Prostitution Should Be Legalized
posted by Susan Stark
You can lie the American people into a war, you can spend billions of dollars of taxpayers money on that war, you can kidnap people off the street and ship them to an Air Force base on foreign soil, and get away with it.
But God help you if you pay money for a little booty.
New York governor Eliot Spitzer, I am told, is in hot water over an escort he paid for for $4300.
And my response is: Is that all? The Iraq War costs $275 million a day, and Eliot paid $4300 for three hours.
You do the math.
In New York City, the escorting business, along with gentlemen’s clubs and massage parlors, brings in billions of dollars a year. That’s alot more than George Bush ever gave to this city.
And if Eliot Spitzer wishes to come to this city and contribute $4300, he should be able to do so without it costing his job. He is a consenting adult, and escort that he paid was a consenting adult. And if that $4300 was taxpayer money, so what? At least he put it into the local economy instead of flushing billions down the toilet in Iraq.
And if anybody else wishes to come to this city (or anywhere else) and pay for an escort, a stripper, or a masseuse, they should be able to do so legally. And anyone who wishes to provide such services should be legally allowed to do so, as long as they’re an adult.
We need to get rid of this hypocrisy surrounding prostitution, especially when we live in a world where dropping a cluster bomb on innocent civilians is considered “regrettable”.
25 Comments.
This shows what a disgrace liberals are. On the one hand you have a president that's making America safe from those that would do us harm. On the other, a degenerate hypocrite who pays women to degrade them. Is it any wonder that the majority of America is red state?
You do the math.
Yes, tax the whores, it couldn't hurt your trillion dollar deficit.
In most "western" countries prostitution in itself isn't illegal anyway.
No European politician would be asked to resign if caught in a 'prostitution scandal'.
It is a victimless crime. I agree that it should not BE a crime if the women are licensed and receive medical inspections.
I believe that this scandal was planned by the Governor's enemies. He made a foolish mistake, but he did not harm his constituency. It is a hypocricical gesture from this 'reformer' but it should not be allowed to ruin his entire career.
Others have survived similar allegations (think Bill Clinton or Henry Ward Beecher). Why demand that Spitzer resign over this?
Yet more apologetics from Ms. Stark (though this time not as revolting as her "SERBIAN GENOCIDE YAY!" piece from a while ago). I'm sure she would be just as quick to rush to the denfense of a Republican govenor (Schwartzenegger say) had he beem similarly caught with, shall we say, his pants down.
That said, I agree with her on the legalization issue. I just think she's a raging hypocrite otherwsie.
nyt & lat frontpage:
DUDE BUY'S A HO
5 us soldiers sacrificed on Aztec-altar in Iraq
Go get 'em Ted!
I love this line of reasoning! I should be allowed to steal from my employer. As long as America is in Iraq, all other ethical considerations are meaningless! I'm gonna go shoplift and download some child porn. Who cares? Bush is in Iraq!
Isn't filtering every. Single. Issue. through "Bush lied, people died" just a lit-tle Walter Sobchak for thinking people?
"What's the connection to Vietnam, Walter?"
"Well there's no literal connection, Dude…"
"There isn't any connection, Walter."
I agree that prostitution should be legalized. I generally oppose any law that prohibits consensual behavior between adults.
BTW: Susan, if you haven't read it already, check out the book "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Society," by Peter McWilliams. I never breezed through a 700-page book as fast in my life.
His book can be summarized thusly -If a behavior does not harm the person or property of another, it should not be prohibited.
That said, I do think prostitution, if legal, needs to be very strictly regulated. There needs to be protections to make sure that the people working in the field are doing it of their own free will, that they are legal adults, that they are checked for disease and their customers are notified immediately if they test positive for a disease.
And condom use should be mandatory.
Anon asks sarcastically if Stark would be "just as quick" to defend a Republican john. I don't know her, but I suspect she would defend a Republican in the same situation, though she might not be in a rush to do so. This is one of the defining charcateristics of liberals: we believe, on principle, that the same standards should be applied to our opponents as to ourselves. Being human, we may not always live up to this principle, but you can always call us on it.
