I've been trying to phrase this for a while, but haven't been able to. Once it was clear that this was not money laundering, why did the investigation continue?

-- jayackroyd

Some shrewd political operative realized that Kristen's history would play into the desired narrative.

It's a logical fallacy. Did prostitution cause Kristen's terrible childhood?. I'd bet it was alcohol or poverty but prostituion had little to do with it. Poverty and alcohol, we could prohibit one of those. Which one have we already tried to prohibit and how did that work out?

Aycharaych

Sorry I've been spelling your name wrong all night long (I can't figure out how to "say" your name in my head)!

Try HRH

We all have our better and weaker arguments; I realize that. Maybe there's room for a post re-thinking whether you've been a bit too extreme in your dismissals of those who have disagreed with you?

-- Hackenbush

It will never happen. We declared war on prohibitionists long ago. They, like neocons, have been proven wrong time after time and they've even been around longer.

I'll repost this, unabridged:

But war, in a good cause, is not the greatest evil which a nation can suffer. War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice – a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice – is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.

On Liberty

J.S. Mill

The research into prostitution supports and informs my perspective.

What research informs your personal perspective? Are you a client or a sex worker? Frankly, I fail to see what insight you could possibly bring when you utterly refuse to address the real lives of women involved in prostitution as evidenced by the research data.

Here's a link to help you begin the process of educating yourself about the profession:

http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/c-prostitution-research.html

If you have any research to show me that indicates that prostitution is not heavily influenced by factors such as abuse, addiction, psychological problems, poverty, etc.. please let me know. I am reading your posts waiting to see a response NOT based on your personal opinion.

Bottom line: I find it an unethical stance to state that prostitutes are essentially free agents who should be able to choose to sell their bodies. They are not free when their behavior is driven by powerful and destructive forces such as abuse, addiction, mental illness and poverty. No one chooses to be afflicted by those conditions either.

The reason that I think that illicit activity will stop if the behavior is legalized is that the "victim" has alternatives. Bootleggers went out of business after prohibition ended.

I did read Kristof today, and it did give me pause.

But it still seems to me that you are denying women full adulthood by saying that they are incapable of managing their own lives, and that laws have to be passed restricting their decisions.

And I'm still waiting for an answer to Mona's question. Is it only men who are capable of making decisions like these?

(Although the Ramones 33rd and 3rd comes to mind.)

The harm principle is articulated most clearly in John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, though it is also articulated in John Locke's Second Treatise of Government and in the work of Wilhelm von Humboldt, to whom Mill is obliged and discusses at length. Mill argues that the sole purpose of law should be to stop people from harming others. Conversely, Mill concludes that government should not forcibly prevent people from engaging in victimless crimes such as gambling, drug usage, and prostitution.

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

John Stuart Mill: On Liberty (1859)

John Stuart Mill, one of the foremost nineteenth-century spokesmen for liberalism, advocated Utilitarianism in ethics, i.e., the view that we should each act so as to promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Yet he was a champion of individual's rights, calling, among other things, for more power and freedom for women. In his treatise On Liberty he argues that in the past the danger had been that monarchs held power at the expense of the common people and the struggle was one of gaining liberty by limiting such governmental power. But now that power has largely passed into the hands of the people at large through democratic forms of government, the danger is that the majority denies liberty to individuals, whether explicitly through laws, which he calls "acts of public authority," or more subtly through morals and social pressure, which he calls "collective opinion."

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/mill.html

The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right... The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

– John Stuart Mill

http://www.utilitarianism.com/ol/one.html