Libertarian town hall and ticket

[gr8indoorsman]

Wife and I are only halfway through last night's town hall, but my initial impressions are that I agree with more of their platform than the other two parties, and I think the ticket should be swapped with Weld as the presidential candidate. Johnson is somewhat ineffective at expressing his ideas. His answers are often curt to the point of sounding truncated, and he isn't clearly expressing his ideas to attract new voters. There's a lot of assumption in his comments - specifically, the assumption that people are already familiar with what Libertarians stand for.

Example: he was asked a direct question about what he thinks should be done about the proliferation of semi-automatic rifles in this country, and his entire response was, "There are 30 million semi-automatic rifles in the US. If we passed a law banning them, we'd get about 15 million of them turned in, meaning we'd have 15 million citizens who were previously law-abiding that are now criminals."

That was it.

The inference I made was that he was saying, "there's no point to passing such a law, it's unenforceable." I doubt some others were able to connect those dots. My wife said, ".... and?" And then asked me what the Libertarian policy on gun control was. I responded that I don't know that they have a specific stance on gun legislation other than to say they are generally anti-legislastion in toto.

We'll watch the last half hour tonight, but I have a hard time seeing Johnson standing out on stage against Clinton and Trump on his own. The town hall format allowed Cooper to ask a lot of questions of both and made it clear that the Johnson-Weld ticket is a team. One staff, working on the basis of consensus to reach conclusions. I'm not sure how I feel about that as eventually, there needs to be one person to make the go-no-go decisions.

I don't think Johnson would get to take Weld up on stage with him, and without Weld's polish and ability to clearly express his thoughts and ideas, Johnson will likely get washed over by Trump's bravado in similar fashion to John Kasich. Their "center" stance and idea that policy out of their office will not seek to be punitive toward either party (as happens so much now regardless of the source) might be able to get them past the 15% threshold, but I think they'd be much better off with Weld as the lead on the ticket.

 

[TopSecretBoiler]

They need a news channel. If you ask people who aren't into politics about the Lib party or candidates, they can't provide you with any information, and that's squarely on the party's shoulders to correct. They have to find a way into the average person's life. R and D do that through news tv and talk radio. Then they set their policies in people's minds anecdotally through stories in the news. That way it's not some old boring guy talking about gun control without any context.

 

[gr8indoorsman]

They need a news channel. If you ask people who aren't into politics about the Lib party or candidates, they can't provide you with any information, and that's squarely on the party's shoulders to correct. They have to find a way into the average person's life. R and D do that through news tv and talk radio. Then they set their policies in people's minds anecdotally through stories in the news. That way it's not some old boring guy talking about gun control without any context.

Any exposure they get is a good thing, and I'd say that about any alternative party honestly. We're in a situation where choice is too limited, in my opinion. I agree that a Libertarian news channel would help. They are making much better use of social media this time around than in the past. Perhaps I notice it more because of my over-exposure to military folks in my FB feed, and the fact that Libertarians hold a small polling advantage amongst the military, just ahead of Trump and about 15 points ahead of Clinton at this point.

Kind of surprising given they want to downsize the force significantly.

 

[terminalg92]

Wife and I are only halfway through last night's town hall, but my initial impressions are that I agree with more of their platform than the other two parties, and I think the ticket should be swapped with Weld as the presidential candidate. Johnson is somewhat ineffective at expressing his ideas. His answers are often curt to the point of sounding truncated, and he isn't clearly expressing his ideas to attract new voters. There's a lot of assumption in his comments - specifically, the assumption that people are already familiar with what Libertarians stand for.

Example: he was asked a direct question about what he thinks should be done about the proliferation of semi-automatic rifles in this country, and his entire response was, "There are 30 million semi-automatic rifles in the US. If we passed a law banning them, we'd get about 15 million of them turned in, meaning we'd have 15 million citizens who were previously law-abiding that are now criminals."

That was it.

The inference I made was that he was saying, "there's no point to passing such a law, it's unenforceable." I doubt some others were able to connect those dots. My wife said, ".... and?" And then asked me what the Libertarian policy on gun control was. I responded that I don't know that they have a specific stance on gun legislation other than to say they are generally anti-legislastion in toto.

We'll watch the last half hour tonight, but I have a hard time seeing Johnson standing out on stage against Clinton and Trump on his own. The town hall format allowed Cooper to ask a lot of questions of both and made it clear that the Johnson-Weld ticket is a team. One staff, working on the basis of consensus to reach conclusions. I'm not sure how I feel about that as eventually, there needs to be one person to make the go-no-go decisions.

