Friday morning links

RE: "You Have a Right to Buy and Sell Sex. Will the Courts Protect It By Legalizing Prostitution?

It's immoral, but why illegal? It's victimless."

absolutely right, totally harmless

nothing to see here, move along

not a victim in sight

#1 Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz on 2015-07-24 07:51 (Reply)

Every time I hear someone say that prostitutes - sorry, "sex workers" - should be treated as an occupation just like any other and we shouldn't be so judgmental, etc., etc., my first thought is to ask: "Fine. So you'd have no problem with your daughter becoming one then?"

#1.1 JJM on 2015-07-24 09:41 (Reply)

Good arguement. But it was the wrong arguement. Your complaint is properly against human trafficking not selling sex. That would be like being opposed to allowing anyone to drive a car because someone once used a car to commit a crime. If someone chooses to accept cash for sexual favors that should be legal and not the states business. If on the other hand someone forces a person to accept cash for sexual favors that should be and is ilegal.

#1.2 Sweetpea on 2015-07-24 11:04 (Reply)

"Good arguement. But it was the wrong arguement."

I guess I didn't make myself clear.

I just meant to observe how those who think being a prostitute ought to be considered just like being a bus driver, a short-order cook, a plumber or a doctor might react if their dear daughter came home and proclaimed:

"Mum! Dad! I'm quitting university! I'm going to be a sex worker instead!"

These grand notions are always somehow loftier in the abstract, aren't they?

#1.2.1 JJM on 2015-07-24 11:36 (Reply)

wrong. the article suggests or states that prostitution is a victimless crime.

it is clearly not based on the DOJ and FBI links.

unless you're actually saying that human trafficking in the sex trade isn't prostitution. moreover, there are thousands of stories of former prostitutes who can tell you first hand the psychological and often physical injuries, and the profile of these women isn't typically the Thai "wife" immigrant or the Indian temple sex slave.

is that it? I get confused when liberals try to rationalize.

#1.2.2 Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz on 2015-07-24 12:20 (Reply)

That's correct; human trafficking in the sex trade is not prostitution it is slavery and human trafficking.

Just because someone "can" commit a crime "while" having sex for money does not make it a good reason to make the sex for money illegal.

You do understand that when someone acknowledges that it is actually your right to trade sexual favors for money and it should not be considered a crime that does not mean they are advocating human trafficking or any actual crime. It is legal to give massages (I mean actual massages) for money. It is legal to provide physical therapy for money. Why wouldn't it be legal to provide sexual favors for money?? You can certainly provide sexual favors for free, so why not for money?

#1.2.2.1 Sweetpea on 2015-07-24 18:33 (Reply)

ah, you want the good prostitution run by Miss Kitty-style pimps and prison gangs where drug abuse and beatings are rare meaning often, but not the bad prostitution which almost certainly doesn't involve WASP chicks just trying to make enough money to pay for college, but only foreign temple slaves and obviously14 year old third world peasants.

too bad the DOJ and FBI don't agree with your ... thinking? I guess that's what it is, technically, because synapses are firing, probably.

#1.2.2.1.1 Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz on 2015-07-24 18:50 (Reply)

I love the smell of insults in the morning. If you must resort to insults it would seem you don't have a strong arguement.

You are still conflatng crimes with sex. All of the crimes you have listed will still be crimes if it were acknowledged that humans do indeed have a right to sell a service or sexual favors. All of those crimes will still be crimes and still exist if we refuse to recognize that humans have a right to sell a service. But none of those crimes have anything to do with "this" arguement any more than speeding to the scene of the sexual favors do.

#1.2.2.1.1.1 Sweetpea on 2015-07-24 20:38 (Reply)

Thank you for your support.

#1.3 Al Capone (of the sex trade) on 2015-07-24 12:12 (Reply)

"You have a right to buy and sell sex."

Another "progressive" mantra, which ignores the victims we see in the medical field, specifically primary care and the emergency rooms.

There is plenty of victimization of adults and children in the sex trade, and the northeast corner of the USA has a fair share, too.

Most victims do not readily admit what is going on, either through fear, lack of English language ability or threats to family back home. The stories I've heard about the children are the stuff of nightmares.

