First, addicts and the mentally ill CAN be kept from their harmful behavior by forcing treatment if they are a danger to themselves and others. My only problem with our current system is that we can't do more to help people who clearly can't help themselves. As it stands, help usually becomes available after the criminal courts have become involved. That's sad IMO.

Secondly, the argument you make about about drug-addicted lawyers makes no sense. As has been pointed out many, many times, a majority of PROSTITUTES are: 1) victims of childhood abuse 2) addicts 3) mentally ill 4) impoverished and 5) (my fave) enter the profession of prostitution far below the age of any consent. Do most lawyers, doctors, teachers enter into and pursue their professions similarly afflicted? No way.

Also see this, which I posted before:

http://www.tiny.cc/Ig6wk

When droves of college-educated, stable, and clean men and women are all clamoring to work in the sex industry, then I'll believe that it is a consenting activity. I'm a teacher with a Masters degree and I'm quite certain that Kristen made much more money than me. How come I don't envy her job?

As I related on another thread, some of the women I went to college with put themselves through school that way. I won't tell you what some of them do now because you wouldn't believe me and discretion prevents me from saying more than that, even though I know I could without dangering their reputations. Some have advanced degrees. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, people with advanced degrees, (Ph.D.s), are working at Walmart in Texas. I kid you not.

That was a while ago, when I was in college. But even now, I can tell you that many young women are doing it that way. None of us want that. Some of us want free healthcare and education for all. Eliot Spitzer was not perfect but he was a move in the right direction.

@ 11:49. W.T. lurks? You lurk!

To use a baseball metaphor...

"I'm in a deep slump as I can be.

I'm in a dark forrest. No sun. No foliage.

Can't tell where west, east, north or south is."

New York Mets: first base, said, Keith Hernandez.

`

I lurk too. Aychoo! @11:01 Aycharaychoo do say some good 'stuff' to chew the moo cow cud over and over to think about. By the way, that's a open mind way I try to read the Super comments here, left or right, "liberal or conservative" ... dem/repub.

Aycharraych. Measure once, cut twice? No. Measure twice, and once.

I'm complimenting a fellow imperfect human. It's trying to be human.

`

It's so informing here. Often I feel like the 5-year old child with palsy?

The little 'guy' who aspires to stop blogging and make Super Bowl Soup.

No spit in the soup. Reading here should qualify everyone to be Dentist.

The farm dogs where I'm from go for the compost pile and eat hen dung.

If someone thinks about the dog's teeth, there should be a Law against it?

W.T. is no libertarian? Next he might outlaw librarians from dental school?

As YKW ask, "What drove you to it?" William Timberman drives Yellow Limos?

W.T. needs to attend culinary school. P.S. I'm way behind and a cat got my tongue?

Dang Pedinska!

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It's wise to lurk.

Ask janetplanet.

She's no dingbat.

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By trying to not think,

I think about what dogs eat.

Well. I am not swinging swell.

I believe It's called a dang soup and dough bat-slump.

Medically speaking, sometimes a mental enema helps?

Bill Anderson, Candice Jackson, P.C. Roberts and others have written articles and papers on what are sometimes called "derivative crimes," which are "crimes" that really are the bundling of other "bad acts" into things like "racketeering" and "securities fraud" and the like.

Eliot Spitzer apparently had been making "suspicious" cash transfers through clandestine means is likely to be charged with the "crime" called "structuring." He will be charged in the making of suspicious payments in order to break the law. The wire transfers were not illegal, and the feds thugs are not going to charge him with soliciting prostitutes. However, combine the two activities, and you have a federal crime.

This is like the conviction of Alabama football booster Logan Young a few years ago. Young withdrew amounts of money of less than $10,000 in order to hide (allegedly) payments to a coach of a prospect Alabama was recruiting. He was officially charged with something like "withdrawing money in amounts of less than $10,000 in order to hide payments to bribe a public servant"; however, it was never had been proven in a court of law that Young bribed anyone. The federal charges were bogus.

Spitzer's recent Wall Street prosecutions were just as baseless. He is a monster of the first rank and deserves destruction, but not via using the law in this horrid manner. It is hard not to rejoice when a man who deserves it gets his just rewards, but we must not applaud ever more criminality by the "justice" system in this country.

a majority of PROSTITUTES are: 1) victims of childhood abuse 2) addicts 3) mentally ill 4) impoverished and 5) (my fave) enter the profession of prostitution far below the age of any consent.

No argument. You could say the same about the female prison population where you will not find anyone convicted of prostitution. It's a misdemeanor.

They are like the tip of the iceberg.

The other 90% is below the surface, darling.

I've had it with you. I'm not even going to tease you anymore.

Take your Lew Rockwellian protofascist paleopuke and shove it.

What do you consider to be Kristen's reasons for entering into prostitution? Do you think she enjoys sex with strange men? Hmmm. I don't believe she mentioned that in her wiretapped conversation. She was quite blunt actually.

In reading Kristen's own words on her MySpace, she describes herself as a musician and reflects on her tough home life. How come no mention of her employment, her joy of sex with strangers?

People, please. If prostitution were so great, a whole lot more people with real CHOICES would do it. People would say,"let's see: pay off dental, veterinary, grad school or prostitution and an early retirement." That's not the case even where it's legal. That's because it's sad and it sucks. For most women, even high-priced Kristen, it's just a means to an end and not a pleasant one at that. But then, it appears that Kristen knows what it's like to be used/abused and she probably figured "I survived that so nothing else can take me down." I can't bring myself to call that a choice much less a good one.