Politics: Ban Prohibition!!

Remember this guy? Every time I tell people, in Europe, that I grew up in Indiana they invariably ask the same question: Where is that? I tell them it is near Chicago. Then they all say the same thing: aha Al Capone!

Today I would like to say a few things about Prohibition. This is because currently there is a lot of talk about Online Gambling ...or more precisely the banning of it. Several bills have been put before Congress that would prohibit online gambling. The arguments used to promote these bills are very similar to those used against the production and consumption of alcohol in the early part of the last century.

One argument is that gambling, like alcohol, is addictive. People will gamble away their pay checks, rents will not be paid, children will become neglected or corrupted, families will be undermined, and life as we know it will be destroyed. So the obvious solution is to ban this nefarious activity altogether.

At least that is the argument for the ban. I don't agree with this argument. When the same arguments were used, with great success, against alcohol there were some very terrible consequences. The ban enabled criminal gangs to organize on a scale that no one could have imagined. Corruption spread into communities, law enforcement, politics both local and national, and the production and consumption of alcohol continued unabated. The corruption that was allowed to flourish then endures to this day.

While the self-righteous scramble for the moral high-ground believing that they are protecting us simple folk from ourselves, more pragmatic demons are also hard at work. Offshore and unregulated establishments become the base of operations for the entrepreneurs both legitimate and criminal. Money will flow out of the country like alcohol once flowed in.

But you can be sure of one thing: Gambling will continue...ban or no ban.

The government is quite capable of regulating online gambling in the same way it regulates any other large industry. Driving this industry offshore or underground will not be beneficial to society.

But I'll give you odds that the self-appointed guardians of our moral welfare will continue to interfere with our right to enjoy ourselves. Any takers?