I don't think Johnson would get to take Weld up on stage with him, and without Weld's polish and ability to clearly express his thoughts and ideas, Johnson will likely get washed over by Trump's bravado in similar fashion to John Kasich. Their "center" stance and idea that policy out of their office will not seek to be punitive toward either party (as happens so much now regardless of the source) might be able to get them past the 15% threshold, but I think they'd be much better off with Weld as the lead on the ticket.

I am traveling so I DVR'd the town hall and haven't seen it yet. That said, I think you are spot on, the ticket needs to be flipped. I will vote for Johnson/Weld this fall but Johnson's not my favorite Libertarian candidate ever. Weld is MUCH clearer in conveying his ideas. But either way, they are a much better choice for me and my view of the world than either major party candidate.

One thing I would like to add is that it is refreshing that both Johnson and Weld are pretty non-toxic when it comes to "politics"--they are reasonable in both their praise and their criticism of their opponents, and they are not divisive. They are issues-based not party-based.

And both actually answer questions based on what they believe, NOT based on what the best answer would be in order to get them elected. Neither has trust or honesty issues, and while I grant the point that neither has had near the limelight/scrutiny that Trump/Hillary have, they've certainly been around politics long enough to have had distrust and negative opinions formed about them if warranted. I'm admittedly biased but I find the pair behind this ticket to be much more trustworthy than Trump or Hillary. I also found Bernie Sanders to be trustworthy, I just didn't agree with many of his policy ideas.

 

[Purdue97]

Hopefully he gets a bit better and more polished. That said, not sure the Libertarians want a candidate that has or can match bluster but be more content driven and show they understand issues. That is first step for them IMO.

That said, this is a great opportunity for them. This convention has not led to a bump for Clinton IMO, but for Libertarians. They re now in double digits in polls.

 

[terminalg92]

I was able to watch the town hall replay tonight and I thought it was strong. A fair bit better than their first town hall IMO.

To GR8's point the guns question and another one (I can't remember which, I think baking the gay wedding cakes) were brutally answered by Johnson--just completely unclear on what his position was. Weld once again was clearer in his delivery.

But what stood out the most is these are two thoughtful and humble guys who want to be civil servants, and who don't get mired in the muck of partisan politics. They are about actual goal achievement and consensus brought about through compromise and cooperation. What a freakin' refreshing temperament relative to the immature and often embarrassing "Rs vs. Ds" gridlock that has plagued this country for decades.

They are also not afraid to touch on politically taboo issues like prostitution. Why the hell should prostitution be illegal?? The government needs to get the hell out of the way on these types of issues. Ironically by doing so, this will be a much safer country to live in.

 

[gr8indoorsman]

...
They are also not afraid to touch on politically taboo issues like prostitution. Why the hell should prostitution be illegal??

I agree with most of your post. We enjoyed the second half of the town hall. Johnson was much stronger on some of the questions, particularly knocking the Bernie supporter's question out of the park with respect to supporting civil liberties while staying out of the business of government intervention via "handout." I loved that answer, and I think that one won my wife over (at least for now) as well. We both want to see them on stage with Trump and Clinton.

That said, to 97's point, I recognize that the party probably doesn't want someone as blustery as Trump (what rational person does), but as mentioned, Trump has freight-trained reasonable candidates since the beginning. Now, primaries and GEs are different animals, but Trump has made guys like Rubio, Kasich, and Bush fold up their tents, and those guys are much better (at least what I've seen so far) than Johnson as public speakers. That said, if Trump is having to go on the attack against Johnson or Weld, he's probably already lost and they can point that out. Simply getting acknowledged by a major party candidate would be a big win, particularly if they're stealing Trump's target voters which they pretty clearly are (me).

As to the point on prostitution, the act itself may not need to be illegal, but it does foster human trafficking, so supporting it tacitly or directly is essentially directly supporting kidnapping and extortion. Many of those women that are out there on the streets are not out there of their own accord. Maybe that's different in Nevada where it is legal, I don't honestly know. That said, human trafficking, extortion, kidnapping are not "victimless crimes", thus they would still be illegal/prosecutable, but the mere act of selling sex for money probably should not be. It's one of those moral/Bible laws akin to prohibition.

 

[qazplm]

I was able to watch the town hall replay tonight and I thought it was strong. A fair bit better than their first town hall IMO.

