Governor Steve Beshear violates the privacy of my home

This is a letter I submitted on 12-8-08 to the Madisonville Messenger in reference to the blocking of gambling websites in Kentucky. As of 12-17-08 they have not printed it.

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"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against everyform of tyranny over the mind of man." --Thomas Jefferson

Just like the fictional character, Howard Beale, in the 1976 movie Network, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” I am outraged. Why? I’ll tell you why. I sat down at MY computer the other night, in the privacy of MY own home to play some online poker, a little Texas holdem to be exact. I had received an email about a special promotion and I wanted to check it out. This is the message I received when I attempted to access that website:

Thanks for visiting AbsolutePoker.com.Unfortunately, this website can no longer be accessed from within the state boundaries of Kentucky.If you are not trying to access this site from within Kentucky, or if you feel you have received this message in error, please contact support@absolutepoker.com.

What? So I went to the other website that was running a similar promotion and this is what I saw:

Thanks for visiting UltimateBet.com.Unfortunately, this website can no longer be accessed from within the state boundaries of Kentucky.If you are not trying to access this site from within Kentucky, or if you feel you have received this message in error, please contact support@ultimatebet.com

Alright, this is completely nuts. I knew the governor wanted control of 140 plus domain names so he could keep the money in Kentucky. Yes, that’s his argument. In fact I wrote a letter to the editor about it back in October, but I had hoped that that lunacy would not become reality. Well guess what? Little Stevie Beshear from Dawson Springs got his way. He got the court to go along with his madness and rule that these gaming sites either block the residents of Kentucky or surrender their domain names to the state. Hey Stevie, that’s called extortion and it’s not the way to win friends and influence people.

What’s next? Are you going to block Amazon.com or maybe eBay because the money’s going out of Kentucky? Why don’t you just block the road to Evansville or Nashville to prevent shopping there or at least erect a toll booth to charge these unfaithful consumers who are spending money outside the state? How dare they! Uh oh, I have to stop myself, I certainly don’t want to give little Stevie any ideas.

C’mon, is THIS the pride of Dawson Springs and Hopkins County? Is THIS the future of Kentucky? Isn’t this America, the land of the free or do we even know or care what it means to be free anymore? This thug violated the privacy of my HOME, using the power of the state, to dictate to me what I could and could not do in my leisure time with MY money; but it’s ok if I go to the race track or one of the other “state sanctioned” facilities or websites like twinspires.com. What hypocrisy!

I challenge any liberal democrat that voted for this tyrant to defend his actions. Please, please try and justify him. Show us all how you think. Tell us that you think it’s ok in the United States of America to come into a man’s home and criminalize his behavior when he is harming no one. Tell us that little Stevie has our best interest at heart and is doing this to protect Kentucky. I dare you. While you’re at it, how about telling YOUR governor, your home town boy, to spend his time policing a real internet crime, like catching child pornographers and leave the poker players alone. Oh and someone needs to share a history lesson or two with little Stevie and remind him that he was elected governor not King.