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Prostitution is the world’s oldest profession. Preventing a woman from consenting to sell sex services is immoral and paternalistic. Arguing you should do so be
by seibelj 8y ago
Prostitution is the world’s oldest profession. Preventing a woman from consenting to sell sex services is immoral and paternalistic. Arguing you should do so because it might cause an increase in abuse or harm to minors is the same logical argument as banning alcohol because it could increase domestic violence and car accidents.
Reason magazine and the Reason podcast are important journalistic institutions. They do not parrot right or left ideology. They have a libertarian philosophy.
It is a classic truism that if you put 1000 libertarians in a room you will get 1000 definitions of what libertarianism is. In my opinion it is essentially a belief in the individual over the collective and that permeates all ideas, such as a distrust and dislike for the government for many different reasons.
Libertarianism is easy to criticize in broad strokes. Many people hear such criticism and assume whatever evil things they want about it. I am used to the criticism and accept that as being neither the stereotype of conservative or liberal my views are easily criticized by people who follow mainstream dogma.
If this philosophy is appealing I highly recommend the Reason Podcast. The latest episode on Elizabeth Warren’s plans for corporations is a good summary of libertarian views on populist rhetoric whether it comes from the right or left.
- tptacek 8y agoExcept the case against Larkin and Lacey isn't premised on "preventing a woman from consenting to sell sex services", but rather on what they did to enable and surreptitiously profit from child sex trafficking. Again, I feel like people with strong opinions about this case generally haven't read either side of it carefully.
- seibelj 8y agoYes, far better to drive advertising sex services to foreign websites or decentralized platforms. Now everything will be better.
- tptacek 8y agoI don't have a strong opinion about where adult classifieds should run, here or Antigua, but I'm pretty sure that if you knowingly and deliberately profit from child sex trafficking --- as Lacey and Larkin are accused of doing --- you belong in prison.
- mullen 8y agoBut all evidence shows that Lacey and Larkin did everything they could to stop or limit child sex trafficking on BackPage.com. Prostitution is going to happen no matter what we think of it and we should develop some methods to prevent or limit the negatives of prostitution. BackPage seems to be one of those things to help limit the negatives of prostitution.
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- tptacek 8y agoDoesn't the evidence show kind of the opposite thing?
- dragonwriter 8y agoThe evidence largely hasn't generally been presented. What has been presented is allegations in the form of a federal indictment, which includes selective, potentially decontextualized even if otherwise accurate, descriptions of some parts of what may be presented as evidence.
- tptacek 8y agoThere’s an argument in here somewhere I’m sure, but I’m having trouble finding it. Yes: all we have now are the competing veracities of the Backpage and USG stories. The USG version sure seems to have a lot more details.
- sintaxi 8y agoIf I'm not mistaken they provided specific feedback to folks they knew to be trafficking sex on how to make their ads appear legal. That's the opposite of stopping sex trafficking on backpage - especially since they benefit.
- tunap 8y agoThe predators on Dregslist just moved to other categories. The gigs, rentals & rideshare postings are full of them, but that's OK b/c it's just good old fashioned exploitation.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> Except the case against Larkin and Lacey isn't premised on "preventing a woman from consenting to sell sex services", but rather on what they did to enable and surreptitiously profit from child sex trafficking. Except neither of the criminal actions have had that as a central premise. That's been prominent in some of the PR, especially related to the State prosecution and to the federal legislative efforts the case was used as part of the (mostly dishonest) pretext for, but neither the state nor federal criminal prosecutions were centrally about that, they were about facilitating and profiting from anfd concealing the origin of profits from prostitution.
- macintux 8y agoI've run for office as a Libertarian, but in general I find the philosophy distinctly lacking. I definitely have a strong distaste for Objectivism. I think it's good to have the libertarian voice at the table when discussing policy. I dread the thought of it being the dominant voice.
- seibelj 8y agoNot all libertarians are objectivist Ayn Rand enthusiasts. I am not one. I support the social safety net. I would disagree vehemently at the current implementation of the social safety net and people who want to expand it in at current form, especially without raising taxes to pay for it. Both sides want more government support but no one wants to pay for it.
- pitaj 8y agoYou sound more neoliberal than libertarian.
- neuland 8y agoI have never heard of a libertarian in favor of a government-based social safety net. Could you expand on what a libertarian social safety net would look like?
- stickfigure 8y agoUBI is quite popular in some libertarian circles. In theory, it would have minimal administrative overhead and distort the market less than the present regime of labor laws.
- nv-vn 8y agoI've heard many libertarians who are in favor of universal basic income, because it solves many of the problems that current welfare systems introduce. Also, there are some who are in favor of universal healthcare. There are indeed a wide range of views in the libertarian spectrum.
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- eahman04 8y agoWhy do you assume all whores are female? Now that's immoral!