To GR8's point the guns question and another one (I can't remember which, I think baking the gay wedding cakes) were brutally answered by Johnson--just completely unclear on what his position was. Weld once again was clearer in his delivery.

But what stood out the most is these are two thoughtful and humble guys who want to be civil servants, and who don't get mired in the muck of partisan politics. They are about actual goal achievement and consensus brought about through compromise and cooperation. What a freakin' refreshing temperament relative to the immature and often embarrassing "Rs vs. Ds" gridlock that has plagued this country for decades.

They are also not afraid to touch on politically taboo issues like prostitution. Why the hell should prostitution be illegal?? The government needs to get the hell out of the way on these types of issues. Ironically by doing so, this will be a much safer country to live in.

Because prostitution in practice is not the same as prostitution in theory. It involves underaged women, it involves human trafficking, it involves organized and unorganized crime taking advantage of young women, it helps spread disease.

Prostitution in theory is simply a grown adult woman selling her body of her own volition. It's why libertarianism is a great in theory, poor in practice ideology IMO.

 

[TopSecretBoiler]

Because prostitution in practice is not the same as prostitution in theory. It involves underaged women, it involves human trafficking, it involves organized and unorganized crime taking advantage of young women, it helps spread disease.

Prostitution in theory is simply a grown adult woman selling her body of her own volition. It's why libertarianism is a great in theory, poor in practice ideology IMO.

ya i mean that doesn't happen now. lol...

 

[gr8indoorsman]

ya i mean that doesn't happen now. lol...

It absolutely does. The difference is, police can walk up and confront prostitutes right now and make it less profitable for the traffickers and such. If it's legal, they can't do that and I think it becomes a lot tougher to get to the people who ARE actually committing the serious crimes (kidnapping, extortion, etc.).

So I can see both sides here, I'm just not sure which one makes the most sense to me as far as whether it should be legal or not. I am firmly in the Lib camp of "leave it up to the states" however.

 

[qazplm]

It absolutely does. The difference is, police can walk up and confront prostitutes right now and make it less profitable for the traffickers and such. If it's legal, they can't do that and I think it becomes a lot tougher to get to the people who ARE actually committing the serious crimes (kidnapping, extortion, etc.).

So I can see both sides here, I'm just not sure which one makes the most sense to me as far as whether it should be legal or not. I am firmly in the Lib camp of "leave it up to the states" however.

well prostitution is generally left up to the states unless it crosses state lines or involves trafficking or occurs on federal property.

Making it illegal makes it harder to do human trafficking or to use minors.

 

[gr8indoorsman]

well prostitution is generally left up to the states unless it crosses state lines or involves trafficking or occurs on federal property.

Making it illegal makes it harder to do human trafficking or to use minors.

Right, acknowledged and agree. As you said, there's some gap between theory and practice.

 

[TOKenBoiler]

I am firmly in the Lib camp of "leave it up to the states" however.

Just something to add to your thought process regarding legalizing prostitution.
BTW, I'm curious how many of you have wives and/or daughters and think it would be hunky dory if they chose to become prostitutes?

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/the_real_harms_of_prostitution

 

[TopSecretBoiler]

Just something to add to your thought process regarding legalizing prostitution.
BTW, I'm curious how many of you have wives and/or daughters and think it would be hunky dory if they chose to become prostitutes?

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/the_real_harms_of_prostitution

but pr0n is ok right?

 

[TOKenBoiler]

but pr0n is ok right?

Not in my world it's not. I just didn't want to add that to the mix in this discussion.

 

[TopSecretBoiler]

Not in my world it's not. I just didn't want to add that to the mix in this discussion.

what's the difference? I'm hard pressed to find one.
haha thanks folks remember the late show is different from the early show.

 

[TOKenBoiler]

what's the difference? I'm hard pressed to find one.
haha thanks folks remember the late show is different from the early show.

It's possible what we have here is a failure to communicate. I'm against legalizing prostitution, and I'm not OK with porn. I think those positions are consistent. But, like I said, I could be missing your point.

 

[TopSecretBoiler]

It's possible what we have here is a failure to communicate. I'm against legalizing prostitution, and I'm not OK with porn. I think those positions are consistent. But, like I said, I could be missing your point.

no your logic is good. I was just making a pun. I'll try to have less fun from now on.

