Life, liberty and the right to play online poker (Family Research Council plays the fool)

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

Life, liberty and the right to play online poker
(edited to make the title better)
http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2007/11/15/online_internet_gambling/index.html
<snip>
"There are 28 million self-identified poker players who want to play and bet online. They are adults who as American citizens have a right to play poker, a game of skill, in the privacy of their own homes on their own computers. There is a limit to how much government can interfere with our fellow citizens' rights to participate in a recreational activity of their choice."


So testified Rep. Shelly Berkley, D-Nev., at a House Judiciary Committee hearing looking into online gambling law enforcement on Thursday. As congressional hearings go, this one gets a five-star rating from How the World Works. There were professional poker players referencing John Locke and John Stuart Mill, Tennessee legislators getting medieval on the Family Research Council, and a discussion of the odds against James Bond drawing an inside straight in "Casino Royale." All this against a backdrop featuring a mighty clash between states' rights and international treaty obligations.

<snip>
Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., engaged the Family Research Council's McClusky on just where the line should be drawn. If one of the reasons to support a ban on Internet gambling was the technical impossibility of preventing children from participating, then why allow online access to lotteries, or to horse-race betting?

Better yet, why allow horse racing at all?


COHEN: Do you think that horse racing and dog racing and lotteries should be legal in the United States?

MCCLUSKY: Are you asking me?

COHEN: Yes, you personally.

MCCLUSKY: The Family Research Council does believe that such things should be illegal.

COHEN: So it is really not the Internet you are against. It is gambling in general. Is that right?

MCCLUSKY: Yes, that would be true, or at least unrestricted gambling such as we have with the Internet or other.

COHEN: But the lottery is restricted. You can't play if you are a child. Same thing with horse racing. But you are against that, are you not?

MCCLUSKY: Yes.

COHEN: So restricted or unrestricted, you are against it?

MCCLUSKY: Yes.

COHEN: Is there any fun that you are for?


McClusky subsequently tried to defuse the question by joking that he was in favor of the hearing itself, and that seemed like "fun," but the damage was done. For years, groups like the Family Research Council have been setting the agenda in Washington. But on Thursday a congressman in the majority party mocked their anti-fun agenda. Steve Cohen, he's our man.

<snip>

http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2007/11/15/online_internet_gambling/index.html

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

1. Well, anytime the Family Research Council is made to look foolish..

during congressional hearings, I think it is worth sharing, here at DU.

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

5. I think so too. NT

[sufrommich]

2. That sounds like a

" at long last,have you no shame" senatorial moment(OK,maybe not as monumental as the first time around). Maybe the tide is turning against the neo puritans?

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

4. Maybe the tide is turning against the neo puritans?

I sure as hell hope so!

[flashl]

3. Folks keep asking how they are going to shut the net down. One area at a time. n/t