For you California voters who must make “the decision of your lives today” and decide how to vote on Props 94-97… the Indian gaming propositions… I have a piece of advice for you:
Forget about it. You’ll never figure them out. (They’re more inscrutable than the Isidorean decretals – and deliberately so.)
And no matter how much money the new onslaught of slot machines across our state engenders, it may never come anywhere near the amount spent for the execrable TV ads that have been polluting our television sets for the last month. I was yearning for the days of Viagra and endless ED prescriptions.
On top of it all, the whole thing depresses me. I have a visceral reaction and it comes down to this: The idea that the Native American community is relying on gambling for such a large percentage of their income is bad for us and ultimately bad for them. Who could feel good about such in thing in the final analysis? But if we’re going to have it – and we have for a long time, so it’s unlikely there’s any going back – the state should make a big percentage on this one… build plenty of roads and schools off that onslaught of slot machines. I’m voting no and sending them back to renegotiate.
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4 Comments
1. BigFire:My proposition voting guide for this cycle of primary election in Los Angeles County (and City of Los Angeles) is simple. No on EVERYTHING.
Feb 5, 2008 - 8:07 am 2. Lem:Just make sure that if you mean to vote NO, it will mean NO to whatever it is you dont want.
In NJ many times NO means YES; they write those things to purposely confuse the voters.
Many people end up not checking the box, thereby voting YES w/o meaning to.
Feb 5, 2008 - 8:17 am 3. rjschwarz:Either they are sovereign or not. If they are soveriegn the California voters shouldn’t have a say and the Department of Indian affairs should be closed down.
If they are not sovereign we should stop pretending.
Feb 5, 2008 - 10:27 am 4. Barry:jschwarz is right.
I will add this…
If they’re sovereign nations, they should be able to do whatever they want, including running casinos and having their own tax structure for goods. They owe nothing to the State of California.
If they’re not, then this is nothing but a state-enforced oligopoly bought and paid for by some of our state’s largest political contributors.
See, I don’t care about gambling. You want to throw your money away, be my guest. There are countless vices on which one can spend; there’s no reason to single out gambling. But I live in San Diego. There are casinos a short drive from my house in almost every direction — only the ocean and the Mexican border act as limits. Why shouldn’t anyone who wants to be able to open one? Anyone who wants to gamble, already can, conveniently and easily. If the Tribes are not truly “sovereign nations” as we’re told, they’re just rent-seeking business entities. What says only they should operate casinos?
Feb 5, 2008 - 2:03 pm