Legislators on the left and the right agree: Prostitution is immoral.
I agree. I don’t think there can be any discussion. It’s immoral, and thus should be prohibited by law. When such diverse elements on the left and the right agree, how can there be any dispute?
…Prostitution is Legal in New Zealand. Both the left and the right agreed and passed the Prostitution Law Reform Bill a couple of years ago. I consider prostitution to be a moral occupation, and the men and women involved deserving of a great amount of respect. So, what do you want to debate?
There isn’t the slightest chance that prostitution can be…err… abolished???
For milleniums, all sort of rulers tried to ban prostitution, and even with the threat of the harshest punishments, up to death, it never ever ceased to be widespread. There were prostitutes in Kabul under the Taliban regime, for god’s sake!
So, how to forbid it isn’t even worth discussing. The only issue is how to make it as safe as possible for both the prostitute and the “customer”. And this requires not banning it, but at the contrary legalizing it.
Besides, I don’t think it’s immoral. You loan your private parts instead of your biceps. You’re promiscuous for a price instead of being promiscuous for free. What makes that immoral?
Of course there can be discussion, and it will never be really outlawed; only specified types of prostitution are ever outlawed, and enforcement is uneven at best. For example, if a woman marries a man for his money, that’s prostitution, but it’ll never be outlawed.
It’s all about the money IMHO; reducing the supply keeps the price of sex up. I believe that’s the major reason for all these anti sex laws and customs; all the people who profit from the sex trade don’t want cheap ( or worse yet, free ) competition.
In terms of morality, don’t be silly. It’s not the government’s business what someone does with her body ( or his for that matter ).
Political leaders are not known for being right.
I am very sure Bricker is either joking or taking a Devil’s Advocate position. I don’t think anyone could fully agree with the final point he made in particular.
So far, Der Trihs has made all of my points.
Do you feel law should be about trying to prohibited what is (some says) immoral.
Also. The fringes on the left and right share a large number of views (many of them of a puritan nature). But that doesn’t mean the political center share their view.
Sweden outlawed prostitution. With, so far, mixed results at best.
Absolutely. Discussion is impossible.
What has the law to do with morality? Should all things immoral be outlawed?
I think he’s um, angling for an arguement to bolster his “it’s OK for Bush to order the NSA to spy on American citizens” arguement in another thread.
His threads are getting more like december’s every day.
I don’t really think prostitution is something I like going on. At least in most cases. I’m sure there are the exceptions, but in general prostitutes live dangerous, unhealthy lives. And most prostitutes are in their careers as a last resort. It’s somewhat sad that women have to live that way in this day and age. Now, I’m sure there’s that ultra-expensive upper class call girl that lives a pretty comfortable life, not having to service many men since she makes so much off of one guy on one night, but in general prostitution is both a morally degenerating experience for the john and the hooker.
However it’s one of those things I’m not sure we need entire divisions of police departments devoted to. Maybe once we’ve eliminated most of the rapes and murders I’d support going against prostitution.
I suspect this was motivated by the ongoing debate in the Pit about Bush’s wiretapping.
If so, I think you’re arguing against yourself…you’re proving the point that immoral and illegal are not necessarily the same thing. And I can consider something immoral whether or not it has been deemed illegal.
I can also consider whether I believe something immoral should also be illegal, or not.
I would consider making those decernments part of my role as a human being and a citizen. And I can act on them…as a citizen.
…so hold on, this thread isn’t about prostitution at all?
Would you care to elaborate on your OP Bricker? The New Zealand government has declared prostitution legal, are they immoral?
Only because it’s illegal. Legalized prostitution, with mandatory health checks, is automatically a great deal safer than illegal prostitution, and the money then goes, not to the organized criminals, but to the women themselves and to the state in the form of taxation.
However, I agree with others who have said that the viewpoint “X is immoral, therefore X should be illegal” is not one which can be a subject of rational argument. Gluttony is immoral. Should there be laws against being fat? Vanity is immoral. Should we ban cosmetics and hair salons?
I think it’s very possible that many of the bad situations faced by prostitutes are directly due to its illegality, just like the drug culture is fueled by it. Many prostitutes have to go through pimps because the pimps protect them from attackers and often pay off police. Of course, most of the pimps are abusive too, but better to face the danger you know than to open yourself up to the abuses of the street.
I’ve read a lot about the legal brothels in Nevada, and while the women there aren’t ecstatic about their work, they aren’t abused victims either. If we legalized it and restricted it to professionally run brothels, I don’t see the problem. The women are protected, disease will be curtailed (the NV prostitutes are tested regularly and always use protection), and you could even slap an entertainment tax on it. A win for everyone, unless you have a moral problem with exchanging sex for money, and I don’t–it happens all the time.
Bricker: Would you have a moral problem with a starving woman taking a guy up on a dinner date (which she knows will include sex, and isn’t too thrilled about) just so she can have something to eat? How do you measure someone’s willingness for sex? Isn’t a man (yeah, I’ll flip the genders) who marries a rich woman he doesn’t love just as much of a whore?
It already is illegal, and so it wiretapping without a court order.
If this is indeed trying to illustrate some point about wiretapping, and morality by using some other legislation based upon morality, it is taking the wrong route.
Morality is not absolute, circumstances and situations change and each must be adressed on its own merits.
One thing is sure, morality is largely consensual, we decide as a society what this means and how we impose it.
Once that consensus changes laws take much longer to catch up and individuals can be criminalised.
It boils down to laws that don’t have the consent of the governed often end up being unworkable, it does not stop those who govern from trying to enforce them, but it leads to huge hipocrisy and anomolies.
You can legislate behavior, but you can’t legislate morality. It’s an internal thing and as such, can only be decided by each individual.
Our laws are centered around our mores and folkways. Those that we feel the strongest about become laws. It is *immoral *to steal, it is *immoral *to kill, it is *immoral *to rape, things like that. Not everything that we consider to be immoral becomes law. Things we feel less strongly about are simply socially taboo. It is *immoral *to cheat on your wife.
As to the OP, I don’t feel like prostitution should be illegal. People pay me to use my brains and athletes to use their bodies, why should sex be any different?
I wish that either you would make your point in your OP, or you would make the post in the relevant thread. At the very least, a link to the relevant thread would be helpful.
When I worked (briefly!) writing course materials for Internet marketing, I read a quote from a marketing demon–Moloch, I think–who said, “Advertising works best in an information-impoverished environment.” That horrified me, and was one of the spurs that led to my becoming a teacher.
If your argument works best in an information-impoverished environment, one where you know what the thread is about but other posters do not, maybe your argument isn’t as strong as you thought it was.
Daniel
Yeah, this is so obviously to take a different tack at the illegal vs. immoral wiretap argument. One huge difference here is that the actors are individuals, (hopefully) entering into a consenual relation. In the other, the government is an actor (surely to be held to different standards), besides the fact that there is no consensual relation between spy-er and spy-ee.