Letters to the Editor
-
@SB4609 and thingswesaid
SB4609:
"maybe we'll start to see drug dealers as legitimate vendors diligently responding to market demand"
Well, that's how I always viewed the guy who owned the grocery store down the way from where I lived in California, who had no problem selling me a bottle of 50% ethyl alcohol whenever I felt like buying a bottle (rarely, fwiw.). As long as the store was open, that is...he usually opened at 9am, closed at 8pm, off on Sunday. I put money in his hand, he handed me a bottle, we exchanged a few pleasantries, and went our separate ways.
Virginia is different...when an alcoholic beverage is distilled, the Commonwealth itself gets into the act. They have a monopoly on the legal retail outlets (rarely challenged by bootleggers, fwiw.) Same basic routine, though.
thingwesaid:
"prostitution is not a victimless crime and society, as a whole, has made it illegal for that reason"
What's this "society, as a whole"?
That can't even be said about "the whole" of the nation of the United States of America. The state of Nevada has legalized prostitution. I've visited Nevada. It's hardly a snakepit of degenerates. In fact, Nevadans aren't all that different from their neighbors in Utah, Arizona, or California (a place where the bars close at 2am, and no alcohol is allowed to be served in strip clubs featuring total nudity- a fact that caused continual consternation in some of my cab customers visiting from Bible Belt states like Georgia, where they averred that "strip clubs are real strip clubs.")
I don't want to romanticize prostitution. I think it's an overdone film topic. But driving people into corners and poking at them with sticks does not help them- and that's what the criminalization of adult consensual behaviors deemed "socially deviant" by the majority typically equates to, when matters play out in the real world, as opposed to playing out in the self-righteous imaginations of the persecutors.
And to hear people support both laws against prostitution and Drug Prohibition because people over their heads with drug dependencies, particularly young females, often become prostitutes because because their best/most reliable/only source of supply is illegal drug dealers who are simultaneously pimps...don't you get it? It's the illegality that enables and empowers the predatory criminal class.
I mean, open up your ears. Look around you. Much of the social discourse of young America currently revolves around corruption, cynicism, pandering, selling out, conspicuous consumption, partying like a drug kingpin, playing and beating the system if you're rich enough, or violent enough, or a peerless liar...the term "pimp" has been neologized to be a good thing.
There's your Pure and Holy Drug War, ye sado-moralists. There's your 40 years of "results."
[click on my signature for link]
-
Not to mention
I don't know any woman who has killed herself in her elderly mother's property. That seems horribly cruel unless she hated her mom.
-
Death of Morality
Although Palfrey's suicide is tragic, her death should be a cautionary tale for all women
enchanted by the notion of selling their body or other women's bodies for money. Let's not
ignore the obvious-- most women become hookers because they want "easy," quick cash. They have choices. Sex as a commodity is one of the reasons for the unhappiness of so many in the postmodern world. Anyone who contributes to the tawdry business of drive-by sex shouldn't be transformed into pop culture stars or wept over as misguided innocents.
-
Just an observation...
...I occasionally watch an episode of Cathouse on HBO, I believe this is a *reality show* set in a legal whorehouse. It looks like a wonderful, exciting, fun way to make a living! It looks like one big sex toy/lingerie party, giggling with all your girlfriends, telling funny stories, just hangin' out. The clients who come calling are all respectful, well behaved, and extremely grateful for the privilege of handing over money and choosing one of these blushing beauties. The johns aren't good looking in any way, but not absolutely disgusting. The episode I saw explored how one favored regular and his whore spent a lot of time looking for her G-spot. How thoughtful! Oh, yeah, the girls make lots of money too, in addition to having fun fun fun all day and night!
I can hardly blame some young woman slaving away in McDonald's or Walmart watching this and thinking, hmmm, looks like fun, look at all the money they make, maybe I should give it a try for a year or two. Just until I save enough to put myself through college.
Thanks, HBO! Thanks for pointing the way!
-
No Mention of Cheney?
Just as the news of this woman's purported suicide hit the wire, I also heard that Cheney was one of her clients!?! And I see today in an 'editor's top choice' letter that there is also a connection between her and the 9-11 conspiracy.
This all makes at least as much sense as buildings in Manhattan falling directly into their thirty story basements and burning hot as iron smelters for a couple months (in an oxygen starved and water flooded environment no less!).
I wouldn't question 9-11 if I hadn't been exposed to the devil's 'physics' classes where I was forced to learn about such dubious claims as the 'theory' of gravity and the 'rules' of combustion. Activist Christians, with the support of the Preznit and Ben Stein, are doing their best to change that. See ExpelledExposed.com
"How stupid can you be?" is not a rhetorical question when applied to these "Discovery Institute" types anymore than "How criminal can you be?" when referring to Bush, Cheney and the entire cabal of self-admitted torture enthusiasts.
Many people are saying:
"Cheney could have cut off Ms. Palfrey's head on live TV, and the media would tell us her death was the result of Islamic terrorists in Antartica. By then, Bush would already be bombing the penquins."
Normally I wouldn't worry, but with a lame duck, religious hypocrite dill-hole at the helm, he might go nuclear on those Godless Islamic (some of whom are GAY BTW!!) Penguin bastards. Dude is crazy enough to melt the polar icecaps and flood half the world to save us from the evil menace of penguin domination.
He doesn't care. He lives high on a hill with all his well-healed buddies. Where do you live?
Let's see who else was on Ms Palfrey's list.
Enjoy.