[pokerswami]

This post is not about the Borgata story. It is a reply to an earlier post in this thread.

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I guarantee you my conception of right and wrong is a hell of a lot different than yours.

What "victims" did this "ring" have? Adults gambled, lost, and borrowed money to cover those losses. No one put a gun to their heads and told them they had to take a high interest loan. People are responsible for their own actions, period. If a guy borrows money from a loanshark and can't pay it back, whatever consequences might occur are his own fault. If you have so much concern for these "victims", what about the victims of the credit card companies? What about all the people with ARMs that getting their houses forclosed upon?

If you don't want to be involved in any of the shadier areas of life, then by all means don't get involved in them. Just remember, you're not involved, so whatever happens there is none of your business.

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Well, to quote you, "I just wanted to let you know how much I hate this attitude."

The original, and still true among many, concept of Libertarians was that the state has no interest in the value of human life. If someone was murdered, then the family of the deceased or those immediately suffering a loss from his death would need to bring civil action against the guilty party to recover damages. Thus one could literally, if he could afford it, get away with murder.

The idea was that it doesn't matter to the state, it only matters to those who could prove a loss due to the murder, battery, rape, robbery, theft, destruction of property or whatever.

I believe we all suffer a direct degradation to our lives when people become widely subject to the assaults so often portrayed in stories of crime in America. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a bleeding heart liberal, and I'm no rabid right-winger. I'm a conservative. I highly value my constitutional right to bear arms to defend myself.

You said "If a guy borrows money from a loanshark and can't pay it back, whatever consequences might occur are his own fault." and "If you don't want to be involved in any of the shadier areas of life, then by all means don't get involved in them. Just remember, you're not involved, so whatever happens there is none of your business."

Your ideas would allow our cities, states and nation to become filled with those, whom we now consider criminals, to freely go about doing whatever physical and mental violence they wish to their customers, because it "is none of" our "business." I consider us to be overrun now with violent criminals. Imagine what it would be like if we decided, societally, not to make it our business.

What do you think would happen to the economy on which we all now depend if no one felt safe enough to conduct commerce? Isn't that "our business?"

The more of and the more freely that violent criminals go about their business, the less safe we all are. You believe that as long as we're not directly involved, then it's not our business. I believe you're wrong. These are not victimless crimes nor are they crimes that only affect those directly involved? They affect us all.

You believe we should not involve ourselves in "whatever consequences might occur."

I believe that if those who engage in "whatever consequences" they want to in the pursuit of their business seriously feared being caught and severly punished for any attacks they made on others, then they would re-figure their equations of profit and loss and decide to conduct their business differently.