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To: zoyd
Mr. Morality doesn't seem to examine his own vices and habits as critically as he does your vices and my vices.

Gambling is a "vice" only if it consumes your entire life and harms yourself or your family. Clearly it's not doing that.

I like Bill Bennett, but I don't take my moral direction from him. Do you?

292 posted on 05/02/2003 3:55:28 PM PDT by sinkspur
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To: sinkspur
Gambling is a "vice" only if it consumes your entire life and harms yourself or your family.

Recreational drug use is not a vice? Prostitution is not a vice? So, if you like picking up hookers once every couople months, but it's not harming yourself or your family, it's not a vice?

Interesting definition. Are you a libertarian? I think our conceptions of a 'vice' are different. Drinking alcohol is a vice, but millions of people do so without any harmful repercussions. Smoking even one joint is a vice, even though it will have absolutely no effect on your family or you. I'm not picking a fight -- I honestly think our defs of 'vice' differ.

Again, judging from Empower America's work against gambling, and finding no pro-gambling stories in 'Virtues', I just honestly think that if Bennett didn't have a love of gambling, he wouldn't hesitate for a minute to call gambling a vice, and something harmful to the family. One only need point to the loser gamblers who've lost their life savings in pursuit of a 'rush' in order to cement the idea that gambling has addictive qualitites as destructive as many 'illegal' drugs.

298 posted on 05/02/2003 4:04:38 PM PDT by zoyd
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