I'm really depressed about the state of online poker now

[Big Bend]

I've been a lifelong Libertarian Republican (ever since I regretted voting for Mondale), and have always voted for the conservatives in any election. But whats happened lately with the efforts to shutdown online gaming has got me really depressed. I've devoted much of the last 3 years learning this game, studying constantly, reading 100+ poker books, buying instructional DVDs and software and subscriptions to cardrunners.. I've always been a lifelong strategy game lover (board games, computer wargames, backgammon & more) and poker was the ultimate. Now that the people I voted for are taking it away from me I'm quite hurt, depressed, anxious. I live in TX where cardrooms are not legal.. live games I find to be too slow and boring anyway (especially NL live). Ya there may always be a way to fund online poker and withdraw somehow, but its not gona be the same until its legalized someday, and I don't see that happening anytime soon. So I'm left with this huge void crashing down on me, with feelings of loss and anger.

Not to mention that I was a winning player and the loss of extra hobby $$ is gona hurt.. tho I'm lucky to have a nice career, I had hoped to use poker winnings as a major fund for various purposes. But alas...

Too bad the Democrats suck worse than the Republicans for everything else (in my opinion). Like a friend of mine recently said, its not so bad getting old with everything going to hell, just leave it all for everybody else to deal with.

Its all very depressing.. Not just the demise of online poker but life in general and the world as we know it. I'm really worried about whats gona happen to my children and grandchildren someday. I fear the worst.

Any suggestions for getting over this depression and trying to remain positive about the future would be much appreciated right now. I know we here in the USA are still much better off than 95% of the planet, and overall my life is great.. just trying to keep things in perspective.

L8r.. BB

[SplawnDarts]

The national level Democrats don't like gambling either, ever since the Kennedys and the mob parted ways. Bobby Kennedy got all this started.

[teddyFBI]

[ QUOTE ]
Like a friend of mine recently said, its not so bad getting old with everything going to hell, just leave it all for everybody else to deal with.


[/ QUOTE ]

Spoken like a true Republican

[holdme]

Republican =/= Libertarian. The Republican party is getting increasingly fascist, and it's sick.

Live poker will still be there, even if they do manage to take online gambling away. I too feel let down by my government. From attaching the internet gambling prohibition to the Safe Port Act to arresting to British shareholders of Neteller who did nothing illegal, thereby withholding millions of US dollars.

I know that post didn't help you, OP, but I needed to vent too.

[dboy23]

As a republican turned libertarian I can somewhat sympathize with you here. Seeing as I actually believe we should be free to do whatever we want (provided it doesn't disturb the rights of others) and live with the consequences of our actions I tend to disagree vehemently with both of the big parties.

Joining the LP seemed liked a better decision than just not voting.

[KurtSF]

FYI, I grunched this because I had a strong response to OP, but I'll go back and read.

OP, I' in exactly the same boat as you, with the minor (perhaps trivial) distinction that I was always on the liberal side in any election. Republicans have always been scum in my eyes (except gun control, they got that right), and the difference now is that Democrats are just as big scum. There is no one at all sensible or rational involved in the US government anymore. Its pathetic, and terrifying.

RE: the state of the world, yeah, for several years now I've been calling our times the "End of Days." Rome didn't fall in a day, and neither is the US. Humanity will survive, life will go on, but we are heading into a major train-wreck of civilization right now.

The poker world is a micro-expression, I believe, of the short-sighted, fascist, and just plain stoopid things being done by our government these days. It couldn't have been worse timing for me. I recently made a change in my game and have been reborn as a pokerplayer. I won about 25% of my lifetime winnings in the last month! All of a sudden I have a future in this game, and it gets pulled out from under me by a bunch of self-important posturing morons.

A close friend and I have a reoccurring conversation about Germany in the 30s, about when you know to run. The best answer we have come up with so far is when the populace is disenfranchised. That is, when the people's will expressed through voting is no longer empowered or important or heeded. We've passed that point in this country. I swear to anything, if I didn't have family and so many ties in this country I would be trying to find a way out.

$0.02

[urko888_]

I too agree w/ the general bleakness of this thread.

First there are the jack off congressmen telling people that poker is evil and it should be banned. So facist, but really just the tip of the iceberg under the current administration.

We have a Department of Justice targeting anyone high up in the world of online gambling due to the fact that, newsflash, gambling can be used to launder money! This is basically the DOJ shutting down a financial market/economy because it can't control the money supply! Think about that for a second. If Uncle Sam isn't in charge, like he is w/ the most respected currency in the world, the dollar, he wants to shut down the game, literally!

Then we have an Office of the Vice President (OVP) setting up secret working groups designed to figure out ways to make Iran look bad on the world stage. If is a fact that Dick Cheany has set up his own National Security Office working group within the VOP that can read NSA, CIA, and FBI emails, yet doesn't have to share any of it's own info. This is a man who three years ago was telling Iran to "take a number" in terms of it being next on his hit list. Who do you think is feeding the press "theories" that Iranian forces are behind every spectacular attack in Iraq.

