Gettysburg Casino

[Don Corleone]

Slightly miffed? Initially? Come on, be honest... You'd be pissed (edit: American usage. Tranlation: Knackered as all bloody hell). And you'd have every right to be that way. But you wouldn't need to go lobby and pass a law outlawing alcohol consumption prior to visiting a funeral, would you?

See Jag, there's this little thing called FoxNews.com. And another little thing called the DrudgeReport. We raving lunatic Christian Right over here can do one thing for ourselves, and that's organize, probably better than any labor union ever thought of doing. All it takes is one headline on DrudgeReport, with the development company's email, which I'm desparately trying to get my hands on, and free market forces will do the rest. We don't need laws to tell us what is right or what is decent. I feel sorry for you, because I guess you do.

[JAG]

Don -

I think you overplay the free market forces you state and the strength of your comrades - - morals in terms of the public good.

I would probably only be pissed as my initial reaction because I am a pretty rational, reasoning bloke and when thinking on reflection; my sister has pretty good reasons to feel shitty if her mother has just died. People handle things differently. So you see, I never stated a ban on alcohol before funerals should be in order, merely in this case better reasoning should prevail and my sister shouldn't be able to get her hands on alcohol. An objection stating, 'what constitutes better reasoning, surely your sisters reasoning is best for her', is a fair argument - one which I presume most on the right would hold - but there are replies to that, and the situation does dictate that something should be done for the best interests of all.

The left never goes into wanting changes to the market without thinking things through and realising that it needs to be done with care, merely that something does need to be done. The right unfortunately in most cases, realises that something very well ought to be done, but for a number of reasons do not act and leave the status quo.

There are a number of cases similar to this Gettysburg one which occur due to the market not being socially right or desirable, but because it is seen as to be a 'necessary evil' or because it does not cause enough headlines on Fox News or the Drudge report, it goes without any acknowledgement from your comrades. It is the reason why you need government intervention. Plus most of your fellow comrades don't even care about some of the market failures anyway.

[JAG]

Additionally, if enough locals can convince their city government not to allow zoning for the casino, I dont have a big problem with that. I don't usually mind local decisions being made locally. They're better suited to do so than federal governments, but it's probably not even neccessary.

Thank you, there is hope for you yet! Government intervention! Remember I am a HUGE advocate of a federal, strong local govt system, so the decisions being made at local level are all good to me. However I simply acknowledge that you also need a small yet very active central govt for national issues where the market fails - like the national economy.

In situations like this the best way to improve the market failure and solve the problems caused by the market is government intervention, surely if you see that here you can see it applies to other situations as well?

[Don Corleone]

No need to enshrine any more futility into law. Jag, your notice and appreciation is noted, but I'm sure there's better ways of dealing with the situation.

I would suggest we discover who "Chance Enterprises Incorporated" is. We use the Freedom of Information Act to discover what their other holdings are, then we send a targeted mailing to any member of our target audience: on the RNC mailing list (costs $4k to get it) or any person south of the Mason Dixon line, east of the Missisippi. They may not have a lot of money, but they do have a lot of ink, and a lot of vitrol.

[Gregoshi]

What I don't get is why they think people coming to visit the battlefield, probably with family, are going to want to gamble while they are there. "Wow Johnny. The view from Little Round Top is something, isn't it? Okay, let's go hit the slots!" Yeah, right. The town is rural and almost everything revolves around the battlefield. Almost. There is a Boyds (teddy) Bear outlet near the battlefield and a "little pony" farm/show nearby. When I was a kid, there was also an amusement park too, but that has gone out of business. Maybe this casino will tie in with the Eisenhower Farm which butts right up against the battlefield. If you recall, General Eisenhower took that big gamble on D-Day in WW2.


On a side note, I was at the nearby battle reenactment when the tower came down. The reenactors lined up about a dozen cannons and pointed them at the tower. The top of the tower was just visible as there was a small hill between it and the farm where they were holding the reenactment. Anyway, they did some calculations on the distance to the tower and the velocity of a cannonball to determine how long it would take for it to reach the tower. They monitored the countdown and fired off a cannon volley at the appropriate time prior to demolition so that the imaginary cannon shot would arrive the tower at T minus zero. And the tower went down.