The Nanny State

This is a topic I may take up from time to time because I hate the government messing with my decisions.

That said, gambling addiction hurts many people. Many people beyond the gambler are victims. But we have free will and don't need government intervention.

Last Saturday the United States Congress passed a port security bill that carried an amendment banning Internet gambling. This was a huge mistake, not because Internet gambling is a good thing (it was already illegal, in fact), but because the new law is either unenforceable or -- if it can be enforced -- will tear away the last shreds of financial privacy enjoyed by U.S. citizens. The stocks of Internet gambling companies, primarily traded in the UK, went into free-fall as their largest market was effectively taken away. I don't own any of those shares, but I guarantee you they will fully recover, which is part of what makes this situation so pathetically stupid.

...

Here's a law that purports to end Internet gambling but will instead enable it, a law that is intended to make certain types of financial transactions harder to do but will ultimately make them easier, a law that says nothing about terrorism but will ultimately abet it, making us all less secure in the process.

So you're welcome al-Qaeda. Glad the US Congress could be of help.

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