FUCKERS!

[Darunia]

But wait... wouldn't this make Darunia more of a progressive than a conservative?

I'm a conservative with many things. I'm FIERCELY anti-abortion, pro-personal-freedom, pro-small-government, anti-illegal-immigrant, to name a few.

My hometown is as we speak in jeopardy of becoming the first state in Massachusetts of having a casino thanks to underhanded Indians from Cape Cod throwing their financial weight around where it doesn't belong.

it's just a tax on poor and stupid people, essentially, who can't help it but waste what little money they have on things that won't get them anything. It's cruel...

That is EXACTLY how I feel! I've very often described it as a tax on poor people. And Weltall, your examples of veterans blowing hundreds of dollars on tickets doesn't support your stance at all. I have worked the counter in small town grocery stores... I have seen this first hand. I'll never forget this middle-aged woman... she had a definitive air of proletariat all about it... she looked tired, haggard, over-worked, frumpy... I knew she had a small, dumpy house down the road with several children because my sister was for a time friends with her daughter. I've seen their house, and it's not somewhere you want to be. I believe her mother worked cleaning dorm rooms and doing menial chores for spoiled rich brats at a private school down in Marion. Anyway, she'd come in there most nights, all haggard, puffing on cigarettes, and blow half her paycheck on lottery tickets. I'm sure she won some sometimes, but on the whole, chain addicts surely lose money on it. Even if she wins a million dollars (statistically nigh impossible) the government takes a huge chunk of it. The fact of the matter is that the lottery is wrong because it is, indeed, a tax on the poor. You don't see rich people playing it (normally). It's not a "game" as they describe it... the state, THE STATE OF ALL CHARITABLE, REPONSIBLE AND LOVING AUTHORITIES uses bright, shiny, colorful advertising and designs to trick simple people who dream of a better life, who dream of wealth and happiness, into "playing" these "games". They're not games. It's evil. It's a tax on the american dream. It should be illegal---at the very LEAST the US fucking government should NOT be the one manipulating it for profit. For every ticket they sell, you know they're profiting... its designed for profit. They calculate the amount of money that will go out, and the operate at a profit margin like any other corporation. And, of course, every store that sells tickets gets a healthy slice of the pie, too.