Caught in a Vice

You’re no longer being hassled, which feels uncanny for good reason. Government suddenly acting cool should make everyone wary. They literally have cops. A lax parent who allows cocktail consumption before and after the sock hop only seems awesome. There could certainly never be a catch behind tacit permission to do as you please.

Legalizing vices is the new suspicious hobby of usually strict politicians. Psychologists would deem it ingenious if the elected want to take the fun out of debauchery like parents calling a fad neat. But it’s unlikely most of those holding offices thought how to trick us; after all, look at most of them. Their remarkably simple mentality spurs a clumsy drive to sap joy like it’s your income.

It isn’t enough for an entity whose sole purpose is preventing harm infliction to be your health care provider, education dispenser, and economy runner. Your state is now your drug dealer and bookie. If you think any random governor won’t somehow take the ecstasy out of getting high from drugs or backing the right football team to lose by less than six and a half points, you must be new to how politics intoxicates.

Nothing’s a blast like wondering how much of a percentage your state will take from you for experiencing pleasure. Purportedly hip leaders will be regulating your fun times then of course making sure they get their cut for performing the crucial function of existing. Get government out of and back into our lives.

Scores of games and drugs will now be used to fund the ghastly infringements into the rest of our lives. The same people thrilled a business pays alarmingly high taxes as if contributing to the hive for crummy insurance and pothole-filling is life’s purpose aren’t grasping why humans are suddenly allowed to indulge in revelry. The state’s insatiable urges are far more shameful than dosed brownies or point spreads.

If you’re not paranoid, try more reefer. As usual, government didn’t think this out. Don’t take the bet about your mundane overlords wanting you to feel somewhat free for the first time without asterisks. Elected guardians love you deeply as long as you think unconditional is unreasonable. Pacifying the populace means handing out token concessions to liberty. This particular granting of rights just happens to feature a product known for encouraging docile behavior. It turns out those weren’t delusions after all.

The freedom to engage in something foolish or indulgent doesn’t require a hall pass. We already possess the option. Those who decline should recognize the choice’s inherent value. You have every right to do nothing as dully as possible. Your adult gummy bear will make you an orphan-booting terrorist. It’s just that marijuana is the most boring thing other than its users.

And sports are fun because of the competition, not to foolishly attempt to make a couple bucks off them. I’m sure casinos are opulent because bettors are much better at predicting results. Soulless followers of athletics who either somehow haven’t based their personalities on aligning with a team or even wager against their own clubs are free to not get the true purpose of athletics, namely to align with mercenaries paid fortunes to chase balls so you can be furious if they don’t do so as you wish. Like the Cleveland Browns, everyone possesses the choice to do it wrong.

We’re allowed to choose how we waste our precious free hours and limited funds, especially when your kind government made your job scarce and a loaf of bread costs 73 dollars. You can’t win back some of your increasingly worthless currency at supermarkets offering goods that are costly if they’re even stocked. Thinking the Knicks might finally score 110 offers a chance to win back some of what you voluntarily put up to back your choices. Betting sets a bad example for a government that’s committed to coercion.

Shorten your jazz cigarettes via ignition if you find doing so entertaining. Stay inside with the windows shut and the blinds drawn to ensure respect. Time alone creates a chance to realize the sheer suspiciousness of notoriously intolerant authorities suddenly wanting you to enjoy autonomy. Citizens are granted the option to compensate with distractions for how lousy alleged leaders made everything else and at best getting debit accounts drained for recreation. The state is certainly attempting to cash in on the enjoyment of people living their own lives, which to sickos is government’s purest role.

We at least get the chance to show we don’t care what degenerate behavior freaks enjoy on their own time. Libertarianism’s alleged embodiment naturally comes with enough conditions to ruin any pleasantness. The truly openminded may think wagering is a soulless attempt to cash in on recreation that’s almost as self-indulgent as numbing oneself with intoxicants.

Knock yourself out if you’re into funding your sports book being able to afford ordering Uber Eats every night or pretending your aches and ills are cured by the most recreational of psychoactive substances. To prove how fine I am with it, I don’t want a share of your rare winnings or frequent purchases.

The Man laying off hassling you for vice of choice is naturally never for altruism. Your legal bully is not about to allow people to have the freedom to bet or toke for a cause as simple as letting how much of what they charmingly call revenue is siphoned from earners. Wagerers face a vig that’d make mobsters shake their heads as the state embarrasses drug dealers with preposterous control. Taking the thrill out of it while taking in money makes legalization the perfect scheme. You thought office-filling nannies couldn’t ruin your fun. But government always rises to the challenge. Bet on it.