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Ken, Get a grip. It sounds as if you're about to blow a gasket. Besides we've heard all this before, in the story about Chicken Little and "The sky is falling. The sky is falling.". All this doom and gloom is downright hysteria.

Have you ever heard of personal responsibility? It's where people decide, liberals and conservatives alike, how they will live their lives, where they will spend their money and accept they will have to answer to God for their choices. No one, not you or me can decide for another.

The lottery is completely voluntary; it is not mandatory for anyone to participate. If one decides to buy a lottery ticket, it is one's choice. Why would you want to legislate freedom of choice? I thought you conservatives were for less government interference into private lives.

I never knew any kid to be harmed by selling raffle tickets,learning how to play Fish with a deck of cards, throwing dice in a game backgammon or even pitching pennies at one point or another.

Mindless Television has done more harm to children than a lottery ever has or will.

I believe the point that Mr. Poortvliet is making is that this is state-sponsored gambling. Individuals do have to accept personal responsibility for their behavior, but isn't that a little difficult when the state actually endorses, sponsors, and encourages, through agressive marketing, that behavior?

Yes, the lottery is voluntary, but where will the state draw the line in its unquenchable thirst for revenue to spend? Will it decide someday that state-sponsored prostitution is voluntary and legal, if the state can make a buck on it? What about legalized drug sales, and why stop at a little grass, when you can tax hard drugs at a higher rate? And, if you would say that is rediculous to comtemplate, then I would ask why? Where would these governmental "leaders" stop, and why? When you hear "It's for the children", look out because it has nothing to do with the children at all. As the song once said "You who are on the road must have a code that you can live by....Teach your children what you believe in. Make a world that we can live in."

Conservatives do prefer less government interference in their lives, but they like many others, also feel the need for some basic structure in society which sets the parameters for behavior in a civilized society. As without some basic and reasonable parameters in our society (rules of the road), we have anarachy, where everyone does as they please without regard for others. What creates true freedom for people in a society are the basic rules of the road. It's living in a society without any boundaries that people are not free to act and live.

How do you get a little old lady to use the F-word?

Having moved to this area from SC where the "education" lottery has been in play for several years,I can state that the lottery did NOTHING to improve education in that state. Politicans still whine about the "children" being shortchanged in the budget,etc.

Also,I have seen first hand school children standing outside a gas station pooling their money to buy a lottery ticket.

Having said that,I will also say that I have no problem with the lottery. They just need to call it what it is: A lottery by and for adults to play. No problem!

Answer: Get another little old lady to yell 'BINGO'.

Liberals this, liberals that. As someone who would likely be described as a liberal (although I am an unaffiliated progressive pragmatist), I opposed the lottery. It was largelly the state legislative Democrats who supported it, not liberals.

Ken,

LOL at you! Liberals ....WAAAAA. Liberals ....WAAAA.

Cry about the lottery to someone else, after all, most of North Carolinians support it.

And I thought conservatives wanted government to stay out of the lives of its citizens. Guess I was dead wrong.

"Conservatives do prefer less government interference in their lives, but they like many others, also feel the need for some basic structure in society which sets the parameters for behavior in a civilized society."

Let me rephrase:
Conservatives (liberals/moderates/libertarians/communists) like the government to interfer where they want it to interfer and want government to stay out of our lives where they want it to stay out.

I'm not trying to be a smart alec here but I think everybody of every political stripe agrees on that point. The devil though is in the details.

Jon: It is illegal to sell lotto tickets to children. Please don't pulll drama and lie to support your agenda.

Tony high school kids are 18. I have no agenda and I don't lie.

If those "children" are eighteen, then they are adults and can play the lottery. You used the term children to insinuate that any child could play the lottery. That is inaccurate as you know. It's called emotional appeal and is a traditional argumentative fallacy. It is also out right fabrication on your part to bolster a weak argument.

Yvonne,

It's not about choice. It's about the government having more money with which to ruin our lives. You ask why you'd want to legislate freedom of choice. To counter, I've got to ask how you can possibly support taxes if you believe in choice.

Stormy,

Prostitution and drugs actually should be legal but left to the free market, not the government.

Marshall,

No, Libertarians don't want the government to interfere where they want it to interfere. Most Libertarians would like to have a government that provides police and courts, but they would never force anyone else to be subject to that government. The ultimate goal of libertarianism is to have 297,000,000 governments in what we now call the United States. That's the number of people in the population right now, of course. That means 297,000,000 sovereign individuals would be free to form their own cooperative governments if they wish, of whatever size, if they desire police and court protection.

"Most Libertarians would like to have a government that provides police and courts, but they would never force anyone else to be subject to that government."

First of all I do believe you are saying that Libertarians want a government to interfer where they want it to interfer, just as I stated. You have them organize the government a bit differently but it comes out to be the same. If a bunch of libertarians get together & form their own cooperative government and form courts and police departments, those institutes are there to interfer in peoples lives (or regulate or whatever you want to call it) by ther agreement of those individuals. It may not feel right to libertarians to state it that way but it's no different in substance per my point (though most probably it does in degree) than any other philosophy of government.

I'm afraid the way you describe it, I can't imagine libertarianism working very well. It reminds me of the Federalist government that fell apart because of decentralized central government My belief is we must strike a balance between too strong of a central government & too weak.

Conservatives do not draw the line of "government interference in our lives" at no interference at all. We recognize that the government (us) has a roll in setting boundaries regarding individual conduct. The question of whether there should be legalized gambling is both political and moral with most conservatives being against it on moral grounds.

This is completely consistent with the conservative position in favor of laws prohibiting abortion. This is an acceptance of government interference in our private lives for the benefit of saving the lives of the unborn.

Concerning gambling and the lottery, what I find disgusting is that the NC democrats (mostly liberals)lust so hard after revenue that by making the lottery completely state run, it has put the state in the position of being a sort of morality unto itself.

Why make it state run? If gambling and the lottery are morally acceptable, then make it legal for private groups to do lotteries and make the profits themselves rather than the state to be in the gambling business. By doing so, they have said you can't do it, it's immoral, but we can because we're above the morality question.

Then to garner political support to get it passed, they trotted out the tired and trite lines about the lottery benefiting the children. It is so disingenuous and insulting to think that we would swallow that bilge. Any funds put into the education budget from the lottery profits will not go on top of an already fully funded education budget. Rather the budget for any new year will include lottery projections and then tax dollars will go to fill the budget.

Personally I don't rank the sin of gambling with that of prostitution or drug trafficking, but our government, is telling us that we need a lottery and the government is the only entity that should be in that business. So if that is true (and it must be because we have a lottery) then what moral line can stand? Especially if it is for our children.