Federal authorities arrested the CEO of BetOnSports, a prominent internet gambling company, and they're planning to press charges against several other current and former company officers.

When this came across the Google reader, I thought I should share because in the latest dead-tree edition of Carolina Review, I wrote an article about internet gambling. Specifically, I talked about how none of our Federal laws that Congress keeps passing against gambling are enforceable because of the overseas webservers that host the gambling websites. This arrest, however, marks a shift from the observations I made in my article about Congress' willingness to legislate but unwillingness to enforce:

The fact that these operations are legal in their home jurisdictions “does not entitle them to do business in the United States,” said Catherine L. Hanaway, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, which brought the indictment. The charges announced yesterday indicate that “their efforts to avoid U.S. law enforcement will be challenged and brought to justice whenever possible.”

The NYtimes article brings everything full circle by talking about the global profitability and popularity of internet gambling, and how the United States is "not in line" with the rest of the world. Those pesky things called principles keep getting in our way, it seems.

What I think will happen? On issues of morality like this, the U.S. is far more likely to regulate than outright ban (Prohibition taught us enough about that). With internet poker being a billion-dollar-per-year industry, I doubt the Federal government is going to start a blitzkrieg campaign to put an end to it entirely. They just want some measure of control (and to dip their hand in the pie of course). The NYtimes thinks this marks the beginning of more arrests and more seizures of online gambling companies, but I'm not buying it. Temporarily, maybe so. But long term, poker in particular is too popular and too big. You'll see public outcry if something like PartyPoker.net (also has off-shore servers) gets taken down.

So instead, some kind of compromise is going to be reached before all is said and done, and you'll see internet gambling popularized in the United States. But that's just my two cents.

Another trumping of 1st amendment liberties, this time in South Africa. A "racist ringtone" has been spreading on cell phones and has been condemned by authorities.

Dr Lionel Louw, chief of staff for the Office of the Premier in the Western Cape and representative of the Moral Regeneration Movement, had this to say:

"The form of behaviour reflected in the ringtone is criminal and its perpetrators will feel the full might of the law." -- "It is a minority who participate in promoting this, and such views are not the reflection of the majority."

The article outlines the message of the ringtone, without actually saying what it said:

It describes how such a person should be tied to the back of a pickup truck and dragged around while driving.

The chorus has a blatantly racist tone and ends with a call to set dogs on the black person.

Without hearing the actual ringtone, it's hard to judge. But so long as it is not inciting actual violence (as in, the message isn't asking people in specific terms to take up arms and kill a group of folks with a real intention--mens rea--of bringing about such violence), then it falls into the category of "protected free speech." Well, in America at least. The rest of the world doesn't share our devotion to liberty (nor does it share its fruits).

Side note: it's things like this, ladies and gents, that make me unafraid of the burgeoning economic power of China. Why be afraid of a people who censor Google, and who engineer social control through murderous legislation. What scares me more is if their transition toward liberty, which has been a slow process thus far, isn't completely smooth...

"Liberty is the great parent of science and of virtue; and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free." -Thomas Jefferson, Fourth President of the United States

"Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" -Patrick Henry, "radical" advocate of the American Revolution

An introduction Jerry Seinfeld would appreciate: What’s the deal with facebook “Political Views”? I mean, come on, this is college; not the United States Senate.

As some of you well know, I’ve parted ways with Carolina Review as a staff writer, content to fire away digital mortars from the safe confines of Bloggerland.

A big part of the reason why I left was that I didn’t feel all that conservative anymore. Liberal shoes didn’t seem to fit (two sizes too small). Neither did moderate (four sizes too big). So what was I left to do? I know I’m not apathetic, even if I do tend toward the fatalistic from time to time. So I just changed it to “Other” and decided to be done with it. Let everyone else figure out what it means, because I sure as hell don’t know.

Facebook has quietly trivialized our social lives to an extent most of us aren’t even aware of anymore. Think about what it is on its surface: a categorical listing of your friends organized by geography, institutions of higher learning, and most recently, by employment in the dreaded “real world” (which is not to be confused with the MTV show by the same name). On certain levels, adding up your friends like you would assets on an expense report seems pretty sick, like a desire for social acceptance and validation gone horribly wrong.

