Quote:
Originally Posted by MyTurn2Raise
One, my support comes from confronting the PPA here.
it hurts the cause more than helps it.
it's brilliant to see every skallagrim post have some sort of personal attack in it. Then, he addresses the opposition as consumed with fear or something rather than debating why his group is a bunch of sell-outs. That is just the person to win hearts and minds.
The PPA is an interest group.
Interest groups are destroying the country.
On top of that, the group does not really believe in freedom.
If they had some deep philosophical principal attachment to actual freedom, I might support them. They don't. They care only about online poker, to the exclusion of not only every other type of online gambling, but also every other type of personal freedom.
Then they advance the argument for regulation and taxation, which is a turning of their backs on freedom in the most abhorrent of ways.
See, I support freedom. The PPA does not. They are my enemy. I look at the big picture. I've spent countless hours converting people to Libertarianism and beyond. I've done more for freedom than the PPA has. You win on all issues when you pull people to the side of freedom. We lose on all issues when we let tiny special interests groups argue for their carve outs in ways that do not promote freedom.
I am a small "L" libertarian who votes Libertarian quite often. I voted for Badnarik in '04 and Barr this year (and Paul in the GOP primary). That being said, the PPA is not the Libertarian Alliance. It's the Poker Players Alliance. There's a reason it's called one and not the other. It's because the PPA represents poker players, not a political philosophy.
It also means we must optimize our results. It's not enough for the PPA to stick to some unobtainable principle of purity we never claimed to hold (it's no sell-out...we're doing what we always said we would....read the mission statement), get 0.7% of the Congressional vote, and then pat ourselves on the back as we lose more rights. Rather, we need to fight in the realm of what's achievable. Ask Ron Paul, who's cosponsoring most of the legislation you oppose.