The bottom line is this country has ways to go before the population really rises up and changes the way politicians operate. When I say "ways to go" I think of things like an accidental war (see WWI) set off by one of our carrier battle groups now parked right new to Iran. Or the collapse of the dollar. Or another terrorist incident. Or a Watergate type incident, the VP's chief of staff just committed treason by outing the idenitity of a intelligence agent after all. The list goes on and on.

Unfortunately there is nothing the average American can do about it all. All you can really do is vote libertarian, continue to play online poker/promote the game in general, and give a healthy FU to the man.

[Sparta45]

I agree with you that it is depressing what is happening out there.....but don't take what is happening too heavy. Online poker is a multi-billion dollar industry. And one thing I know is that if there is huge money to be made.....people are going to try to make it. I think that you will find that you will always be able to play poker online and make money doing it.

[Rearden]

Freelancer and all (but especially freelancer),

I never claimed nor would I that the history of the US has been void of any negativity. I would claim however that the US has (had) historically focused a good deal on individual rights and freedoms at many points ahead of the curve internationally in such rights, at some of course behind. I also never stated nor would I that I think the world/US (barring nuclear war, etc) will devolve into a Mad Max style society in my lifetime... I just fear that we, citizens of America, have become so apathetic about our lives and goals as to be more focused on Paris Hilton than AIDs in Africa, to devote more thought and press time to Donald v Rosie than the plight of the American middle class. We live in a country that can have a show as insane as "my super sweet 16", where people in my congressional district can vote (43% of the voters) for a congressman (Sherwood) who admitted to having an illicit affair with a woman who accused him of strangling her and threatening her and then trying to quietly settle outside of court to drop the rest of it, the poker legislation passed recently was an example of the fact that government just doesnt give a fack.

I wake up and feel that I live in a theocracy dominated by folks with an extreme religious agenda (this is getting into politics now) who dont care about facts or the people they represent. I think we as a nation facked up a good name that took centuries of trying (relatively) to stand for freedom and humanitarianism (not saying we always totally did either)... the rest of the world knows it. If tomorrow we had evidence that Iran was going to toilet paper everyones house no one would believe us nor should they.

I dont know the solution. I dont know if there is a solution. I can say though that it makes me sad and I hope things change.

[goodgrief]

You know what? I'm going to talk straight to you for a change, since it appears that no one ever has.

If you voted for conservatives in every election lifelong and now your answer is to vote libertarian (which is to continue to vote for the status quo) then you know what? I'm glad you were hurt, and I'm glad you're depressed.

I'm a woman. I have never had the luxury of kidding myself that I lived in a free country or that I had free choices. I went without being allowed to buy health insurance, at any price I could pay, for almost two decades, because of a health condition I was born with. I have no sympathy for any conservative, and I don't care that you have now lost your freedom, because your entire life and your every vote was about taking away mine from the day I first took breath on this earth.

I can sympathize with a KurtSF. I can't sympathize with any Republican or any Libertarian (Libertarians are just dope-smoking Republicans anyway). You brought this down on all of us. Because of conservative intolerance, NEITHER party can ignore victimless crimes like poker, pot, prostitution, abortion -- because any time a party goes "soft" on one of these issues or even stands up and says you know what, pot is OK, abortion is OK and these things should be the right of every adult -- then another Republican fascist seizes hold of the issues and uses it to ride into office and go roughshed over all of us.

So don't cry to me about how Democrats don't stand up for your poker rights either. You [censored} us for 30 years since abortion was legalized for trying to extend a basic right -- the very right to choose when or not to have a chiild. So ask us to go to the ropes to you for POKER?

Please. You made your bed. You can burn in it. Every time a Democrat has fought for a right, be it civil rights, abortion rights, medical pot rights, gay rights, we've been [censored]. So forget about asking us to go to the wall for poker. Fair is fair, and karma is karma.

The ones I feel sorry for are the decent people like Kurt SF who are the collateral damage, decent liberal people who actually wanted other people to have rights and who are also getting screwed because of the conservative climate deliberately created by GOP [censored]wits.

I apologize for the strong tone of this post but my God. You have learned nothing, and you don't deserve a moment's pity. From anyone. Fight for my right not to have my rapist's baby, fight for my right to health care, and I'll fight for your right to play online poker. But I'm not holding my breath. No libertarian wants me to be able to see a doctor. If I was born with a condition, I should have just died like Darwin intended. Fine. Right back atcha.

(I guess I am not a depressed person. I am an angry person! :-) I live in New Orleans, in case you haven't heard of it, it's sort of like BanglaDesh. Only with fewer unflooded hospitals and more gunplay. They tell me it's in America.)