But the worst was when they added a feature that lets you track exactly how you met each of your friends. Two problems. First, how do you know when someone becomes your friend? Where is that metaphysical line in the sand drawn? Second, assuming you could draw such a line, what’s the protocol for noticing every time someone crosses it? Good friends don’t arrive on your doorstep like movies from Netflix. They just show up one day unannounced, because all of a sudden you realize they’re there, and it’s no longer important how they got there, in fact you can’t remember how, but you just know you’d give your left leg for them, if they ever needed that sort of thing.

Wait, wait; so you’re saying you met him in your economics class, talked to him three times (only so you could copy notes come exams), but then saw him at a party, shared a beer and some love for Carolina basketball, and then hungover-ly decided to add them? Sounds like facebook “friends” would be more aptly titled “acquaintances,” or my personal favorite: “negligibly less than strangers.”

Facebook dummied down our social lives to the lowest common denominator (starts with alc-, ends with -ohol), and the “political views” are no different. I can understand Brian’s frustration with the “Conservative On Facebook Only” faction (COFOs, for short); especially when the girl pictured in pearls, residency: Granville Towers, political status: Very Conservative; and yet, she has two photo albums of kegstands, empty Busch Light cans, all wonderfully captioned with nuggets like “omigod we were wasted!!1” and “look! passed out, te he” (And this isn’t even covering her extensive memberships in groups such as “I fall down on the p2p” and “Oh gah, what did I do last night?”)

“Relationship Status”: this was the worst idea in the long, sordid history of bad ideas going back to the Spanish Inquisition (okay, so there might be a couple worse, like on-line basketball ticket distribution, or American Idol). Breaking up over the phone was pretty bad. By email was borderline sinful. But to break-up over facebook ought to earn a public shaming, stockade style, in the Pit in front of your peers. Oh, and you and your best friend from high school are not funny when you post your inter-campus open lesbian relationship as an ironic inside joke, remembering secretly that one night when, omigod, we were wasted!

But, as the more astute among you will notice, I still haven’t answered the “Why Other?” question. The bottomline is this: I don’t take the political status of anyone on facebook seriously (because I don’t take anything on facebook seriously), and Other seems to cover all manners of sin. I’m philosophically and morally opposed to abortion (if there’s even a chance it’s life, even an impossibly small one, we owe it to ourselves not to allow this ever to happen); but I do have a little sister, and an overactive imagination, however I don’t want to know, not in the slightest, what the actual severity of that decision would feel like (and biologically speaking, I never will).

In theory, I think corporal punishment in public schools is a bad idea. Too many wacko high school teachers—come on, we all had them—would (and did) abuse an otherwise good system; but from a practical standpoint, I wouldn’t mind if it came back because it would give teachers the means they need to reel in this nation’s most dilapidated schools. Physical pain leads to fear, which leads to respect, which leads to control, which just might allow someone to learn something.

I’ll take the lesser of two evils any day.

I don’t think the government’s purpose should ever be to provide for everyone, a la the European model of a welfare state. But I do understand that when you’ve got an 11 percent unemployment rate (like our beloved friends, the French), large-scale national welfare makes practical, even if unfortunate, sense.

Universal healthcare is too strong, treating colds in emergency rooms (the current reality) is too weak. Some middle ground (like a hybrid car with gas AND electric engines) needs to be found in a hurry.

But back to the welfare thing. *cues the predictable but belated Fourth of July sentimentalism* In America, a self-described Land of Opportunity, our government should, and often does, focus on creating jobs for people, and in doing so, breaking down the barriers of social mobility via education and creative (although complicated) tax structures. Everyone ought to be able to flourish (and I mean that in the ancient Greek eudaimonia sense) according to their ability. Because even though we are all equal in the eyes of God (or whoever’s pulling the strings up there), that very well might be where it stops. Some people are smarter, more attractive, more ambitious, better public speakers, more charismatic, and so on. For government to be a cookie-cutter service, the same package deal of economic security for everyone, would be an unintended disservice to its people.

