BS: a complex moral issue

Subject: BS: a complex moral issue
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 07 Aug 12 - 02:59 PM

Last night I watched a dispatches programme (channel 4 UK), or half of it about the rise of betting shop, particularly in deprived areas.

So the complex issue - a family is living on benefits. One of the parents 'blows' there benefits in a betting shop. As a result the money that should be used to feed the children is 'spent'.

The problem is should children in a family suffer because of the behaviour of one or more parent? And, what gives 'society' the right to punish children?

The complex question is where is the borderline? It is hard to coherently word the sides of the arguement.

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 07 Aug 12 - 03:12 PM

As you say, a complex problem. But I don't quite understand your question '..what gives society the right to punish children?' The children are surely suffering because of their parents' irresponsibility. Society is actually punishing no-one.. Are you concerned about the increase in betting establishments, the misuse of benefits or the fecklessnes of some parents? The only way (as I see it) to prevent misuse of benefits is to issue only food and clothing vouchers and a small sum of cash. But this is demeaning and undignified. Also, some claimants would merely sell the food vouchers and carry on betting! To me, the growth of the gambling industry is a sign of the times. People are short of money and misguidedly see betting as a possible way out. I agree that there are suddenly dozens of such places, online and in the high street. But they only survive because people want to use them, and this is a free country.

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Aug 12 - 03:22 PM

In Alaska we don't have betting shops as such or even a lottery but we have something called 'pull tabs'. I don't know what the highest possible payout is but there is a preponderance of poor people frequenting them. I don't doubt that on occasion a parent blows the grocery money.

Kids, however, need not go hungry, as long as false pride doesn't get in the way. A lot of churches here donate food baskets and we have a couple of soup kitchens that provide three meals a day. They encourage people from the 'outside' to participate, if only to signify their respect for humanity.

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Aug 12 - 03:24 PM

Everthing we have survives because people want to use it...

guns
gambling dens
war
snowmobiles
money
monster trucks
Coca Cola
etc.

Various people want to make use of all these things, therefore we see these things happening around us.

The question is, should a government encourage something like the gambling industry? I don't know what's happening in the UK, but in North America the local and regional governments are making a lot of money now in connection with lotteries and gambling, moreso than in the past...therefore there is, I think, a conflict of interest there, and one that does present a serious moral problem.

As do our undeclared wars....but that's another issue.

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 07 Aug 12 - 03:25 PM

I think not so complex, not a moral issue. Eliza is right. Society is punishing no one. But perhaps is a parent have history of blowing the money on an addiction, the benefits should be in the form of vouchers for rent and food. They would have forfeited their claim to "dignity."

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: BrendanB
Date: 07 Aug 12 - 04:06 PM

The original post seems to suggest that parents do not have a responsibility for their children, the state does. That is a viewpoint to which I cannot subscribe. While I agree that the morality of siting betting shops in poorer areas is questionable their presence does not excuse a parent for misusing limited funds. I feel that there are too many people who look for excuses for their own selfish behaviour. We all have to accept responsibility for our actions rather than blame the greed or immorality of others.

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: GUEST,999
Date: 07 Aug 12 - 04:15 PM

"One of the parents 'blows' there benefits in a betting shop. As a result the money that should be used to feed the children is 'spent'."

I think the parent has a complex moral issue. If as a result the children go hungry, then it's the state's responsibility to step in on behalf of the children.

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: akenaton
Date: 07 Aug 12 - 04:54 PM

The issue is the proliferation of casinos, betting shops, and most insidious of all....internet gambling.

These establishments are allowed to proliferate in the same way as cigarettes are allowed to be manufactured.....to provide tax revenue.


In the UK gambling is big business, run by a cartel of about half a dozen gambling firms.....I have seen gambling addiction at close quarters and it is at least as damaging as drugs or drink.

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: Rapparee
Date: 07 Aug 12 - 10:23 PM

There is an Indian casino about 15 miles north of me. I don't frequent it, nor do I play the State lottery, because I know too much math AND I realize that no form of gambling is in the business to lose money.

Nor do I find "dignity" in someone blowing all their money on lottery tickets, bingo, racing, roulette, chemin-de-fer, keno, chuck-a-luck, faro, poker, blackjack, golf, football, slot machines, pitching pennies, or any other form of gambling. If you get your kicks that way, fine and well -- but if you are addicted to it and blowing all of your money on it then it's past time for an "intervention." Such would happen if you blew all of your money on booze ("Father dear father come home with me now...") and it should happen for gambling. If you want to play the slots or something AFTER the needs of the family are taken care of, fine. But people have to take responsibility for their families before entertainment.

This is not a moral or ethical issue (except insofar as the person gambling away the money is concerned) but a societal one. Unfortunately, society doesn't seem to give an unhealthy shit.

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Aug 12 - 11:22 PM

There's a good reason why they set up shop in the poorest parts of town- if it weren't for the patronage of the poor they would go broke.

