I already had my prostitution debate for the year, so I’ll just drop the bottom line so far as I was concerned in this thread. In all cases of making prostitution legal in other countries, the amount of illegal prostitution rose and when illegalised, illegal prostitution decreased. As such, everything that is supposed to be made better via legalisation is moot.
I was going to reply to the OP but apparently it is posted by someone with no belief in or commitment to the opinions it contains and is merely posted to gender reactions.
Really? That’s very interesting. Do you have a cite handy? Was time-frame considered? What was the extent of the increase/decrease?
Bricker, here’s an actual debate for you, where the poster actually believes what he is saying, and has the intellectual honesty to come out and say it:
You’re trolling.
See, it’s not so hard after all. You should give it a go sometime.
Well of course laws are based on moral and ethical axioms, and of course sometimes those imperatives conflict. In the case of prostitution the issues are conflicts between the morality of behavior and the rights of individuals to decide for themselves so long as their actions do not impose unwanted harms on others deciding differently for themselves. And the impossibility of elimination thrown in too. So discussion is valid. I’d throw my insignificant support behind legalized and well-regulated prostitution.
If this is really about wiretapping then the question becomes the conflict between a perceived improved protection from a perceived threat of terror, and fears of an unfettered police state in which our rights to privacy are eroded by an executive branch taking powers unto itself that it previously has not had. We’ve had legalized and regulated wiretapping already; what Bush did was to circumvent those regulations. “Trust us, we won’t abuse the power” just does not cut it, even if they haven’t yet abused it. We avoid abuse in the future by limiting state and governmental branch powers today.
Here is a point that cannot be debated: accusations of trolling are to be reported to the staff, not publicly announced.
Do not do this again.
[ /Modertor Mode ]
Yes, the law is informed largely by our sense of morality. No, something should not be illegal for the solely reason that it is immoral. You know that. I know that. We all know that.
I think your description, above, applies equally to extramarital affairs. Therefore, you agree that such affairs should be prohibited by law. Right?
I find prostution no less immoral than boxing. Its also doesn’t strike me as less corrupt or less dangerous to the participants. Boxing is a profession, like prostitution, that seems to appeal most to peopple in dire circumstances. In fact, professional athletes of all types sell their bodies for money - most of us do to some extent. The only difference is that prositutes sell theirs for sex. So is sex immoral? Certainly not within marriage - almost everyone agrees with that. Outside marriage - I sure don’t think so. And I don’t see what business it is of the governments if I give my date a blow job because I like him, if I give him a blow job because I like him and he bought me a necklace, if I give him a blow job because I want him to buy me a necklace, if I give him a blow job because he will buy me a necklace and give me the receipt so I can return it for cash, or if I just take the cash instead.
C’mon Bricker, let’s hear the big reveal.
You might need to be more careful about these types of threads. If you don’t really believe what you wrote in the OP, regardless of what point you are trying to prove, that likely is still against board rules. I wouldn’t be happy to see the board lose you, even though I disagree with much of what you say, and dislike your posting style sometimes.
My prediction: This relates to wiretapping because it would be immoral to prevent a wiretap that might save a life, even if the wiretap cannot be done legally.
[ Moderator Mode ]
Just in the interest of not having the staff mailboxes overstuffed this close to Christmas, I will bend our general practices and note that this thread has been reported, so we are looking at it.
At this time, with only the OP to look at, I would note that while the construction of the OP has some odd features, it is still a perfectly appropriate topic for debate. If someone does not believe it possible to participate in a rational way (due to perceived defects in either the OP or their own responses) that poster is free to ignore the thread rather than repeatedly opening it up to be bothered by it.
[ /Moderator Mode ]
Prostitution is immoral.
I acknowledge an exception for extreme cases, like a women who has no way to feed herself on her children. Even then, her patrons are acting immorally, using her desperation to take advantage of her. And that exception is very narrow: most women at least here in the US have plenty of support options from society precisely to prevent her from having to make that sort of Devil’s bargain.
