Eliot Spitzer (cont.)
posted by Susan Stark
When I wrote my previous blog about prostitution and Eliot Spitzer (Prostitution Should Be Legalized), I wasn’t fully aware of everything that Spitzer did wrong, such as the money laundering, etc., because the full revelations of his activities hadn’t come out yet. I do not approve of these kinds of activities.
But, still, when it’s all said and done, Bush and his gang are guilty of high crimes against humanity (invasion of a country without legitimate cause), and approximately 1 million people have died as a result. And they have squandered more money than we can comprehend. The cost of Bush’s war will be estimated to a high of 3 trillion dollars, and I’m sorry, but, that is way too much money to spend so that conservatives can achieve their nebulous feelings of “safety”.
The Bush gang gets off the hook, while Eliot goes down for much pettier crimes.
Still, my position that Spitzer should be able to solicit prostitution if he wishes still stands, and that Kristen/Ashley should have to right to provide those services. Period. They are both consenting adults. The only kinds of prostitution that should be illegal are the ones that involve under-age persons, or persons being forced to work against their own will. The former is child molestation, and the latter is slavery.
This is the position that most sex-workers advocate, and it is certainly healthier than the positions taken by neurotic soccer-moms posing as “reformers” and “experts”. And that includes the male soccer-moms.
14 Comments.
I feel bad for the gal. Saw a news article that said, Well she wanted to be famous. Not the case. She wanted to make some quick money. I doubt she cares for all the free exposure. I wonder if her rates will go…get lower?
These are the typical liberal attitudes. Repackaging them from your earlier post changes nothing. The attitude that protecting our homeland is somehow criminal, and comparing that to an elected official committing a Mann Act is well …. disgusting.
I'm sure you've uttered the immortal words of Obama's preacher: "God damn America."
Amen. I live in Seattle and by coincidence happened to be walking into a used book store when the obviously hippie-ish proprietress called out excitedly to a co-worker "Did you hear? The governor of New York just resigned!". Because he hired a prostitute he was a bad, bad, man, never mind that after a little bit of digging on my part, basically catching up to what people in New York already know, he was very much anti-corruption and sort of progressive.
But….Prostitution! Anti-woman! Fuck him to hell!
I still disagree and still see your logic regarding prostitution in this matter as faulty.
The main reason is a rebuttal of the following from your essay:
"The only kinds of prostitution that should be illegal are the ones that involve under-age persons, or persons being forced to work against their own will. The former is child molestation, and the latter is slavery."
"persons being forced to work against their own will" could describe an enormous number of people on this planet, including those in the United States and other supposedly free nations. . .exactly where do you draw the line between different forms of coercion? Most coercion is structural, but we still insist on blaming the individual as though they have choices they don't actually have.
Yes…suicide is always "a choice" (just to preempt the obvious moron retorts)….but one looks at the characteristics of prostitutes and other sex workers such as strippers, and one finds a context that delivers them into what they are doing, usually one that involves egregious forms of abuse.
Furthermore, Kristof's latest NY TImes op-ed explains quite well that legal prostitution encourages a culture in which children and slaves are still used.
I also challenge your assertion in your last paragraph:
"This is the position that most sex-workers advocate…"
I would like to see your evidence for this assertion, because it is completely off the mark from the findings of my colleagues who study such issues professionally.
Lastly, your original essay included the line:
"And if that $4300 was taxpayer money, so what?"
I may have been alone in this feeling, but it made me believe you were referring to the use of public funds to pay for his private consorts. That information was already out at the time I read your piece. The fact that there are greater crimes committed doesn't excuse it. This logic was the main point of your essay, that because Bush Co. got away with their crimes there's something wrong with nailing Spitzer.
I sense that you are trying to backtrack after going a little overboard.
I suppose we're a society that's gotten used to pushing the reset button on the video game.
But as I have said many times, "An ounce of prevention is worth a lifetime of denial."
Check this out:
http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/
Excerpted:
Eliot's Mess
Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke secretly handed over $200 billion to mortgage bank industry speculators. The Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.
Instead of regulating the banks that had run amok, Bush’s regulators went on the warpath against Eliot Spitzer and states attempting to stop predatory practices.
And that very same day the bail-out was decided – what a coinkydink! – Spitzer, the man called ‘The Sheriff of Wall Street’, was cuffed.
The big players knew that unless Spitzer was taken out, he would create enough ruckus to spoil the party. Headlines in the financial press – one was “Wall Street Declares War on Spitzer” – made clear to Bush’s enforcers at Justice who their number one target should be. And it wasn’t Bin Laden.
Wholeheartedly agreed, Anon, this was classic Republican hit job crap. We'll nail someone in a salacious act that the media will jump all over.
I was pretty young during the savings and loan crap in the late 80s, I was wondering if this was shaping up to be more of the same? It has the same timing: 8 years of a neo-con followed by 4 years of a 1 term GOP loser.
This will never end until government corruption is a capital offense, but the prosecution will always be political charged…so it will never end.
Still, Spitzer should have known better.
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/03/95408.html
Susan,
I never said anything about the importance of individuals' and their personal biography. However, as a methodological issue, this is indeed what separates journalists from social scientists: a methodical system of inquiry and generalization based on aggregates, rather than talking to a self-selected group of individuals (how big is your sample population and are they representative of all sex workers?) and then trying to make the claim that this is somehow generalizable to the entire population.
I thank you for elaborating on your disagreements with Mr. Kristof, but perhaps the difference between you and I is that I would not have it evaluated by an English teacher.
It would be one thing if you're going to critique his grammar, but it's entirely another to critique his logic or research methodology.
Likewise when students of mine have difficulties with basic writing skills I refer them to English professors. If they have problems with critical thinking or conceptualization, that's my domain.
This is precisely why I dislike the humanities so much…
Talking to a few people and going to a sex worker advocacy website (which gives policy positions and has an agenda) does not constitute research, however I acknowledge that it raises issues that should be discussed and researched.
The problem with people who reflexively argue about continuing an existing prohibition, whether drugs or prostitution, is that they rarely ever make an effort to discern what harms are intrinsic to the prohibited act and the harms that are intrinsic to the prohibition itself. Therefore every problem created or made worse by prohibition is simply evidence for continued or increased crackdown.
It is akin to this: an authoritarian father discovers his daughter is addicted to drugs, and in his outrage, throws the daughter out of the house. The daughter, now out on the street and with no way to support herself, then turns to prostitution to support herself and her habit. When the father finds out that his daughter is now a prostitute, he then says, "Well, I now see that I was justified in in throwing her out over the drugs, since drugs lead people to become prostitutes."
"Well, I now see that I was justified in in throwing her out over the drugs, since drugs lead people to become prostitutes."
That's a pretty good point, anonymous. Much of the "ills of prostitution" can point to it's criminalization rather than being inherent in prostitution itself.
However, even in places where the laws are much more relaxed, you still have vulnerability to attack, and using prostitution to pay for drugs. But in the case of drugs, the problem isn't the prostitution, it's the drug addiction.
More money for drug treatment, please!
Prostitutes don't sell their bodies for drugs. Druggies sell their bodies for drugs.
How about less money for drug treatment AND abolishing the ban on (currently) illicit substances?
Susan,
I think you draw a false distinction between those who are pro-sex workers and "soccer moms". Many of my favorite adult websites are based on the theme of paying soccer moms for sex.
Many of my favorite adult websites are based on the theme of paying soccer moms for sex.
ha!