Posted on 05/09/2007 6:51:49 AM PDT by 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?
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
It’s probably already been said, but nonetheless:
How is being paid for sex worse than giving it away for free?
At least the prostitute is getting something out of it.
Meanwhile, we have a whole society of immoral people constantly giving it away, and yet they still turn up their noses at official whores!
I still think prostitution should be illegal, but I also think prostitutes are smarter than the just-plain-immoral every-day women who screw around just because they want to (never mind the men). They’re no worse.
You were the one who kicked off this whole exchange by arguing semantics with another poster. The only reason I bothered to post to you was because you torpedoed your own point, at that. See if you can figure it out, smart guy . . .
Whoa! I would define a right as our Founding Fathers understood it... prerogatives endowed in humanity by its Creator. Have you forgotten the Ninth Amendment?
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Rights, if they are truly rights, can't be taken away by government without grave injustice.
How can an illiterate graduate from a service academy? I’m wasting no more time on your idiocy nor your schoolyard taunts. You can talk to yourself from here on...
In Leviticus 21.9, if a priest's daughter has played the whore, she is to be burnt.
So the Bible doesn't seem to take a positive view of prostitution (examples could be multiplied)...but Rahab the harlot of Jericho gets a good press (Joshua 2) and the Gospel according to St. Matthew makes her an ancestor of Jesus (1.5).
99.999% of prostitutes are women in desperate circumstances who are tricked or coerced by cynical individuals into the profession.
And that’s true in jurisdictions where prostitution is legal, as well as ones in which it is illegal.
Maybe both.
Balls fists, holds breath, stands in corner . . .I'm illiterate, but I've made my living as a writer/editor for fifteen years. Go figure.
People with a glass chin shouldn't lead with it, friend.
Tard ping
Sociological research done on prostitution as well as personal anecdotal evidence.
I work in an industry where it is very common for a boss or a client to hire the services of strippers and prostitutes.
While I work at a firm now where these practices are thankfully barred and well-policed, that wasn't always the case.
My practice was to either decline these women's services outright or - if impossible for political reasons - to engage them in conversation in lieu of the usual activity.
Pretty much every conversation revealed a skilless woman who had started stripping to support an out-of-wedlock child, or had been encouraged into the lifestyle by friends (who were remunerated for recruitment) or a leeching boyfriend or a drug habit (this last was almost never admitted to openly).
Inevitably, stripping morphed into turning tricks - i.e. either you help out this customer or I'll ban you from my club and make sure you can't get work elsewhere (implicit or explicit threats).
Pretty much every one of these women came from a seriously dysfunctional home, and I suspect many were sexually abused by maternal boyfriends. And these were the ones who spoke English well.
Not once did I encounter a woman who told me: "You know, I was going to take an entry-level job at a design firm, but I thought about it for a while and decided that prostitution was the thing for me instead."
I saw a parade of women with broken family backgrounds, no other marketable skills, no education , etc. trying to put a brave face on a horrible situation.
I did not see any happy entrepreneurs.
I'm more than happy to defend myself in front of those two tribunals as long as you turn yourself in to The Department Of Not Having Any Cogent Counterarguments To Make.
Obama is fatigued and says he is prone to make mistakes when he's tired. I thought that a woman should have the right to do as she pleases with her body!
Given the examples of modern writing that we all witness on a daily basis... this is hardly compelling.
Tell you what, Mr Writer. I'll try one more time to engage you in conversation beyond your attempted "gotcha" critique of syntax. Do you think our Founding Fathers were ok with slavery because it wasn't outlawed by the Constitution and some also owned slaves themselves?
Before you dismiss the question, this was the issue I was initially addressing.
HIV is very difficult to transmit through normal sex between healthy people. The CDC has put the chance of contraction at 1 in 1000 for the female partner and 1 in 2000 for the male.
The situation in Africa isn't healthy people, it is impoverished peasants with open sores all over their bodies. Contact in those circumstances is ideal for transmission of AIDS as well as every other disease.
Check the ladies who were employed by the D.C. Madame. One was a adjunct professor at one of the service academies.
Again, for the record, I do not believe it's our Creators Plan for anyone to be engaged in that profession.
But until they get it out of their system, I would like to keep them healthy and safe.
If someone is held against their will, it is a crime all to itself. The inclusion of prostitution would be after the fact.
Yawn.
Do you think our Founding Fathers were ok with slavery because it wasn't outlawed by the Constitution and some also owned slaves themselves?
Since at the Constitutional Convention, the Founding Fathers tabled the issue of slavery in general, and the slave trade in specific (giving the new Congress the power to ban the slave trade in 20 years)---fearing that it might derail the entire process by alienating those representatives from the southern states, whose economies depended on slavery---I'd wager that yes, it's fairly logical to assume that some Founding Fathers---namely, perhaps, those from the southern states---were "okay" with slavery. They might have been "okay" with it more as an issue of necessity and practicality vice morality, but the fact that the entire Convention could have been derailed over the issue of the slave trade is proof positive that some were "for" maintaining it, and by extension, the institution of slavery itself.
Yeah, it’s like I said — “as if anyone had to ask the question”
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