[gobucks]

"And what about the ladies? The Red Light District has about 450 windows where women offer their services. The majority of those will be closed down. Where will the inhabitants go, once they're forced out of work? Asscher says most of the prostitutes are part of international human-trafficking networks that draw on women from Eastern Europe, and they will most likely move on to Antwerp, Hamburg and other European cities. For those that remain, the city administration may start certifying pimps and require that prostitutes who work for them to be 21 years old.

The Dutch Sex Workers Union fears that many women and girls will be forced to start walking the streets. On its Web site the union calls the city's plans to certify pimps "bizarre.""

Can it actually be that sanity can be learned?

[OB1kNOb]

Roooxanne......

[snarks_when_bored]

Turn Out the Red Light? (Amsterdam Closing Brothels)

The end of an error?

[Question_Assumptions]

Gee, even legal prostitution draws in sleaze, crime, and the illegal trafficking of women. Could that possibly be why it was made illegal in the first place?

[Izzy Dunne]

behind two tall windows that until recently were used as a brothel.

I've never been to a brothel, but can you really make one out of two windows?

[wideawake]

Oh, I thought that if you legalized prostitution, the problems that have always followed it would magically go away.

Who could have imagined?

[taildragger]

They ought to move all the Ladies to "K" Street...

Then the Lobbyist and Attorney's would have some real competition.....

[DesScorp]

It took the Dutch 50 years, but maybe they’re starting to learn...

[Moleman]

Tis a shame...

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I will miss Amsterdam. While it seems to many that the purpose of going there is sex and drugs, the truth of the matter is that Amsterdam is, or at least was, an island of freedom. In many ways, it feels, or at least felt, like America must have in its youth.

Few people know that the great silent industry of Amsterdam is, or at least was, religion. But that, too, is being displaced, because it, likewise, was too free. Missionaries from many sects found Amsterdam to be a permanent conclave of faith.

It was not being liberal that made Amsterdam free; in fact, it is the liberals who want to end it as a port of freedom. For they hate and fear the pleasant chaos of liberty, be it in the pleasures of the flesh or the soul.

The liberals first weapon was to permit vast numbers of those who also disliked freedom, to enter their country and city. The liberals value such people more than their own people, because they are repressed, inhibited, and intolerant. In turn, the newcomers support the liberals in their quest to vanquish liberty.

So what will become of Amsterdam? If the liberals have their way, it will be purged of its joy and color, it will neither offer sin or salvation, and it will become just another generic gray European city.

The mood of the place will change from friendliness and kindness, to the dreary despair, racial hatred, and alcoholic depression that liberals usually leave in their wake.

Or the Dutch will wise up, turn back the tide of liberal decay and degeneration, no longer offer endless amenities to those who despise them, and let people enjoy their lives, whether it lead to lethargy or elation, hell or heaven.

Do not be too fast to condemn was what in that city, for it still holds, or at least held, the liberty that Americans used to revel in, before it was denied us.