Protecting Me From My Online Self

In an effort to help make us better people, our various levels of government are really starting to keep us in check.

No gay marriages - Check
Big taxes on cigarettes - Check
Seatbelt laws - Check

Somebody has to do something to prevent us from harming ourselves, right. We're not capable of doing that on our own.

Now Washington, the state not DC the mecca for all crazy politicians, has decided to do something about online gambling. That stuff sure is addictive and since you don't even have to put on clothes and leave your house, well that's just a little to accessible. Washington State has passed a law:

barring online wagering or using the Internet to transmit "gambling information."

Well, thank you Washington. We wouldn't want the people that can gamble online without causing themselves any problem to be able to participate in that hobby online.

Let's protect the people that can't control their gambling because those people probably aren't going to find another way to gamble if we can just get them offline.

It's not like they could fly to Vegas or go to a horse track or visit their local Bingo hall or head down to the corner Quikee-Mart to buy a lottery ticket.

If you have a problem with people wasting their money gambling, get over it. If the concern is protecting people from bogus websites, the answer isn't to ban innocent people from using legitimate sites. Maybe we should ban credit card and bank websites and online activity because of the number of phishing sites that are popping up.

Spend your time going after the websites that are causing the problem or setting up a list of gambling websites known to do shady business so that people know which ones to stay away from.

Quit taking away my freedoms to protect me from other bad people. And quit taking away my freedoms to protect me from myself.

Full disclosure: I do not gamble online or have any interest in doing so in the future. Likewise, I intend to continue wearing my seatbelt even if the law is removed, I do not plan on smoking, and I do not plan on ever marrying another man (my wife would get mad).

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