"No Treasure Without Toil"
From Bill Bennett's first edition of The Book of Virtues (p. 370):
The Farmer and His Sons
By Aesop
A farmer, being at death's door, and desiring to impart to his sons a secret of much moment, called them round him and said, "My sons, I am shortly about to die. I would have you know, therefore, that in my vineyard there lies a hidden treasure. Dig, and you will find it." As soon as their father was dead, the sons took spade and fork and turned up the soil of the vineyard over an over again, in their search for the treasure which they supposed to lie buried there. They found none, however: but the vines, after so thorough a digging, produced a crop such as had never before been seen.
There is no treasure without toil.
In the latest edition, we assume, the sons learn the hidden treasure is a $200,000 line of credit at a casino and go home jackpot winners.
It goes without saying, of course that gambling is not a vice–it's a pleasurable pastime unless done to self-ruin.
It also goes without saying that a morals czar who has racked up as much as $8 million in total gambling losses over the years is asking for trouble.
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It is always the case that it is the least moralistic who do the most moralising.
I just can’t figure out if it is deliberate or not.
Rigtheousness,
Why is that the moralistic are also fascinated by bestiality and other less conventional forms of sex? I’m still bemused by that whole man on dog comment.
$8 million. Imagine all the pot I could buy with that. Let’s find out how much:
I spend approx $100/month on my “pleasurable pastime.” That’s 8000 months of gathered ganja (Sativa surplus? Indica inventory?). 8000 divided by 12 = 666 and 2/3. That’s 666 years (ooh, scary!) and 8 months of pot down the slot.
Woops! Forgot a zero. That’s 80,000 months of marimba. Which makes the total 6666 years and 8 months of hemp happiness.
No one’s mentioned his other obvious vice: doesn’t look like he skips dessert too often.
I lean more towards the drugs/drink/food axis so I don’t get gambling. $8 million down the drain. Jesus on a moped, the cool things you could do with all that money!
I can’t wait until it’s revealed that Ashcroft has a porn habit that would make Larry Flynt blush.
I fail to see the difference between gambling and drugs. Each can be done to excess, but most of us use both for pleasure. Each has an illegal avenue, each has a regulated, permissable side.
I’m going to take each of the former Czar’s explanations and substitute drugs for gambling, and see how they read.
Rush Limbaugh is a long-time mouthpiece, er, friend of Mr. Bennett; it should be funny to hear Rush tap-dancing around this one. My guess: he’ll deflect the issue by point out something nasty that Clinton did over the weekend: “Now, why doesn’t the press make a big deal out of this…”
Two wrongs do indeed make a right in the land of Dittoheads.
Why am I not surprised?
I really don’t think that any politician gives a rat’s booty for morality, etc. Methinks it a cynical ploy to sucker the public.
Zhuangzi had it right: Anyone that WANTS to be king (or “czar”) is, by definition, unfit.
Whoaa! Stop all this knee-jerk processing, will you? You guys have got some catching up to do. Get to work, OK?
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