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Let's legalize Hookers. This time in California.
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Frankly too much of our society is based around the buying and selling of sex as it is, and the biggest objection most people have for prosititution that will still stand when it's legalized is that it creates competition for marriage.
Do I have to point out it didn't matter in Nevada so why would it matter here?
Well. I can understand that stance. I just can't take it.
I'm against direct harm over nebulus good. Guess we just agree to disagree?
Yes.
I dunno. Ask Kevin. He brought up the retarded tax law tangent, not me.
How is it "retarded"? Why is is so hard to understand that if businesses are no longer black market that taxes, even pithy sales taxes,*will get paid because they like staying in business. Why is it so hard to understand that if something is legal then it can be backed by contracts that will be upheld in court. Contracts that enforce clients to not beat the crap out of the sex workers, for example.
Why are these concepts difficult to understand for you and why do you think more regulation is somehow needed in an industry that isn't even legal.
In exchange for paying taxes, they don't have to bribe officers or deal with clients who walk out without paying.
Getting under the umbrella of legal protection would probably be financially beneficial to the industry.
Perhaps the Brothel, a legitamate business, pays it's federal taxes just like every other business?
Besides, I thought one of the purposes for our givernment was to allow local areas to kind of govern themselves, outside of contradicting the state or federal.
They're not difficult to understand at all. You have established that legalization can result in these work arrangements being backed by contracts. Establishing that it can happen doesn't necessarily mean it will happen.
a). Eh. Not interested in a moral discussion, so yeah sure believe that.
b). Undoubtedly. The current law as it stands in san francisco is like, an extra helping of harm, added onto the existing harm. So they have all the shit of being a prostitute and then you slap a record on them. Remove it? Yeah they are still a prostitute, with all the shit. No they don't have a police record.
c). Should be criminalised is a naive ideal based on a rational society and a non corrupt police system. Not the case here Ragg. You can go the police should do it all you like. The fact is they are not doing it.
You haven't addressed why this law is bad in the situation of the city of san fransisco. What the police "should do" is not relevant. What they "are doing" is.
I'm not interested in generalised moral platitudes. I'm interested in this law. Became really interested in this discussion after reading that law. If you want to go prostitution should be criminalised in general regardless of situation I'm going to generalise that you are being morally void yourself.
Lastly, you didn't read the bolded parts properly. Or you had the audacity to gloss over this little snippet.
Law is good. I support this law.
Perhaps. Maybe. God willing, and the creek don't rise.
You seem to leap to the worst case scenario. Not to pull a Capone here but once alcohol was legalized again gangs didn't stay in the rum running business, legitimate people took over.
What I'm opposed to is this weirdly libertarian notion that if we legalize it without also regulating or licensing it or at the very least increasing funding for support services, everything will be hunky dory or at least substantially better than they are now.
BTW, comparisons to the state of Nevada fail on this very point in that Nevada didn't outright legalize prostitution, they allowed municipalities to legalize and regulate prostitution within certain parameters. (Same with comparisons to prohibition - we license people to manufacture, transport, and sell alcohol; specify when and where they may do so and to whom.)
I don't oppose legalization. I oppose laissez-faire legalization.
This is true. It's also true that unsavory people will pay taxes if it means they get to keep a good thing going. Even strip clubs and porn companies pay taxes.
Honestly, it needs to be treated somewhere somewhere between a drug and a medical practice.
Only if you're a really stupid criminal.
It turns out we can agree on some things after all, just not methods.
Do you at least see that this particular law had to go through in some form though considering the corruption in the police system in sf? That it's not the result of stupid shortsightedness but urgency at fixing a direct harm which is probably going to be amended later?
"You seem down, I'm going to write a prescription for two chicks at the same time. That should lift you back up."
Was it once a felony to operate a strip club or porn company? Despite it being a felony, did such companies operate covertly anyway? Were such covert operations ubiquitous? Did they develop skills and attitudes that facilitated working outside the law?
In other words, can you establish that your analogy has any sociological or criminological merit? Or did you just choose those examples because they had to do with sex?
My chiropractor gives happy endings!
Welcome to your FABULOUS colonoscopy!
I agree. Feral and I aren't saying we don't want legalization, were saying we want legalization & licensing & regulation. If we were talking about legalizing weed you wouldn't be disagreeing with us.
I chose them as examples because these business ventures attract the same types of people. People who work in the stripping industry often go into porn and even prostitution.
You made the case that this was a bad law without implicit regulation because it would be "totally laissez-faire". That is a lie, since to run a business legally in this country you must conform to certain standards of how you treat your workers and pay taxes. You don't need to spell this out in the decriminalization piece of this legislation, it's implied.
After we got to this point then you started claiming that these people just wouldn't pay their taxes because they don't understand how CBA works. I'm arguing that they do and it's worth it to them to pay taxes so they don't get hassled by the IRS. I'm citing other related industries as examples. I think they are relevant parallels.
I think how you treat your workers is key to this argument. Legalizing prostitution might eventually fix things, but you said yourself it is dependent on enforcing worker treatment laws. The prostitutes are already protected by law but they are being abused and not pressing charges, how exactly will this change things?
