oconee
10-13-2006, 05:38 PM
Woke up, threw in an e-mail to Frist, copied Rep Nat'l Committee, White House...
I'm a registered voter, living in California.
Senator Frist,
Congratulations ! (Not)
I have voted Republican for 31 years, and thanks to your personal fine efforts, I will not do so again until something changes.
I have been and still am a fiscal conservative and "disinterested in regulating social issues" person. I have been increasingly concerned about the fact that the Republican Party has become no less fiscally irresponsible than the Democrats. Twelve years in charge in Congress, and budget deficits still a huge problem.
I haven't been too affected by social policy issues, but I am tired of everyone in Washington trying to legislate behavior and morals. That's just not the place of the government in my view. Sadly, the Republican Party has become more of a "you should" party than the Democrats.
The issue that has finally done it for me is the ban on Internet gambling. I am 49 years old, have a wife and three children, a good job, and I pay lots of taxes. At the end of a long day, after the kids are in bed, I enjoy an hour of playing small stakes poker online. How dare you or anyone else come into my house and tell me that I can not do that? Because it causes problems for some people that can't control themselves? No, sir, that is not right (see Prohibition).
I could go on for a long time but I will spare you and I the pain of that. You have lost a solid Republican voter and you know why and that's mainly what I needed to say.
I will be voting, probably Libertarian, both major parties and the whole argumentative "me first" and stay in power at all costs processes are way out of control and the size and intervention of government must be restrained.
Thank you for your attention, and best of luck to you in the future.
Sincerely,
xxx xxxxxxx
PS. Well I will add one more thing. I'm told the speech below was by Rep Frank in the House, and I agree with what he has to say on the issue...
"Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I strongly disagree with the gentleman from Iowa with whom I often agree. I don't disagree with him entirely. I will stipulate that there is nothing in the Bhagavad Gita about gambling. But other than that, I don't think he got much right.
He says that gambling on the Internet does not add to the GDP or make America competitive. Has it become the role of this Congress to prohibit any activity that an adult wants to engage in voluntarily if it doesn't add to the GDP or make us more competitive?
What kind of socio-, cultural authoritarianism are we advocating here?
Now, I agree there is a practice around today that causes a lot of problems, damages families, people lose their jobs, they get in debt. They do it to excess. It is called drinking. Are we going to go back to Prohibition? Prohibition didn't work for alcohol; it doesn't work for gambling.
When people abuse a particular practice, the sensible thing is to try to deal with the abuse, not outlaw it.
By the way, this bill allows certain kinds of Internet gambling to stay, so apparently the notion is that those few people who are obsessive and addicted will not take advantage of those forms which are still available to them.
But the fundamental point is this. If an adult in this country, with his or her own money, wants to engage in an activity that harms no one, how dare we prohibit it because it doesn't add to the GDP or it has no macroeconomic benefit. Are we all to take home calculators and, until we have satisfied the gentleman from Iowa that we are being socially useful, we abstain from recreational activities that we choose?
This Congress is well on the way to getting it absolutely backwards. In areas where we need to act together to protect the quality of our life, in the environment, in transporta tion, in public safety, we abstain; but in those areas where individuals ought to be allowed to make their own choices, we intervene. And that is what this is.
Now, people have said, well, some students abuse it. We should work to try to diminish abuse. But if we were to outlaw for adults everything that college students abuse, we would all just sit home and do nothing.
By the way, credit card abuse among students is a more serious problem, I believe, than gambling. Maybe gambling will catch up. But we have heard many, many stories about young people who have credit cards that they abuse. Do we ban credit cards for them?
But here is the fundamental issue. Shouldn't it be the principle in this government that the burden of proof is on those who want to prohibit adults from their own free choices to show that they are harming other people?
We ought to say that, if you decide with your own money to engage in an activity that harms no one else, you ought to be allowed to do it. And once you say, oh, no, but that doesn't add to the GDP, and that can lead to some problems in families, then this is hardly the only thing you will end up banning.
The fundamental principle of the autonomy of the individual is at stake today.
Now, I have to say, I understand a lot of the conservatives don't like it because there are people on the religious side who don't like it. Some of my liberal friends, I think, are being very inconsistent. We are for allowing a lot of things. I mean, many of us vote to say, You can burn the flag; I wish you wouldn't, but you can. It shouldn't be a crime.
You can look at certain things on television that maybe other people think you shouldn't. You can do other things but you can't gamble. There is a fundamental inconsistency there.
I guess people think gambling is tacky. They don't like it. Well, fine, then don't do it. But don't prohibit other individuals from engaging in it.
People ha ve said, What is the value of gambling? Here is the value. Some human beings enjoy doing it. Shouldn't that be our principle? If individuals like doing something and they harm no one, we will allow them to do it, even if other people disapprove of what they do.
And it is, of course, likely to be ineffective. The best thing that ever happens to illegal gamblers is when you do a measure like this.
