The Editorial Board of the Washington Post recently recommended that the D.C. Council Committee vote to ban online gambling. The Board gave a number of reasons why the committee that was set to vote on the first of February should not be in favor of online gambling. Among their various objections, the Board argued that online gambling should be banned because it is a corrupt system, the council did not provide its consent before online gambling was approved, it was legalized without following normal procedures, and because last year’s process was unethical and flawed.
“The issue here is a process so corrupted that, regardless of whether wagering makes sense, the council would be wrong to proceed with the current proposal,” said the Editorial Board. A dishonest process like this is very wrong which is why the council should vote against it this year. The council members that tricked them last year into voting for online gambling should not get the satisfaction again. This reasoning appeals to a basic sense of logos and fairness because it provides a clear explanation of why not to vote for online gambling. The fact is that online gambling is corrupt.
Another reason the Editorial Board cited was that the council approved online gambling during the previous year without any kind of reasonable discussion. According to the article, council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) admitted, “It was not done the right way.” It was also stated that Mr. Evans would vote against online gambling this year. Since the council approved online gambling the last couple of years without consent, their ethos is questionable. The reliability and trustworthiness of the council decreased considerably by not following the normal orders.
Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi deliberately approved the 2009 contract for online gambling without alerting the council and letting them know what was in the contract. Mr. Evans added, “The council never really knew what it was voting on,” and that they were given a blank page to sign. The ethos of Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi is suspect, and it also affected the pathos of other council members that voted on the issue of online gambling.
Council member Michael A. Brown is said to have had an employer at the time that showed an interest on online gambling which was the reason he did not follow normal orders for legalizing online gambling. “Instead of following the normal legislative process, council member Michael A. Brown (I-At Large) included a measure to legalize the gambling in a 2010 budget supplement amendment.” The ethos of Mr. Michael A. Brown is reprehensible. Both his credibility and reputation with this logos evidence was reduced considerably.
The final reason the Editorial Board gave was that the process that was used last year was flawed. Another council member Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) stated, “We just have to start all over” because the method used was so faulty. The overall ethos of online gambling is so low that some members of the D.C Council Committee are having an easy time deciding whether to vote for it or not. The decision was made even easier with the logical appeals that were made concerning online gambling. The pathos of the council members is so affected that some of them just cannot wait to vote against online gambling.
With these many reasons, people can see why the Editorial Board of the Washington Post wants to repeal online gambling. The way that it was legalized last year was so unethical that it would be hard to trust some of the members of the council again. The Editorial Board believes that online gambling should be outlawed because the process that legalized it the past couple of years was unprincipled and corrupt. The author’s ethical appeal is very persuasive because the article showed evidence of extremely unethical behavior and the untrustworthiness of some members of the D.C Council. However, the whole logical appeal was not very persuasive because the facts that the author gave did not have enough evidence. Lastly, the emotional appeal of the author of this article was persuasive because the tone of the editorial that was written was very strong and convincing.
