The fact that some individuals misuse their liberty — to their own detriment — does not justify curtailing the rest of the citizenry’s liberty, contrary to the Butler Eagle’s May 7 editorial opposing Internet gambling. What the editorial is advocating is a paternalistic state in which individuals’ sovereignty is curtailed by an expansive government that purportedly promotes virtue and prohibits vice — a thorough perversion of the actual function of the government of a republic founded on the principle of individual rights. To find a government more to the liking of the editorial, one need only recall the Vice and Virtue Ministry of Afghanistan under Taliban rule.
