AlterNet: Robert Reich: 'How We're Turning America Into a Giant Casino'

Source:Free State MD

Last night I wrote a blog based on a blog I saw from Progressive Professor Robert Reich, where he was criticizing organize gambling in America. And making the case that America was becoming a “Giant Casino” because of organize gambling. And I’m sure other activities Progressives seem to feel the need to protect people, even if they don’t want their protection. That grown American adults are too stupid to make their own decisions in life. Like how to spend their own money that they earned themselves.

But of course with the so-called Progressive of today, it is not our money, meaning the money that we have and earned for ourselves is ours t begin with. That it's government's money that they would call the public's money and we only get to keep what Uncle Sam allows us to keep for ourselves. And even to protect people from themselves, that we are not capable with our money because we are not capable of deciding for ourselves whether or not we should be able to gamble our own money or not. 

That we need our Uncle Sam to babysit us and teach how we should live our own individual lives, because we are simply too stupid as individual Americans to make these basic decisions for ourselves. Gambling like any other activity that comes with risk like riding a motorcycle, horseback riding, going to nightclubs and even concerts, comes with a certain amount of risk. That people who again choose to make that decision for themselves., will only make the best decision that they can with the best available information that is available.  

We don't need government to babysit us and make our decisions for ourselves. What we need government to do is to regulate these activities to stop and punish predators so innocent people who've again made the choice to participate in these activities themselves. And to set basic rules to make them as safe as possible. Much different than government putting their big fat foot on the ground, that generally gets stuck in their mouth to begin with, "saying no! You can't do these things and if you do anyway, we'll punish you for your own good". 

Generally I go off on Religious and Neoconservatives, when it comes to freedom of choice. And their lack of support for it and criticize them for being in favor of big government. And go off on Progressives for supporting big government as it relates to the economy. But Progressives also have some big government tendencies on these some of these social issues as well. I’m not saying that Progressives are big government supporters across the board. 

Because Progressives are not, if they were, then they would basically be Communists. Or how communism has been practiced, take Cuba. And I’m not saying this to be partisan as a Liberal. Because on most social issues, Progressives tend to be very good when it comes to personal liberty. Like abortion, gay marriage, homosexuality and to a certain extent marijuana when it comes to the non-paternalistic wing of the progressive movement. 

But when it comes to what people can do with their money, except for marijuana to a certain extent, if there’s any risk or the chance that people can get hurt as a result, or where people can make a lot of money from these activities, they seem to feel the need to try to outlaw these activities.  It's not just Bob Reich’s blog against organize gambling last night. But Progressives seem to feel the need to outlaw hate speech. 

Because today's Progressives  seem to feel people can get hurt from having to listen to it. They want to protect people they care about from having to listen to things that may offend. While they make every First Amendment argument they can think of to attack people they are against. Take the Supreme Court decision last year, in March having to do with the Westboro Church. 

Or the need to bring back the Fairness Doctrine to use against Fox News. Because apparently they don’t believe Americans can tell the difference from real news and what’s bogus reporting, which is what you get a lot from Fox News. The so-called Progressive feel the need to not only protect people, but protect them from themselves. Which is exactly what big government is, whether its applied to economic or social policy. And Progressives are guilty at times on both fronts when it comes to big government. 

Organized gambling is not a question of whether it is going to be around or not. It has been around with us at least as long as we've been a Federal Republic. The question is how should it be around and should people feel worried about going to jail or not, if they chooses to gamble their own money. Do we need Uncle Sam to protect people from ourselves, or have an educated public that is more than capable of making these decisions for themselves.