Goodlatte Bill HR 4777
INTERNET GAMBLING: BOB GOODLATTE'S WHITE WHALE
On February 16, 2006, Representative Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. got tough on what he considers to be one of the most important issues facing America with HR 4777. No, it’s not al Quada or any other terror group. Nor is it the threat of nuclear war from Iran, Pakistan, or North Korea. It’s not the growing budget deficit, unstable gas prices, the war in Iraq, drug addiction or alcoholism. It is that evil goblin and the devil’s second cousin Internet gambling!
That’s right grandma and grandpa; homemakers across America; and hard-working parents and spouses everywhere, Representative Goodlatte wants to make sure you can’t play online Texas Hold ‘em, place a March Madness wager, or drop a sawbuck on the Super Bowl.
Why?
Well, it’s dangerous because it’s gambling. How long do you think gambling has been around? I’d say the over/under on it is about 1.9 million years. Presently, Internet gambling, which is a 12 billion dollar industry, and Representative Goodlatte’s crusade against it are both about to enter their second decade. The representative’s most recent introduction of a bill to prohibit Internet wagering marks his fourth attempt since 1997 to curb this pastime.
The problem with using technology such as the Internet to gamble, contends Goodlatte, is that it’s creating addicted bettors and it’s ruining the lives of innumerable teens, college students, moms, dads, and grandparents. Of course, gambling can be addictive and the Internet makes it easy to place a wager or play a hand of poker. Some people can’t stop themselves from gambling and lose more than they should, running up exorbitant debt. But the same can be said of some people who shop on the net. Goodlatte doesn’t want to prohibit anyone from using the World Wide Web to buy jewelry, high definition televisions, or clothing. Yet, people of all ages dig themselves into a deep well of debt doing just that.
Then what exactly is the problem with gambling via the Internet? Let’s say it’s the combination of gambling with technology, making it much too easy to put a five on the Washington Nationals to win the World Series. Perhaps that’s the problem.
Of course, if using technology to gamble is such a threat to the fabric of our society, Representative Goodlatte’s bill must address state lotteries too. Powerball, which each week drains millions of dollars from American’s pockets while giving them nothing in return, is easily accessed at any grocery or convenience store. There are endless tales of woe associated with people of all ages draining their bank accounts, going into debt, and stealing from their relatives to play state run lotteries.
No, Representative Goodlatte’s bill does not try to curb this type of pernicious behavior. State lotteries are apparently all right even though they have the same affect as online gambling sites and offer convenient wagering opportunities.
On its Website the conservative organization CitizenLink recently endorsed Goodlatte’s bill. They went Chad Hills for expert advice on Internet gambling. Hills is a proclaimed “gambling analyst” for a conservative group called Focus on Family Action. Hills, who according to CitizenLink claims that the “Internet is fertile ground for organized white-collar crime, money laundering, and a plethora of other social ills,” used some statistics to make his point.
Hills observed that every month between 1.8 and 1.9 million people are online engaged in poker games and that they spend almost $200 million per day! That would be approximately 6 billion dollars spent at online poker tables each month. If you do the math, you’ll find that according to Hills each of those people spends an average of $3,333 a month playing online poker. Does that figure make any sense? Where are these millions of people getting all that money? They can’t have jobs, because they’re too busy playing online poker all the time. His figures make no sense.
Many groups such as Focus on Family Action and CitizenLink are determined to protect everyday Americans from “exploitation… by offshore and commercial gambling interests over the Internet.” Do we really need to be “protected?” Shouldn’t Americans make their own decisions regarding how they spend their money and leisure time? Is Chad Hills smarter than you or me? (He’s certainly not better at math or logic.) Does Representative Goodlatte have better judgment than any other American? He’s spent almost a decade obsessing on Internet gambling, while our country has faced and continues to face challenges that threaten our very existence. Is that sound reasoning and a good use of our tax dollars?
Somehow these and many more self-proclaimed guardians of “us” and the U.S. believe that, like children, we must be protected. They’re right; we do need to be protected—from things that really threaten our country like terrorism, violent crimes, unscrupulous oil companies, runaway health costs and dwindling energy supplies.
A major problem for Representative Goodlatte and our government is the fact that they’re losing tax dollars that they’d like to collect from those Americans who win their bets and from foreign countries and businesses that profit from sponsoring and running the online sites. If they could figure out a way to tax these sites and their users, it’s almost certain that Internet wagering would no longer be dangerous.
