I like your analogy to gold. However, gold is something I can hold in my hand -- if only I can afford it. Free will is more ... ephemeral. Do you believe it actually exists?

Free will is the concept that allows us to apply moral reasoning. If we don't assume free will or agency then the concepts of punishment or justice lose their meaning.

I put it in the same category as the value of gold.

Gold has little intrinsic value except that driven by human consensus. But history proves that mere human consensus is an immensely powerful force and that the value of gold is a powerful illusion.

(actually illusion is probably a poor word choice since it has no more or less reality than Freedom, Justice and Illegal Aliens - all constructs of the power of consensus.)

We all loathe something. For me, I don't much like it when people talk crap about Arabs. As you can imagine, being an Arab-American for the past 8 years, as I have been, has made being angry about that a full time job. I've learned not to waste time yelling at people--in cyber or meat-space. Not because its wrong. It just doesn't get me anywhere, except fuming and red-faced. Also, I feel that I have a unique position to change people's view if I can get them to listen to me long enough..generally, that means not making them feel like they have to put their defensives up. Not that I would tell someone what to do on their blogging territory, and I'm sure I will get flamed now for "telling people what to do" and "being nosy" (as if telling people to shut up because they're stupid is not telling people what to do). Its just an observation and a suggestion

It has sex and personal animus..

All that is needed for a rip roaring thread..

Enhance the experiences of the atoms that are you by permitting them to be used by others.

Over at CBSMarketwatch, Herb Greenberg (a favorite of mine) has an article about Langone's odd comments about Spitzer and what he knew.

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/greenberg/2008/03/what-role-did-langone-play-in-spitzers-fall/

Here's a quote:

CNBC: Would you say that you were surprised by this news?

LANGONE: Not at all. I had no doubt about his lack of character and integrity. It would only be a matter of time, I didn’t think he would do it this soon or the way he did it. But I know for sure he went himself to a post office and bought $2,800 worth of mail orders to send to the hooker.

Langone's spokesman is now saying it was second hand, blah, blah, but it is kind of weird for Langone to be so vocal about knowing all about Spitzer's behavoir.

... where in this picture do you see "free will?"

“Now it could be argued, that who cares about the motivation if the result is the same -- somebody trampling on my right to rent someone else's mouth, ass, or vagina for my own purposes. But where does this right come from? WHY is it a right? Because the alternative is to say that we are not the "captains" our little ships, as if it's cut and dried? Why do we ever intervene for someone's "own good"? The jumper on the roof or the domestic violence victim, for instance. Why do we care? What should we do or not do when we "care"? Is there an instance when caring about the harm, the human might trump caring about losing the right?”

I think that the fact that you were abused is causing you to care so much that you miss the point that many of us are making. Yes you can cite the terrible hardships that the abused have had to endure, including prostitution. I volunteered at a battered women’s shelter once a week for seven years and heard many touching horror stories. That has nothing to do with questions that have been offered over and over to closed ears. Is making prostitution illegal helping more than it is hurting and who is it hurting the most? What is the difference between a woman providing sexual services because she is married or on a date and partaking of expensive pleasures or gifts as a result and a paid prostitute? Why is one type of prostitution legal and the other illegal? What right do I have to say that someone who is not coerced can not be paid for her services and can be thrown in jail. How is that a fair application of our constitution and treating everyone as equals.

The fact that pimps, gangs and club owners take advantage of women and force them to do things they find disgusting or an abuser harms men or women does not negate the answers to the above questions. I have argued that laws should be fair and designed to improve the life for people not make things worse and make it easier to oppress other people. We have too many laws that are based on morals and how certain powerful people believe others should conduct their private lives and that is what I, Glenn and so many others are objecting to.

Please tell me what you think the law should be and how it will be fair and equitable. There are other societies that have found better answers to the questions I have posed than we have. Instead using our morals to tell them how wrong they are, why not try and learn from them and have a more open mind when we create or reform our laws?

I must confess I am at best a sporadic reader of your blog. But in my limited exposure I've never seen you hang on a board so long responding to readers with such passion. This appears to be an issue that has really touched a nerve.

Well, I have extensive exposure to Glenn's pre-Salon blog, having read it from its inception in 10/05, and as some here are aware and have said, I knew him in meatspace before that.

It doesn't matter what the issue is: he detests any suggestion that some majority of adults should be telling other consenting adults what their choices should be. I mean, he thoroughly loathes that, as do I. That is the "nerve" that has been touched.