Brattle Loop
Senior Member
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2020
- Messages
- 1,163
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For gaming, I'd like to revisit that vote. I don't think we had the facts. The fix was in.
I'm having a hard time interpreting this as anything other than saying, at best, that Massachusetts voters are ignorant dupes who had the wool pulled so completely over their eyes that they were 'bamboozled' into voting yes on the gambling initiative, to, at worst, at least implying that the process was somehow rigged. Some evidence, especially if the implication was meant to be towards the latter end of the spectrum, would be in order. As to revisiting the vote, that's not likely to happen. (Though if I were a lawyer, I'd be salivating at the opportunities trying to retroactively un-legalize a business would present for billable hours.)
As a precursor to another vote, I'd like an honest cost benefit analysis of... how many more people declared bankruptcy and financially wrecked their families? I'd like a count of how many people who should have known better have fallen-- and fallen hard? I'd like to know how many extra cops had to be hired in surrounding towns? How much extra stolen merch ended up on ebay? How many kids lunch money went to the tables? How many guys ended a losing streak with a pistol? And how much we all spent of their emergency room visit before they died? There's revenue and there's blood money. They pick a lot of pockets to fill theirs. But we get 'a taste'. Libertarian delusions.
And I don't hate the player, I hate the game.
I look at casinos like an asshole mobster neighbor who buys off the cops and get away with anything. As long as they stay in their own backyard, allegedly they're not hurting us. Once they start poking the Commonwealth's ribs, we cease to function properly. We are waaaay to glib about what has happened and keeps happening.
All relevant fodder for a political debate over gambling and the effects on society it produces. That debate is a.) not happening on any meaningful political scale in the Commonwealth and, more importantly b.) not germane to this thread. The casino exists, there does not appear to be any realistic prospect that it is going to cease to exist anytime soon, and for so long as it remains a legal business, it shouldn't be excluded from public infrastructure considerations just because some people find its business controversial.