Forget the “benefit to society” stuff. My justification is that when your habbits start to affect my life, then I am going to comment to you on it.
-Sleep with all the prostitutes you want, just don’t complain to me about not being able to find a “nice” girl or that it burns when you piss.
-Drink or use drugs as much as you want, just don’t ask to borrow my car or show up on my doorstep acting like a drunk asshole. Don’t expect me to let you cry on my shoulder over every stupid thing you did while high or drunk and then repeat the behavior next weekend.
-Go to Vegas every week if you like, just don’t ask to borrow money.
People do not live in a vacuum. If people are criticizing your behavior its probably because they see you doing something that will eventually harm you.
In this, I include any high-risk voluntary endeavor, from drug-abuse to cigarettes to parachuting. Your participation increases my medical care costs and my insurance costs.
I’m not saying I’m against this and for that, but seeing as how your (generic, not specific to any poster) activities affect my wallet, and how my activities affect yours, I believe that soceity has some (but not an absolute) right to dictate what you do in your social life.
“You create your own reality!” We are all responsible for our actions.
What goes on behind government, military and corporate offices makes
our societal “acting out” seem like Saturday morning with Barney the
purple glitch.
It would no longer be a necessity. They could advertise legitimately.
Not to say that streetwalking would end completely but there would be safer alternatives, and more protections for prostitutes, and the capability of working for a brothel that can provide medical and hazard insurance.
Many people do see positive social value in drugs.
As for prostitution that’s a pretty specious argument (one it doesn’t sound that you hold just that you were observing) I don’t view women as a market commodity. I enjoy female company more than I enjoy male company and will seek out the company of females regardless of sex. I think that if people are so short sighted that they’ll view the benefits a prostitute can provide as the same as the benefits a wife can provide, then they have some emotional issues that they need to work on anyhow.
I think legislation based upon the premise of rampant mental illness is kind of a thin argument.
“Why do YOU feel you have the right to dictate what one does in their social life”
Wait a minute. What if my social life includes the right to do that very thing? Are you telling me that I should engage in that aspect of my social life?
If you are incapable of understanding an OP that many other people understood, then that’s unfortunate. My personal bias should have nothing to do with your ability to answer a simple question.
In case you didn’t notice, my question DOES answer your OP.
The statement “One doesn’t have the right to dictate what others should do in their social life” is self-refuting. As I said, what if one’s social life includes dictating such things? Then that claim is dictating that people shouldn’t dictate what other people should do. The claim self-destructs.
There’s a classic answer, said only half in jest, that my right to swing my fists stops one inch short of your nose.
Bottom line to me is that I have no right to say what anyone else should do in their personal lives, provided that what they do does not injure me or mine.
We got off the track on page one on negative social effects resulting from particular individual choices.
One answer (not mine), Erek, may be that God’s Law dictates what human beings should and should not do in sufficient detail that a majority of us are entitled to make human laws aimed at enforcing God’s Law as regards what you should and should not do in your private affairs. This is the quite serious contention of many conservatives who are believers.
JThunder, your “social life” does not include a right to dictate the affairs of others, unless you’ve been chosen King of Great Britain while we weren’t looking, in which case you have some say over the affairs of our British members – until Parliament dethrones you.
Your rights as a member of a majority of a self-governing nation may include that of instituting limitations on what your fellow man may do, subject to the provisions of a socially-agreed-to charter limiting what the majority may do as regards regulating the minority. For example, a majority in this country claim to be Christians – but do not have the power to enforce Christianity as a belief on the rest of Americans thanks to the provisions of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (and I believe the provisions of every state constitution as well).
Those majority rights are limited by what the SCOTUS has described as “balancing” – to weigh the right of state police power to regulate behavior against the freedom of the individual to behave as he chooses. We have examples where individual freedom conflicts with the need for social protection from the side-effects of that freedom given at length on page one of this thread. Egregious violations of personal rights by a majority, and the reasons for combatting them are detailed at length on other threads, which I’m sure you have seen.
Perhaps the finest statement of the principles involved was written by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy as the ruling of the Court in Romer v. Evans:
Drug use can be wrong. When the use becomes addiction it is no longer a question of personal choice. The freedom to potentially lose your family, your job and your home, not to mention your life is not a freedom. I wanted someone to step in, but nobody came. I will never accept the laissez-faire attitude around someone with drug problems.
Gambling can be wrong. It’s the addiction thing again. If interfering could prevent a tragedy I will do it.
Prostitution is wrong. Those who become prostitutes are there for a reason. Prostitution should be obliterated. A first step is to crack down hard on the people involved in trafficking.
In the OP, you didn’t point out that you were seeking opinions about legislating morality, simply why other people feel that they have a right to tell other people what to do / not do.
I was taking the tack that legislation aside, there is a net social effect of individual behaviors. Regarding the prostitution argument, that is the view that many people I know hold, and while I’m not sure I ascribe to it completely, I think it’s a valid concern. I think many women (and even myself to a small extent) are intimidated by the emotional implications of widespread condoning of prostitution (or any behavior seen as exploiting women for that matter). The idea being that it’s difficult enough these days to be seen as an individual and wanted because of who we are, that this might serve as one more standard for women to live up to.
Certainly not all women are going to feel this way, but I think that this kind of thinking is what adds to the taboo nature of the subject.
As for saying if people feel this will undermine marriage then they have issues, I agree with you wholeheartedly there, but until we become a perfectly well-adjusted society there will always be people with issues.
As far as drugs, I’m sure many people do see a positive social gain, but I believe that the majority of us see that gain only in terms of for the individual, and not for society overall. e.g. a lot of us would agree that if Joe Schmoe wants to get high on the weekends it’s none of our business, but if there’s a crackhouse on the corner of our street we’re all up in arms.
I think my main premise was to illustrate that (I believe) as a whole we tend to shun and try to control behavior that we feel doesn’t have any benefit for the group, while engaging in behaviors that benefit mainly us.
I can’t really speak on legislating these kinds of things, as I really am uncomfortable speaking about the law as I’m not intimately familiar with it.