And I notice that conservatives invariably DO call us on it, whether there's any reason for it or not. They do this even though hypocricy, unfairness, and applying different standards to different people are not considered sins among conservatives themselves. They see this particular liberal principle as a weakness, and go after it constantly to keep us off-balance. This has worked spectacularly well with the "liberal media" myth.
Thus Anon's accusation is just another troll attack, and can be laughed off as usual. The same can be said about any replies Anon makes to this letter.
Jana C.H.
Seattle
Saith WSG: Every boy and every gal / who’s born into the world alive, / is either a little liberAL / or else a little conservaTIVE.
Dem. or Rep. everyone should have access to a good hooker. And not have to be raked over the coals for it. However they should hang if it's tax dollars spent. If my taxes were'nt so high maybe I could afford some. Let me do the math. $1000 and hour. 15 min.= $250. Ok with my income maybe I could afford to smell her perfume.
The issue here is not prostitution
should be legalised or not. The issue here is hypocrisy. Spitzer has built his career as morality and ethics crusader. He took credit
for busting two prostitution rings in NY city. For God sake he is the
governer and he should obey the laws currently on the books.
I'm gonna go shoplift and download some child porn. Who cares? Bush is in Iraq!
Please wake the fuck up.
Do you really think Larry Craig is worth a thought, much less the front page, next to trillion-dollar deficit spending and being forced to bomb children for nothing?
Spitzer is himself a hypocrite for prosecuting prostitution while participating in it himself. It is as appalling as when a Republican who denounces gay rights is caught trying to illicit gay sex.
How To Be A Leftist
1. Defend immoral and sleezy behavior.
2. Compare it to an unrelated Right Wing Sin.
3. Legalize it.
4. Get the government to run it.
J. L.
Ah yes, the pre (and post) emptive troll accusation. This is the internet way of discrediting those who don't agree with you. Call them a troll, thus implying that their opinions and questions aren't genuine, but are instead merely offered out of spite or to inspire argument.
Cheap tactic really.
For the rexcord, not a troll here, but asking a serious question. Here it is:
Why are Bill Clinton and Spitzer's actions (ones that seem to have been proven) more defensible than those allegedly done by the Govenator?
Answer this question subjectively (i.e., not simply because they're democrats he's republican) and I'll be convinced. However, if they're okay, Arnie okay, and if Arnie's actions were wrong, then their's were too.
I'm not a troll, I'm just not a big fan of double standards, regardless of my own political position.
To be clear: I feel that if one guys gets a pass on his own private activities (and he probably should if they're as relatively as harmless as this), than another guy should, regardless of on which side of the political abyss he happens to stand.
To the clueless, Anonymous troll – The difference between Clinton and Spitzer's actions and the Gropenator is that the first two engaged in a CONSENSUAL behavior.
The Gropenator is accused of manhandling women WITHOUT their consent.
It's a simple concept really – no harm, no crime. Even many of your fellow right wingers, such as Ron Paul, the late William F. Buckley, former treasury secretary James Baker, could not escape the logic of that conclusion.
Think about it – getting government out of our private lives – what could be more conservative than that? Even Ronald Reagan, though he rarely practiced what he preached, loved to speak about getting goverment "off our backs."
He obviously struck a nerve with that rhetoric as he was elected to two landslide electoral college victories.
It's also a matter of fiscal conservatism. When we have limited resources for police and jails, do we want to waste those resources on consensual crimes, or use those resources on criminals who really hurt people, like murderers, armed robbers, rapists, etc.?
As Tom Tomorrow pointed out in one of his earlier strips, the average rapist will spend 2.5 years in prison. A first-timer convicted under Federal Mandatory Minimums for selling marijuana will serve five years.
With limited resources for law enforcement, we have to ask who are we more afraid of – the pothead or the rapist?
