Stop the world, I want to get off!
Myron Edwards
January 31, 2007
Stop the world, I want to get off!
Look, it’s getting to a point where someone has to say enough is enough. Why? Because everything in life in one way or another is being challenged, banned or just stopped. The fun of life is being eroded, by the act of legitimising everything that we do. Take a game like backgammon, once a game that was played on kitchen tables or on street corners the world over, but with the technology revolution it suddenly became available to the masses available online 24 hours a day and with the added advantage that you could win money playing it too. What has happened some countries want to ban it? Why?
Poker, Roulette, and all other games of chance are also banned by the USA for online gaming transactions and now other countries are soon to follow. The Netherlands once the epitome of a free and cosmopolitan culture is now falling into this draconian trap of the banning law for the people.
The gambling instinct that is inherent in all of us, and please don’t say it isn’t now being taken away and with it our freedom of choice.
Why? because it can lead to problems. Life can lead to problems if we over indulge. Be it fast food, cigarettes, alcohol even sex is bad for you, anything that in one way or another brings us pleasure is now being frowned upon.
The way we are living is leading back to the puritan way of life. Our freedom and liberty is slowly and inevitably being drained from us. The very essence of a democracy that states freedom of choice is being selectively passed by through formative legislation that says “you are not allowed to do this”.
This flies in the face of the spirit of democracy by which freedom of expression stands. Is this not what freedom is all about, with the right to choose by the individual what’s right for them?
That maybe a game of backgammon, or poker online or it might just be a burger in a fast food bar, or a beer, all in moderation granted. But banning it totally can only incite the black market to open its ugly doors.
Measures can be taken to moderate ourselves, regulation can not only provide a legal remedy for these industries, but can also supplement governmental budgets with additional tax revenues, that are currently being filtered away into illegal sources.
Please somebody do something now, before we lose sight of the bigger question:
Do we really have freedom of choice or is that just something that we are told we have?
Let me know…before I jump off.
Look, it’s getting to a point where someone has to say enough is enough. Why? Because everything in life in one way or another is being challenged, banned or just stopped. The fun of life is being eroded, by the act of legitimising everything that we do. Take a game like backgammon, once a game that was played on kitchen tables or on street corners the world over, but with the technology revolution it suddenly became available to the masses available online 24 hours a day and with the added advantage that you could win money playing it too. What has happened some countries want to ban it? Why?
Poker, Roulette, and all other games of chance are also banned by the USA for online gaming transactions and now other countries are soon to follow. The Netherlands once the epitome of a free and cosmopolitan culture is now falling into this draconian trap of the banning law for the people.
The gambling instinct that is inherent in all of us, and please don’t say it isn’t now being taken away and with it our freedom of choice.
Why? because it can lead to problems. Life can lead to problems if we over indulge. Be it fast food, cigarettes, alcohol even sex is bad for you, anything that in one way or another brings us pleasure is now being frowned upon.
The way we are living is leading back to the puritan way of life. Our freedom and liberty is slowly and inevitably being drained from us. The very essence of a democracy that states freedom of choice is being selectively passed by through formative legislation that says “you are not allowed to do this”.
This flies in the face of the spirit of democracy by which freedom of expression stands. Is this not what freedom is all about, with the right to choose by the individual what’s right for them?
That maybe a game of backgammon, or poker online or it might just be a burger in a fast food bar, or a beer, all in moderation granted. But banning it totally can only incite the black market to open its ugly doors.
Measures can be taken to moderate ourselves, regulation can not only provide a legal remedy for these industries, but can also supplement governmental budgets with additional tax revenues, that are currently being filtered away into illegal sources.
Please somebody do something now, before we lose sight of the bigger question:
Do we really have freedom of choice or is that just something that we are told we have?
Let me know…before I jump off.
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