The Spitzer scandal will have traction with people not for moral reasons but because the average american is hemmed in on all sides by callous laws that they cannot even bend, much less break.

Good point.

As I observed on another thread, law enforcement officers treat each other differently when found in criminal conduct than they do jane q citizen.

The amusing thing is they don't even bother to deny it..

Glenn-- Please consider developing what these two matters have in common: the government has a tremendous amount of information about all of us, and at present functionally few if any restraints on how they use it.

We are being told that a bank employee reported "suspicious activity" by Mr. Spitzer. Can we be so sure? Is it such a stretch to think that maybe big brother was keeping watch over Spitzer's every move just in case something politically useful popped up? Not hard to then have the bank in question file a report. And how many others might be under similar scrutiny?

The media is now making frequent reference to "illegal money transfers" in reporting the Spitzer story. Having been tangentially involved in this area from my years as a tax consultant, I can almost guarantee there was nothing illegal about how Spitzer moved around his money. For instance, cash transactions of more than $10,000 at a bank aren't illegal, they merely have to be reported to the treasury department by the bank. Reporting any amounts less than that is at the discretion of the bank, but it is still perfectly legal to withdraw or deposit cash. How Mr. Spitzer spent his money is where laws got broken, not how he accessed it.

From this you can see that banks have been deputized into a system of ongoing data mining not dissimilar to what the telecoms are doing. And we all are potentially under scrutiny here just as with our emails and phone calls.

> Under which clause of the Constitution is it a federal crime if a certain weed happens to be growing on my property? Can you answer it without looking it up?

Yes. The courts have historically used the Interstate Commerce Clause. It's a travesty of the letter and spirit of the law, but there you go.

And you are not the first person to ask why alcohol illegality required an ammendment while the entire War on Drugs has been waged on _extremely_ dubious legal grounds. But to claim that either historic alcohol or modern marijuana prohibitions were "merely criminalization" marks you as very stupid. There are something like 700,000 arrests for marijuana each year, and the vast overwhelming majority of them are for possession.

And when it comes to our laws, it is 50%+1 that matters.

Bzzt.. Sorry.. Wrong..

There is this little thing called "The Constitution"..

You may have heard of it?

It limits the power of the government, ie; the majority, to make any law it may dream up.

If you are truly interested in knowing how feminists view prostitution--I don't think you are, but well--the Feministing blog has been running a great thread on this very topic, also in relation to Spitzer. You can go read it to get a leg up on your feminist theory regarding prostitution.

As for the women saying they like to prostitute themselves, slaves in the American south could always be found saying they were happy with their lot (like Jupiter Hammond), Iraqis can be found who will say the Americans should stay forever, and about 20% of people will say George Bush is a great President.

Do we believe them? Are they right?

As for bodily freedom--I'm all for it. But the law tells us what we can do with our bodies every time we get in the car and pull a seat belt over our shoulders. We enact legislation to protect people from their own stupidity and shortsightedness every day (helmet laws anyone?) For that matter suicide is against the law; you don't have the right to kill yourself. Part of the reason drug laws stay on the books, whether or not you support them, is the demonstrable harm drugs do to the users (it's only partly a plot by big pharma). Prostitution is a huge risk for the hooker and a public health risk as well.

So yes, when people are being patently stupid, we pass laws to protect them from themselves and others they may hurt in the process of being stupid. Why should prostitution be different?

Why exactly? And why so touchy on this issue?

The Hell you say!

We - all of us humans - have a strong personal interest in denying, to ourselves, the fact that we are going to die.

I assure you that I have no intention of dying and if you say that again I'll deck you. Pussy death lover!

"Only in the depths of your sexually repressed mind does consensual sex rank with the genocide, Constitution-destruction and treason committed by Smirky-Darth.

So spare us your pronouncements on moral equivalency."

So, suggesting that two different crimes deserve prosecution is moral equivalency? Yellow Dog, you are a silly fool.

But to claim that either historic alcohol or modern marijuana prohibitions were "merely criminalization" marks you as very stupid. There are something like 700,000 arrests for marijuana each year, and the vast overwhelming majority of them are for possession.

I'm sorry, you're going to have to type even more slowly..

I've already explained that I'm about as dense as neutronium.

Even as dumb and ignorant as I am, in nearly twenty years I have found out that possessing marijuana is indeed a crime.

Is Larry Craig's wife.

I haven't read all of the posts but you encapsulated my exact feeling of the so called 'liberal' NYTimes.

A person who says:

I wouldn't pass you in the freshman argument class that I used to teach in college.

and:

Is your ego so overbearing that you cannot bear to admit that you were wrong about something?

And then says:

And your scolding, lecturing tone is a disappointment, too. What a shame.

is lacking a heap of self-awareness.

And you are wrong about prostitution--it demeans all women who are involved in it, even "high class" call girls--whatever that means.

So women who claim otherwise just need to defer to your own superior judgment of their lives. And who is lacking respect for women here?

Until you have had sex with a man you find offensive or vile, but you must go on, you cannot appreciate this fact. You just can't.

This is what it really comes down to. You have a very personal take on this issue that springs from your own experiences, and you think your own conclusions should be acepted by all women, and those who disagree just need to learn that your judgment is superior. Your view of other women is very demeaning.