I'll take that under advisement...
I am not utterly opposed to gambling, but I am "iffy" about it, whether free enterprise or government sponsored, when it goes much beyond a friendly poker game or a football pool. To gamble is not a vice, but many people find it difficult to remain moderate about it, and the poor, being more desperate, waste a great deal of money on it. It is pathetic to go into a store in one of the poorer neighborhoods in the D.C. area, and to see all of the cheap booklets supposedly ready to give one the key to winning through the interpretation of dreams and such.
Similarly, I am not anti- drinking, (although I drink infrequently myself, and usually indulge in good wine or cognac), but I do object to an atmosphere that encourages excess, when excess is difficult to resist for many people. One of the reasons that I drink so little is that I found myself drinking too much the first semester of my freshman year in college, because it was being pushed on one so much, and therefore got in the habit of declining except for special occasions.
I saw "Showgirls", and was not particularly scandalized (in fact, I thought it was a better movie than was generally conceded), but it was finally about the sexually exploitative atmosphere of Vegas.
I am sure that there are some damn good people living down there (I also agree that making ordinary possession a felony is Draconian). But there are also a lot of sick, pathetic, and obsessed people, not to mention the mobsters (although I understand that things have been cleaned up some). |