 

[SDBoiler1]

Wife and I are only halfway through last night's town hall, but my initial impressions are that I agree with more of their platform than the other two parties, and I think the ticket should be swapped with Weld as the presidential candidate. Johnson is somewhat ineffective at expressing his ideas. His answers are often curt to the point of sounding truncated, and he isn't clearly expressing his ideas to attract new voters. There's a lot of assumption in his comments - specifically, the assumption that people are already familiar with what Libertarians stand for.

Example: he was asked a direct question about what he thinks should be done about the proliferation of semi-automatic rifles in this country, and his entire response was, "There are 30 million semi-automatic rifles in the US. If we passed a law banning them, we'd get about 15 million of them turned in, meaning we'd have 15 million citizens who were previously law-abiding that are now criminals."

That was it.

The inference I made was that he was saying, "there's no point to passing such a law, it's unenforceable." I doubt some others were able to connect those dots. My wife said, ".... and?" And then asked me what the Libertarian policy on gun control was. I responded that I don't know that they have a specific stance on gun legislation other than to say they are generally anti-legislastion in toto.

We'll watch the last half hour tonight, but I have a hard time seeing Johnson standing out on stage against Clinton and Trump on his own. The town hall format allowed Cooper to ask a lot of questions of both and made it clear that the Johnson-Weld ticket is a team. One staff, working on the basis of consensus to reach conclusions. I'm not sure how I feel about that as eventually, there needs to be one person to make the go-no-go decisions.

I don't think Johnson would get to take Weld up on stage with him, and without Weld's polish and ability to clearly express his thoughts and ideas, Johnson will likely get washed over by Trump's bravado in similar fashion to John Kasich. Their "center" stance and idea that policy out of their office will not seek to be punitive toward either party (as happens so much now regardless of the source) might be able to get them past the 15% threshold, but I think they'd be much better off with Weld as the lead on the ticket.

I think you're right. Weld would be better at the top of the Libertarian ticket. One problem for Weld is that it's fairly well known that he has had drinking issues in the past and some assert he still does.

I think Johnson is just a kook, maybe not on the level of a Dukakis or Howard Dean, but still a kook.

 

[terminalg92]

As to the point on prostitution, the act itself may not need to be illegal, but it does foster human trafficking, so supporting it tacitly or directly is essentially directly supporting kidnapping and extortion. Many of those women that are out there on the streets are not out there of their own accord. Maybe that's different in Nevada where it is legal, I don't honestly know. That said, human trafficking, extortion, kidnapping are not "victimless crimes", thus they would still be illegal/prosecutable, but the mere act of selling sex for money probably should not be. It's one of those moral/Bible laws akin to prohibition.

I do believe there has been research done that trafficking increased when prostitution was legalized and vice-versa, and that's of course not desirable and something to strongly factor in.

That said, there are many other parts to the equation. For starters, trafficking happens regardless, and determining IF someone has been trafficked is MUCH easier to do when you can have an open "interview" with them. When legalized, prostitutes would be required to register with the government, and part of that registration process can include an interview, background check, age check, etc. that could help determine that someone was trafficked in versus just a voluntary participant.

Also, where prostitution is criminalized, prostitutes often get the crap kicked out of them by both the johns and the pimps, and they naturally almost never report it to the police. They are also too often murdered. Neither beatings nor murder are likely to happen in a legal brothel, and if it does, the offender can be easily proven guilty and prosecuted by basic security camera footage.

Where prostitution is illegal, most jail time is served by the prostitutes who are often forced into the work, not by the more-difficult-to-pin-things-on pimps. And, almost all profit goes to the pimps and not the prostitutes. Legalization also enables forcing periodic health checks and so forth to avoid disease spread. These ancillary problems all get improved greatly (if not altogether fixed) with legalized prostitution.

I generally disagree that legalizing prostitution is an area where libertarian principles fail in practice. The issues with criminalizing prostitution are deep, as outlined above, we're just so used to them that we don't weigh them as much in our overall analysis. There's also plenty of precedent to study from and craft the best laws and programs, as prostitution is fully legal or partially legal in well over half of the "major" countries around the world:

http://prostitution.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000772

 

[TOKenBoiler]

Also, where prostitution is criminalized, prostitutes often get the crap kicked out of them by both the johns and the pimps, and they naturally almost never report it to the police. They are also too often murdered. Neither beatings nor murder are likely to happen in a legal brothel, and if it does, the offender can be easily proven guilty and prosecuted by basic security camera footage.

From the article I linked to above:

Pimps do not suddenly become nice guys because prostitution is legal. Legal Amsterdam brothels have up to three panic buttons in every room. Why? Because legal johns are not nice guys looking for a normal date. They regularly attempt to rape and strangle women.

