Steve Beshear is a hypocritical douchebag
In case you haven’t heard about this, Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear is attempting to seize 141 domain names of some of the biggest online gaming operators in the world. He’s just a shill for the horse racing industry in Kentucky engaging in protectionist actions on behalf of TwinSpires.com. Apparently, TwinSpires sucks and they’re scared of the idea of having any competition, so they think stealing PokerStars.com and FullTiltPoker.com will somehow help them. Right…. that shows the sort of smarts I expect from idiots like Steve Beshear and retarded horse betting industry morons.
In case you’re wondering, here is a PDF of the court order.
Here’s my take on the whole thing:
It would set a ridiculous legal precedent if a local community could seize a domain name from a site doing something they perceive to be illegal (even if the people saying it’s illegal are corrupt and utterly bought douchebags). Think about it… okay, so, a Kentucky Governor says online poker is illegal and he wants the domain name pokerstars.com. That’s ridiculous enough, but what about if the local courts in Syria decide that TwinSpires.com is illegal and that they don’t want the local people to bet on horse racing. Can they seize TwinSpires.com too? (I don’t know if TwinSpires serves Syria, but you get the idea…). And what if I buy a small island in the Caribbean, somehow make it into my own country (obv would call it Natotopia), declare Google illegal and then proceed to seize the domain name because I don’t want my citizens to use Google. Don’t you see how silly this sort of thing is? Why doesn’t the Governor just go to some ISPs in Kentucky and say “block PokerStars.com”. Then he’d have to face the net neutrality crowd and I’m SURE he doesn’t want to deal with that.
Congressmen, Senators, Government People, Hysterical Right-Wing Christians and anyone else who wants to block gaming: YOU’RE RETARDED. Go away. You fail. Stop trying to control the internet because in 50, 100, 500 years when people look back on this era, you’re just going to look silly.
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Comments
This could back fire on him. He sued in Kentucky State Court. Couldn’t the Poker sites move the case to Federal Court based on diversity of citizenship and then get a ruling on the “legality” of online poker. Federal Judge could shoot him down and say online poker is not illegal under current US law. Wouldn’t that be funny!
Of course the sites would have to submit to US courts jurisdiction to assert that defense. But it could start down the road to answer the question definitively under Federal Law.
The Kentucky governor (as well as the Washington State gov) is a Democrat. I say that not to point fingers, but to illustrate that it is coming from all sides.