The PPA's position on "poker rights".

[Didace]

Originally Posted by halff

How does it work

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

.

[LirvA]

Originally Posted by PokerXanadu

Incorrect. In the U.S. we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as defined by our constitutions, state and federal. This is limited only by what our governmental representatives choose to take away from us through legislation and by what our court system rules is forbidden under these laws.

There is no U.S. federal law which forbids playing online poker. There are very few state laws that address it directly - in most states it is either still a grey area or not addressed.

What you describe is a totalitarian or dictatorial government: your only freedoms are the "privileges" granted by the government.

Unfortunately, our American freedoms are eroded over time, as in the examples you give (the Patriots Act and the National Defense Authorization Act). But that's a whole other topic, not Poker Legislation.

Originally Posted by PokerXanadu

What obvious is that you don't understand our form of government. Those "things" are what our Founding Fathers reaffirmed belong to us as natural rights, and our constitutions define the basis of lawful limitations on those things for the good of the individual and community.


LOL. Everything can be taken away, so by your logic rights don't exist. If that is what your point is, then you are simply redefining "rights" to fit your view of things. Rights can taken away in one form or another all the time, all around the world. That doesn't mean they don't exist or aren't protected in other places and times.


I think you missed my point: When a govt says that you have no rights and your only freedom is what the govt grants you as a privilege, then that govt is totalitarian. Non-totalitarian govts still govern you, but not all aspects.


Ah, so you do agree after all that something can be a right even though it can be taken away. Hopefully the door will never be shut on our right to play online poker, as a pursuit of happiness.

I strongly disagree with you. Rights cannot be taken away. They can be infringed on and violated, but no one can take away our rights. If a government passes a law violating our rights, it would not cease to be one of our rights, it would be one of our rights that is being infringed on.


I do strongly agree with you though on the concept of natural rights. I hope you are a believer in the non aggression principle as well though.

So you believe that individuals have a right to play online poker as they have a right to pursue happiness, do you also believe individuals have a right to start a poker room then? Do you believe individuals have a right to play casino games? A right to bet on sports? I very much do.

[halff]

Originally Posted by Didace

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

What are you getting at? That we get our rights from the Constitution? Consider the Patriot Act, National Defense Authorization Act, the history of slavery in this country, the Japanese(two thirds of which were American citizens) that were committed to internment camps during World War 2, victims of McCarthyism, victims of Jim Crow Laws, and so on. Where was the constitution when all of these things took place? Where were these rights?

If I misunderstood your ambiguity from quoting the first part of the Constitution let me know.

[LirvA]

We don't get our rights from the constitution. A piece of paper cannot give you a right. It can infringe upon one, but cannot give. We are born with our rights.

[PokerXanadu]

Originally Posted by LirvA

I strongly disagree with you. Rights cannot be taken away. They can be infringed on and violated, but no one can take away our rights. If a government passes a law violating our rights, it would not cease to be one of our rights, it would be one of our rights that is being infringed on.

We are in agreement, just using different semantics.

I do strongly agree with you though on the concept of natural rights. I hope you are a believer in the non aggression principle as well though.

To a large extent, yes.

So you believe that individuals have a right to play online poker as they have a right to pursue happiness, do you also believe individuals have a right to start a poker room then? Do you believe individuals have a right to play casino games? A right to bet on sports? I very much do.

Yes, yes and yes, although I don't oppose government regulation to provide protections for consumers, including for underage and problem gamblers.

[LirvA]

What about licensing?

Have to get a license from the government to play online poker

Have to get a license from the government to open online poker room

[Didace]

Originally Posted by halff

What are you getting at? That we get our rights from the Constitution?

Earlier you said we get our rights from the government.

From the Declaration of Independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

LirvA is far more libertarian than I am, but he has this is exactly right.

Originally Posted by LirvA

We don't get our rights from the constitution. A piece of paper cannot give you a right. It can infringe upon one, but cannot give. We are born with our rights.

Any rights the government has "taken away" - including those things you mentioned earlier - only happened because the People allowed it.

[TeflonDawg]

Or didn't know about it.

[JPFisher55]

We had the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Supposedly these rights were inalienable and derived from God.

But slowly since the late 19th century, we lost this right by electing politicians who slowly took them from us. Now after the ObamaCare case, we have only those rights that the US Congress grants us or does not take away. According to the DOJ, they took away our right to play online poker at foreign based sites. The US courts no longer protect our rights from the federal government unless they feel like it such as most free speech rights.

Of course, this makes "rights" really privileges granted by government elected by a majority of citizens. So now we live in a country ruled by a tyranny of the majority easily manipulated by the ruling elite. It makes me sad.

[halff]

Originally Posted by Didace

Any rights the government has "taken away" - including those things you mentioned earlier - only happened because the People allowed it.

So, basically the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution only mean anything when the majority of people and the government want it to. So, that makes them worth much much less. They do not give you rights they give you the illusion of rights.

I agree JPFisher, you said it pretty well.

[LirvA]

Originally Posted by JPFisher55

We had the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Supposedly these rights were inalienable and derived from God.

But slowly since the late 19th century, we lost this right by electing politicians who slowly took them from us. Now after the ObamaCare case, we have only those rights that the US Congress grants us or does not take away. According to the DOJ, they took away our right to play online poker at foreign based sites. The US courts no longer protect our rights from the federal government unless they feel like it such as most free speech rights.

