According to Shaw, the most popular method of wealth distribution is roulette gambling.

Due to rapid deregulation and fascinating technological changes, this spinning of wealth has recently reached epic proportions in the United States, where gambling (euphemistically called "gaming" by its respective lobbying associations) has seen a surge in revenue in a short time. Considering that this maxim of the Irish playwright is one of his "Revolutionary Maxims," the so-called land of opportunity is likely to experience considerable turmoil, and possibly a strong backlash.

According to data from the American Gaming Association (AGA), total commercial gaming revenue (GGR), including sales from traditional casino games, sports betting, and online gaming (also known as online gaming) across three verticals, increased from about $30 billion in 2020 to $67 billion in 2023 (the last year with a complete data set).

The rise in GGR means a growth of 122% in just four years, or a steady compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22%. Since the total gaming revenue, also known as the gaming yield, is the difference between the amount wagered by players and their winnings, it also constitutes the total amount of gamblers' losses. Thus, the above trajectory indicates that bettors' losses have been growing rapidly. In 2024, the gaming industry continues to perform excellently.

In the first 11 months of that year, due to the strong performance of sports betting and online gaming, GGR reached about $66 billion. The total amount used for sports betting (only allowed in Nevada until 2018) increased from $7 billion in 2018 to an estimated $150 billion in 2024 (with total revenue of about $14 billion that year). This corresponds to a compound annual growth rate of 55% for sports betting expenditures.

According to data from the National Council on Problem Gambling, 60% of American adults gambled in the previous year; about 40% of Americans admit to betting on sports events. The United States is now the largest online gambling market in the world.

Furthermore, the U.S. gaming industry is expected to continue to thrive. It is estimated that by 2030, the annual revenue from just the online gambling business will reach about $60 billion to $70 billion. In the near future, a commercial casino might even be built in Times Square, New York, which was considered abhorrent just a few years ago.

Regarding gambling products, new, rapidly growing, and potentially dangerous types of gambling include, among others, betting on election outcomes and short-term stock movements. Additionally, long-term compound bets (known as parlays) are becoming increasingly popular, combining bets on several events occurring at the same time (e.g., several football teams winning on the same day).

Such accumulative bets carry greater risk than single bets, but offer larger payouts if successful. Lastly, peer-to-peer gambling without intermediaries is also on the rise. Clearly, this high-risk gambling deregulation is playing out a revolutionary drama that requires strong supporters who need a compelling script not only to sustain themselves but also to build further momentum.

In this context, it is not surprising that the fundamental changes in the American gambling industry are welcomed by influential liberals in politics and the media, who alleviate the discomfort of gambling with an engaging narrative. Their rhetoric reveals a common, interconnected pattern of manipulation techniques adopted.

Therefore, it is worth studying that I have integrated specific cloak-and-dagger strategies in a new model called the "Liberal Warfare Toolbox." Familiarity with these hidden deceptive methods will help critical thinkers expose manipulative behavior, thereby catching those who try to defend, normalize, and popularize gambling and other social evils (such as drugs, prostitution, abortion, and euthanasia).

At the start of our journey to expose and debunk harmful liberal sophistry, let us unveil the first strategy in the "Liberal Warfare Toolbox," which relies on exploiting the typical philosophical foundations of laissez-faire approaches.

1. Attracting High-Order Assets

Liberal planners use the core argument in advocating deregulation that people should be free to enjoy or even harm themselves. In gambling cases, proponents of laissez-faire advocate giving people full freedom when it comes to gambling.

The philosophical foundation of this reasoning is the concept of negative freedom, or "freedom from," coupled with an apparent preference for hedonism. According to those who advocate giving people the maximum freedom of action, freedom is understood as a scalar social benefit, referring to the absence of constraints imposed by other social actors, thus having the most opportunities.

At first glance, the appeal to freedom itself, due to its superficial persuasiveness, seems like a clever strategy. Few people would publicly claim they are against freedom, wanting to limit others' possibilities. After all, freedom is based on a sublime value, namely that people have the right to determine their own destiny by making their own choices. Therefore, enhancing freedom by eliminating legal constraints, in our case, by relaxing regulations on gambling, seems like a good policy.

However, liberal conspirators advocating the elimination of barriers to action often do not adhere to the entire doctrine of an influential thinker, widely regarded as a classic supporter of negative freedom. More specifically, philosopher John Locke in his "Second Treatise of Government" explicitly distinguished between freedom and indulgence, assuming that humans need to act according to natural laws, understood as reason.

The Christian Church believes that a person cannot freely do anything he wants (Section 57). For example, he has no right to harm himself or others. Reasonable restrictions aimed at protecting humans from "swamps and cliffs" are not seen as restrictions (Section 57). Given that unbridled gambling constitutes immoral permission, which is likely to harm those addicted to gambling and other stakeholders, even on the theoretical basis of liberal philosophy, gambling should be rejected.