As Amsterdam began shutting down its legal brothels a few years ago, Mayor Job Cohen acknowledged that the Dutch had been wrong about legal prostitution. It did not make prostitution safer. Instead, he said, legal prostitution increased organised crime. It functioned like a magnet for pimps and punters. Trafficking increased after legal prostitution—80 per cent of women in Dutch prostitution have been trafficked.

 

[terminalg92]

BTW, I'm curious how many of you have wives and/or daughters and think it would be hunky dory if they chose to become prostitutes?

But this is irrelevant to whether or not the government should criminalize or legalize prostitution.

From the article I linked to above:

Pimps do not suddenly become nice guys because prostitution is legal. Legal Amsterdam brothels have up to three panic buttons in every room. Why? Because legal johns are not nice guys looking for a normal date. They regularly attempt to rape and strangle women.

As Amsterdam began shutting down its legal brothels a few years ago, Mayor Job Cohen acknowledged that the Dutch had been wrong about legal prostitution. It did not make prostitution safer. Instead, he said, legal prostitution increased organised crime. It functioned like a magnet for pimps and punters. Trafficking increased after legal prostitution—80 per cent of women in Dutch prostitution have been trafficked.

It's a nuanced issue, I'll definitely grant you that. The article you linked is super-long and I haven't/didn't read it all. That said I can see early on that I'm not going to agree on some key points/angles that the author is taking. For example her first 5-6 paragraphs just talk about why it sucks to be a prostitute. That's completely irrelevant to whether a woman or a man should be allowed the legal right to be a prostitute or not. It sucks to be a garbage collector too but it doesn't follow that the government should outlaw that line of work. The author is just trying to persuade the reader with an irrelevant point.

She goes on to say, "In one Dutch study, 60 per cent of women in legal prostitution were physically assaulted, 70 per cent were threatened with physical assault, 40 per cent experienced sexual violence and 40 per cent had been coerced into legal prostitution." My counter-question is, what are those percentages today in a country like America where it's criminalized? My guess is 100% physically assaulted, 100% threatened with physical assault, 100% experienced sexual violence, and 90% coerced into it. And with a near-zero incarceration rate for the violent offender, versus what has to be a much higher reporting/arrest rate in Netherlands.

Also it appears from this article that the Netherlands law legalizing prostitution didn't even require prostitutes to register with the government. Wuuttt?? That's a fundamental policy flaw that it looked like in 2012 they were considering changing (not sure if they did or not): http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-012-0088-z

I think some of the author's points are certainly valid. But there are plenty of articles/opinions to the contrary--this is a decent summary of the other side of the argument from The Economist for example: http://www.economist.com/news/leade...-sex-easier-and-safer-governments-should-stop

What I know for sure and I hope everyone can agree on as a starting point is that the full-on prostitution prohibition we're doing today in the U.S. is NOT working and is suboptimal. Around the world there are practical alternatives to full-on prohibition that seem at least somewhat better, though not everyone agrees on that of course. Sweden's model of legalizing the "sale" of sex but criminalizing the "buy" has been adopted by many countries including Canada. Various reports claim that this approach has resulted in half the prostitution, lowered trafficking, and lowered violence. That said, interestingly, even the article I linked there expresses that, "Prostitutes themselves are, for the most part, opposed to the criminalization of their customers." They want the right to make decisions for their own body and not have the government make those decisions for them. Sounds quite a bit like another issue doesn't it??

 

[TOKenBoiler]

What I know for sure and I hope everyone can agree on as a starting point is that the full-on prostitution prohibition we're doing today in the U.S. is NOT working and is suboptimal.

What you think is not "for sure," and no, I don't agree with your premise.

 

[qazplm]

But this is irrelevant to whether or not the government should criminalize or legalize prostitution.



It's a nuanced issue, I'll definitely grant you that. The article you linked is super-long and I haven't/didn't read it all. That said I can see early on that I'm not going to agree on some key points/angles that the author is taking. For example her first 5-6 paragraphs just talk about why it sucks to be a prostitute. That's completely irrelevant to whether a woman or a man should be allowed the legal right to be a prostitute or not. It sucks to be a garbage collector too but it doesn't follow that the government should outlaw that line of work. The author is just trying to persuade the reader with an irrelevant point.

