Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 682 Editor's Choice: 9
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War on Sex, War on Drugs
[Read the article: Who cares if Eliot Spitzer hires prostitutes?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]At the core, adherents and supporters of both tack an emotional and irrational response which prevents a more nuanced debate as to whether or not either "war" is actually doing any good.
An argument can, and should be made that neither do anyone any good, in the end. That it is both better to (a) not lock up non-violent offenders in the drug war or (b) consenting adults in the sex war; that it is better to (a) spend money on drug treatment instead of incarceration and to (b) spend money on offering health care to sex workers than incarceration.
Certainly, legalizing drugs will not stop widespread drug use problems, a real public health crisis, nor will legalizing prostitution solve the problems of child slavery, abuse against sex workers male and female (or "other", I suppose), but continued prohibition helps no one at all. No one.
Except maybe the conscience of the devotees to the cult of prohibition, a bizarre and deranged dogma the founding father's would have found both curious and disdainful.
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Bravo
[Read the article: Misadventures in logical reasoning -- and lessons learned from the Spitzer scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Spot on, Glenn. Treating adults like children is liberty unbound, citizen!
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@vermonter17032
[Read the article: Misadventures in logical reasoning -- and lessons learned from the Spitzer scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]However, Spitzer had to know what disclosure of his activities would mean. Yet he put his own appetites above that of the needs of his constituents. Even above his own stated principles. This is what it is hard for me to forgive.
The key word being appetite. If we were talking about food, then it would be clear to see that one does not necessarily follow the other. Hence, a false dichotomy.
So, what does fucking a whore have to do with serving the people of the great state of New York?
Sure sure, it costs political capital with an already hostile federal government. But resignation should not be automatic. I mean, its already out there? Unless the FBI has pictures of him en flagrante delicte with a 12 year old boy, how much worse can things get? Did he also kill a hooker? Where's the other shoe?
Bill Clinton rode it out, look at him now! Okay, bad example?
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In other news..
[Read the article: Misadventures in logical reasoning -- and lessons learned from the Spitzer scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm watching media "critic" Howard Kurts (friend of the show!) on the Colbert Report. Ethan Nadelmann was the act-two guest.
This comments thread has been a real riot.
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The only thing left..
[Read the article: Reexamining the Ferraro fracas]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]..is for Hillary Clinton to bow out of the race.
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@Brian in VA
[Read the article: Reexamining the Ferraro fracas]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If the Clinton campaign allowed Obama to speak to substantive issues in the news cycles, it looses. Mud = distraction. To paraphrase Mark Penn, "she cannot win the election."
Hillary Clinton will not win. The nasty children do not get to play with the toys anymore. We've already had 8 years of that. The voters will not allow another brat into the White House.
So take your ball and go home, Hillary. You are done. Game over. You fail.
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Hitchens
[Read the article: I don't believe in atheists]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think the fundamental mistake here is conflating traditional religions, sects and cults with quote Capital-A Atheism, which doesn't really exist.
In fact, among people who would choose (often reluctantly) to identify themselves as atheist there is vigorous debate. Not all of us hang on every word of Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins. Neither are we uniformly libertarian, Libertarian, neo-Conservative, authoritarian, progressive, socialist, Communist, Democratic or Republican.
Now, I do not agree with everything that Hitchens says. I agree with some of it (Muslims in Europe should not be coddled by European governments in the name of "multi-culturalism"; the practices of Sharia are antithetical to the entirety of the History of European law since the Magna Carta, and should be fought). I disagree with a great deal of it (Iran should be attacked, Iraq and al-Qaeda were somehow in cahoots).
But to say that Hitchens demands uniform, or even a plurality of respect on a hegemony of his views in that oh-so-influential Atheist lobby/voting bloc is divorced from reality. Insert joke about believing in invisible men in the sky, but, I think you take my point.
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@williedigital
[Read the article: Misadventures in logical reasoning -- and lessons learned from the Spitzer scandal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's not that I am somehow fundamentally opposed to legalized prostitution. I just feel that it's ignorant to suggest that 1) legalizing prostitution would largely eliminate the "secondary" unpleasant effects of prostitution 2) most prostitutes are clear-thinking, rational agents when they choose to enter the "profession", and 3) it's a horrible violation of someone's rights to not allow them to sell their body.
(1) All evidence suggests that this would be the case.
(2) I would rather the government not make assumptions about my ability to make decisions, and worse, second or pre-guess my decision making ability as an adult. In a free country, you are free to make mistakes. There is a process under which the courts can declare a person incompetent.
(3) It is a violation of someone's civil rights to, without due process, impinge on their right to earn a living. We wouldn't tolerate a government that would interfere with any other consensual sex between adults: one which punished homosexuals or inter-faith and inter-racial relationships. Why penalize either party for a quid-pro-quo of sex for cash? It is gapingly non-sensical and unfair.