It is noteworthy that Locke views freedom as a normative, morality-based concept, while modern supporters of deregulation in gambling and other areas consider freedom as a content-free and value-neutral structure. Their stance is similar to that of radical neoclassical free-market advocates, who believe that there is no intrinsic value, the only important thing is whether there is a demand for a particular good, even if it may be harmful.

Here is an example of neoclassical value neutrality: when calculating GDP, the market value of harmful gambling products and beneficial services aimed at reducing harm (such as treating gambling addicts) are added up to produce an estimate of a country's national income.

In a deeper philosophical analysis, the concept of negative freedom advocated by liberal non-interventionists may be exposed as one-sided, because it does not consider another key concept, namely positive freedom or "freedom to." For example, a real or metaphorical door may be open to you—this would constitute negative freedom—but for various reasons, compared to resourceful and powerful individuals, you may not be able to pass through this door—this means you lack positive freedom.

Proponents of negative freedom only see freedom of action as a social relationship (concerning obstacles imposed by others), missing the point that freedom is not only an external structure but also an internal concept, including the lack of internal constraints, which as inhibiting factors offset various advantages. For example, it cannot be said that an alcoholic has complete freedom, because due to this enslaving and debilitating state, his capabilities are greatly reduced, thus he is unable to take advantage of many valuable opportunities. Since gambling puts gamblers in a predicament and often makes them addicted, it is obviously possible to undermine positive internal freedom.

Positive freedom depends on various internal and external resources. These include one's own abilities and capabilities, such as a high degree of self-mastery, without which he would be a slave to disorderly desires, as well as the creative and critical abilities required to discover and evaluate different options to avoid being brainwashed. The availability of financial resources—an external resource—can also constitute positive freedom. Given that money is created as freedom, activities like gambling, which have a high potential for loss, tend to reduce positive freedom.

These two forms of freedom, the negative and positive variants—each existing in the best doses and the best mix—are crucial for establishing and maintaining an enlightened and well-functioning society, and are very likely to provide an effective environment for people to lead happy lives.

This first strategy of attracting high-order interests—and the strategies to be discussed later—are also used to defend other harmful liberal policies. For example, advocates of abortion and euthanasia refer to the high-order value of human life dignity in order to dialectically—and quite cynically—defend the killing of humans in violation of the Hippocratic Oath ("I will not harm"). The term "pro-choice" is used as a euphemism to describe abortion advocates, implying the concept of "negative freedom," that is, expanding the combination of possibilities.

Liberal Machiavellians intend to subvert the established moral order, usually using the "wedge edge" method, trying to obtain initial permission in narrow, often extreme, vivid, and emotional cases (for example, rape, in which abortion is considered justified because the victim deserves sympathy and compassion). Thus, the inventor breaks the initial taboo, which was previously a powerful barrier to policy reversal as a highly tense and untouchable "third rail" in politics. After the initial breakthrough opens the gates, complex people push for additional changes.

To achieve their goals, they often use the "Italian sausage slice," gradually and often secretly abolishing further bans without much notice and resistance. Finally, this previously banned practice, through a gradual normalization process, eventually becomes completely legal and widely popular. In other words, the Overton window (also known as the discourse window) has expanded from a deviation that was previously unimaginable in terms of acceptability and permissibility to a practical standard policy based on new norms. This means that the new practice has left the realm of controversy and entered the realm of consensus, where it is considered normal, and opponents fall into silence.

2. Deprivation and Denigration of Power

Closely related to promoting negative freedom is the attempt to destroy authority by claiming that it is wrong for other people, especially individuals or groups in positions of power or entire influential organizations, to teach or simply tell others how they should live. As part of this strategy, liberals simultaneously use the tricks of "curse origin" and "poisoning the well." More specifically, their goal is to evoke negative psychological associations (such as unfavorable stereotypes) by using distorted and derogatory labels, thereby denigrating the authority of past and present opponents.

First, the indulgent liberal enablers promoting gambling propose a genetic explanation, suggesting that the aversion to gambling has deep and unpleasant historical roots. In particular, they trace this negative attitude back to the much-hated Puritans, denigrating this Protestant group as authoritarian, fanatical, and driven by extreme asceticism. Liberal conspirators imply that these purists condemn all pleasure and believe that preventing others from enjoying themselves is their only purpose in life. In this case, it is worth noting that today "Puritan" is often used as an emotionally charged pejorative label.

