Norah Vincent of the LA Times (Reg Req’d) is another liberal who asserts that gambling is a sin and then imposes that conclusion into Bill Bennett’s consciousness in order to call him a hypocrite — despite the fact that his own Church doesn’t consider it a sin. But I don’t how many more times I can address the disingenuousness of this point. Rather I would like to address on assertion she makes:
The problem is that Bennett and Goldberg are not libertarians. They’re hellfire conservatives, and hellfire conservatives tend not to believe that a generalized right to privacy exists in the Constitution, much less that harmless acts are protected by it. For far-right conservatives to defend Bennett’s gambling in libertarian terms as a “harmless act” — one that doesn’t starve the wife and kids — is disingenuous to say the least because it sidesteps the most important criterion by which such a conservative defines harm. That is, of course, sin.
If any of you folks have heard me talk about sin at any great length let alone raise the specter of firey damnation in the pits of Hell, please let me know. If, on the other hand, you do not consider me to be a “Hellfire conservative” please let her know.