New Zealand, being a relatively wealthy and advanced society, has no desperate situation that could possibly evoke an exception to the general immorality of the act.
So - yes. New Zealand has acted immorally in legalizing prostitution.
Fortunately, most developed nations have not fallen into this trap.
You have yet to support your claim that prostitution is immoral. Why is it immoral?
How can there be debate until you tell us what your reasoning is behind your opinion that it’s immoral?
I’ve never posted this sort of argument before. But I’m a conservative, a practicing Catholic, a Knight of Columbus. I absolutely believe that prostitution is an immoral act. I absolutely believe that prostitution should be illegal. Why should I hide my own morality under a basket?
Now, I have other beliefs about immoral actions as well. I may post other debate threads about them later. But this seemed timely, because the article in the Post just came out, and because my position is not one that’s simply held by the right. Liberal feminists also abhor prostitution, and also seek to make it illegal. This effectively destroys any argument that my position is solely underpinned by political or religious motives. The people supporting this measure range from athiests to devout Christian to Orthodex Jew; from hard-right conservatives to hard-left liberals. The proposition enjoys the support of a majority of the House, and is expected to enjoy the support of a majority of the Senate. The President will undoubtedly sign it.
It’s not, in other words, a fringe position.
So why the surprise? Why shouldn’t I advance m own version of morality, and argue it should be law, especially when so much of the country, and from such a varying political and religious/theistic background, agrees with me?
Actually, he has yet to support his claim that something should be illegal on the sole basis that it is immoral. According to his OP, all immoral activity should be illegal.
I also suspect this thread was scheduled to be hijacked to Hawaii, but for now, I’ll take the OP on its face value.
I feel the premises are unproven. Why is prostitution immoral? Is having sex immoral? Is having a job immoral? Is having sex for a job immoral?
The second premise is that immorality should be illegal. That’s an idea I disagree with.
The third premise is that prostitution can be eliminated by illegalization. Empirically, I’ll point out that prostitution already is generally illegal; so problem solved, if this premise if correct. On theoretical grounds, I’ll point out the absurdity of trying to eliminate a crime by punishing the supposed victims of the crime.
And on what may be an unrelated note, I’ll add the if somebody is unable to defend a position on its own merits, he might want to reconsider his opinion rather than try to sneak it in through the backdoor wearing a disguise.
It’s simply immoral. It flies in the face of common American values of morality. Most Americans agree it’s immoral.
How can I go farther than that? Is there some sort of Book of Immoral Things, one that we’d both agree is the authority for these situations?
Well, I’d personally say that having sex outside marriage is immoral, but the country isn’t on board with that, so we’ll leave it as undecided. Having a job is not per se immoral, but of course having an immoral job is immoral. QED. And yes, having sex for a job is immoral.
But you’re wrong. If it’s immoral, it SHOULD be illegal. That’s all there is to it.
But this legislation seeks to solve precisely that problem: it targets the purchasers and exploiters of the prostitutes, and seeks to help, not punish, the ones selling the sex.
Common American “Values” are draconian. Family values for a lot of people was Dad getting drunk on Christmas, beating the hell out of your mother, and the next day going to Church. Good ol’ American Family Values.
All immoral activity should be illegal, to the extent it’s practical to do so. Why should this country countenance immoral activity? Are we an immoral nation?
There has to be reason beyond “everybody else says it’s immoral too”. I’m surprised to see this appeal to majority opinion from you, to be honest.
Stealing is immoral because it takes the victim’s property without his/her consent, and harms him/her in a material way.
Killing is immoral because it harms the victim in a very direct way.
Prostitution does not necessarily harm anybody. Of course if the prostitute is enslaved into being a prostitute, that’s immoral, but being enslaved into doing anything is immoral, whether it’s sex or cleaning houses.
And even if you demonstrate that prostitution is immoral, that’s a still far cry from arguing it should be against the law, as others have already argued.