AT ISSUE: Anti-prostitution laws needed

Posted by Ari on March 26, 2008 at 2:13 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Prostitution: Reply to Shane Fookes

by Ari Armstrong of http://www.freecolorado.com/

While Fookes at least offers an argument in favor of the prohibition of prostitution, that argument is weak. Moreover, Fookes fails to respond to my arguments in favor of legal prostitution, and he misrepresents some of my views.

Fookes argues that, in addition to protecting people's rights, government must "restrain evil." The problem is that Fookes never explains which evils the government ought to restrain, or why. Nor does he consider that, to forcibly "restrain evil" beyond the violation of rights, government must itself violate rights.

The evils that I think government should restrain are the evils of initiating force and fraud; that is, the evils of violating people's rights. Fookes thinks that the government should prohibit vices ("evils") that do not violate rights. He never says whether he believes that the government should ban all such vices, or just some of them, or how to decide.

Following are some vices that are currently legal (taken from my Speakout and additional commentary):
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news...
http://www.freecolorado.com/2008/03/l...

* Drinking too much alcohol.
* Smoking (in one's home and outside).
* Overeating.
* Engaging in indiscriminate sex among consenting adults.
* Cheating on one's spouse.
* Indirectly exchanging expensive dinners and trips for sex.
* Not working when one's children need the income.

If Fookes believes that the government must "restrain evil," then does he believe that the government should impose criminal penalties for each of the vices listed above? Many of the vices listed above can be at least as harmful as engaging in prostitution; for example, failing to support one's children can severely harm those children yet fall short of criminal abuse. Does Fookes believe that the police should arrest, and the courts should imprison, people for all of the vices listed above? If not, then why does Fookes believe that only some vices (such as prostitution) should carry criminal penalties? Until and unless Fookes can provide a plausible answer to this question, he has not made his case.

Please see FreeColorado.com for additional points.

Posted by Earl on March 26, 2008 at 6:52 a.m. (Suggest removal)

I say if lawyers and politicians are on the legal side of jobs then so should prostitution. they all screw peopel and get paid to do it. I would have to say prostitution would be the more enjoyable of the three.

Posted by KaySieverding on March 26, 2008 at 6:55 a.m. (Suggest removal)

In my experience, laws never get to be laws without a lot of work and a lot of hearings. I think prostitution was criminalized because ir was associated with assault, kidnapping, extortion, rape, income tax evasion, illegal drug use and other crimes.

Posted by VVVV on March 26, 2008 at 7:01 a.m. (Suggest removal)

I think the legislature should approve $10 million for us to design and build a leash to restrain Cerberus.

Restrain evil? Church is where evil should be addressed. The only thing the government should be concerned with is crime. And the only crimes that should be regulated are the ones with a perpetrator that is a different person than the victim. Drug laws should be repealed, but traffic safety laws protect all of us. Drug laws only cost us all billions in taxes to house and support people who's only crime was committed against themselves. People should be allowed to destroy themselves as long as they don't get any splatter on the rest of us.

If drugs were available at the local liquor store, crime would decrease because prices would be lower and addicts could openly address their problems without reproach. We call alcoholism a disease, but heroin addicts get locked up. We don't even lock up most drunk drivers, but get caught in your own home with crack, and you're life is pretty much over.

Prohibition and denial cause more crime than addiction, and our schools, roads, and overall budget are being strangled by an overwhelming cost of locking up people who did nothing wrong.

Posted by Mike_In_Hartsel on March 26, 2008 at 7:11 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Shane Fookes rants about "vices" and "evil" without citing what, and or whom, dictates that which is a "vice" and what is "evil".

"Vices" smack strongly of that "ol' time religion" that wants to tell us what is good for us and when we should be doing that good. Remember the Sunday Blue Laws?

"Evil" comes from the perverted little minds of the religious devotees who want to dictate our life while clutching their precious books of holy scripture to their bosoms. Only they can recognize what true “evil” is and they shall help the rest of us low-life beings rise above our ignorance. Where, oh where, is my hair shirt?

With the usual over-simplification of the zealot mind, Shane Fookes compares prostitution laws, which are behavior oriented, to traffic ordinances, which are safety oriented. Shane believes if one cannot present a reasonable argument then fabricate something silly.

Shane, the government does only exist to protect the people and their rights. When the government begins to tell the people what to do and when to do it, we then have a dictatorship. Seems you are promoting that over free choice.

Posted by Spencer on March 26, 2008 at 7:43 a.m. (Suggest removal)

I agree with Ari

Posted by infidel91 on March 26, 2008 at 8:27 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Mr. Fookes --

You stated:
What Armstrong missed was a second purpose of law and government: to restrain evil.

What is your basis for the assertion that the restraint of evil is a legitimate purpose of government?

What is your definition of "evil" ?