Then we have to apply those resources appropriately.
Why are Bill Clinton and Spitzer's actions (ones that seem to have been proven) more defensible than those allegedly done by the Govenator?
If you don't think mutual consent matters, then Arnold molesting women in elevators is no different than Spitzer giving in to saleswomen of sex and subsidizing the NYC economy in the process.
Your behavior is troll-like. No one except you even mentioned Bill Clinton or Arnold. If you had been on this page before you would know that we all hate the fact that Larry Craig got ambushed by cops with nothing better to do, and we hate it when lame ass stories like this get the front page when 5 US soldiers get blown to bits the same day.
I wonder how many tax dollars are spent on cops trying to bust prostitutes.
Anon, you need to exercise discretion in your assessment of the severity of issues. The issue at stake here is the use of taxpayer money for personal exploits. The issue with Bush is criminal violations of the law and constitution. People are insanely obsessed with all the wrong issues. Chiefly I'd say this is because we have a media focused on sensationalism and soap operas, and not real problems and issues.
But also it's because personal moral judgment is something everyone has an opinion on, and therefore everyone can participate. This as opposed to constitutional or international law. It keeps all of the crooks doing their crookedness while the media goes after Sen. Craig and such.
As an aside, if you actually believe that Bush is serving our country and trying to protect it, you need to commit yourself to a re-education camp. It's not even worth the argument.
The title and the last paragraph were on the mark. The rest of it was kind of juvenile. Comparing one person's sins to another's doesn't justify either person's sins but it is useful when setting punishment for criminal behavior.
Here in NZ my friends and I were puzzled that this was news. The few articles we saw didn't say whether it was tax money or not.
As commenters here say he was lauding his involvement in prosecuting prostitutes and that it was taxpayer money then I say he should be decried as a hypocrite and thrown out for burning away taxpayer money.
But most politicians are hypocrites. And many burn away tax money. Maybe they should all be thrown out and some fresh blood brought in? At least Bush and his cronies would be out under that idea 😉
I'm liberal, but I do not even come close to agreeing with this line of reasoning. This is one of the stupidest posts I've ever seen ever. First and foremost, it is a poor reflection on our state when an elected official is out having extramarital affairs with a prostitute. It is an embarrassment and I'm glad that Elliot had enough integrity to resign.
I, too disagree with Susan's article and her argument on several grounds.
I think complaining about the use of money being a non-issue is lunacy, and it feeds into the mud that right wingers use to label liberals as morally bankrupt. It's corruption at it's core and any politician guilty of misusing funds while in office should be put in jail.
Second, I think Nicholas Kristof has a really good op-ed today about prostitution. I have been a proponent of legalizing prostitution in the past, like Kristof, but after reading his argument against it, I wholeheartedly concur. I have changed two substantial political positions of mine in the past week…scary.
If Spitzer was stupid enough to commit these acts, especially considering his aggressive stance on graft and moral righteousness, and on top of that even stupider to be caught, then he's obviously not fit to be in his elected position.
The issue of legalizing prostitution should not be a factor when considering his suitability and dumbfuckery.
Adding to the chorus: Spitzer displayerd appalling hypocracy and bad judgement, and did not deserve to stay in office. Yes, BushCo/Ahnold/etc regularly do worse things and get away with it. So? That doesn't for a second give Spitzer a pass.
I agree, the line of reasoning that I dislike in this is that it's what some in the study of standards call 'olympic' standards -only in a negative way.
Because Saddam was worse with his torture, it's OK for us to do what we want in Iraq.
At least we're not Soviet Russia…
Or Red China…..
It could be worse.
That's moronic logic. Our priorities and standards are screwed up and lacking, but that doesn't make lesser offenses OK, it just means that Bush Co. being in office is an atrocity against humanity….one that the United States and her people will eventually pay for. It's unfortunate that the people who end up bearing the burden had no say in the cause.
Human existence is a comedic tragedy.