Prostitutes and Politics Why is it still illegal to pay for sex?

Reason Online ^ | May 7, 2007 | Cathy Young

[Lusis]

The resignation of Randall Tobias, the chief of the Bush administration's foreign aid programs, for "personal reasons" following the revelation that he had engaged the services of two escort-service workers has provided rich grist for amusement on the punditry circuit. There was indeed plenty of material for humor in the situation, from Tobias's strong stand in favor of abstinence teaching in AIDS prevention programs to his "I didn't inhale"-style assertion that he never had sex with the women. But the predictable laughs have obscured a much larger issue than hypocrisy in the ranks of social conservatives. The reason Tobias's call-girl adventures became public is that the owner of the Washington, DC-based service, Pamela Martin, is facing prosecution and has turned her records over to news organizations to help pay for her legal defense.

Even those who feel a certain schadenfreude at Tobias's downfall should be asking the question: should there have been a criminal case in the first place?

[TheKidster]

The Libertarians and liberals are giving us license.

WRONG the nanny statists like who want to legislate morality have taken away the 2nd side of the coin of liberty/accountability. You have taken away personal responsibility and so we have liberty without regard for our actions on the part of some because government will take care of it. Government will take care of me so I dont have to and I don’t have to look out for my fellow because government will take care of him.

[jimt]

Prostitution was pretty much legal in this country, defacto if not actual, until women got the right to vote.

Don't confuse him / her with the facts. He / she is busy telling us all how the country will go to hell, do not pass go, do not collect $200, if women are paid for sex.

[jimt]

To some extent, every law is a legislation of morality (as a principle). Should we take, “Thou shalt not kill”, or “thou shalt not steal”, out of our criminal codes as well...since they are legislations of morality?

Killing and stealing are clear violations of someone's right to life and right to property.

There is no "right" to pursue happiness by regulating other peoples' sexual behavior - only your own.

[M203M4]

There is no point arguing about legalizing prostitution with people who would support the criminalization of some combination of pre-marital sex, non-vaginal heterosexual sex, non-abortive contraception, and divorce. It is like arguing about the WOD with folks who think we should bring back alcohol prohibition and ban tobacco. Both are exercises in futility.

[pgyanke]

Before I respond, can I assume you meant to call me a “nanny statist”? It appears you left out a word and my assumption is it was “you”.

[TheKidster]

herpes, syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhea, and hepatitis.

Those diseases are much more apparent on college campuses than any where else. If the argument against brothels is based on STD’s then you’d do more to eliminate these by shutting down colleges, dorms, fraternities/sororities and mixed sex classes.

Classic strawman argument destroyed.

[TheKidster]

You know, little things like murder, rape, theft, pedophilia, bestiality, etc... ALL laws legislate morality to some degree.

These crimes have victims who are deprived of life, liberty, or property which is the legitimate function of government protection via the use of force. Apples & oranges buddy.

They don’t use codoms in SE Asia and Africa.

[TheKidster]

Because this behavior - by both parties concerned here - rends the fabric of society.

When are you going to start a campaign to make slasher films and video violence illegal?

[TheKidster]

So how do I determine if a right exists or doesn’t?

Very simple - if what you are doing does not infringe upon the right to life, liberty, or property of another individual. GOD made us all free to do anything we want but when our actions deprive another of life, liberty, or thier property then we have govt. to stop us, punish us or give the victim redress to recoup losses.
Only someone who fears freedom, distrusts liberty, and does not recognize personal accountability believes our rights come from a government created list, and would ask such a silly question.

[TheKidster]

Slavery deprives people of their GOD given right to liberty through force. Which of these three; life/liberty/property does prostitution deprive people of through force?

[TheKidster]

The gangs just laugh at such ideas, and are ready to sell worse stuff to those in society who don’t benefit from liberalized laws (kids, for example).

I’m not sure what dimension you typically exist in but in this present reality that is already the case. They laugh at the current drug laws and are selling crack and heroin to kids now. Of all the drugs the one most difficult to obtain by kids is booze because there is not a bunch of dealers on the black market selling it. There’s no real money to be made because it isn’t illegal contraband like narcotics and pot.

[wideawake]

It comes from something called “common sense”, a faculty - along with manners - that you lack.

[Star Traveler]

You said — “Slavery deprives people of their GOD given right to liberty through force. Which of these three; life/liberty/property does prostitution deprive people of through force?”

—

Prostitution is sin. And thus, as sin, it deprives one of life (the judgement of God for sin is death). It deprives of liberty, as one is then cast into the lake of fire. It deprives of property, as one has nothing since all that all that God gives is given to those who are in Christ, while everything else is taken away from those who have sinned and not accepted Christ.

