Reply #38: Enrollment in Social Security is mandatory

[wuushew]

there is no libertarian opt out of it. In this case the wisdom of the nanny state seems to have been vindicated.

The tax code is replete with nudges and encouragements to shape personal behavior. Much of it is bad, some of it is good. Are you angered that the government artificially subsidizes the cost of home ownership through the mortgage deduction?

As I said I have no problem with prostitution or recreational drug use. I am not being a hypocrite simply because to make such things illegal carries a higher societal cost then regulating them. To outlaw gambling would drive it underground and lessen it scope. I don't the mafia would be selling lotto tickets at every corner gas station in Amerika.

Organized crime's gains in my mind would more than balanced by the improvement in financial security for millions of Americans. I don't see gambling as the impossible quagmire that prohibition was where the cure is worse than the disease.