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Enforcement of the law has become self-serving and those in power seem to enjoy that power. Arbitrary laws need to end. jaywalking, marijuana, escorting, a bust

Enforcement of the law has become self-serving and those in power seem to enjoy that power. Arbitrary laws need to end. jaywalking, marijuana, escorting, a busted tail light .. these things need pep talks not forces of swat teams.

downandout 9y ago
I agree with you that escorting itself should be decriminalized - I don't think that any woman who decides to make a living that way should face arrest for doing so. However, sex traffickers and pimps have to go. These people terrorize the women that work for them, often beating and sometimes killing them. The women are often kidnapped or extorted into working for these guys in the first place. Worst of all, they take their earnings from them, ensuring that they'll never be able to escape that lifestyle. I was in the Las Vegas airport a few weeks ago. When I went to the bathroom, on the inside of the stalls, the Las Vegas Metro Police had placed notices with a phone number saying that help for victims of human trafficking is available. I noticed several billboards around town with the same message. If this has become such a widespread problem that law enforcement has resorted to trying to contact victims in airport bathrooms on their way into town, then they need to step up efforts nail the pimps and traffickers. This shutdown of BackPage was a big step backwards in that effort.
- joe_the_user 9y ago
  If this has become such a widespread problem that law enforcement has resorted to trying to contact victims in airport bathrooms on their way into town, then they need to step up efforts nail the pimps and traffickers. The assumes the law enforcement is sincere in its effort. Actual story could well be: 1. Put up ads everywhere seeking to help victims so as to convince the average person the problem is huge. 2. Pass sweeping repressive measure allowing unselective seizure of sex-ad websites. 3. Profit through increased funding, influence and programs (no ??? needed).
- grolimpio 9y ago
  Good point. I think that escorting itself should be actually legalized. Not only because they would pay tax and have a better life than they have now, but also because this would make pimps obsolete and would help cracking down sex traffickers. Men/women using a legal escorting service could check for license/id, making the whole thing safer for everyone.
- olefoo 9y ago
  It's not only women that make their living in sex work. Are support people necessarily victimizers? Is someones driver automatically their pimp? Is the realtionship better or worse if it was transacted through an app? If someone hosts child pornography on an AWS hard drive; should Jeff Bezos go to jail for it? There's a lot of subtlety here. And a government that is manifestly and overtly corrupt has no business enforcing morality on people.
- belorn 9y ago
  Sex traffickers and pimps are for prostitution as gangs and the mafia are for drug sellers. We have legal marijuana without gang shootings, murder and smuggling, so the problem seems to be one about competition and making the legal options more competitive to the consumer compared to the illegal one. Preferable by making a self reinforcing environment where as more money getting put in the legal sector the more incentive the police has to go after the illegal one and the more the costumers want to spend at the legal one.
wallace_f 9y ago
Too many bureaucracies become self-serving, and prioritize their self-preservation, rather than extinguishing the problems they're tasked with. This is not just my idea, it's well-studied, and has developed into studied phenomena, such as bureaucratic inertia. Our public policy needs to somehow control incentive structures of these organizations. For example, the War on Poverty has spent trillions, with no measurable reduction in poverty. The War on Drugs, Prison State, Military Industrial Complex. And it appears to be even a cultural problem: CNN tells us we need to maintain an economy of killing innocents in order to keep jobs[1]. So many things are backwards. In other words, perhaps public policy needs to fundamentally change the way it establishes and preserves government entities, in order to ensure their incentives align with their purpose. 1 - https://theintercept.com/2016/09/09/wolf-blitzer-is-worried-defense-contractors-will-lose-jobs-if-u-s-stops-arming-saudi-arabia/ https://theintercept.com/2016/09/09/wolf-blitzer-is-worried-...
iggg 9y ago
Why do you think jaywalking and busted tail light are bad laws? They make driving safer.
- phpnode 9y ago
  As a non-american jaywalking laws seem utterly crazy. The onus should be on the driver not to hit pedestrians, not the other way round

downandout 9y ago

I agree with you that escorting itself should be decriminalized - I don't think that any woman who decides to make a living that way should face arrest for doing so. However, sex traffickers and pimps have to go. These people terrorize the women that work for them, often beating and sometimes killing them. The women are often kidnapped or extorted into working for these guys in the first place. Worst of all, they take their earnings from them, ensuring that they'll never be able to escape that lifestyle. I was in the Las Vegas airport a few weeks ago. When I went to the bathroom, on the inside of the stalls, the Las Vegas Metro Police had placed notices with a phone number saying that help for victims of human trafficking is available. I noticed several billboards around town with the same message. If this has become such a widespread problem that law enforcement has resorted to trying to contact victims in airport bathrooms on their way into town, then they need to step up efforts nail the pimps and traffickers. This shutdown of BackPage was a big step backwards in that effort.

joe_the_user 9y ago
If this has become such a widespread problem that law enforcement has resorted to trying to contact victims in airport bathrooms on their way into town, then they need to step up efforts nail the pimps and traffickers. The assumes the law enforcement is sincere in its effort. Actual story could well be: 1. Put up ads everywhere seeking to help victims so as to convince the average person the problem is huge. 2. Pass sweeping repressive measure allowing unselective seizure of sex-ad websites. 3. Profit through increased funding, influence and programs (no ??? needed).
grolimpio 9y ago
Good point. I think that escorting itself should be actually legalized. Not only because they would pay tax and have a better life than they have now, but also because this would make pimps obsolete and would help cracking down sex traffickers. Men/women using a legal escorting service could check for license/id, making the whole thing safer for everyone.
olefoo 9y ago
It's not only women that make their living in sex work. Are support people necessarily victimizers? Is someones driver automatically their pimp? Is the realtionship better or worse if it was transacted through an app? If someone hosts child pornography on an AWS hard drive; should Jeff Bezos go to jail for it? There's a lot of subtlety here. And a government that is manifestly and overtly corrupt has no business enforcing morality on people.
belorn 9y ago
Sex traffickers and pimps are for prostitution as gangs and the mafia are for drug sellers. We have legal marijuana without gang shootings, murder and smuggling, so the problem seems to be one about competition and making the legal options more competitive to the consumer compared to the illegal one. Preferable by making a self reinforcing environment where as more money getting put in the legal sector the more incentive the police has to go after the illegal one and the more the costumers want to spend at the legal one.

wallace_f 9y ago

Too many bureaucracies become self-serving, and prioritize their self-preservation, rather than extinguishing the problems they're tasked with. This is not just my idea, it's well-studied, and has developed into studied phenomena, such as bureaucratic inertia. Our public policy needs to somehow control incentive structures of these organizations. For example, the War on Poverty has spent trillions, with no measurable reduction in poverty. The War on Drugs, Prison State, Military Industrial Complex. And it appears to be even a cultural problem: CNN tells us we need to maintain an economy of killing innocents in order to keep jobs[1]. So many things are backwards. In other words, perhaps public policy needs to fundamentally change the way it establishes and preserves government entities, in order to ensure their incentives align with their purpose. 1 - https://theintercept.com/2016/09/09/wolf-blitzer-is-worried-defense-contractors-will-lose-jobs-if-u-s-stops-arming-saudi-arabia/ https://theintercept.com/2016/09/09/wolf-blitzer-is-worried-...

iggg 9y ago

Why do you think jaywalking and busted tail light are bad laws? They make driving safer.

phpnode 9y ago
As a non-american jaywalking laws seem utterly crazy. The onus should be on the driver not to hit pedestrians, not the other way round