In principle, I agree with your point above, but I also believe that, regardless of "potential revenue", there are some things the government should not directly encourage. In the same sense, I usually think drugs and prostitution should be legalized, but I don't think the government should be an actual provider (tax the shit out of it, yeah, that I can be on board for).
I don't think funding schools with tobacco money encourages people to smoke.
I could also raise the "excessive gambling costs society more money indirectly than it directly feeds into government coffers" argument, but I don't have enough source material to make strong points without looking up a ton of stuff. AND I'M LAZY.
Sure, but again, the alternative is to ban gambling.
If education funding is tied to gambling, it can be stymied in the guise of anti-gambling bills, or the bill can be used as an excuse to cut real funding to schools. It can also encourage gambling, or make it look like the state is for funding better education while actually weighing it down with a moral issue.
It's like one of those movies where the good guy has to escape while handcuffed to the bad guy.
Sure, but where else is the money coming from? The way I see it, beggars can't be choosers; when schools are adequately funded, THEN we can start picking and choosing where those tax dollars come from.
Of course, bear in mind that I'm only talking about taxes here. Let's not try to slippery-slope it into "big tobacco gives schools a lot of money in exchange for advertising" or anything like that.
Sorry, should have been clearer.
Legalized vice? Fine.
Taxation of legalized vice? No problem with that.
The Goverment actually being the direct purveyor of such services (state-run casinos, monopoly government-run liqour stores, county-run brothels)? No fucking way.
There is a huge difference between pragmatically admitting a harm exists and doing what you can given bad circumstances vs. having a congressman stand on the street corner and playing pusherman in his off hours with a big sign labelled "GOVERNMENT DOPE".
Also, government monopoly (or even involvement) in vice, tends to result in, well, shitty 3rd class vice! Which defeats the whole damn premise of legalized vice anyway.
