It just struck me what’s been bugging me about the whole casino thing.

Town’s having a huge budget crisis, right?  Programs gutted, jobs killed, etc...we all know the story.  If you aren’t here, you no doubt live somewhere where it’s been threatened or has happened.

Into this crisis walks a party who wants to give the town a massive amount of money.  Only problem is, it comes from gambling. 

So this horribly broke little town is spending something like 125,000 bucks to have a massive town meeting so people can weigh in, because there’s enough opposition or the appearance thereof or opposition by the right people--I’m not really sure, frankly, and it doesn’t matter too much, really--to trigger that sort of thing.  Because gambling is anywhere from straight-out immoral to a lousy influence that threatens what people love about Mayberry Middleboro.

And yet, it can’t possibly be but good for the budget, which is, as we’ve noted, in extremely dire straits.

The thing is, though, that we’ve just been through an attempt at a property tax override.  It failed, yes.  But I have to wonder how much overlap there is between opponents of the casino and the supporters of the override.  I would estimate that it’s substantial.  And this is what struck me as strange: how can it possibly be immoral for people to walk into a gaming facility and willingly spend their money, which is then willingly given to the town, and yet moral for the town to demand money from folks, backed by a credible threat to throw them out of their homes if they don’t comply?

Weird definition of morality, if you ask me.

Posted by on 07/18 at 05:11 PM

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