And so, we see that it (along with a multitude of other sins) takes away, life, liberty and property.

—

And as far as force, is concerned — it is a much overrated “quantity”. These days force is not needed, all one has to do is simply lie and cheat and deceive — and no force is needed. For example, a person can lie and cheat and deceive someone into giving them $10,000 for an investment that is to earn great rewards and dividends, and find themselves out the “returns” and the original investment, to boot. Those who do so, don’t have to be accused of using force to commit this crime of deception, only that they intended to defraud the individual.

And thus, those who are lied to, cheated and deceived into prostitution (namely they are *defrauded* into prostitution) are just as *sure* to lose life, liberty and property as those who have been forced into it.

God doesn’t lie and tells us the truth, when he says, the wages of sin is *death*. And that death is to be separated from God and all that is good, being in the “lake of fire” for eternity. If that isn’t the loss of life, liberty and property, I don’t know what is....

[ampat]

Politics is the most disgusting and insidious form of prostitution. If this form of prostitution is legal then perhaps other forms should be legal, especially since consensual sex between adults is far better than the treatment we get from many politicians.

[FormerLib]

...in countries that have decriminalized recreational drug use...

Since you've raised the question, why don't you name those countries, listing which recreational drugs have been decriminalized along with when that occurred, and we'll take if from there?

If you don’t respond with actual documentation, everyone on this board will know that you are wrong, have no facts and have just responded out of emotion, prejudice, and a need for another doobie.

[sentis1]

What are you talking about? I cited evidence to the contrary. please cite your sources that it is generally illegal.

[TheKidster]

Because some people still believe the Bible is the Word of God.

If you even look(or ever have) upon a woman with lust in your heart you are guilty of adultry. - paraphrasing Jesus.

I guess you’re either sinless or an adulter, right. Which one is it?

If you believe yourself (or ever have) superior to another you’ve committed murder in your heart - another paraphrase

Are you perfect or a murderer, which is it?

What right does a murderer have to insert themself into the Holy Spirit’s role to bring people to conviction for thier private life? Especially if the targetted individual hasn’t forced relations upon the woman?

[wideawake]

I cited evidence to the contrary.

No, you cited evidence that one particular municipality had legalized prostitution.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Your supposition of the forefathers opposition to catholicism isn't correct, at least not in its entirety.

Well, I do know this much about New England history:

* Because of religious prejudice, Christians like Governor William Shirley and Lieutenant Governor (of Nova Scotia) Charles Lawrence planned and carried out a program of ethnic cleansing on another group of Christians, Acadians, using God-fearing Christian troops from Puritan Massachusetts to do so.

* The father of John Hancock, one of our Founding Fathers, supplied the ships used to commit the ethnic cleansing of the Acadians.

* In pre-Revolutionary Massachusetts, Catholics were routinely warned out of Massachuetts towns, if, in fact, any managed to enter them at all.

* In Boston, prior to the Stamp Act Crisis, rioting and huge anti-Catholic demonstrations used to be the norm every Guy Fawkes Day. It was this anti-Catholic passion Samuel Adams used to his advantage to ally the North End gang with the South End gang, and thereby provide the muscle to protest the Stamp Act.

Conservatively speaking, I'd say the anti-Catholic bias of our forefathers is well documented.

Many of the original colonists left to escape anglicanism, not catholicism, and the only reason they did is because the state forced them to be anglican.

That's true if you're talking about New England, but Anglicans most certainly helped to settle the Mid-Atlantic states (as well as Quakers), and there was a sizeable Anglican communitity in Massachusetts three or four generations after the original Puritan generation. Harriet Beecher Snowe's novel Old Town Folks gives an excellent glimpse into the differences and rivalries between Massachuetts Anglicans and "Puritans" in the era immediately after the Revolution.

the forefathers understood that without the Church's moral influence, liberty would be used for immorality and as Adams told us, our government is unsuited for an immoral people.

That's a wonderful sentiment, but again, I ask "which Church?" You blanket some sort of global sentiment by capitalizing the "C" in "church," but gloss over the fact that wars have been fought, and people have died, over the difference between Christian churches and the political alliances made by those churches. Not just Catholic versus Protestant, but Roundhead versus Cavalier.

So while you're advocating your positions on freedom, which are mostly right and I agree with many of them, do us all a favor and comment on how reprehensible many of the said activities we have the freedom to do are. Because if we don't set a moral example in this nation, we're finished.

With freedom comes responsibility---there are no two ways about it. In that, you are exactly correct. But just as rights belong to the individual, and not to the collective, responsibility is something that comes from the individual, and not to the collective. You are not your brother's keeper---such a notion is entirely incongruent with religious tolerance.