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Gambling is a vice. Government should not be in the vice business and state lotteries offer a glaring example of government involvement in gambling as a predatory activity promoted as civic charity.
That most lottery tickets are purchased by the poor ridicules the concept of public good. That less than a third of the money spent on tickets actually goes to education mocks the notion of public service. That one is ten-times more likely to die in a wreck traveling to buy a ticket than actually winning the lottery derails the idea of public welfare. There are solid reasons lotteries are called a tax on the stupid.
WNC’s Cherokee reservation is another recipient of government benevolence through this selectively licensed vice.
Reservations are segregation experiments promoted as cultural preservation programs. In the convoluted reasoning typical to politicians, bureaucrats, and the self-serving, it’s no small curiosity that segregation is viewed as bad for black Americans and good for native Americans. A cursory review of the social sciences reveals assimilation as the path to uplifting any American.
The blessings of reservation living are poorly demonstrated in statistics. Half of the Cherokee population is obese and one in four has diabetes. American Indians struggle with the highest drug and alcohol abuse rates of all ethnic groups and on some reservations the teen suicide rate is 10 times the national average. Adding gambling to that mix and claiming the moral high ground is what farmer’s call turning chicken manure into chicken salad.
Harrah’s casino pays tribal members around four thousand dollars twice a year. That money buys loyalty and a monopoly, not a healthy future. A quick look behind the glitz of Las Vegas affirms the eventual impact of ill gotten gains for any community attempting to build something good on something bad.
Casinos provide the same kind of economic stimulation as hospitals. Though both employ lots of people, both are ultimately resource consumers. America is in the middle of a major lesson in how productivity, not consumption, is the only reliable foundation for prosperity.
Gambling as a government enterprise is more about empowering politicians and special interests than the best interests of the governed. Government’s latest act of benevolence in supporting live dealers in Cherokee will not take their people to a better place. It will simply insure there are now suckers on both sides of the table.
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