What we've come to

Years ago, when I was a child, reading the back of cereal boxes at the breakfast table, I used to read where the "terrific sweepstakes" was always void in Missouri, etc., etc.

I didn't understand why and for a brief moment, I was mildly disappointed.

I always went back, box after box, to read the same thing.

Years later, I had a somewhat similar experience by visiting other states. We'd fly down the highway and I'd see these big 2- and 3-story signs that said "XXX".

This time, however, I was glad I didn't see them back in my home state.

Honestly.

I thought, because we didn't have those signs and their businesses, we were a bit better people because of it.

Don't get me wrong--I'm no prude. I just thought we didn't need those signs and businesses in our state. I thought it was better without them.

So here we are, all these years later.

We have gambling in Missouri. Big time.

We've got our casinos. We've got our lotteries. We've got lotteries out the proverbial wazoo.

And you know what?

We're not the better for it.

I have a friend whose Father gambled away all of what little he had because we have casinos now. He even lost the family home. And this guy is long past retirement age, I can tell you.

Everything he had--gone.

And those "XXX" signs?

Oh, yeah, we got 'em.

Fly down I-70 and there they are.

We're now no better than Texas. Or any other states with those things.

At one time, we had sense, as a people, of some idea of what was good for us.

And what wasn't.

It's the same way now.

I'm reminded of this today because of a story from the Associated Press, in the Kansas City Star. (http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20081227/4955b650_3ca6_1552620081227-1760989258)

It tells of the bad situation many states are in today with their budgets so they're thinking of everything they can sell off, to cover their deficits.

Sure, some of the assets I can see selling off, like premier golf courses and things like that, including lotteries.

But highways? Tollways? Airports?

If we sell off some infrastructure like that, whatever corporation buys them "has us", if you know what I mean.

They can do, for the most part, whatever they wish with those assets, and so, with us.

We're so impoverished, at least financially--if not morally (and I don't mean to get all pious here, anytime, let alone now)--that we'll do anything to cover our debts.

We should be better than all of this.

We should have stayed better than all of this all along.

History should have and could have taught us to know better.