She goes on to say, "In one Dutch study, 60 per cent of women in legal prostitution were physically assaulted, 70 per cent were threatened with physical assault, 40 per cent experienced sexual violence and 40 per cent had been coerced into legal prostitution." My counter-question is, what are those percentages today in a country like America where it's criminalized? My guess is 100% physically assaulted, 100% threatened with physical assault, 100% experienced sexual violence, and 90% coerced into it. And with a near-zero incarceration rate for the violent offender, versus what has to be a much higher reporting/arrest rate in Netherlands.

Also it appears from this article that the Netherlands law legalizing prostitution didn't even require prostitutes to register with the government. Wuuttt?? That's a fundamental policy flaw that it looked like in 2012 they were considering changing (not sure if they did or not): http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-012-0088-z

I think some of the author's points are certainly valid. But there are plenty of articles/opinions to the contrary--this is a decent summary of the other side of the argument from The Economist for example: http://www.economist.com/news/leade...-sex-easier-and-safer-governments-should-stop

What I know for sure and I hope everyone can agree on as a starting point is that the full-on prostitution prohibition we're doing today in the U.S. is NOT working and is suboptimal. Around the world there are practical alternatives to full-on prohibition that seem at least somewhat better, though not everyone agrees on that of course. Sweden's model of legalizing the "sale" of sex but criminalizing the "buy" has been adopted by many countries including Canada. Various reports claim that this approach has resulted in half the prostitution, lowered trafficking, and lowered violence. That said, interestingly, even the article I linked there expresses that, "Prostitutes themselves are, for the most part, opposed to the criminalization of their customers." They want the right to make decisions for their own body and not have the government make those decisions for them. Sounds quite a bit like another issue doesn't it??

Not working? You won't have zero prostitution. So you'd have to provide evidence that some other path would lower prostitution or the risks associated with it. I'm not any more sure comparing us to a small homogenized country like Sweden or even Canada works in this instance anymore than it works for economic policy, unless you are also into adopting their welfare state systems which work very well for them?

 

[terminalg92]

What you think is not "for sure," and no, I don't agree with your premise.

I suspect you disagree not because of policy or legislation reasons but because you think prostitution is immoral and you'd like to see the government force your view of morality on others. Just a hunch.

 

[terminalg92]

Not working? You won't have zero prostitution. So you'd have to provide evidence that some other path would lower prostitution or the risks associated with it. I'm not any more sure comparing us to a small homogenized country like Sweden or even Canada works in this instance anymore than it works for economic policy, unless you are also into adopting their welfare state systems which work very well for them?

Why would "zero prostitution" or "lower prostitution" imply greater policy success?? I disagree with what seems to be your premise that prostitution is something to be stamped out--that's a moral stance not a policy stance. You'd be better off angling that sex trafficking should be stamped out, as that's not very debatable from a moral standpoint--kidnapping/coercion are clearly unethical, whereas one person paying another person for sex is not unethical by reasonable standards.

According to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime In 2012, 1.5M out of 20.9M trafficking victims are in the U.S. That's a lot higher percentage that I would expect for a country where prostitution is completely illegal. Based on that alone (not to mention other issues such as prostitute incarceration), if we don't have a starting point that our current system can be improved, then we will just have to disagree on that.

Regarding Sweden/Canada, something like a few billion people in the world live in localities where prostitution laws are less restrictive than in the U.S. Some of those policy sets are presumably more successful (depending on one's definition) than ours and some presumably less successful. But this country is so prudish and so filled with religious conservatives that it's not politically palatable to even DISCUSS things like prostitution law--even if there were other countries having better outcomes and loads of interesting policy research being done around the world, we wouldn't even take a look at the topic.

 

[qazplm]

Why would "zero prostitution" or "lower prostitution" imply greater policy success?? I disagree with what seems to be your premise that prostitution is something to be stamped out--that's a moral stance not a policy stance. You'd be better off angling that sex trafficking should be stamped out, as that's not very debatable from a moral standpoint--kidnapping/coercion are clearly unethical, whereas one person paying another person for sex is not unethical by reasonable standards.

According to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime In 2012, 1.5M out of 20.9M trafficking victims are in the U.S. That's a lot higher percentage that I would expect for a country where prostitution is completely illegal. Based on that alone (not to mention other issues such as prostitute incarceration), if we don't have a starting point that our current system can be improved, then we will just have to disagree on that.

