Your sharp, steaming-hot reason cuts like a knife through the bullshit, Glenn.

Just because something IS a law, doesn't mean it SHOULD be.

Keep on keepin' on, GeeGee.

(I'm still convinced that a connection will pop between the admin's illegal wiretapping and the Spitzer affair. All it takes is one l'il ol' whistleblower...)

Congratulations on the strangest take on Prohibition I've ever seen. Completely wrong of course, but still wins for "strangest".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

People who respect the judgments which adult women make about their own lives and believe in their right to choose for themselves how they live are sexist and even misogynistic. People who believe that adult women don't really know what's good for them and need to have choices made for them by others are the people who respect women.

This is the aspect that really irritates me. I lived for several years with a woman who worked as an exotic dancer(stripper) and her kids. She was the best mother and one of the smartest women I've ever known. She used to get the self-righteous attitude we saw in the comments section yesterday from women she worked with at a homeless shelter (as well as other places but i didn't always get to see those exchanges.) It was always enjoyable to watch her demolish the faux-feminist attitudes of women (and men, even more annoyingly) who want to lecture women who make choices about their own bodies that the moralizers disagree with.

I'm glad you took the time to revisit this subject. There is so much irrationality in the arguments of those who try to foist their own sexual morality on the whole world that it's worthy of a more thorough analysis. I was tempted to jump in yesterday but didn't have the time or patience to do it right. Plus it was after everybody had gone to bed. Good to see you take it on Glenn.

They sure as hell did on Monday night, Glenn, when your article was a tirade against people for "caring what Spitzer does in his private life."

Those issues pertained completely, and you kept avoiding them.

I guess you've sorted everything else out since then, except perhaps the chips on your shoulders.

If you want to legalize and regulate prostitution in all 50 states of the U.S., fine, go for it. Make your arguments, make them logically, and I'm sure it will be a lively debate.

If you want to make the same arguments directly in the aftermath of a high-profile scandal involving a big-name governor who has aggressively prosecuted against prostitution rings, don't be surprised if the issues get muddled.

And don't go around trying to tell us that "rational discourse" wasn't obscured by your own hot-headedness on the subject. (Or was it some other Glenn Greenwald who attempted to personally misrepresent me as somebody who was on a crusade to imprison prostitutes?)

I am all for a level-headed look at libertarian, personal-liberties, civil-rights, practical vs. moral, social-reality-confronting types of issues. Legalize prostitution? Okay, then how will it be done, what are the drawbacks? Let's discuss them.

Decriminalize pot? Okay, let's discuss it. Let's hear arguments for why it won't lead to an increase in use, especially among minors, for example.

That's all well and good. Why haven't you brought up such issues spontaenously if you care about them this much? Why does it take a Spitzer scandal to bring them to the fore?

Sometimes, people get drunk and drive, or get drunk and abuse others. Therefore, we should outlaw all alcohol (rather than just outlaw drunk driving and assault).

"When Women Unite: The story of an uprising

( )

he film narrates the incredibly moving story of the anti-arrack (state-supplied distilled liquor) movement that led to the eventual ban of arrack sales in Andhra Pradesh in 1995. The movement started when a group of women participating in a literacy program started questioning their oppressed status. Spurred into action by the killing of a village woman (who was beaten to death by her drunk husband when she tried to prevent him from molesting their daughter), they took on the men of the village, the powerful arrack contractors, and the repressive state machinery in a valiant struggle that demanded a stop to the endless supply of arrack to their village (the only village tap dispensed water once in two days while the arrack shop received its supplies twice a day). The movement took hold and spread across the state over a period of four hard-fought years. It was a true grass-roots movement; even today it has no identifiable leaders. The movie documents the incredible courage of these women, their political and social consciousness and their steady realization that, through struggle, they could control their own destiny."

from:

http://www.sawnet.org/cinema/?Virmani+Shabnam

What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.