And this is why the government needs a monopoly on force.

And authority to arbitrarily decide what's right and wrong, and who gets busted for being wrong.

Just because something is wildly popular doesn't necessarily mean it is victimless. And just because criminal conduct doesn't affect everyone doesn't mean it affects no one. There are plenty of victims of (allegedly) illegal online poker, starting with the desperately-short-of-cash federal and state governments which are deprived of all the taxable revenue ($3 billion, say the feds) from the now-suspected operations. And just ask casino and horse racing executives what they think of the way online poker operators have taken advantage of Congressional fecklessness on the topic.

Victimless crime, you say? There's no such thing as a victimless crime! That's the government's money, and the government wasn't getting its legitimate cut! And what about the poor competition, who had paid good money for government protection from competition and wasn't getting it? Huh? What about them?

And of course the main thing, even more important than money. Power!

As costly as those cases can be, prosecutors pursue celebrity liars because high-profile investigations and the resulting trials are still a relatively cheap and effective way of reminding the masses of low-profile liars out there that they still can get in big trouble when they swear to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" and then don't. This doesn't make us "safer" in the sense that it shields us from a bullet or a scam. But it does make us "safer" in the sense that it seeks to shore up the accuracy and reliability of our nation's justice systems, both criminal and civil, which I suggest are the bulwark to all of the rest of government.

They bust the big scofflaws to keep the little scofflaws in line. The little scofflaws have become so vast in their numbers that putting them (us) all behind bars would be impractical, even if it were possible. There's be nobody left to build the prisons. So they build a bigger prison, made of fear rather than concrete and iron. And they call it "justice."

Sleep well, citizens. Obey.