Of course, this makes "rights" really privileges granted by government elected by a majority of citizens. So now we live in a country ruled by a tyranny of the majority easily manipulated by the ruling elite. It makes me sad.

If what we had were really privileges and not rights, it wouldn't be tyranny.

[lawdude]

Originally Posted by LirvA

I've seen it stated by PPA members that we have a right to play poker, and this forum actually states that. I'd like to ask some questions regarding the PPA's stance on individual's rights to play online poker.

Why does the PPA believe individuals have a right to play online poker?

I am not a fan of the rights talk. For one thing, it encourages the more libertarian types around here to seriously underestimate the extent to which various forms of gaming are actually effectively illegal. The reality is that based on the arc of American legal history in this area, it can safely be concluded that you only have the right to play in those intrastate games that your state permits, and those interstate and international games that your state and the federal government permits, and the term "permits" in those sentences refers to both actual statutory and constitutional law, including licensing schemes, whether or not it directly regulates the player, AND the enforcement decisions of relevant law enforcement officials, at least to the extent that they are not challenged and overturned in court.

Having said that, the point really isn't that there's some sort of individual rights violation or government tyranny but rather that the nature of online poker is such that a regulated, taxed form of it should be made available to US players in the same way that other regulated forms of gaming are made available to them, and that the government's failure to do this been a public policy failure, depriving Americans of an enjoyable activity and the government of tax revenue, while also allowing the field to be occupied by unregulated businesses rife with cheating, tax evasion, and underage play. It's a very similar argument to the successful argument against alcohol prohibition, which didn't rely on any "right" to get drunk.

The PPA, of course, doesn't always frame the arguments the way I think it should. I think there are understandable reasons for this (such as its need in the past to serve a player pool that wanted the pre-BF status quo preserved) and less understandable ones (such as its hiring of some personnel whose philosophical views are not in step with those of the American politicians who will need to act to pass a poker bill).

But the PPA is still doing very important work. They are, indeed, working for a poker bill, they have been doing it for a long time, and they have made progress on the issue and have kept the pressure on. I think that's a lot more important than whether I think all their arguments are convincing.

[Skallagrim]

If I am reading things correctly, I suck up to government power way too much for LirvA, but I don't suck up to government power near enough for l-dude.

I am going to take that as further evidence that I have things figured out just about correct!



Skallagrim

[LirvA]

Originally Posted by lawdude

Having said that, the point really isn't that there's some sort of individual rights violation or government tyranny but rather that the nature of online poker is such that a regulated, taxed form of it should be made available to US players in the same way that other regulated forms of gaming are made available to them, and that the government's failure to do this been a public policy failure, depriving Americans of an enjoyable activity and the government of tax revenue, while also allowing the field to be occupied by unregulated businesses rife with cheating, tax evasion, and underage play. It's a very similar argument to the successful argument against alcohol prohibition, which didn't rely on any "right" to get drunk.

I completely disagree.

The premise is that the PPA is fighting for our rights to play poker, but there are some problems with that premise and the PPA's actions.

First of all, if we have a right to play poker, it is because we have a right to do what we wish with our own money, so long as we don't infringe on the rights of others. This also means though that we have a right to play online slots, roulette, bet sports, etc. It also means that the government prohibiting those forms of gambling is infringing on our rights, and likewise with online poker, if the government prohibits us from playing on certain sites, and prohibits certain sites from serving us, it is infringing on our rights and the poker site operators'. Furthermore, licensing is an infringement on our rights. Licensing treats our rights as a privilege.

If the PPA is fighting for poker rights, it's doing it very very wrong, because not only is it inviting infringement on our poker rights, but it's also throwing our other rights under the bus.

[PokerXanadu]

Originally Posted by LirvA

I completely disagree.

The premise is that the PPA is fighting for our rights to play poker, but there are some problems with that premise and the PPA's actions.

First of all, if we have a right to play poker, it is because we have a right to do what we wish with our own money, so long as we don't infringe on the rights of others. This also means though that we have a right to play online slots, roulette, bet sports, etc. It also means that the government prohibiting those forms of gambling is infringing on our rights, and likewise with online poker, if the government prohibits us from playing on certain sites, and prohibits certain sites from serving us, it is infringing on our rights and the poker site operators'. Furthermore, licensing is an infringement on our rights. Licensing treats our rights as a privilege.

If the PPA is fighting for poker rights, it's doing it very very wrong, because not only is it inviting infringement on our poker rights, but it's also throwing our other rights under the bus.

First part is fine, but then you go off into agenda-land.

Licensing is not necessarily an infringement on rights. Government regulation can serve a purpose in consumer protections and deterring crime. If we had an ideal society where every individual were honest and acted for the greater good, we wouldn't need government regulation. But that's not the case, so we have to opt for laws and regulations for the greater good.

As far as the PPA "throwing our other rights under the bus", the PPA is not doing that. The PPA is simply following its mission to get laws which are good for poker players. If legislators want to ban all internet gambling and the PPA gets a carve-out for poker in the proposed legislation, it doesn't mean that the PPA stands for a ban on all non-poker internet gambling. And actually, any such carve-out in the law opens the door later for other carve-outs by other groups who wish to stand up for their rights.

You don't win a war all at once. Win the battles that you can and eventually, given effective strategy, you win the war. It's silly to say that the only battle you should fight is one big battle for everything all at the same time. Ever play an "all-in or fold" tournament? It's bingo, not poker.