Here's the latest report from State. I haven't linked to a particular section, but the sex trafficking is mentioned in many parts of it.
http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2014/index.htm

#2 Steve in CT on 2015-07-24 07:58 (Reply)

Of course you have huge issues with the sex trade, precisely because its done an illegal black market, where the object is to stay out of sight!

If it was legal, it would be far easier to track, police and tax.

Keep it illegal, Organized Crime loves it that way: Billions in untaxed revenues. For that, what're a few lives, anyway?

Have we really learned NOTHING from the horrible experiment that was Prohibition? (That worked out real well, eh?) Ban vice and you don't get less of it, you get far more because its so profitable!

#2.1 Earl T on 2015-07-24 09:21 (Reply)

The Dutch experiment with legalizing prostitution has not worked out as expected. We might wish to learn from that as well.

Illegally trafficked prostitutes increased because the number of legal prostitutes gave them camouflage.

#2.1.1 Adriane on 2015-07-24 12:33 (Reply)

Ann Coulter:
Remember zero population growth?Where are the environmentalists on this? There was all kinds of handwringing over increasing population stressing fragile environments to the tipping point of no return. It must be that just normal everyday, workaday people pollute and stress the environment and illegals do not?
Weren't we just scolded a week or so ago about how selfish everyday Americans are and what a terrible job we do in educating and socializing our youth? But wait, let's bring more children in to the country, to be neglected and abused. The wink, wink, nod,nod, effort to encourage the migration of Central American children into the US was right up there as one of the more unconscionable, and cynical acts ever.
Why do these people always talk out of both sides of their mouth?

#3 Exasperated on 2015-07-24 08:08 (Reply)

Trump:
"Make America Great Again"campaign; his idea or an advisor's?

#4 Exasperated on 2015-07-24 08:22 (Reply)

I'm not sure it makes any difference. I don't much like Trump, but he has given voice to some things that have really ticked people off and done it in a way that gets past media filters. If a pubbie candidate can't get his message over Trump's noice, we'll either have Trump as a pubbie candidate or as a third party candidate.

#4.1 mudbug on 2015-07-24 13:18 (Reply)

To borrow a phrase from the Ace of Spades blog, it's like he's the flashlight in the pantry exposing all the scurrying cockroaches.

#4.1.1 Exasperated on 2015-07-24 17:10 (Reply)

re Jackson and Jefferson

They better not name their dinner after Truman. Furthermore they should expunge him from the historical record as well.

Truman wrote:

I think one man is just as good as another so long as he’s honest and decent and not a n*gger or a Chinaman. Uncle Wills says that the Lord made a white man from dust, a n*gger from mud, and then threw what was left and it came down a Chinaman. He does hate Chinese and Japs. So do I. It is race prejudice I guess. But I am strongly of the opinion that negroes ought to be in Africa, yellow men in Asia, and white men in Europe and America.

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/trumanpapers/fbpa/index.php?pagenumber=3&documentid=HST-FBP_1-21_01&documentVersion=both&documentYear=1911

#5 feeblemind on 2015-07-24 09:06 (Reply)

"Democrats drop Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson names from annual fundraising dinner"

Once you fellows get around to renaming Washington DC, we'll know the great American experiment you began in 1776 is truly kaput.

#5.1 JJM on 2015-07-24 09:22 (Reply)

It's more evidence that we are being ruled by ignorant (willfully or not) people out to destroy this country.

They are ignorant that Jefferson's Declaration of Independence purposefully sewed the seeds of the end of slavery. That as governor of Virginia, he tried to outlaw slavery several times. That as someone deeply in dept (he died $100K of 19th century dollars in debt) his creditors essentially controlled his assets (including his slaves). That there were laws that required those who freed slaves to post bonds (which he obviously could not afford).

But none of that matters when you want to appear righteous!

#5.1.1 mudbug on 2015-07-24 11:22 (Reply)

Obviously those dead people from 200 years ago completely failed to live their lives in accordance with our modern standards and expectations!

How dare they!

(GK Chesterton was fond of noting "the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about". This in contrast to what he called "the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors".)