I would be a libertarian, if it weren’t for the fact that I still believe somewhat in the idea of a “public good.” Man is a social creature. Retracting into a political model centered on absolute individual freedom denies this in many ways, placing serious and unnecessary limits on our potential as human beans. Sometimes we squish each other, sure; but sometimes we wave from such great heights.

There’s a lot more, but I didn’t mean for this to be a political fringe theory rant (at least not all of it). What I meant was this: out of all those things listed above, how do I simplify them into a seven-option drop-down box on facebook? Even if they let you input your own label—Blue Dog Democrat, NASCAR mom (which thankfully, none of us probably are yet), neo-Marxist, practicing pragmatist, morally deficient liberal, morally self-righteous conservative—would any of them cover it all?

In my idealistically envisioned perfect world of free-thinking, charismatic, caring individuals: no. But we’ll keep subscribing to the labels so long as they keep giving us a sense of having found all the answers. So my politics are Other. You’re more than welcome to explain to me what that means. I’d love to hear it, actually, because I’m just too tired and stupid to claim to know what my politics really are.

David
www.nostempore.net

Today, Americans across the world will celebrate the birth of the United States. On this day in 1776, we officially declared our independence from the tyranny and oppression of the English king. It was an unprecedented act of defiance against the century's most powerful country. In the ensuing war, only our steadfast hope for a better, more inclusive government allowed our troops to beat back the mighty armies of the king.

Too often, Americans focus on the negatives that engulf our great land: war, terrorism, economic woes, the list goes on. In all that gloom, we forget an important fact. Despite our problems, the United States of America is still, two hundred thirty years after its birth, the most respected, free and powerful nation on this earth. For over two centuries we have led the world in the direction of right. On this day we should forget all our nation is not and be thankful for all that it is.

We have stood proud against oppression in foreign lands. We have set the barrier for free trade. We have struggled to open our own land to people of different races and nationalities so that they too can experience the American dream. For those reasons we are the only superpower left on the globe.

On distant battlefields from the jungles of the south Pacific to the beaches of Normandy to the deserts of Iraq, our armies are respected and unparalleled. In both world wars we entered on the side of the downcast, beaten, and oppressed and used our skill as fighters, our dream as free men and women, and our trust in each other to defend freedom’s cause. At the conclusion of the wars, meanwhile, we used those same qualities to help the defeated rebuild their war torn nations – just as we are doing in Iraq today. Indeed, people across the world should be just as proud of America as we are. No country at any time in the eventful history of this world has been as helpful to people of foreign lands than the United States.

When the evil threat of communism began to appear at all corners of the world, what country issued a doctrine protecting any country from its threats? What country entered in hundreds of relief missions to save the world from the U.S.S.R.? What country committed our young men in our armed forces to defend world peace? Only the proud and strong United States of America.

And what of the Cold War's end? Did the United States gloat at the poor, oppressed people of the former superpower the U.S.S.R.? Certainly not! Instead of invading the Soviet Union with bombers and missiles, we sent food, money and relief. Never before, had such an outright winner in a war provided so much help to the people of the defeated nation.

Because of a dream our soldiers had when they fought the British, because of a dream our fore-fathers had when they framed the Constitution, because of a dream shared by the millions of different people in America to promote peace, seek justice, and remove oppression from the world, we are the freest nation on the face of this earth.

On this day we should be thankful for all the extraordinary men and women who have made this country what it is today: George Washington, John Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and the list goes on. These men and women not only embodied the American spirit, they lived the dream.

They understood that freedom, not oppression, is the way to lead a great nation to glory. America is a land of brave, smart, patient, and free individuals where everyone is allowed to blossom to their full potential. We are a nation of the people for the people. We may have lost our way occasionally throughout history, but time and again we have striven to correct our mistakes, to repay our debts, and to lead ourselves, and this world, in the right direction once again.

Too often we read between the stars and stripes and see the mistakes of our country and its leaders. Today, let’s look solely at the flag as it proudly billows in the wind and be thankful that we are citizens of the greatest nation this world has ever known: The United States of America.