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Aug 12 - 11:41 PM

Yes, they take advantage of the most vulnerable people in society. I consider the gambling industry to be a form of organized crime...not in the legal sense, mind you...it's legal...but in the moral sense. Society doesn't "give a shit", as Bruce says, for one simple reason: money trumps all other considerations.

I find it particularly sad that the North American Indians (Native Americans) have been drawn so deeply into running casinos. They were traditionally a people who managed quite nicely for thousands of years without using money, and I think their forefathers would be ashamed to see how they have sold their souls to cash in on the material addictions recently acquired from the European civilizations who conquered them and took their land.

What would Crazy Horse have thought about a casino? I think he'd probably have seen it as a den of vice and a form of insanity, and he'd have been right on both counts.

But...in the land of the insane, a sane man is thought to be a madman.

I've been in casinos a couple of times...took a look to see what was going on there. They make my flesh crawl. They're like a glimpse of Bedlam as far as I'm concerned...and Bedlam is an expression for one version of Hell.

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 08 Aug 12 - 05:16 AM

Just after the war, my parents were very very short of money (many folk were). We lived extremely frugally and had to 'make do and mend'. My dad worked all hours for not much pay. There were betting shops in those days, and greyhound racetracks and pubs, but neither my dad nor my mum ever patronised these establishments. My sister and I ate simply but were well-nourished. This was true for nearly everyone we knew. Now my question is, why are people nowadays unable to do as my parents did? Is it because they need to have all the best of everything as depicted on TV? Are they feckless, irresponsible and selfish, or am I judging them too harshly?

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Aug 12 - 05:36 AM

I think you and your acquaintance were fortunate in the integrity of your parents, Eliza; and that not all [or even that many] benefit recipients typically gamble away the money intended for their children's nourishment today. Unhappily, there will probably always be an incorrigible minority who will misuse. They were there, I suspect in your youth, just as they are now.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 08 Aug 12 - 05:46 AM

A very balanced view, Michael. You must be right of course, there were indeed feckless folk then, or the betting shops etc would have gone out of business. Also, generalisations about people on benefits are always odious. I do feel though, that nowadays not so many folk know how to 'make do and mend'. For example, cooking skills using plain and cheap ingredients are not so prevalent. And few women today can knit, dressmake or mend clothes as we used to do. But the benefits themselves are pitifully inadequate. And advertising etc tempts the poor to aspirations way beyond their means.

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 08 Aug 12 - 05:52 AM

Agree MtheGM

Those I know with families on benefits don't gamble or drink away their children's nourishment either.

I would also agree that such addictions have afflicted the poor (and rich too of course - though unlike their poor equivalents, rich alcohol, drug and gambling addicts are rarely referred to as "feckless") during all periods of modern history.

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Aug 12 - 05:59 AM

Depends how you define "rich", CS. Someone close to me has been left in a state of considerable discomfort, even penury, by the gambling addiction of her late, middle-to-upper-middle-class [a solicitor with a good conveyancing practice], husband. I call him 'feckless' ~ & a good many other epithets too, in my secret thoughts.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Aug 12 - 04:22 PM

I can't see any social benefit from making gambling easier than it used to be.

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: akenaton
Date: 08 Aug 12 - 04:42 PM

Tony Blair and his gang accomodated the gambling "industry" for all they were worth.
Gambling on line with credit cards is the real menace, as it is almost impossible to regulate.

As LH says it is another symptom of the new god......money.

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Aug 12 - 06:48 PM

Nothing new- check Hogarth's "Gin Lane"

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 09 Aug 12 - 11:27 AM

What I cannot understand is the complete idiocy of those who believe that they get anything like honest odds when gambling online.

Virtual machines can be programmed to do absolutely anything the programmer, or rather the guy who pays him, requires.

Gambling with live people is daft enough, but putting money into a machine in the belief that your cards are not seen by the opponent (the house) is the acme of stupidity.

I'll start gambling when I start to see bookmakers on the dole.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 09 Aug 12 - 02:20 PM

"What I cannot understand is the complete idiocy of those who believe that they get anything like honest odds when gambling online"

That is, of course, unless you've got a sure fire system like mine! All you need is an old-fashioned penny, a magpie and a piece of string. Hasn't failed me yet ... well, it won't fail me one day!

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: redhorse
Date: 10 Aug 12 - 12:33 PM

If there were betting establishments in the vicinity of Eliza's parents, it suggests that her experience may not have been typical. There are only betting shops where there are people making bets.

Subject: RE: BS: a complex moral issue
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 10 Aug 12 - 01:34 PM

A good point, redhorse. In those days I daresay the betting shops and the pubs did enough business. But the people who lived in our street, whose children I played with, would not have indulged. They were, like my parents, hard-working and 'respectable' even though money was tight. They went to bed very early, took a pride in the cleanliness of their homes and could make lovely meals from basic cheap ingredients. Your post has made me wonder who in fact did go in these establishments, as none of our 'lot' ever did!