[lbo-talk] Straussian moralist as high rolling gamber

Ian Murray seamus2001 at attbi.com
Sun May 4 20:25:47 PDT 2003


----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Pollak" <mpollak at panix.com>


> I'm not sure I do either. He says it's never been secret and he's
> declared all his winnings and losings to the IRS. He was quoted in 1995
> in the Las Vegas Review-Journal of all places saying, "I've played poker
> all my life and I shouldn't be on my high horse about it." That seems
> pretty straightforward to me.
>
> Just because you're a moralist doesn't mean you think everything is
> immoral. Bennett says he's never considered drinking, smoking or
gambling
> to be sins in themselves. I agree with him, and so presumably does
> everyone on this list. So where's the crime? High stakes poker is
legal
> in modern casino America.
>
> Unless there turns out to be tax fraud or some hidden family suffering
> here, the hypocrisy seems to me to be entirely on our side. It's like
> we're more Catholic than the Pope.
>
> Michael

=======================

WB's vulgar Thomism combined with a "libertarianism for me but not for thee" hypocrisy, is, in a lot of peoples minds, rooted in the manner of his arbitrary and question begging denouncements of people who smoke pot at Phish concerts etc. Rhetorically, there is no crime. The problem is the capriciousness and authoritarianism of the law in sculpting social norms regarding the hedonic aspects of human culture and his cognitive contortions to apologize for and obfuscate them. Maybe his kids will hook up with Ted Koppel's son to learn the arts of hedonic abandon.............

Ian



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