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Wednesday, March 12, 2008 12:00 AM

Misadventures in logical reasoning -- and lessons learned from the Spitzer scandal

Nothing obliterates rational discourse like a titillating sex scandal.

The letters thread is now closed.

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008 08:36 PM

oh by the way

Thanks, Mona, same to you.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 08:36 PM

talesofunrest

Actually I was channeling Dan Aykroyd..

"Jane, you ignorant slut"..

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 08:36 PM

Aycharaych

She accused me of pimping out my granddaughters..

Why don't you call *her* on that, eh?

I didn't catch that. If she really said that, obviously that's out-of-bounds too, but I only noticed your comment.

I certainly can't do anything about it - I'm just asking you to please not stoop down to that level, even if you're provoked. It's not good for anybody, including yourself.

OK? I really, really gotta get to bed now.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 08:34 PM

@HRH

Tina you ignorant slut

I know you were doing parody here. The old Point/Counterpoint SNL skit with Ackroyd and Curtin, but it probably isn't good timing for that kind of comedy.

:-)

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 08:33 PM

Oh, Aych

Perhaps you think you bold heading was funny, coming, as it did, at the top of a new page, evoking the misogynistic 'comic' stylings of the disgusting woman-hating man, Chase, and at a time when a reader might still be pondering your unholy threat to ‘stop playing nice.’ But, knowest thou this, frequenter of prostitutes and hater of women! Tina hath no humor! She hath only glorious rightness! Heed my words and despair! Soon advances in cloning will render our pathetic sex obsolete and then there will be only Tina and the Great Rightness!

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 08:30 PM

The scandal behind the scandal

There certainly were extraordinary resources used by the feds to nail Spitzer. It has been reported that they even staked him out at one point to try and catch him red-handed:

http://www.mercurynews.com/nationworld/ci_8542727

Part of me wishes that Spitzer would have fought this one out. I certainly think there is an untold scandal behind the scandal which would be discovered if Spitzer would fight it out. Hell, it's been reported that his own wife wanted him to fight it out.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 08:30 PM

@AKA

I get what you are saying, but...

If you have $1,000 dollars to pay for her, chances are you outrank her in power and priviledge in every way.

I work in Newport Beach, CA. Trust me, there are sharks of both sexes operating there that are looking for any way they can to get money from the people that have a ton of it. They sell investment opportunities, fractional ownership in planes, sex, you name it. I'm good at spotting them, they're ususally the best dressed, the best groomed and drive the nicest cars.

They may not have the money that they people they are targeting do, but by no means should you assume that they are all victims of the old rich guy sitting at the bar minding his own business.

I don't feel sorry for the chump old guy, when 3 twenty something beautiful girls are all fawning over him and he thinks it's his charm. But I'm not worried about the delicate little girls in this case either and how they might be seen as objects and not be valued for their true potential.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 08:29 PM

Abuse Survivors and sexuality

I always thought lesbian author Pat Califia had an interesting perspective on this issue but the wiki entry doesn't go into it much.

You'd have to read some of her earlier books and articles.

He is now Patrick Califia.

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

There are hypocrites on this thread, just not the usual conservative kind.

-- tina schrier

Hypocrisy has no particular or preferred locus. Like idiocy, it tends to "pervade and regulate the whole."

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 08:28 PM

@DCLaw1

You have made outstanding contributions to this discussion.

About this: Not sure how many, if any, jurisdictions criminally punish adultery (I'm not a family or criminal attorney). If any do, I'm unequivocally against it for these same reasons.

I briefly practiced family law -- hated it. But in the two jurisdictions in which I was licensed before I got out of practice, and to my knowledge all others, adultery is no longer a criminal offense.

But, in one of my jurisdictions it was grounds for divorce. In the other, a "no-fault" state, the adulterous party could be (within limits) penalized in the property settlement.

Breaching the marriage contract is and should be a civil matter, not a criminal one.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 08:26 PM

Monseiur Claw

Woah now. I've been duelling with Tina and others for a while now, but I've got to call foul on your last comment.

She accused me of pimping out my granddaughters..

Why don't you call *her* on that, eh?

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 08:24 PM

Aycharaych

Woah now. I've been duelling with Tina and others for a while now, but I've got to call foul on your last comment.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 08:23 PM

Questions

AlecsMom, as an abuse survivor myself, I wish you moralizers would stop using people like myself as your justification for all the rights you want to take away from everyone else. ---Silenced

I'm an abuse survivor myself too, incest to be specific. And I don't see these "moralizers" the same way you do. I found the beginning of the first thread on this to be rather depressing until Mizmoon, Tina and AlecsMom started speaking up. It seemed to me that they were the ones who were showing concern for the actual human beings involved in the business of prostitution, to everyone else it was all about the abstraction. It warmed my heart to see them being so fierce.

It's not your job to supervise my healing journey or the healing journeys of any other women.

Hmm...I don't see prostitution for abuse survivors as part of a necessary stage in the "healing" part of the journey. That it may be is what I would call unfortunate.

You are not in charge. Your need to feel in charge feels to me like abuse in its own twisted way.

Again, I have to disagree that for opponents of legalizing prostitution that it's about needing to feel in charge. I couldn't possibly find the post now, but someone on the earlier thread wrote about community. Is every man or woman "an island"? Some apparently think so as if we are all just "one" with our individual rights, whereas others believe we are connected, our brother and sister's keeper to some extent. I don't think the "let's not legalize" crowd are trying to take away something -- an abstract right -- so much as they are trying to offer something -- succor. I believe that is the motivation.

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?

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