Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:Tarot reading is harmless. The service is consensual.
By the same argument, then so are the 419 scams out of Nigeria. I would also argue that tarot reading is not completely harmless.
Getting spammed or accosted by panhandlers is not on both counts.
Panhandlers do not always accost people. There are plenty which just sit or stand on a sidewalk, just waiting for people to give them money, usually with a sign of some sort. It's just as passive as tarot reading in that regard.
Spam eats the target user's bandwidth and mailbox space, plus it can introduce popup ads and spyware onto the victim's computer, further deepening the wrong done.
Still, if spamming is illegal, it means that people are out of work. Your previous argument was that you didn't want people to be out of work, and thus be a burden to the economy in their area. So now, unfortunately, like it or not, you will have to discuss the merits of tarot reading.
Panhandling provides no service whatsoever to the normal citizen, plus the panhandler tends to try to guilt-trip money off the user as well.
Those exact same things can be said of tarot reading. What service is provided?
The panhandler could also reek of hell and/or introduce infectious agents to the citizen just by bodily contact should the panhandler grab the citizen (which btw can make the citizen uncomfortable enough to defend himself with force).
The panhandlers in question aren't really homeless, Ein. They are professional liars, pretending to be homeless in order to live off of the good will of others. They are the people who only take money, and never an invitation to go get a meal.
Durandal wrote:And how is this any different from a church doing its weekly income raping of the congregation and offering prayers to invisible men in the sky?
Last I checked, churches don't usually have signs saying "$10 per sermon, $15 for baptism, $30 per confirmation." The donations are completely voluntary, and not
required.
How about Scientology? Should that be protected as a religion?
Besides, Einhander already said that these people just do this for the additional income, no mention is made to any religion. Heck, I'd be willing to bet that most of the people doing the tarot readings are Christians. I still fail to see how it is "religious" to charge money to shuffle a deck of cards and read a response from a commercially published book of interpretations as to their meaning. When they do it in Vegas, it's called "poker" or "blackjack".
Or they're gonna Bite the Big One in a TGOD...