Regarding Sweden/Canada, something like a few billion people in the world live in localities where prostitution laws are less restrictive than in the U.S. Some of those policy sets are presumably more successful (depending on one's definition) than ours and some presumably less successful. But this country is so prudish and so filled with religious conservatives that it's not politically palatable to even DISCUSS things like prostitution law--even if there were other countries having better outcomes and loads of interesting policy research being done around the world, we wouldn't even take a look at the topic.

So your policy positions don't involve morality?

Let's unpack that before I move on to address the rest.

 

[TOKenBoiler]

So your policy positions don't involve morality?

Let's unpack that before I move on to address the rest.

Didn't you know? Morals are for conservative religious folk. They have no place in the law.

 

[qazplm]

Didn't you know? Morals are for conservative religious folk. They have no place in the law.

I can't tell if you are mocking me, given the volume of such mocking by you thrown my way the last few weeks...regardless, I think there are different levels of "morals" and different bases.

I don't want a particular religion's morals as the basis for our laws, not Christianity, not Islam, not Hare Krishna.

Nevertheless, obviously there are common moralities that span nearly all religions and include secular morality. Every society has laws in common against murder, rape, assault, etc.

Every society also has exceptions for self-defense, defense of others, necessity, duress, etc.

There are also some not common moralities. Our system involves an adversarial process, others do not. Those are choices based at least in part on a cultural morality.

 

[TOKenBoiler]

I can't tell if you are mocking me, given the volume of such mocking by you thrown my way the last few weeks...regardless, I think there are different levels of "morals" and different bases.

I don't want a particular religion's morals as the basis for our laws, not Christianity, not Islam, not Hare Krishna.

Nevertheless, obviously there are common moralities that span nearly all religions and include secular morality. Every society has laws in common against murder, rape, assault, etc.

Every society also has exceptions for self-defense, defense of others, necessity, duress, etc.

There are also some not common moralities. Our system involves an adversarial process, others do not. Those are choices based at least in part on a cultural morality.

No...I was referring to terminalg92 who seems to think morals and laws don't mix. And, I'm not certain where I've taken issue with you recently except on the politifacts thread. In any case, you give as good as you get, if not better.

 

[terminalg92]

So your policy positions don't involve morality?

Let's unpack that before I move on to address the rest.

Yes, of course...but my policy positions generally don't impose my morality on others. e.g. ToKenBoiler doesn't want to engage a prostitute? Fine, he doesn't have to. buygreekbonds does? Fine, he can. It's their call not mine. It's generally the same view I hold for abortion, drugs, religion, sexual preference, sodomy, assisted suicide, etc.

My main prior point was one can argue against prostitution for "side effect reasons", which is more of a pragmatic argument, or one can argue against prostitution for its own end, which is more of a moral argument.

e.g. a 2016 YouGov poll found that of those Americans who want to keep prostitution illegal, 61% hold that view because they think prostitution is either morally wrong or that it is contrary to their religious beliefs. (By the exact same logic these same people could argue to outlaw premarital sex, or oral sex, or interracial sex, or whatever THEY don't like.) Another 9% hold that view because prostitution "undermines marriage". (By the exact same logic why don't we start to jail people for cheating???)

 

[terminalg92]

No...I was referring to terminalg92 who seems to think morals and laws don't mix. And, I'm not certain where I've taken issue with you recently except on the politifacts thread. In any case, you give as good as you get, if not better.

Secular laws should be based on secular morality, not religious morality.

 

[qazplm]

Secular laws should be based on secular morality, not religious morality.

secular morality tends to frown upon:

sex trafficking
abuse
taking advantage of the young/homeless/runaways

And you absolutely want to impose your morality. your morality is about placing individualism supreme above all other moral considerations, and you'd like to impose that on the rest of us. It's different, but it's not any more "pure" or "correct" or "moral."

 

[TopSecretBoiler]

secular morality tends to frown upon:

sex trafficking
abuse
taking advantage of the young/homeless/runaways

And you absolutely want to impose your morality. your morality is about placing individualism supreme above all other moral considerations, and you'd like to impose that on the rest of us. It's different, but it's not any more "pure" or "correct" or "moral."

quit telling a woman what to do with her body, man oppressor.

 

[terminalg92]

secular morality tends to frown upon:

sex trafficking
abuse
taking advantage of the young/homeless/runaways

The first 2 are illegal because they involve coercion, as well they should be. (The 3rd one is somewhat ambiguous.) You seem to be making the "side effect" argument against prostitution, in which case I assume you want to outlaw strip clubs as well?

And you absolutely want to impose your morality. your morality is about placing individualism supreme above all other moral considerations, and you'd like to impose that on the rest of us. It's different, but it's not any more "pure" or "correct" or "moral."

