Borgata PR sports betting charges being brought

[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.

[Adebisi]

I see what you're getting at about the world around us becoming a worse place if loansharking and the like go completely unchecked, but I think, to a degree, that's already the case in many places. There are different norms of conduct in different places. Atlantic City is a pretty bad place. Wander into the wrong neighborhood late at night, you might get your throat cut over your watch and wallet. The same thing goes for L.A., Vegas, Detroit, and many other cities. Crime tends to graviate toward certain areas, both geographic and otherwise. Poverty-stricken cities and gambling are two areas that are very attractive of crime. When I say that people can avoid the effects of this type of crime by avoiding getting involved, I don't mean just not getting involved with loansharks, I mean steering clear of shady cities and gambling. No matter what the loansharks do, no matter how prevalent crime becomes in A.C., or Vegas, or L.A., it will barely have any impact on a guy who lives his life on the straight and narrow in a nice quiet suburb in Idaho.

I am definately a libertarian, and people on the wrong side of the law aren't the "criminals" I'm most concerned about. A bureaucrat wearing a cheap suit armed with a bunch of paperwork is far more likely to have a negative impact on my life than a meathead wearing a leather jacket and a pinky ring armed with a baseball bat.

The world is already a very f'd up place. Always has been, probably always will be. That's just human nature, pure and simple. I'm not going to worry more about certain people, just because the law places them in a certain category. I'm sure cops kick down a hell of a lot more doors than home invaders. And with the home invaders, I at least have a decent chance of winning in a shootout.