Gambling

"If you give a man enough rope, then he will hang hisse'f (thereby saving the county the cost of incarceration)." Judge Roy Bean Gambling is neutral. It's all what you do with it. The hybrid of gambling and capitalism is abhorrent. The embrace of gambling by our state and local governments argues a spiritual and ethical vacuum of profound depth. There is NO Choice. Once gambling becomes big business, there is no choice. We pretend there is, but that's because we are all of us...essentially...idiots. Business has found that advertising will sell products, even things we have no need of. By the lure of sexuality or power or all the other appetites we are lead to consume and partake in the feast of 21st century capitalism. We pretend there is a choice. Even we who do not gamble say there is a choice: we choose not to gamble. No. It is merely not the correct vice for us. By our neutrality in not condemning gambling, we enable it to continue until there are only (1) Gamblers, or (2) Enablers. We have lost the choice of being neither !!!!!! Capitalism seeks to lure you with a feast of "choices". If these choices in no way improve the quality of your individual life nor the life of the community, then they are not choices, they are enticements to sate appetites which work against the social good. If I am grossly overweight and am presented with a groaning board of delectable sweets all high in trans and saturated fats and sugars, am I to choose for myself? Or am I to destroy myself? If all the "choices" are bad and I am very hungry, is it a choice? Or is it not the case that I have - all my life- been led down the garden path of obesity by Big Food business and become inordinately fond of certain combinations of fats and sweets and carbohydrates...all of which leads to my hubritic indulgence...NOT a choice! Which is it? When there is another gun crime, we hear that no one forces anyone to bear a gun: it is a choice. And we are all rational enough to make choices. We also hear that if you give a man enough rope, then he will hang himself. The latter maxim is not a choice. Popular wisdom as summed up in the above recognizes that there sometimes is choice and sometimes there is not. We had better wake up to the fact that many of our choices are forced and compelled.