SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
2011 ban on interstate, foreign sports betting extended to online lotteries, poker, casinos
Last November, US Justice Department officials, having reviewed the nation's laws, quietly concluded that, oops, interstate and international internet gambling is actually illegal. For some reason, that view was only made public on Monday. And for now, this hot take is not being enforced across the country.
Published here [PDF], the opinion was written by the DoJ's Office of Legal Counsel, and is effectively a screeching U-turn on seven years of policy. In 2011, the office concluded that 18 US Code ยง 1084(a), which makes it illegal to use phones and telecommunications to gamble across state lines and the border, only applied to sports betting.
Well, the office was asked to think that over again, and it's come to another conclusion: online poker and similar internet gambling dens are also verboten, not just sports betting. That means e-casinos and online poker rooms with interstate and foreign players are operating illegally, according to the office's legal eagles.
[...] Gambling industry analyst Chris Grove told Reuters while the change won't affect big betting operations located offshore, online state lotteries and e-casinos in the country, whose annual revenues combined are just under US$500m, would be hit.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Thursday January 17 2019, @10:05PM (1 child)
The actual meat of the "Protestant work ethic" existed before there were Protestants, before there were Christians, and before the OT was dreamed up. So, no. Sure, Christians co-opted something good there, but no, it wasn't a matter of them contributing it. It was already there. The only way you can give Christians credit for this is to observe that they basically took over (plenty of violence and not-working-together was involved in that, too) and kept it in play in their eventual takeover. Where and when convenient. Pretty much like everyone else had done.
Yes, they do, and they have. And it is wise to consider not only that they do, but how they got there, and what they arise from: Subjugation of women, brainwashing, pillage, witch burnings, the crusades, blood libel, torture, the inquisitions, scientific repression, vilification of sexuality, pograms, censorship, financial parasitism, burying babies in the walls of monasteries, diddling the altar boys, pushing back against birth control... etc.
And lovely architecture. There's always that. I love churches. In fact I bought one and turned it into my home. 😊
I think it is (at least) short-sighted to credit Christianity with the good things around us, unless they consist of Christians right now actually doing good things right now because of Christianity (and here you have to successfully argue that without Christianity, they wouldn't be doing it... which makes them assholes anyway), or unless it can be shown that Christians actually invented (whatever it is) because of Christianity. Which is usually, though not always, dubious. Cooperative, productive civilization is not 2000 years old. Or even 4,000 years old if you want to go all the way back to the OT's genesis.
Certainly doing good is not limited to Christians — nor is doing bad. People almost always seem to land somewhere around the median of people doing stuff, and that's probably the source of everything from the golden rule to families, associations, towns, cities and nations working together. It's not about God, or Christianity — it's about common sense.
Today, Christians are not clearly a force for good. Even if one credits Christians with everything good up until now (and I certainly don't, but), and one forgives them their many and varied trespasses (again, I certainly don't, but), as a more-or-less monolithic political and social entity, they are presently a consistently corrosive force upon the legal structure, the social structure, and science.
With that in mind, I've ended up with no respect for Christianity at all, other than that guarded feeling consequent to watching something dark exert harm upon people I care about, which is bad enough, but also realizing that these religions also present a similar risk to me and mine, which is arguably worse in some ways. I can't think of anything at all good that Christians espouse which wouldn't be just as true or likely coming from an atheist, or a Muslim, or really, anyone who has taken the baby step of realizing that working with people is more successful than working against them. I can, however, tick off an almost endless list of bad things done in the name of, and because of, Christianity.
This is very simple: Drinking was. Driving wasn't. Running someone ever wasn't. These are not a consequence of drinking. People drink all the time and don't do these things. These were consequences of direct and grievous trespasses against other people's liberties, and as such, ought to be dealt with severely. It's important here to not confuse choice in compliance with liberty against making choices that violate liberty.
I have no objection at all to legislation requiring us to be in possession of our senses and our reflexes when controlling machinery of any type. This is fundamental to liberty: you have no right to non-consensually put others at risk other than in self-defense. See the chart. [fyngyrz.com] So the problem you identify is about a lack of consent, and I think it should be very clear that I am steadfast against any such thing. However, we also need to be clear that the problem wasn't drinking. The problem was driving.
