Letters to the Editor
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Update II
That's spot on. It's obvious that partisan considerations played into the Spitzer specific aspects of this prosecution being front and centre in the details revealed to the press by the Federal DoJ.
Who is the Prosecutor in charge of whichever DoJ office handles New York? Was s/he a "loyal bushie" and had his or her checkbox under "FedSoc" been checked on Monica's list?
Remember everyone, the Federal DoJ is full of craven Bush partisans with pathetic third rate law degrees from bible colleges. I'm not even exaggerating. That was Monica Goodling's job. Hire loyal bushies. She admitted to this under oath.
They tried to put a loyal Bushie in charge of the Arkansas office that would have had jurisdiction over Whitewater and anything else Hillary did as Arkansas first lady. Three guesses how that one would have turned out. The investigation into "alleged" crimes by Hillary while First Lady would have begun about now.
They also railroaded Don Siegelman. Their first indictment was laughed out of court so they came back with a second laughable one with a different judge. One who hated Siegelman.
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It isn't hard to see what the problem is
Most Americans have a view of prostitution they see in the movies or on an actual street in their own red light district if they have one. The world that they don't see, or only get a glimpse of occasionally in film is quite diverse and profitable. It's where the high rollers go. and The Sultan of Brunei is the master of all he surveys. It is the oldest profession.
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Prostitution
AlecsMom, Mizmoon, Tina, Xrandadu - thanks for your comments.
Legal/illegal, I don't know what the answer is but I do know that I find prostitution disturbing. I recall an article from Ms. magazine many years ago about prostitution in Thailand, where 12-year-olds, sold by their poor families, were chained to their beds. What kind of man has sex with a 12-year-old chained to a bed, I thought? What is he thinking? How is it gratifying?
Oh, I know, we're talking about consenting adults here, so it's a whole different story. What people do with their bodies is nobody's business. Hard dangerous work, ok. Selling body parts when you need the money, ok? Or is there something about human dignity to that one? I lose track. Renting sexual parts to others for their gratification, ok. Lying about the nature of this transaction, otherwise known as selling the fantasy -- she really wants me! "Oh, baby, it's sooo big." God, this guy is gross. Will I have time to pick up my dry cleaning before it closes tomorrow after my doctor's appointment? Yes, yes, yes! That's so good!" -- All OK! Especially if the prostitute is making big money, then it's really ok. They're motivated, not exploited.
Those teenaged streetwalkers -- all of them 18 of course! -- with drug habits and pimps that beat them up, well, yeah, we can be a little squeamish about those, although there's no way of actually knowing that they ran away from home because of how mom got mad at them because of what stepdaddy was doing to them, or no way of knowing if they'd actually been trafficked -- that Russian accent, so cute! -- because after all, they never say so do they? So, they could just be making a legitimate choice, so OK. All ok! None of our business, consenting adults. $1000 hour, well, except for the commission of 50%, that's good money! And all they have to do is fuck and suck strangers. All they have to do is maybe what's "difficult", what "you might not think is safe" -- just what do you think Elliot Spitzer asks them do that fits that category? But not to worry, his little (5'5, 105 lbs) prostitute "Kristen" knows she's there for a purpose, "I know what my purpose is", she said. I wonder at what age she started knowing what her purpose was?
The Dutch found after they legalized that there aren't enough Dutch girls who want to be prostitutes so alas, there is human trafficking. Now that's wrong. Unrelated to prostitution. That's a different crime, right Glenn?
Incidentally, Spitzer's daughters are 18, 15, and 13. What would you say to them, Glenn, if you were their dad? Oh, never mind, I know his relationship with his daughers is none of our business. Nothing he does sexually is anyone's business. In no way, shape or form, does his sexual behavior outside his family say anything about him as a man, as a father, as a husband, because we just don't know what their relationship is. True enough. Maybe he's the exception to the rule and he'd want his daughters to grow up to be prostitutes just like his new $1,000 friend "Kristen".
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Josh, do you have a point?
I never mentioned legislation. I'm just refuting Glenn's assertion that a married person paying a third party for sex is something that transpires "between consenting adults." There is another person involved, albeit involuntarily, in the transaction: the married person's spouse.
Paying for sex doesn't change the fact that one spouse is breaking the marriage contract--not forthrightly, but secretly, so that the other partner will continue in good faith to treat the marriage as an exclusive relationship.
That's playing dirty, whether or not it runs afoul of the law.
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My Half
Then your problem is with adultery, not prostitution.
Not necessarily. It was her money, too, he spent.
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remember when
Thus: Adultery and fornication ought to be against the law, and prosecuted with significant penalties. Let us enforce "abstinence only," except within marriage.
-- -Mona
MYOB.
Was there ever an age of MYOB?
I think there was. The media left Ike, JFK and Nixon, (yes Nixon), and LBJ to their trysts unmolested.
Will Durant would have gone to prison today for marrying his young student, Ariel. They met when she was 13 and he was 28. They were married when she was 16? 14? I forget.
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It doesn't matter if you legalize prostitution...
...as long as there are still different moral standards for women and men when it comes to having lots of "free" sex, whether with strangers or mere acquaintances. And those differences do still exist.
Trying to make a case for making it legal first really is putting the cart before the horse.
All you guys who are so anxious to see prostitution legal might start by clamping down on the perspective that deems using women's body parts and sexuality as appropriate terms for insults and slurs.
[Of course, I recognize that some of the regulars here already do that... and it is much appreciated, even if I don't comment on it every time.]
That perspective is the real source of the "dirtiness" that surrounds illicit sex.
This is my tangent on DCLaw's implicit notion that the legal difference is that it's all about who controls the commerce. Isn't that always the case?
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OT, but almost related...
Not to defend the FBI, but earlier tonight before I decided to catch up on these threads I watched a PBS special on Pete Seeger (American Masters series), and one of the those who had known Seeger when he was young and took music lessons from him when he was a child... said that you could almost credit the FBI with helping to create the conditions for the mass revival of folk music.
During the blacklist period, when Seeger was pretty much banned everywhere else, TV, radio, etc., he was still "allowed" to perform for and teach children. They apparently figured he couldn't cause much trouble with a bunch of 6-year olds, but as the commenter (whose name I couldn't read on the small screen) said... they all grew up loving folk songs, the banjo, the whole thing, and when they went off to college, they took that music with them, first in small groups with friends, but then growing into larger and larger events.
At one point, Seeger said that performing for children, and teaching them to sing out was his favorite venue. There was no way he could look out at those small faces and not feel hope. I don't have that same personal experience to give me hope... but I will say that contemplating the "unintended consequences" of the FBI's "commie" investigations gives me hope for some equally interesting unintended consequences of the Bush maladministration that we simply cannot foresee. [MicroSoft would call it a "feature."]
I also realized watching that special that every successful political action or movement, etc, seems to have a meaningful soundtrack, something that it's easy to take for granted.
Perhaps that's what's missing now in the fight against FISA-immunity for telecoms or for the Pakistani lawyers and Black Flag Week. A good soundtrack. Something to think about... and I highly recommend that special if it comes to your local PBS station. It had a lot more good stuff.