Issue 6 - Dickensian sentence to parasitism. Vote NO.
I love Joe at Plunderbund. But I oppose Issue 6, strongly, and I will take Joe’s reason’s for supporting Issue 6 one at a time. Before doing so, I need to lay out my fundamental objection.
Issue 6 is another example of the filthy rich attempting to buy a license to print their own money on the backs of the poorest Ohioans. That’s what a casino is. It’s not a business model, it’s not an industry, it is free money based on nothing but the desperation of poor people.
Just walk into a convenience store and see who’s buying lottery tickets, every single day, so obsessively they can’t even wait to get out of the store before scratching the damn thing off. These people are poor. They are desperate. They see a lottery ticket as their only way out. It’s another example of the Dickensian nature of today’s America. And I oppose it to my core.
Now on to Joe’s reasons for supporting Issue 6.
1. The economy sucks and these guys want to invest 600 MILLION DOLLARS into Ohio. You really want to tell them no?
Yes. I want to tell these people that if they want to invest $600 million into Ohio, they can figure out a way to do so without being parasites on the poorest Ohioans. Gambling is a regressive tax on the poor, and those dollars are nothing more than a down payment on making Ohioans even poorer. Build a wind farm, dig for coal, make a high speed rail line, fund an internet startup. If it’s really a $600 million investment in Ohio, then make it an investment, not a Dickensian regressive tax.
2. Ohio is hemorrhaging jobs and this project could bring up to 5,000 new jobs to the state. You want to be the one to tell the 6,000 former-DHL employees in the same county as the proposed casino that they won’t have any other options?
Yes, I want to be the one to tell those people, and their representatives in government, to find other options, and advocate for jobs that are not a Dickensian sentence to a parasitic existence relying on taking money from poor people. These will not be good jobs. They will not be stable jobs. They will be low wage, low skill, low benefit, sweat shop scraps from the table of a developer who walks away with a fortune.
3. The casino people aren’t asking for tax abatements or trying to get the state or city to help with construction costs.
Riiiiiiiiiight. Give them about 45 seconds after the issue passes before they do so. Maybe 15 seconds. These people have spent millions trying to get Ohio’s constitution changed so they can print money. You honestly think they’ll just build the damn thing? They haven’t even begun to lobby.
4. They aren’t trying to trick the voters by pretending this bill will fix Ohio’s fucked up system for funding education. It’s a proposal to build a casino, period.
So? This is relevant how exactly? The trick they are trying to play is that somehow these jobs will be anything other than crap. The trick they are trying to play is that somehow a casino won’t be a massive vacuum cleaner taking money from poor people.
5. The people who are most concerned about the Ohio casino are the Casino owners in Indiana. They are so concerned, in fact, that they are willing to spend $40 million to try to defeat it.
Again, so what? So one guy with his own mint wants to keep another guy from building another mint next door? Cry me a fucking river.
6. Yes, it requires a change to the Ohio Constitution. But that’s the only way to do it. And for anyone who wants to claim it’s a sacred document, blah blah blah - remember: we changed it a few years ago to TAKE AWAY rights from same-sex couples.
The Ohio constitution is, in fact, a farce, which has become nothing more than an ATM for whoever has the most money to manipulate it for their own license to print money for themselves. That does not mean I need to accept it.
7. Ohio’s voters have proven, year after year, they aren’t ready to approve a broader gambling bill that brings gaming to the whole state. This single-casino option seems like a pretty good compromise.
The reason Ohio’s voters don’t want a broader gambling bill is that Ohio’s voters don’t want our state to become a giant black hole in which poor people are consumed by parasites for eternity, like the seventh circle of Dante’s inferno. This isn’t Las Vegas, where there was nothing before gambling. This is Ohio, where desperate people cling to nickels and dimes in their pockets after decades of decay. A single casino is not a compromise, it is just the first step on the road to a state full of them.
8. It also seems like a reasonable test case for gambling in Ohio. Let’s try it out with one casino and see if it works. If it doesn’t, fine. Pro-casino people can admit they were wrong (myself included) and we can close down the one and only failed casino and move on to more important things. But if the casino succeeds, then we just brought some new jobs and much needed tax revenue to the state.
Test case? ROFL!!! You think a license to print money is going to just disappear because “it doesn’t work”? Dude, it prints free money! You can’t break it! It’s not a business, it’s a mint.
9. Unlike the previous proposals, this one will actually create a real casino with table games. It’s not just about adding lame slot machines to racetracks.
So we can take money from poor people in a more sophisticated, glamorous fashion? Ahoy!
10. I like to play poker and I don’t want to drive 3 hours to Indiana to do it.
NOW, we get to the truth. Look Joe, if you want to play poker that bad, a 3 hour drive to Indiana is the least you could do to keep a bunch of sick parasites attaching themselves to every poor person in Ohio and taking every last nickel they can. Gas prices are down, you can afford it. Suck it up, mojahmbo.