Break the PROMISE
The goal of the PROMISE scholarship is to create a more educated populace so that industry will be attracted to WV. This isn't what is happening. The problem isn't that West Virginia's children don't get higher education. The problem is that when the do get educated, they move to where the jobs are that require their skills.
The eligibility requirements for the PROMISE scholarship are that the recipient go to school in West Virginia. This is bad. The young adults that have a commitment to living in West Virginia shouldn't be bound by an education that is offered in West Virgina. There are a limited number of colleges and Universities in West Virgina. It is likely that they don't offer the best degrees or even all of the wide spectrum of educational programs that are available in the different fields of study. Though it is true that the vast majority of programs are represented, it is not as likely that all programs are of a high caliber.
In order to fund the PROMISE scholarship, gambling was expanded in West Virginia. The argument went something like this. There already exist a number of illegal gambling machines in West Virginia. We haven't done a good enough job enforcing the gambling laws and they are making large amount of money under the table from these gambling machines that should be taxed. Since gambling brings in a lot of money in states where it is legal, we should expand gambling into areas that it's already being used illegally, and tax it so that we get our cut. Why the government involved itself in the gambling industry in the first place is beyond me. Gambling is not just entertainment. It is addictive. Addiction kills whole families. Destroys lives more fully than a bullet to the brain because it tortures souls for years while they hate their own existence. Many addicts eventually do take there own lives to end the pain. The reason gambling is so wildly profitable is because addicts sell everything they own for their addiction. Let's assume 1% of gamblers are addicts. I think this is a low assumption. That means that one out of 100 people that come into your place of business are now your slaves. All of their possessions and income are now yours. You don't even have to pay rent for your slaves. They find the cheapest way to live so they can pay for But this isn't an evil industry because they didn't have to walk in the first time. I submit that if the door wasn't there, they wouldn't walk in. Certainly governments shouldn't be involved in the destruction of their populace. This is the wrong way to fund this poorly thought out program.
Comments
I have absolutely no problem with them using gambling at all. In fact, i see no reason why gambling was/is illegal in the first place.
Its no different than any other addiction, which is extremely common for a lot of people in this country.
Perhaps we should outlaw coffee, Soda, or any other beverage with caffeine in it. After all, you drink too much and you will die. Might only be 1 or 2%, but that is 1 or 2 out of every 100 people that buys a soda everyday. I drank so much that i was at one point spending $450 a month on soda, gave myself an irregular heart beat, very high blood pressure and 50 pounds. I don't blame anyone but myself, it was NO ONE elses fault ... it was an addiction that i caused and was ultimately my problem to deal with.
My point is that statements like this just irk me to no end. The government doesn't exist to limit what people can or should do, and to use a government in that fashion is wrong (in the moral and ethical sense).
Governments should NEVER pass laws to limit freedoms, they should pass laws that preserve peoples freedoms. (i.e. murder limits anothers freedom, therefore it is illegal. Theft limits the victims freedom, therefore should be illegal. Gay marrage limits no ones freedom, therefore the government has no business even tackling the issue.)
More directly to the topic at hand: Gambling limits no ones freedom, therefore the government has no business limiting it. A parent gambling that rips a family apart does not limit the families freedom or ability to fix the problem, of which there are many, many ways. Fixing families is not the governments problem, it is the families problem.
I agree. Governments should do everything they can to protect the freedom of individuals. I believe that in the case of highly addictive practices the freedom that needs to be preserved is the freedom of the user in the same way that we outlawed slavery. The masters of addiction aren't much different than slave-masters of yester-year. Also in many cases you could chose to sell yourself into slavery. Should that be legal? I don't want to limit your choices here. You can't choose to be my slave because it is illegal for me to be your slave-master. It's not the freedom of the user of addiction that I want to limit. It's the freedom to be a promoter of slavery in any form.