The same logic would say that abolitionists who fought for the end of slavery were imposing their morality on others. So yes to be technical, "imposing freedom" is imposing something. If that's the charge, I'll gladly accept it.

 

[qazplm]

The first 2 are illegal because they involve coercion, as well they should be. (The 3rd one is somewhat ambiguous.) You seem to be making the "side effect" argument against prostitution, in which case I assume you want to outlaw strip clubs as well?



The same logic would say that abolitionists who fought for the end of slavery were imposing their morality on others. So yes to be technical, "imposing freedom" is imposing something. If that's the charge, I'll gladly accept it.

I know it feels good to be on the side of ending slavery, but then again you've more or less said you are also fine with businesses conducting racial discrimination, soooo....

See, that's the problem with valuing freedom and only freedom and nothing else.

I think we should continue to have an age requirement for strip clubs you betcha. Of course, there isn't the same concern or evidence that strip clubs take advantage of underage or involve trafficking, probably because strip clubs are public businesses with liquor licenses conducted openly and there isn't necessarily an expectation of sex (there may be the possibility of sex, but not the explicit expectation). So in multiple ways, they are different.

 

[TOKenBoiler]

The first 2 are illegal because they involve coercion, as well they should be. (The 3rd one is somewhat ambiguous.) You seem to be making the "side effect" argument against prostitution, in which case I assume you want to outlaw strip clubs as well?



The same logic would say that abolitionists who fought for the end of slavery were imposing their morality on others. So yes to be technical, "imposing freedom" is imposing something. If that's the charge, I'll gladly accept it.

The anti-abolitionist retort was akin to, "Don't like slavery? Don't own one!" Sound familiar?
And, I'm not certain how objectifying women contributes to their societal well-being, either.
http://www.cato-unbound.org/2013/12/12/dianne-post/how-we-treat-prostitution-measure-our-society

 

[terminalg92]

I know it feels good to be on the side of ending slavery, but then again you've more or less said you are also fine with businesses conducting racial discrimination, soooo....

See, that's the problem with valuing freedom and only freedom and nothing else.

I think we should continue to have an age requirement for strip clubs you betcha. Of course, there isn't the same concern or evidence that strip clubs take advantage of underage or involve trafficking, probably because strip clubs are public businesses with liquor licenses conducted openly and there isn't necessarily an expectation of sex (there may be the possibility of sex, but not the explicit expectation). So in multiple ways, they are different.

It sounds like you agree that sex workers are mostly victims, right? (e.g. reportedly 1.5M in the U.S. alone were trafficked here) Yet your policy response is to throw these victims into jail?? Every year in the U.S. alone about 80,000 of these "victims" are incarcerated. This is about as disturbing as it gets--the typical case is a teenage woman who gets coerced into prostitution by a pimp with guns, she gets raped by him and his friends and then pimped out to "customers", all the while getting almost none of the money and consistently getting beat to $hit...and then when the government finds out, they throw her in jail. If we can't at least agree that the girl in this scenario needs help not prison time, then I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this topic.

Squarely on my side in this debate for either full-on legalization or at least not jailing the sex worker are the ACLU, Amnesty International, the World Health Organization, and the UN Human Rights Council, among others. Doesn't mean I'm right, but just pointing out that my view is also taken by many of the largest civil rights and health organizations. Unsurprisingly, the bulk of opposition to liberalizing prostitution in America is from the religious right and the Catholic Church.

 

[terminalg92]

The anti-abolitionist retort was akin to, "Don't like slavery? Don't own one!" Sound familiar?
And, I'm not certain how objectifying women contributes to their societal well-being, either.
http://www.cato-unbound.org/2013/12/12/dianne-post/how-we-treat-prostitution-measure-our-society

"Don't like slavery, don't own one" is a red herring in the context of this conversation.

Regarding "not certain how objectifying women contributes to their societal well-being", so let's assume that's true for the sake of argument. So following this lead why not make modeling illegal, as well as porn, strip clubs, beauty pageants, and probably 50% of today's advertising? Not to mention greasy foods, horror movies, alcohol, etc.

If it's not good for society, let's outlaw it. Yay government, help us save us from ourselves!!

 

[TOKenBoiler]

If it's not good for society, let's outlaw it. Yay government, help us save us from ourselves!!

This is a red herring. I'm talking about prostitution, i.e., making women a receptacle for men's bodily fluids and deeming it OK.