Also, does this law make brothels legal? Sounds to me like it is specifically cracking down on management (brothel operators?)...so how are the prostitutes suppose to setup their own legal operations free from abuse?
I'm unsure about this law, because it doesn't lay out a system of regulations but I think its intentions are good. From reading it it seems the San Fransisco police department isn't doing their job and are actively behaving inhumanely. If this law isn't passed then what would you suggest instead, in order to curb these police officers from acting so awfully to prostitutes? Seriously, read the fucking law. I thought San Fransisco was supposed to be a decent city.
I think arguments shouldn't be made largely from "moral objections". Basing most of your argument on your morals and attempting to push those morals on others without sufficient reasoning on your part is little better than pulling your agenda out of a bible.
I do not believe decriminalizing something is "promoting" it. That is not the intention of decriminalizing prostitution at all, and everyone of you knows this. The point is to make this profession safer for the women who practice it. The only people who are going to be howling about how the government is telling everybody to run out and become prostitutes is Bill O'Reily and other Republican pundits.
I don't think there are a significant portion of women out there who are on the fence about prostitution and are thinking "well I'd do it, if only it wasn't illegal". I don't have studies or anything concrete to back me up on this so you can ignore it if you want, but this makes sense to me. I think if someone is being deterred from becoming a prostitute it's because they're thinking "it's immoral", "it's dirty", "it's unsafe". They're thinking about the actual act and what it entails and not the punishment. Punishment is not as big as a deterrent as some people think. I hate to draw a comparison to the death penalty because it doesn't belong in this thread but one of the reasons people are against the death penalty is because they don't believe it's a significant deterrent.
A question I have is, if this law was passed and prostitution was made more legitimate, what do all of you think are the chances of a union springing up? Couldn't a union work towards better legislation and protect its members?
The assumption you continue to make is that an industry that has operated outside the law for generations would suddenly turn into law-abiding, tax-paying, upstanding legitimate businesses if it were legalized.
Are you honestly trying to tell me that that the fear of "getting hassled by the IRS" would scare a bunch of people straight when the threat of getting arrested and going to prison did not?
Because they would be able to file charges without fear of getting arrested or in trouble themselves. Under current law there is no guarantee. The cops might be nice or they might make them perform tricks for free for the cops as re-payment, or they might just arrest the worker. Since it's all illegal basically anything goes.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0511-03.htm
You're still not getting the concept behind A) running a legit business, making money at it, employing workers and not abusing them or working in a legit business yourself and conceding the government might take some money off the top versus B) being desperate, having no prospects, and doing whatever you can for a buck.
The current law doesn't even allow for option A. Why don't we open the door for that first and then go forward with regulations if they prove necessary?
So your saying that when sex workers claim to have been raped or beaten cops just arrest them? If that is currently going on it is a separate problem because it shouldn't be. Cops don't get to say "its illegal so anything goes"
If your saying legalizing prostitution will make it unacceptable to treat sex workers unfairly, my reply is maybe, but they shouldn't be being treated unfairly under current laws.
This isn't something where you wait it out and see if regulations prove to be necessary. They are necessary and they should be pursued as early as possible but if this law can do good then I think it should be passed, even without language included for regulation.
As I already stated, does this new law even allow a brothel to be run legally or does it just specifically protect sex workers? Last I checked pimping or running a brother was still illegal, so how do you see legit businesses being formed from this law alone?
Mostly this law appears to be intended to stop the abuse of San Fransisco's police department, who are apparently all scumbags. More has to be done in addition to this law.
Fuck you. I disagree with your argument. I get "the concept" just fine.
You still haven't established why you think we would get more of option (A) than option (B).
They've already proven necessary. If this industry were not already significantly associated with crime, violence, or slavery, then we could trust that it could manage itself without any additional intervention.
Exactly, all this law does is afford sex workers some protection from being discriminated against by the police, and at the same time, as Feral pointed out, take away police methods for bringing down pimps/brothels/sex-slave-drivers by coercing prostitutes into testifying in exchange for immunity. Now, this law may be a net gain for prostitutes if the police in san Fransisco are corrupt. But Feral and I are saying that if you pass this law, the decision makers will just go back to ignoring the problem. Instead of passing this law, we should push for comprehensive sex worker laws, legalizing licensing and regulation of sex workers and brothels.
Edit: I would like to add that an anti police corruption law should not even be necessary, and that is basically all this is.
I'm not so sure you do. You don't concede the basic concept of legalizing something to prevent the black market from opening up all sorts of methods of exploitation.
You're also just resorting to vanilla "fuck you" comments which doesn't help your argument.
It's associated with these things because it's a black market industry. You still...won't admit this very simple concept.
Amazing.
Or perhaps something more reasonable, a la Feral and Ragg.
Call me slow. What do you think that portion there is saying?
If somehow this law were to make it very difficult or impossible to pass further legislation that regulated prostitution then I would most likely change my position, but I think this law does good. What do we do about police corruption in the interim while we try to draft a better law and push it through?
Any industry needs some level of regulation, especially when there is a potential for unsafe working conditions (as one example) and this potential does not exist simply because it's currently a black market industry. If people can cut corners in the pursuit of greater profits for themselves, they will. They aren't going to provide safe working conditions out of the goodness of their hearts.