Consider how our government views the People’s Republic of China. We get along fine with this repressive, brutally governed, communist country. When did this happen? It didn’t occur when China embraced democracy, because they never did. The country is still ruled by one party— the Communist Party. The People’s Republic of China became our ally when they implemented economic reforms related to free trade. American companies, entrepreneurs, and government agencies all began to benefit by doing business with this communist country. Wait, wasn’t communism a huge threat to our country? It was until we were able to do business with the Chinese. Now they’re just fine.
We’re told that all sorts of heinous activities are funded by Internet gambling, including terrorist groups, drug cartels, and major crime organizations. Of course this has never been proven; it is merely a hypothesis. Governments love to tie something they want to get rid of to something else that we fear. Weapons of mass destruction were tied to Saddam Hussein; Communism was connected to rock and roll; and sin and our society’s demise was linked to alcohol. Of course there were no weapons of mass destruction, Americans created rock and roll and eventually used it to help erode communism, and alcohol, which can be enjoyed responsibly, never did bring down our nation.
Like Internet gambling we had to be protected from them all and our government spent millions of dollars to do so. Representative Goodlatte has proposed that 40 million tax dollars be spent to wage war against offshore gambling establishments. Considering how much money our government wastes every year, 40 million dollars is not a lot of cash; but when you realize that it might be used to help kids learn to read, to make available healthcare for elderly people on fixed incomes, or to provide much needed state of the art rehabilitation facilities for wounded vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, that 40 million becomes a world of money, and Representative Goodlatte and his reckless spending, rather than Internet gambling sites, start to look like the real threat to the welfare of our nation.
We’ve been down this path before and not that long ago. In March 2003, Antigua and Barbuda, who are World Trade Organization (WTO) members, filed a request to consult with the United States on measures being employed by the American government to hinder the supply of cross-border gambling services. A panel was established and a year later the WTO ruled that a ban by the U.S. on cross-border Internet gambling violated international trade rules.
This year, the day after Representative Goodlatte filed his bill, Antigua issued a protest, noting that the U.S. had done nothing to adhere to the WTO ruling, which ordered the our country to curtail its blocking of cross-border gaming services. The irony of the U.S. action and then its refusal to follow the WTO recommendations is that our country is claiming it is trying to ban cross-border gaming on “moral grounds.” The WTO cross-border trade agreement allows countries to use moral grounds to block services and products. The irony, of course, is that our country allows casinos, offers state supported gambling, and lets people legally wager on horse and dog racing. Taking the high moral ground on Internet gambling while encouraging all sorts of wagering within our own borders is hypocritical, asinine, and transparent.
Over the last two centuries people have been drawn to America because our freedoms offer individuals so much opportunity for success. Highly intelligent men who, for the most part, were deists believing that God had given us the intelligence to make sound, moral decisions, wrote our constitution. These founding fathers also created a representative form of government through which we elected our representatives who were charged with acting in our best interests. During the next few months, U.S. representatives and congressmen will be hearing from their constituents concerning their right to decide whether they’d like to sit at their computer and play a game of Texas Hold ‘em, place a two-way parlay, or take part in an online office pool. Sometimes the guaranteed “pursuit of happiness” found in the Bill of Rights involves the simplest things, but if we let the government take enough of those seemingly insignificant enjoyments away from us our basic rights will be frittered away. And then what will we have?
In Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick, Captain Ahab is obsessed with killing the great white whale. It haunts him day and night; insanely, he is driven by one maniacal thought—he must capture and kill that whale. Ahab’s actions are beyond logic, sanity, and reason.
Representative Goodlatte’s white whale is Internet gambling.
He’s been obsessed with this industry, which for a great
majority of Americans offers a few hours per week of diversion.
If you’re unable to control your desire to bet and gambling
is going to ruin your life, chances are you’ll find a
way to place a wager with or without the net. As far as Representative
Goodlatte is concerned, he needs to find a new hobby and abandon
his present one of attempting to destroy your right to pursue
some innocent happiness.
What You Can Do To Fight For Your Rights!
Here is a link to the last time this came up for a vote on the House floor. Click here to see how your Representative voted:
http://clerk.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.asp?year=2000&rollnumber=404
Remember, everyone has two Senators and one Representative. Contact all three and tell them you vote and you are opposed to HR 4777: The Internet Gambling Prohibition Act and any companion bill that has yet to be brought in the Senate.
How to contact your Senator and Representative:
For your Representative in the House,
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
For your Senator,
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Or call this number and give them your zip code,
(202) 224-3121
We have already contacted our Wisconsin state representative
Paul Ryan, and our 2 state senators Russell Feingold and Herb
Kohl. We urge all readers to pass this message along and take
the 5 minutes to contact your representatives through the links
above. Remember these are your rights at stake!
