Aside from the fact that a mob voice has no earthly right to dictate the business future of any individual or group, there is one powerful reason why the opponents of the proposed casino should be ignored.

Insistence that the casino will increase rates of crime and addiction is an appeal to nonsense.

Why should those who have the business sense to create a multi-million dollar institution be restrained by the potential depravity of a segment of the population that contributes nothing but problems for any state’s economy? Why should those who can do something for themselves be held down to the level of those who can, or will, do nothing for themselves?

Casinos are not the cause of criminal behavior. The sole cause of such social and private ills can be found in the character deficiencies of those who indulge such behavior. To blame a legitimate business, whose greatest proportion of revenues will come, not from gambling losses, but from golf courses, restaurants, hotel rooms, etc., for these issues is to excuse and vindicate said criminals, transferring the blame to individuals whose sole motive is to generate wealth, a commodity that this state is obscenely lacking.

Michael D. Braun Jr., Lewiston