You went on to say:
But governmental intervention is necessary because we humans are bent toward evil.

Speak for yourself . . .

Posted by farmboy on March 26, 2008 at 8:28 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Legalized would be an improvement, but I'd prefer decriminalized. There is a difference. Legalized means allowed but government involved (zoned, regulated, taxed). Decriminalized would mean no government involvement or interference at all.

"governmental intervention is necessary because we humans are bent toward evil."

So a government that's populated by humans who are bent toward evil is needed to intervene against humans who are bent toward evil. I fail to see the reasoning in that.

Posted by AngelontheSidelines on March 26, 2008 at 8:31 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Religious inhibitions have no place in legislation. It is fine for the religious to believe that the invisible cloud being will smite America for allowing sin, but fear based lawmaking leads to tyranny.

Posted by budm303 on March 26, 2008 at 8:56 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Personality aside, Mr. Armstrong adequately advances the libertarian viewpoints: thus, the individual is responsible for consequence. In the matter of prostitution, or indeed "drugs," etc., government rules act in restraint of capitalistic freedom-not what our rebels intended. Jefferson's views are slowly being suborned to those of Lord North.
It is not your neighbor's right nor obligation to force compliance with their cultural captivity. "Divine right" has long been shown to be a defective guide in human affairs.
If One applies reductive thinking to social problems, fuzzy resolutions point to ignorance as the greatest evil. What a society may feel is inappropriate pursuit of profit may best be controlled by not purchasing the purveyor's product.
Government is not an ultimate answer for restricting the human animal's seeking for pleasure (that some misguided, would-be controllers espouse).
Prostitution will be around long after we have all expired, as will marijuana and alcohol. Self-regulation is the only real rule for human life. Live, and let live.

Posted by NotChasB on March 26, 2008 at 9:03 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Ari

To make America a better place to live for your kind, why don't we de-crimminalize all crimes that are "evil"? Anyway People are going to commit them anyway according to your argument. Your irrelevant laundry list was just a smoke screen to devert attention from a real crime that hurts women and all the people involved except the pimps and madames.
You sure wasted quite a bit of space on this site,websites and all, to show how your ignorance and immoral obsession with breaking laws designed to protect society. You should be a crimminal defense attorney (another type of pimp) if you are not one already or maybe even a crimminal yourself.

Posted by Acemon on March 26, 2008 at 9:06 a.m. (Suggest removal)

I fail to see any intrinsic evil in prostitution. More so, I wonder why so many people like Shane Fookes are scared of sex. We're surrounded by the most violent and gore-laden films of all time, burdened by wars on two different continents, overwhelmed by soaring energy prices and a failing economy, and all Shane seems to be worried about is sex between consenting adults. Perhaps "evil" comes in the form of the Morality Police that Shane wants, similar to those found in uplifting and socially responsible countries like Iran, China, and Afghanistan.

Posted by TroyJGrice on March 26, 2008 at 9:13 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Dear Mr. Fookes,

Will you please elaborate on the following point you made:

1. "vices should be legalized and left to the responsibility of individuals...is naive" Why is it naive?

2. "a second purpose of law and government: to restrain evil." Based on what? Who gets to define 'evil'? You? An enlightened bureaucrat?

3. "we humans are bent toward evil." If humans are bent toward evil and government is the remedy, who will run government.

4. "Prostitution is not a victimless crime." If both freely choose to engage in the act, who is the victim?

It's the same old half-baked arguments against freedom- "The State needs to control our behavior because we are evil or greedy or stupid or etc."

The bottom line is do yo want to live in a free country or not?

Posted by jeffm on March 26, 2008 at 9:42 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Most of the 'evils' associated with prostitution are a direct result of it's being illegal.
Pimping, 'white' slavery, organized crime and the rest are the response to the profit margins maintained by the economy of the transactions being forced underground.
A legalized/decriminalized prostitution would eliminate the superfluous middle-'men' who offer no actual service except the enforcement and exploitation of the 'product'. Likewise regulation and monitoring of disease and the other undesirable asects of the business could be addressed efficiently where they can't under the current paradigm.
Free adults negotiating a consensual contract would have no need or patience for the exploiters and worse who would be priced out of the market.

There's a reason prostitution is touted as the 'oldest profession' (With politics the 2nd?) and even its mentions in the Bible aren't purely negative.
Tamar, 1 of the great...grandmothers of Jesus used it to entice His conception through Judah-the King line. Likewise Joshua took to wife the woman whose scarlet thread of protection came to signify the profession. (No need to mention the betrothed of Jesus, either!)

I suspect the deepest animosity to the honesty and openness of prostitution might 'lay' with those most concerned about disturbing the sexual monopoly that would be threatened.
Namely wives and those women seeking complete title and ownership of the male merely seeking the lease and rental of the commodity in question.
Without that monopoly which doesn't even offer service garuntees or quality control the wife of tomorrow would have to develop personality and other traits to attract a mate 'if' her only other feminine attribute was honestly priced in the market.

