Thoughts on this? Is this out of place in this historic town, or is it permissible because in the end, people still need to work and make a living? The proposed casino would not be located on the battlefield, but within a mile of it.Casino proposed near battlefield splits Gettysburg
I guess a lot would depend on exactly where the casino would go in. There are plenty of spaces east of the Route 15 bypass that are within a mile of the boundary of the park. That area has its fair share of hotels, restaurants, and even a big gaudy movie theater.This kind of falls in line with the whole "mosque near ground zero" argument. How close is "too close"? Would the casino be okay if it were within 3 miles of the park boundary? 5 miles? 15 miles? If 3 miles is okay, is 2.9? Seriously, where do we draw the line?Likewise, how about if it was a hospital instead of a casino? A new car dealership? A museum? A government intelligence fusion center? FBI Central Pennsylvania Field Office? Townhouse complex? A mosque? Or worst of all, a Walmart? Could we put a hospital within a mile of the park boundary but Walmart would have to be no closer than 15 miles?Just for a hypothetical discussion, let's say I owned a farm east of the Route 15 bypass and could no longer afford to keep it (taxes and operating expenses outstripping income). Should the Sons of Confederate Veterans or Civil War Preservation Trust (or some other historical conservation group) be able to prevent me from selling my property to a commercial developer (assuming that the area was zoned appropriately)? Should they have the influence to determine that I had to take an offer from someone else for significantly less money? Yes, building a casino in the shadow of the Gettysburg battlefield is in poor taste (as is the mosque a couple of blocks from ground zero in NYC), but where do we draw the line in balancing bad taste with individual freedoms?
In our quest for more we are destroying the reason more exists…I signed a petition to help stop it. We still have plenty of land that we don't need to be infringing on our history. And if we run short of land, we need to look at our priorities.
In our quest for more we are destroying the reason more exists...I signed a petition to help stop it. We still have plenty of land that we don't need to be infringing on our history. And if we run short of land, we need to look at our priorities.
Another hypothetical scenario…. Let's say that the petition is successful and the casino if blocked once again, and instead of a gambling establishment, the land designated for the construction of a state of the art VA medical center specifically to deal with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and rehabilitation of veterans who are learning to deal with prosthetic limbs – modernizing and taking over the role of Walter Reed. Would opposition be a vocal and as successful?My point (admittedly cynical) is how much of the opposition is about the preservation of historical relevance and how much is that being used as a tool by the anti-gambling (or anti-Walmart) activists?
In our quest for more we are destroying the reason more exists...I signed a petition to help stop it. We still have plenty of land that we don't need to be infringing on our history. And if we run short of land, we need to look at our priorities.
What priorities ?
Let's see.. no more room to build a place that has zero redeeming value, is as addictive as a drug, and causes a lot of family problems, so lets just build it anyway... screw the people who actually care about their past, want to teach future generations about the history of our country.... gambling, money and self-interest are more important right?We have SO lost our priorities... We have enough parking lots, shopping malls, casions, clubs, blah blah blah... at the rate we are going, there will no longer be anything left of our past that isn't tainted by moderization.I moved out of the city for just that reason.