If people are going to lose their life savings they may as well do it in Texas?
By Adrian Murray
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas To many it is disheartening to see the issue of legalized gambling in Texas once again rear its ugly head … along with it the same tired shopworn arguments both for & against. The pros & cons go on and on with each argument for" dutifully offset with an argument against". Lets cut the crap shall we?
- Pro: 70 (or 75 or 80 or 95 take your pick) of the cars in the casino parking lots in Oklahoma and Louisiana have Texas plates which is proof the money is flowing out of Texas and should be encouraged to stay here.
- Con: Money spent (i.e. lost) on gambling is money not spent at Texas retailers on appliances and other consumer goods.
- Pro: Taxes from casino profits can be used to fund education in Texas.
- Con: Gambling preys on the weak and the poor.
- Pro: Casinos would be an economic boom for Texas and create untold numbers of jobs.
- Con: Gambling will lead to crime and a financial strain on the judicial system.
- Pro: Yada
- Con: Yada yada
Each empirical study showing that gambling (or gaming as the pros like to put it) will cost the state revenue is countered by another study proving conclusively that gaming will inevitably lead to budget surpluses and tax breaks for all.
Again lets just cut it shall we?
Proponents of gambling want it because a relative and select few will make a ton of cash.
These altruistic angels of our legislature could give a flying fig about our childrens education the tax base or retail sales in Texas. They bathe daily in the waters of their own greed and to hear their pontifications favoring gambling for the greater good is nauseating in the extreme.
If a family of five ends up on the street because daddy gambled away all the rent money hey thats not their fault. Well contribute 1 of the rake to public service announcements.
People need to game responsibly and hey if theyre going to lose their life savings they may as well do it in Texas where we can all benefit from their misery. Why should the folks in Oklahoma have all the fun?
Opponents of casinos seem to have a difficult time adjusting their spines long enough to say what they really mean.
Rather than play the point-counterpoint game with casino advocates in some weak-kneed and baloney attempt to match manipulated statistical data with
manipulated statistical data in a contrived game of liars poker why not just come right and say what everyone deep down in their gut knows: state-sanctioned gambling is wrong.
Remember the days when in this country people instinctively knew the difference between right and wrong?
Remember when you didnt need a bar graph or a pie chart to determine the relative rightness or wrongness of an issue you just knew?
It really wasnt all that long ago when we understood without nuance and backpedaling that the ends dont always justify the means that sometimes we just have to suck it up and find some other way than the easy way out.
What would it take for a politician these days to set aside the fancy charts the bought and paid for studies with their bought and paid for projections the torturous and cynically contrived justifications and simply acknowledge that our main responsibility as adults is to pass along to our children and to future generations a working moral compass some sort of foundation for them to calibrate their lives and to summon the courage and conviction to say that as tempting as it may be as filthy rich as some of us may get as easy as this might be to help us forestall difficult decisions in terms of our own spending and taxing
when you get right own to it at the end of the day state-sanctioned gambling is just morally wrong and were ashamed to have bought it up.
Do we really need to hold something so basic and fundamental up to the light to see what truth filters through? Have we lost our ability (or desire) to discern right from wrong?
And while were at it lets do away with the lottery as well.
Adrian J. Murray is president of Painless Performance Products in Fort Worth Texas.