Posted by bropous on March 26, 2008 at 10:02 a.m. (Suggest removal)

You know what? Two consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want to do as long as no one is getting hurt directly, no kids are involved, and they aren't parading up and down the street doing it.

I have no dog in the morality fight, as an atheist I have no religious basis for an argument against consenting adults doing what they like. I can, however, look at the issue in totality and determine that the cost to society of resources allocated to prosecuting "victimless" crimes far outweigh the benefits to society that preventing such acts provides. With strong laws keeping kids out of the mix, we can legalize these activities, regulate and tax them, and as a society we can all be better off than the current atmosphere of unwanted intrusions of blue noses into strangers' dirty bits.

Posted by Earl on March 26, 2008 at 10:21 a.m. (Suggest removal)

and now from the liberal state of florida a news flash.

"Prosecutors are moving ahead with a case against one of two 93-year-old men picked up during undercover prostitution stings. In the case of Frank Milio, prosecutors have issued subpoenas and plan to take him to trial in April. Milio, according to police records, tried to pay $20 in November to an undercover officer on 14th Street West. "

the cops are out pimping one of their own again.

Posted by Old_Grouch on March 26, 2008 at 11:23 a.m. (Suggest removal)

One thing about the State of Nevada: The intelligent people there have already legalized prostitution.

As to the matter of "government controls": Well, I would think that there might be a health consideration involved - as does Nevada. The "religious/moral" claque make much of "sexually transmitted diseases" - which are a problem, and one that can be aleviated - so, as a sort of "bow to their direction", regular examinations, along with other aspects of licensing, are really not that much of a burden, or imposition of government on "freedoms".

Posted by Earl on March 26, 2008 at 1:24 p.m. (Suggest removal)

og it is only certain counties in nevada where it is legal and not the entire state.

wow you hit the nail on the head that with regular examinations STD's will be gone forever. why have you hidden this for so long from the medical community and others? and as you say this and other aspects are not a burden or imposition of the government on freedoms. nope they just tell you what and when and how you need to do it and have a zillion new workers to make sure it all happens. nope no imposition at all.

Posted by Old_Grouch on March 26, 2008 at 1:36 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Earl,

Perhaps it is only in certain counties that the intelligent people of the State reside.

Your usual snide "unbridled/uncontrolled-free-enterprise-and-anarchy" attitude aside, your notion of "a zillion new workers, etc.," is rather far out, even for you. I believe most of the counties where prostitution is legal are able to manage the health issue by way of a Medical Doctor and a clerk in the county office to file the records. And, if memory serves, the examinations are paid for by those examined, as are the licences.

Posted by Jimminy on March 26, 2008 at 1:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Isn't prostitution already illegal hereabouts?

Posted by jeffm on March 26, 2008 at 2:20 p.m. (Suggest removal)

"...and have a zillion new workers to make sure it all happens. nope no imposition at all."
So you prefer the zillions of 'workers' congregated around this flourishing business already?
Y'know, the pimps, slave traders and other assorted exploiters and hangers-on?
All of whom do NOT add to the safety or efficacy of the profession in the slightest. (I'd rather replace a pimp and pay a PA any day.)
Not to mention the cops, DA's, lawyers and others on the 'enforcement' side who could hence be reassigned to crimes whose 'victims' are far less ambiguous.

And I'm not even mentioning the taxes that could be extracted FROM this business as opposed to thoseextracted AGAINST it-to no avail whatsoever.

Posted by dilligaf on March 26, 2008 at 2:59 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Just read a story about a 93 yr old man arrested for trying to solicit sex from a undercover police officer. I'm sorry when and if I reach 93 and if I still have the urge I don't think that I will be able to find someone that will do me. So if I have the money to pay for it I will. So I go to jail.

Posted by me2 on March 26, 2008 at 3:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)

When I was growing up, some of my classmates went to a weird church that called dancing, movies, makeup, jewelry wearing and much more evil, sinful vices.

Since evil and sin are religious words, how in the world will we ever agree on what they define?

Better to leave government to regulate corporations than prostitutes.

Posted by jeffm on March 26, 2008 at 3:39 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Ouch M2, you probably raised the most salient point against the legalization/regulation of prostitution!
'If' the Government regulates that as well as they do everything else then we'd still get the screwing but the purpose and pleasure would be gone!;-)

Posted by me2 on March 26, 2008 at 3:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)

jeffm, just decriminalize it. Because only meddling nit pickers with an overrated sense of their own goodness, would want to work in the government bureau of prostitution regulation.

Untill we get the mind set of Europe regarding consentual sex, we will just muck it up more with regs.