http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/78885/

L.W.M. plenty of salvia info on the web. Careful.

Tina Schrier has done something I don't think I could accomplish: Maintained a cool head and intelligently argued her position for a 200-page-plus comments section. Bravo.

-- Xrandadu Hutman

Whose constant whining and moralizing moralizing and whining led Spitzer down the road to hypocrisy:

http://tinyurl.com/2ya7y2

But he at least tried to be fair about prosecutions. No point in making the woman's crime a misdemeanor if there is no charge for the john.

"Politics ain't beanbag: 'tis a man's game, and women, children and prohibitionists had best stay out of it."

Finley peter Dunne

That was a long time ago. I'm all in favor of letting women do politics now, or prostitution. Same thing, really.

;-)

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/78885/

L.W.M. plenty of salvia info on the web. Careful.

-- bamage

Yeah, and I don't trust the web. Do you know anything about it?

I can google and I will, but I am interested in first hand accounts and anecdotal info.

I'd rather have some weed.

We call the attitude "paternalism" but IMHO it might just as easily be characterized as "maternalism": that excessive smotherly motherly concern for the consequences of one's foolish or even tragic life choices, the kind of concern that makes one feel even smaller and shittier than the choices themselves did.

If we were to subtract that inappropriately parental concern from the discussion about prostitutes (their life histories and why they do what they do), I think we'd eventually work our way back to this: Kidnapping is illegal. Slavery/forced servitude is illegal. Theft of wages is illegal. Battery and physical abuse are illegal. Rape is illegal. Pedophilia is illegal. Etc... Beyond these individual crimes and others I may have forgotten to include, why should anyone care if one adult chooses to have sex with another adult for money?

@ Arne re: "Glenn, you're sounding positively libertarian today!!!"

As did LMW -- making superb arguments -- in the previous Spitzer post comments.

Mind you, I wasn't complaining. ;-) Despite my yanking the chains of Libertoonarians every once in a while, I do have the same libertarian tendencies myself. It's that I steadfastly refuse to believe in either absolutes or rigid "one size fits all" dogma, and it's generally in those environs (and in the "economic libertarian" nonsense) where I and the more strident Capital-L crew part ways.

FWIW, I assume you meant LWM.

Cheers,

There'll be 15 minutes of teasin' and cheesecake
Then you'll holler "please don't stop"
There'll be 15 minutes of strokin' our chins
And 15 minutes of jokin' and zingers
And 15 minutes of blowin' our tops
We're the sixty minute newsmen
Oh yeah

Meanwhile . . .

http://legitgov.org/spitzer_sex_life_weapon_mass_distraction.html
Spitzer's Sex Life Is Weapon of Mass Distraction for Bunch of Bad News for Bush 10 Mar 2008 By Lori Price On Monday, we learned: The Iraq war will top 3 trillion dollars; a former Pentagon official has written a book attacking the CIA and other US officials over the US-led Iraq war; 8 US soldiers were killed in a Baghdad blast; an Iraqi tribal leader - the head of an 'Awakening Council' - and three others were killed in a Diyala province suicide bombing; CIA torture will continue, per Bush; the House Judiciary Committee has filed suit to force two White House officials to provide information about the firing of U.S. attorneys; more trouble for Carlyle group has surfaced; oil has soared to $110 per barrel; gas prices have reached a new record; a lawsuit has been filed claiming that the Fish and Wildlife Service is now in breach of its own mandate; an AP investigation has revealed that a vast array of pharmaceuticals are in the US water supply.

Meanwhile . . .

http://mediabloodhound.typepad.com/weblog/2008/03/op-ed-column-ny.html
Sunday's New York Times report on President Bush's veto of a bill that sought to prohibit the CIA from using torture techniques such as waterboarding. Here's the lede: "President Bush on Saturday further cemented his legacy of fighting for strong executive powers." [...] There you have it. According to The Times, Bush's legacy of gutting and subverting our Constitution in a patently authoritarian, fascistic manner is defined as merely "fighting for strong executive powers." Such reporting is as absurd as summing up a man's inclination to beat his wife as an act that depicts a strong male role in marriage. During the Bush years, this kind of intellectually dishonest, apologetic journalism has done grave damage to our country and the rest of the world. The smattering of begrudging mea culpas aside, such reportorial distillations in our mainstream media, in which reality is jettisoned for unmitigated transcription of White House talking points, has not, as conventional wisdom keeps telling us, subsided much, if at all, since the earliest drumbeats to invade Iraq. [...]

Meanwhile . . .

Glenn, maybe you and Silda should sit down and have dinner sometime. I would love to see you explain to her how what Elliot does with his penis is a victimless affair, which should concern no-one other than himself and his hooker.

You wanna have a serious conversation? Talk to Spitzer's wife. Otherwise you are just another water cooler gossip with an opinion that just doesn't really matter.

It's just amazing how many people can't stop sticking their noses into other people's marriages. And they always fantasize that they know the first thing about the marriage -- about what the spouses think of one another, what their obligations are to one another, what agreements they have, what behaviors they've engaged in previously, what they know about each other, etc. etc.

Here's a commenter -- one of many, many, many -- who has created this whole fantasy life where s/he knows the intimate details of the Spitzers' marriage, knows what "Silda" thinks about these things, knows who has breached what vows, knows their emotional state -- just like everyone knew the Clintons and couldn't stop analyzing and chatting about their marriage either.

What drives people to want to become so involved in the intimate details of other people's most private realm and become a party to their marriage? Just bizarre.