I hope the bill is defeated."
I'm a registered voter, living in California.
Senator Frist,
Congratulations ! (Not)
I have voted Republican for 31 years, and thanks to your personal fine efforts, I will not do so again until something changes.
I have been and still am a fiscal conservative and "disinterested in regulating social issues" person. I have been increasingly concerned about the fact that the Republican Party has become no less fiscally irresponsible than the Democrats. Twelve years in charge in Congress, and budget deficits still a huge problem.
I haven't been too affected by social policy issues, but I am tired of everyone in Washington trying to legislate behavior and morals. That's just not the place of the government in my view. Sadly, the Republican Party has become more of a "you should" party than the Democrats.
The issue that has finally done it for me is the ban on Internet gambling. I am 49 years old, have a wife and three children, a good job, and I pay lots of taxes. At the end of a long day, after the kids are in bed, I enjoy an hour of playing small stakes poker online. How dare you or anyone else come into my house and tell me that I can not do that? Because it causes problems for some people that can't control themselves? No, sir, that is not right (see Prohibition).
I could go on for a long time but I will spare you and I the pain of that. You have lost a solid Republican voter and you know why and that's mainly what I needed to say.
I will be voting, probably Libertarian, both major parties and the whole argumentative "me first" and stay in power at all costs processes are way out of control and the size and intervention of government must be restrained.
Thank you for your attention, and best of luck to you in the future.
Sincerely,
xxx xxxxxxx
PS. Well I will add one more thing. I'm told the speech below was by Rep Frank in the House, and I agree with what he has to say on the issue...
"Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I strongly disagree with the gentleman from Iowa with whom I often agree. I don't disagree with him entirely. I will stipulate that there is nothing in the Bhagavad Gita about gambling. But other than that, I don't think he got much right.
He says that gambling on the Internet does not add to the GDP or make America competitive. Has it become the role of this Congress to prohibit any activity that an adult wants to engage in voluntarily if it doesn't add to the GDP or make us more competitive?
What kind of socio-, cultural authoritarianism are we advocating here?
Now, I agree there is a practice around today that causes a lot of problems, damages families, people lose their jobs, they get in debt. They do it to excess. It is called drinking. Are we going to go back to Prohibition? Prohibition didn't work for alcohol; it doesn't work for gambling.
When people abuse a particular practice, the sensible thing is to try to deal with the abuse, not outlaw it.
By the way, this bill allows certain kinds of Internet gambling to stay, so apparently the notion is that those few people who are obsessive and addicted will not take advantage of those forms which are still available to them.
But the fundamental point is this. If an adult in this country, with his or her own money, wants to engage in an activity that harms no one, how dare we prohibit it because it doesn't add to the GDP or it has no macroeconomic benefit. Are we all to take home calculators and, until we have satisfied the gentleman from Iowa that we are being socially useful, we abstain from recreational activities that we choose?
This Congress is well on the way to getting it absolutely backwards. In areas where we need to act together to protect the quality of our life, in the environment, in transporta tion, in public safety, we abstain; but in those areas where individuals ought to be allowed to make their own choices, we intervene. And that is what this is.
Now, people have said, well, some students abuse it. We should work to try to diminish abuse. But if we were to outlaw for adults everything that college students abuse, we would all just sit home and do nothing.
By the way, credit card abuse among students is a more serious problem, I believe, than gambling. Maybe gambling will catch up. But we have heard many, many stories about young people who have credit cards that they abuse. Do we ban credit cards for them?
But here is the fundamental issue. Shouldn't it be the principle in this government that the burden of proof is on those who want to prohibit adults from their own free choices to show that they are harming other people?
We ought to say that, if you decide with your own money to engage in an activity that harms no one else, you ought to be allowed to do it. And once you say, oh, no, but that doesn't add to the GDP, and that can lead to some problems in families, then this is hardly the only thing you will end up banning.
The fundamental principle of the autonomy of the individual is at stake today.
Now, I have to say, I understand a lot of the conservatives don't like it because there are people on the religious side who don't like it. Some of my liberal friends, I think, are being very inconsistent. We are for allowing a lot of things. I mean, many of us vote to say, You can burn the flag; I wish you wouldn't, but you can. It shouldn't be a crime.
You can look at certain things on television that maybe other people think you shouldn't. You can do other things but you can't gamble. There is a fundamental inconsistency there.
I guess people think gambling is tacky. They don't like it. Well, fine, then don't do it. But don't prohibit other individuals from engaging in it.
People ha ve said, What is the value of gambling? Here is the value. Some human beings enjoy doing it. Shouldn't that be our principle? If individuals like doing something and they harm no one, we will allow them to do it, even if other people disapprove of what they do.
And it is, of course, likely to be ineffective. The best thing that ever happens to illegal gamblers is when you do a measure like this.
I hope the bill is defeated."