Neal's Workshop

Internet gambling is about to be shutdown for Americans:

The House of Representatives and Senate unexpectedly approved a bill early on Saturday that would make it illegal for banks and credit-card companies to make payments to online gambling sites.

The measure was sent to President George W. Bush to sign into law, which most analysts see as a certainty.

The measure was attached to an unrelated bill on port security by Bill Frist, Republican Senator from Tennessee. Frist had this to say about the measure:

“Gambling is a serious addiction that undermines the family, dashes dreams and frays the fabric of society,” Dr Frist said. “The bottom line is simple: internet gambling is illegal.”

Don't miss the absurdity of Frist's two statements.

Follow up:

In the first statement, Frist states that gambling is inherently bad and therefore destructive to society. Frist's anti-online gambling measure is nothing more than an appeal to the common good: reducing freedom for some of us to benefit most of us -- or so goes the justification for coercion.

In keeping with Frist's argument against gambling on societal grounds, is Senator Frist also supporting measures to ban all types of gambling nationwide? The Times Online goes on to say:

Despite the Bill’s prescriptive nature, it excludes local online betting on horseracing, fantasy leagues and lotteries. It also has no impact on the hundreds of casinos and gambling emporia that dot America, ranging from the neon palaces of Las Vegas and Atlantic City to the riverboat casinos that ply their trade on the Mississippi.

It seems odd that Sen. Frist isn't trying to ban other types of gambling. Aren't they all prone to "dash dreams" and fray "the fabric of society"? For example, Frist's home state of Tennessee instituted a state-run lottery back in 2003. One might think Frist would have said something about such an abomination being created in his home state: you'd be wrong. Scour the internet for quotes by Frist on the Tennessee Lottery and you will come up empty-handed.

Why would Frist not care to fight all of these other arenas of gambling? Well, despite Frist's pontification on the wrongs inflicted on society by gambling, Frist makes his real argument against gambling clear, "The bottom line is simple: internet gambling is illegal." (Note that Frist is also making another autoDogmatic appeal, the appeal to legality)

It's not the morality of the issue. It's not that we're all better off without gambling. Internet gambling is a problem because it's against the f#&king law.

In Frist's mind (and in the minds of both politicians and many Americans), the law is all that matters. Frist makes it absolutely clear that legality is "the bottom line" -- superceding any and all other arguments. That the issue of societal good even matters to the Republican Majority Leader is a ruse -- Frist was just careless by making obvious his false pretenses.

Bill Frist's elevation of "the law" to the position of moral lodestar begs an important question: if, for politicans like Frist, the law is the determiner of right and wrong, how do those same politicians determine what laws to make?

The answer is alarming but not surprising: politicans like Frist make laws based on their incoherent morality and fickle emotions. In other words, they legislate their whims.

And that this guy could end up in the White House! Be very, very afraid.

Finally, a quote from Senator Frist on Democrats, "They have no convictions, they have no principles, they have no ideas." By convictions and principles, perhaps Frist is referring to his dogmatism regarding legality. Personally, I'm not sure I could come up with a better way to describe politicians, in general, and most certainly politicians like Frist.

I must echo a sentiment wondered by Aaron earlier with regard to Mark Foley, does our political system select for the depraved?

Can there be any doubt?