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Message: [QUOTE="PurgatoryD, post: 1736394, member: 43498"] Let me start by saying that this is a great debate! I think we can all agree that there is much to be gained by sharing ideas, arguments, and counterarguments. I feel that even our friends outside of the US are really feeling this one. In reading the comments regarding my argument (which has been presented in bits and pieces), I feel that I haven't made my position very clear. So please allow me to state my position more fully. It probably won't change many minds, but hopefully will open people up to some other ideas. So here it is. The recent crackdown on online poker in the US is merely a symptom of a much larger problem in our country. It is this larger problem that I am interested in addressing, not the symptom. Yes, I enjoyed playing online poker and yes, I would love to play again. But I am not interested in making poker the exception to this greater rule -- I am interested in changing the rule itself. The greater rule itself has to do with maintaining our rights as citizens. Our Constitution contains nothing in it which would preclude us a priori from playing poker online. Or from smoking marijuana. Or from marrying someone of the same sex. Or for gambling outside of an Indian reservation or state lottery system. Or from purchasing liquor on Sundays. Or from buying a McDonald's Happy Meal. Or from eating the meat of a horse. Yet, depending on where you live in the US, each and every one of these individual rights has been taken away. So yes, there will be those who want their poker and they'll go fight for their poker. And there will be those who want to smoke their marijuana and they'll go fight for their marijuana. That's a fine approach and for the particular right in question, it can be restored. We did get the right to drink alcohol back, for instance. But at some point, even the person who doesn't play poker has to realize that he has a vested interest in this right if for no other reason than to protect his own rights. That's why I voted to legalize marijuana even though I don't smoke it. That's why I voted to allow gay marriage even though I'm heterosexual and already married. That's why I voted against banning the use of horse meat for human consumption even though I've never even tried it and can't really imagine wanting to. While we all have different interests, we all have a common interest in not allowing others to dictate how we live. United we stand divided we fall has never rung truer. I lose my right to play poker but you just let it go because you don't happen to play? You lose your right to smoke marijuana (yes, even if you get that right, you will most certainly lose it again) but I just let it go because I don't happen to smoke? So divided against each other in this manner we lose right by right by right. Coming back to poker in particular, for those wishing to focus on legislating that right alone, let's take a glimpse of what that future potentially holds. Conventional wisdom tells us that, for the states that allow it, online poker will most likely be allowed within the boundaries of the state. So not only have you lost international play, but you've also lost the ability to play within the greater US. But it could get even worse in states like California. With the current budget problems in the state, there is a political movement to take various state responsibilities and operations and shift them onto local governments. For those living in rural areas, could you imagine being confined to playing in your local county poker network? I'm not suggesting that that will necessarily happen. But it certainly could happen if we continue to delude ourselves into thinking that this has nothing to do with rights. Some may see this argument as emotional. But our rights were founded on an emotional rationality. It doesn't get any more emotional than, "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" So that's my take on this whole thing. Thanks for reading. Comments of course welcomed. -Dave [/QUOTE]

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