As an example of genetic shaming, the liberal magazine The Economist laments in an article praising the relaxation of gambling regulations that America's stance on sex, alcohol, drugs, and gambling is shaped by its Puritan tradition. Its reporter is completely puzzled by some states in America prohibiting vendors from selling alcoholic beverages before church services end on Sundays and Hollywood banning the depiction of illegal drugs, morally offensive nudity, and sympathetic criminals—although all these bans are morally desirable and wise.

In this case, it is worth noting that many liberal religious deniers are portraying the terms "sin" and "evil" as old-fashioned relics of a bygone moralistic Stone Age, intending to whitewash their chaotic desires and social deviations. Although the occurrence of these anomalies is a sad experiential reality, it is still a constant throughout human history.

A related form of conspiracy to destroy authority is the personal attack known as "poisoning the well." This technique involves preemptively smearing opponents, thereby weakening their credibility, so that once they state their views, no matter how powerful their arguments are, their credibility has already been destroyed.

As an example of this automatic exclusion of discourse technique, a liberal journalist, before outlining the reasoning of gambling regulation advocates, may label them as religious fanatics and paranoids, bureaucrats who like red tape, and crazy control freaks. Similarly, once someone is labeled as a notorious liar, his subsequent statements are easily dismissed, although even habitual liars occasionally tell the truth.

The above techniques are self-sealing, because any attempt to refute them can be seen as further evidence of the correctness of the initial label. If you advocate restricting gambling after being called a control freak, opponents can retort, claiming that what you just said only provides more evidence that you are obsessed with dominating others. The poisoning maneuver is often combined with the "straw man" technique, where the opponent's argument itself may also be presented in a distorted way, making it easier to dismantle later.

"Curse origin" and "poisoning the well" are both aimed at eliminating all opposition from the source before the real debate begins, thereby preventing opponents from getting a fair hearing. However, they are both fallacies, because the so-called knowledge heritage of a view or argument—including its sources and origins—and the assumed characteristics and deeper motives of its supporters—are unrelated to its merits, rationality, credibility, and feasibility in terms of logical validity.

Furthermore, there are many great examples even from humble and tainted sources. After all, the model for Auguste Rodin's famous sculpture The Thinker was a notorious professional boxer, not known for his intellect. The French artist, after completing the work purportedly depicting "deep thought," said to his posing wrestler Jean Baud: "Well, fool. You can come down now."

In general, opposing authority itself obviously invites disaster, because a firm, focused, and disciplined direction is needed to straighten out the world and prevent a return to the original chaotic state. There are many different types of authorities, whose wise advice and guidance are essential and indispensable in life, including teachers, doctors, and priests. Usually, they play the role of role models, inspiring another person and providing him with valuable guidance on how to act to achieve true happiness.

Given the well-known limitations of humans, this positive influence is particularly important. For example, due to limited rationality or complete irrationality, they tend to do certain things (such as smoking), even though they know these things are harmful to them.

If there is no ultimate, ideal transcendent authority, anarchy will arise, because no one sets and enforces binding standards. In Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov, Mitya (Dmitri) Karamazov asks in a self-reference: "A life without God and the future? Does this mean that everything is allowed now, and one can do anything?"

Liberalists who illegalize and smear authority are dishonest, because they, like others, quote or implicitly rely on authority themselves. An example is their recourse to influential liberal classical philosophers, such as John Locke. This reminds one of the behavior of Protestants. They reject the teaching authority of the Catholic Church (literally "the position of the teacher") and claim that they will only follow the Bible (sola scriptura).

But in fact, they rely on other authorities, such as local ministers, to achieve exegetical purposes and guidance. This is because all texts need to be interpreted and explained, which usually involves making subjective value judgments and using linguistic skills to achieve the intended meaning and ostensibly prove one's point.

More importantly, as we have seen, even the views of the most important witnesses of liberalism are often distorted to fit the conspirators' propaganda purposes. Furthermore, supporters of the liberal creed themselves often long to be authoritative teachers. They ruthlessly call all opponents thugs, according to the revolutionary's saying that thugs need to be thoroughly educated to prevent them from being swayed by "populist agitators."

Just like all the strategies in the "Liberal Warfare Toolbox," the inventions of genetic fallacy and poisoning the well are not only used to promote the relaxation of gambling regulations, but also achieve despicable purposes in other areas. For example, regarding preemptively slandering opponents, an anti-abortion person—including a Catholic priest—can easily be smeared before he has a chance to state his views.

As a first step, activists who allow free abortion may simply emphasize the fact that he is male. Then, they can draw an apparently obvious but actually erroneous conclusion that, due to his nature, he does not understand the plight of women and is driven by a deeply ingrained instinct to dominate women, which involves restricting their choices. Furthermore, liberals may cleverly call him a "supporter of forced reproduction." However, the arsenal of liberal sophists is not limited to the aforementioned two conspiracy tricks.