Maybe the nanny-statists are finally getting it.

Congress is reconsidering its four-year-old ban on Internet gambling. The ban provides a perfect illustration of something that nanny-statists have long refused to recognize, despite the overwhelming historical evidence: namely, that actions have consequences, particularly unintended consequences.

The New York Times, which has not exactly been the mouthpiece of libertarianism recently, notes the following:

On Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee approved a bill that would effectively legalize online poker and other nonsports betting, overturning a 2006 federal ban that critics say merely drove Web-based casinos offshore.

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But the enforcement actions have barely put a dent in the industry, experts say. Gamblers have used online payment processors, phone-based deposits and prepaid credit cards to circumvent the ban. By some estimates, American online gambling exceeds $6 billion a year.

Although desire for increased revenues is the primary motive for the proposed repeal, the prohibitionists must also be waking up to the fact that the government has tried to improve our virtue on a matter that is neither within its power nor any of its business.