[so put on your best, boys, and i'll wear my pearls]
Today, on NPR's Morning Edition, I heard this fifty-second clip about New York's new online gambling laws. Namely, the fact that online gambling is no longer illegal - because "a senator slipped the measure into a budget bill earlier this year," and New York became the only state to legalize online gambling without even realizing it was happening. This is worth a listen, if only because Steve Inskeep was trying really, really hard to make it sound like he wasn't reading it off something and almost made it. ("People can now play Texas Hold 'Em! ....and Blackjack! ....on the Internet!")
All sad NPR attempts at joking aside, this bothers me. This bothers me a lot. Not because online gambling is now legal in New York, but because of how it got legal. Because someone sneaked it into an unrelated bill. It bothers the shit out of me that that's not a problem.
I don't know why this is the instance that set me off. I mean, slipping unrelated shit into bills is so common a thing, it was a vocabulary term in my high school American Government class. But it pisses me right the fuck off that it is! That this is okay! "Oh, yes, quite often our politicians make things legal by purposefully avoiding bringing them into our lawmaking system. In fact, if you really want to get something done in American politics, probably better not to do it the way it's supposed to be done."
It's a stupid law and I don't really give a fuck about online gambling. But it was a strange disconnect, listening to this short clip intended to bring a little bit of humor into the morning business report and being angry. Damn it, this shouldn't be funny! This shouldn't be the reaction! It shouldn't be, "Ohohoho, those wacky politicians, look at this particularly silly thing they did without us even knowing!" like it's some practical joke of Washington's, a friendly nudge in the ribs from our policymakers. It shouldn't be funny that laws affecting a whole state, even in this small way, can pass behind the backs of the 100% of Americans who don't have time to read 5,000 pages of a bill to make sure that everything in it is relevant. I know the mandate of the people is not technically a thing. I know that, according to political theory, my feeling betrayed demonstrates only a fundamental misunderstanding of the system on my part. But damn it, I do feel betrayed.
It's so hard to find a legitimate way to criticize this, to say "something else should have happened, our government definitely needs more silly minutiae to deal with, right?" But really I'm just as angry with NPR for their treatment of it. At all the media, really. I'm not usually angry at NPR, and I suppose I'm just taking out my frustrations with a corrupt system on them, but this has had my panties in knots all day and I wish they'd at least sounded a little less cavalier about it. I wish this were a problem for people.
I'm never going to make a politician. I can't even really figure out why the fuck I want to be a lawyer, when this is what I will be doing, day in, day out. I know that. I'm not that much of an idealist, that I don't have some tiny inkling of what working in American law at any level entails. But, well-- something in me still clings to this hope that I won't be part of the problem. That the best thing I can do about these things that make me angry is to surround myself with them, let them pile up around me so I can... can strike them down, can create a tiny corner of the system where injustice doesn't clutter all the shelves and a few people, at least, can breathe easy, can trust something in all the words that the government uses to give people's actions meaning.
I will probably end up bitter and jaded, but things like that minute-long news clip make me think that even that would be worth it, to fix something.
--
This is a country song loosely based on Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott." (The song is better than the video.) I'm not sure why I like it so much. I think because I heard it on the radio, and it's so rare that a song like this is on the radio - one sung by... well, by actual singers and not a synthesizer trying its damnedest (not that that's not a good thing occasionally!), and one dealing with so sensitive a topic as death but not in the "dance until we die" or the "let's bang right now because the club might burn down" sense, and one so good for singing along to. And I like the lyrics. Hokey in places, as any good country song must be; but I like it. I like it a lot.
Lord, make me a rainbow
I'll shine down on my mother
She'll know I'm safe with you
When she stands under my colors
All sad NPR attempts at joking aside, this bothers me. This bothers me a lot. Not because online gambling is now legal in New York, but because of how it got legal. Because someone sneaked it into an unrelated bill. It bothers the shit out of me that that's not a problem.
I don't know why this is the instance that set me off. I mean, slipping unrelated shit into bills is so common a thing, it was a vocabulary term in my high school American Government class. But it pisses me right the fuck off that it is! That this is okay! "Oh, yes, quite often our politicians make things legal by purposefully avoiding bringing them into our lawmaking system. In fact, if you really want to get something done in American politics, probably better not to do it the way it's supposed to be done."
It's a stupid law and I don't really give a fuck about online gambling. But it was a strange disconnect, listening to this short clip intended to bring a little bit of humor into the morning business report and being angry. Damn it, this shouldn't be funny! This shouldn't be the reaction! It shouldn't be, "Ohohoho, those wacky politicians, look at this particularly silly thing they did without us even knowing!" like it's some practical joke of Washington's, a friendly nudge in the ribs from our policymakers. It shouldn't be funny that laws affecting a whole state, even in this small way, can pass behind the backs of the 100% of Americans who don't have time to read 5,000 pages of a bill to make sure that everything in it is relevant. I know the mandate of the people is not technically a thing. I know that, according to political theory, my feeling betrayed demonstrates only a fundamental misunderstanding of the system on my part. But damn it, I do feel betrayed.
It's so hard to find a legitimate way to criticize this, to say "something else should have happened, our government definitely needs more silly minutiae to deal with, right?" But really I'm just as angry with NPR for their treatment of it. At all the media, really. I'm not usually angry at NPR, and I suppose I'm just taking out my frustrations with a corrupt system on them, but this has had my panties in knots all day and I wish they'd at least sounded a little less cavalier about it. I wish this were a problem for people.
I'm never going to make a politician. I can't even really figure out why the fuck I want to be a lawyer, when this is what I will be doing, day in, day out. I know that. I'm not that much of an idealist, that I don't have some tiny inkling of what working in American law at any level entails. But, well-- something in me still clings to this hope that I won't be part of the problem. That the best thing I can do about these things that make me angry is to surround myself with them, let them pile up around me so I can... can strike them down, can create a tiny corner of the system where injustice doesn't clutter all the shelves and a few people, at least, can breathe easy, can trust something in all the words that the government uses to give people's actions meaning.
I will probably end up bitter and jaded, but things like that minute-long news clip make me think that even that would be worth it, to fix something.
--
This is a country song loosely based on Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott." (The song is better than the video.) I'm not sure why I like it so much. I think because I heard it on the radio, and it's so rare that a song like this is on the radio - one sung by... well, by actual singers and not a synthesizer trying its damnedest (not that that's not a good thing occasionally!), and one dealing with so sensitive a topic as death but not in the "dance until we die" or the "let's bang right now because the club might burn down" sense, and one so good for singing along to. And I like the lyrics. Hokey in places, as any good country song must be; but I like it. I like it a lot.
Lord, make me a rainbow
I'll shine down on my mother
She'll know I'm safe with you
When she stands under my colors