John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:20:49 -0700, Rich Grise
wrote:

On Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:56:07 -0700, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:45:47 -0400, WangoTango
...
Ah, but the Casino debt was one VOLUNTARILY entered into.
When professionals use psychologists and advertizing and architects and
electronics and alcohol to predictably separate compulsive gamblers from
their assets, it's not exactly "voluntary."

Oh, feh. Are you volunteering to be The Great Nanny?

Gambling used to be illegal in most states. It still should be.

Puritan! That is going too far.

Gambling is only a serious problem for those with an addictive
personality (irrespective of their intelligence). The same could be said
of alcohol, tobacco and the other illegal drugs. There was some
impressive functional MRI demos of the brain differences on BBCs Horizon
last night (actually about alcohol).

Stupid people shouldn't be "protected" from the consequences of their own
stupidity.

Good grief, of course they should be. Why should being born with a low
IQ be a punishable (and exploitable) sin?

Survival of the fittest. Why should those of us with the capital,
contacts and skills not exploit all available resources to their utmost?
That is hard line unbridled capitalism. Nature red in tooth and claw.

The guy at the top of the corporation works hard because his contract
says win or lose he will be paid zillions of dollars. The guy who sweeps
the factory floor needs three jobs just to keep a roof over his head
and can be fired at a moments notice.

The least competant among us
are the ones most in need of protection from the most predatory among
us.

I never thought we would be on the same side. What you say is very
reasonable and most unexpected. If you haven't come across it before
Brecht & Eisler's "Supply and Demand - The Merchants Song" sums it up
very succinctly. A particularly fine recording of it is on "Robyn Archer
sings Bretch" (in English rather than the original German). MP3 is
online at Amazon of a different performance same artist.

National Lotteries are a particularly unkind tax on the innumerate poor.
The "It could be you" slogan hides a voluntary tax that the people least
able to afford it are suckered into paying.

Who would then protect us from the "protectors?"

Do you need to gamble?

No. But it is amusing once in a while. Particularly on games where the
odds can swing in favour of mathematically sophisticated punters. The
house always wins in the long term - at least after they fix up the
odds. For a while UK bookies odds for a hole in one at a golf major were
way out of line with reality until someone took them to the cleaners.

Sorry, but real life is tough.

And real people care about one another.

Really? Republicans hide this aspect of their nature very well.

Regards,
Martin Brown