And if they do that in the stock market, it's somehow... better? If they do it by switching jobs and finding out that it was a bad idea, and now they're in trouble? If they chose a government job, and it turns out that some ignorant lout causes a government shutdown, and their choice has ended up well on the side of "oops?" People tend to do these things because they think they are likely to benefit. As soon as you start interfering with those choices, you've stepped over a very important line. Yes, people can lose their homes. And more. The question here is if it's okay for someone else to tell them they can't choose to take a chance. I don't see that is ever going to be okay. You'd have to argue that shortstopping any financial risk was okay in order argue that intervention in wagering is okay.
Both ways present problems. The one, risk to the individual making the choice, and risk to whatever things they are supporting (or not.) The other, an attack on personal liberty. Society can deal with either; but the strategies are different. On the one hand, crush the people under a repressive heel; on the other, a social safety net protecting said family to some extent. Given that the former is pretty much bad no matter how I look at it, and the latter is pretty much good no matter how I look at it, I'm for the former. Gambling's not the only way to fall through the cracks. We should have a reliable safety net no matter what. If it's about being a decent human being — and I assert that it is — then the choice is clear.
And about family: The adults are where they are consequent to their own choices. The children and/or pets, if any, are the wards of the adults, and should remain so until or unless the adults fail to care for them. That's the dividing line right there, IMHO. So yes, if the adults make choices that have follow-on consequences affecting the welfare of their wards, then society has a right to step in. But not before. Imagine a gamble that pays off. Choose your venue: Wall street, Las Vegas, the lottery, mortgaging your home, starting a new enterprise on a shoestring, perhaps leveraged by credit card debt... what about when one of these risks pays off? Would you argue that society should step in and slap hands just because they tried? To the direct detriment of said wards? My position is clear: it's your family, it's your home, and yes, it's your right to risk it. It's not my right to say "no, you can't take that chance."
Here, you're conflating trespass against consent with actual consent. The bottom line of liberty is defined by informed, personal or consensual choice. When you talk about the lack of same, we're not having the same conversation at all. Further, the implication that the former leads to the latter is specious in the extreme. These violations of other's liberty are crimes already; they should remain crimes. Allowing actual informed, consenting adults to go about their chosen business has nothing to do with it. Let us not forget that in the absence of sane regulation of things people desire to take part in, black markets are most likely to arise, along with the warts thereof: violence, dubious quality, lessened access to pretty much everything from normal access to the law and courts to the risks of running (or being) contraband. And so it goes with drugs, prostitution, etc. Oodles of health and safety problems people worry about when the word prostitution arises are not consequences of prostitution, but rather consequences of the dark, unregulated corner prostitutes must operate in because of bad law. Recreational drugs, same thing.
Yes. That's what "informed, personal or consensual choice" means. If I turn up on your doorstep with an axe and split your head open with it, the problem is that I am a murdering asshole, not that axes are legal. If I would do it with an axe, I would do it with a hammer, etc. The problem is that I grievously ignored consent and attacked you, and in that case, deserve to be squashed quite completely for my transgression against your liberty.
But: if you wanted to exit this mortal coil, and I assisted you in doing so with your informed consent and mine... that's something else entirely. A difficult thing, and yet, a reasonable thing. I can see making sure that's the case — a great reason for regulation — but no reason at all to characterize such a thing wrongful.
No. Therein lies the moral authority to regulate infringements upon people's informed, personal or consensual choices. Not to regulate any activity which does not so infringe. You don't get to drive drunk because of this. You don't get to enslave non-consenting people (which, I have to tell you, is going to be pretty much everyone) because of this. You don't get to assault people because of this. On the other side of the coin, you don't (well, you shouldn't) get to tell people not to drink, not to gamble, not to buy and sell sexual activity (or ditch-digging, or toilet cleaning, etc. ad infinitum.)
--
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday January 18 2019, @05:15PM
--
Every once in a while declare peace. It confuses your enemies.