#5.1.1.1 JJM on 2015-07-24 11:46 (Reply)

If we're rewriting history (BTW when does that change to Hertory?) could we have five seasons of "Firefly"?

#5.1.2 John the River (Link) on 2015-07-24 12:17 (Reply)

Texas A&M is not a mere college . . . It is the oldest public institution of higher ed in Texas and the largest, with about 56,000 students if College Station and 2,000 more on campuses in Galveston and Qatar.

#6 Ann K on 2015-07-24 09:06 (Reply)

And their graduates have almost cultlike devotion to being an Aggie. You can't even talk to them about it without being interrupted with a stream of Aggieness.

#6.1 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2015-07-24 10:44 (Reply)

I'm not sure that's so different from other universities. When I lived in New Orleans, there was somebody who painted their front doors purple and gold (for LSU) and my wife used to work with a lady who proudly was married on the 50 yard line of Tiger Stadium (LSU's stadium) with her husband wearing a tiger suit!

#6.1.1 mudbug on 2015-07-24 11:45 (Reply)

I didn't care about college after I left it (and don't like minor league football) and eventually I got tired of the endless pitches for money from my university, which shall go nameless except to say that while its not the University of South Carolina, it shares the same initials and is located in Southern California. Fight On!

So for nearly half a year I returned all solicitations (from every alumni club that I did not belong to and I belonged to none) with an anguished note from my daughter explaining that Dad had passed away and please stop begging.

#6.1.1.1 Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz on 2015-07-24 12:32 (Reply)

Thankfully, the rumors of your passing were exaggerated and "good job" to your daughter!

Maybe I'm just unappreciative, but I don't have a whole lot of devotion to my university even though I received two bachelors degrees from it. I'm much more supportive of the private boarding high school I went to.

#6.1.1.1.1 mudbug on 2015-07-24 12:58 (Reply)

Aggies seem to take it to a different level. It's not just football, it's networked hiring, taking over parties to sing the Aggie Hymn (including wedding receptions), and circulating all positive reports to all their friends. Texas FB will be awash with this report. I'm with Donnie. I went to my 5th reunion. I am debating whether to finally break down and go to my 40th, and am leaning against. And I liked the place.

#6.1.1.2 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2015-07-24 13:57 (Reply)

(and mudbug)

like any college grad, I have many fond memories of my undergrad days, most of them false (sledding through campus on a wintry night with my bestest girl probably didn't happen, but it might have) but some real (being in a crowd of 100,000 at the Coliseum vs Notre Dame).

and those memories should stay there.

#6.1.1.2.1 Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz on 2015-07-24 14:23 (Reply)

In my 5th form year (11th grade), our basketball team (I was not on it - I'm a klutz) went undefeated and won a regional championship. Our tallest player was 6'0". We beat teams from schools with a graduating class bigger than our total enrollment! Even for a non-jock like me, that is a memory that I'll keep forever!

Sadly, the captain of that team died about a year ago. He was a pilot in Cal Fire's air fleet (for firefighting). The flags were lowered to half mast for him in California. I'm a terrible underachiever!

#6.1.1.2.1.1 mudbug on 2015-07-24 17:03 (Reply)

After decades away, I decided to visit my high school, a perp prep school run by something like the Bene Gesserits. I was in town for the day, a building on campus had partially collapsed and I wanted to gloat. But I drove on campus and recognized nothing, couldn't orient myself. Where were the beating fields? Where was the flagpole we used to hang freshmen in pairs by their belts so they'd claw each other ragged? The Foreign Legion recruiters? Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?

You can never go home.

#6.1.1.2.1.1.1 Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz on 2015-07-24 19:09 (Reply)

Global warming team iced in

AGAIN?

#7 John the River (Link) on 2015-07-24 12:19 (Reply)

Prostitution is "victimless"? Ask Silda Spitzer and her kids.

#8 trigger warnings (Link) on 2015-07-24 13:13 (Reply)

Not victimless? Hardly. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33113238

#9 Karen on 2015-07-24 22:57 (Reply)

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Friday, July 24. 2015

Friday morning links