that tells them it's a bad idea. Like I said, that way overestimates the quality of the average person. I don't care that you can make that call, the unfortunate fact of the matter is that most people can't, and won't.
So now we DO have a lot more people using drugs (maybe not older people, but certainly teenagers, etc), and what now? Do you have any personal experience with people that use drugs heavily, or am I responding to an armchair opinion? If it's the former you know that it tends not to work out well. Maybe some of that can be alleviated with therapy or community support or something, but I don't really see how. Take a hypothetical example where a teenager gets addicted to heroin, and you're trying to get them to stop because all they want to do is sit in a room with their smack. What do you do? You made the damn laws with the intent that it would be their personal choice, so the answer is nothing.
The crux of the matter rests on whether you think more or less people would use drugs in a legalized environment, and then whether you think that the usage itself is a significant detriment to the average person. I hope I've show why you to the former you should be skeptical that more people wouldn't use. We know people make bad decisions when it comes to short term pleasures that have long term detriments (smoking, getting fat, GAMBLING, etc). I can imagine the average 20 year old being able to make a responsible decision about drug use if the pros and cons were explained to them, but then if I go out and TALK to the average 20 year old, I quickly realize I'm kidding myself. To the latter, I think any experience with drugs or those who use them will tell you that the usage is bad. Yes, some of that comes from complications that arise out of shortages, but I can tell you that when someone who likes heroin has as much heroin as they want, that's what they do. Heroin. They don't have to steal from their parents or anything, but that doesn't mean we should be throwing a party or anything. And people on meth are just plain bad period, irrespective of whether they have enough or not. People using pot, on the other hand, are pretty much fine.
And that leads me to my final point, which would be forget about full legalization, because in a real world context it would lead to shit, and support something better, like the legalization of certain drugs that have a lot fewer cons attached, and in which the ultimate detriment to the average person (and therefore society) is a lot more reasonable, if it exists at all. I.e. support marijuana and forget about most of the others.
Cheers.
Re:hmm (Score:3, Insightful)
The article mentions three towns, two of which just so happen to be in Frank's district.
I wonder what odds the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe will give for their casino plans and Frank's push for legalizing online casinos being completely unrelated?