NDP MP: FREE MARKET SELLING OF YOUNG GIRLS O.K.
I am not surprised Libby Davies is behind this idea and I am only glad Stephen Harper is PM right now and will not pay attention to her. I am however saddened, but not surprised that some, quite frankly ignorant, Blogging Tories are getting on the frat boy 'yeehaaa' bandwagon on this one.Legalizing brothels is not an idea that comes free of negative repercussions. As I asked on another blog:
What message do we send to young girls (or boys)? That selling their body is a legitimate profession?
Do you want your government to earn money off of the backs of young, broken girls?
What age should a girl be before she would be allowed to sell her body in a brothel? To this question, one hapless blogger said it should be whatever the age of consent is.
Yes, we should want to live in a society where a 14 year old child is allowed to sell her pubescent body to a businessman cheating on his wife on weekends for burger money. (all sarcasm) My God. Have people gone insane?
The blogger, who should be embarrased, was a Blogging Tory. I used to think only Rabble had the true wing-nuts.
I have spoken to many prostitutes and strippers in my life. Many of them are broken women who do not choose to sell their bodies. They are damaged people who made those choices out of desperation. Selling one's body is not the same as selling a cookie. Buying someone's body is not the same as buying a coffee at Starbucks.
I also find it funny how the NDP will balk at legitimizing business that could help the poor with cheaper products (ie. Walmart) but the moment a group of hookers want to form a business for the selling of young female bodies, they have no problem. My, what wonderful free-market capitalists these silver spoon socialists turn out to be.
If any of you think this is a good idea, I suggest you leave the confines of your office where you are earning 5 figures. Put down the two weeks too early Holiday Frappe from Tim's and take a walk to one of the seedier parts of town. Try to strike up a conversation with some prostitutes. Look at how old they look for people so young. Try to see how legalizing what they do will not make them feel any better.
If you can't see that, then maybe all of the criticism about the shallowness of the free market is right.
posted by Nicol DuMoulin @ 10:12 AM
13 Comments:
Anyone stating that the age of consent should be good enough to be a prostitute is a pig. Let him make that comment to his wife, daughter, mother or sister. Then they would know exactly how much respect he has for women.
But it would be a co-op, see, so that would make if all OK.
Agreed.
Men who pay for prostitutes are pigs. Period. Full stop. Most prostitutes are people who by some turn of events have become so desperate that they are willing to do anything. They deserve our pity and support, not scorn.
But quite frankly, you have to go into the psyche of men in order to understand what really goes on there. If a guy sees a girl that is broken and vulnerable, how many think 'Yes! I'm gonna get lucky tonight!'. Men try to take advantage of women who are desperate, poor, emotionally or mentally unwell and prostitution is only a more advanced case of this.
Here's another question that I asked, how would supporters of these brothels feel if we began importing women to satisfy the 'demand'. After all, if we're going to legalize it.. why not treat it like any other profession like engineers?
OK look if you are going to attack me at least have the decency to link my page so people can see what was said. As for the age of consent I will not and did not insist on it being the appropriate age. I believe that 18 would be fine, it being the age that someone can already participate in pornography. As for your moral outrage please spare me. I don't approve of prostitution anymore then you do but I have the decency not to force others to live up to my standards. This is a free society in which we can all make our own choices.
by the way we can agree that walmart is good
Hugh,
Well, for what it is worth, I did not "attack" you by name, so I did not feel the need to link to you. Others also defended this sad position and I referenced them all in general.
As for the age...well, you wrote 'the age of consent' (unless you edited your post). Right now in Canada, that is 14. Many progressives think it should be 12.
"As for your moral outrage please spare me. I don't approve of prostitution anymore then you do but I have the decency not to force others to live up to my standards. This is a free society in which we can all make our own choices."
This is a free society? So then you have no problem with faith based school funding?
The law is a teacher, Hugh. By making something legal you are by definition making people live up to - your - standards. That is the point of legalizing something. To legitimize it and destigmatize it. Nothing is neutral.
Please spare me - your - PC moral outrage as a secular materialist and the cries over being "attacked". Quite frankly, I am tired of the secularists trying to "attack" the young by forcing sexuality on them and robbing them of their innocence.
If that makes me a villain, I wear my black hat proudly.
I am sorry if you think that I was calling you the villain, I was not, I was merely objecting to being villianized (if that is a word) myself.
I said age of consent not really meaning specifically but in general the age for which they have been judged to be legally responsible for their own actions. I had not considered that 14 year olds are legally responsible for their sexual activity. I agree that might be to young of an age for them to come to a rational decision on this issue. So I in a latter comment suggested 18 as a better age in this case.
Law is not our teacher sir. There are many laws for which I would find morally repugnant. The law for which we are coerced into giving money to the government is every bit as morally baseless as theft.
So if the law is not moral then how can it be our moral guide?
I do not ask anyone to live up to any standard except the one that they choice for themselves. I in no way insist that you must agree with the free actions that others take. I only insist that you allow them to take that action.
As for PC moral outrage...that may be the first time I have ever been accused of being politically correct. I thank you for that.
(ps. faith based funding is not a concept that brings us closer to freedom)
Hugh,
"Law is not our teacher sir."
Yes, it is. The law is the basis of what we teach or children with regards to morality. Law is any societies final word on teaching of morality. That is what we base our educational system on and out notions of right and wrong.
"(ps. faith based funding is not a concept that brings us closer to freedom)"
And that is ultimatly the flaw of the libertarian model. The libertarian only wants us to be free in the way he thinks we should be free. That is not freedom at all. It is just another form of control.
Thank you (and everyone else) for the comments.
here we come to a fundamental impasse that will not be resolved (unless one of us is willing to throw out our core philosophy).
I am the final say of what is right and wrong (for me) not some document passed by people I have never met. The power that document holds over me is only as strong as I view it being just and the ability of the state to force me to obey.
I learned my morality from my parents, my priests, my school (which was Queker based oddly enough) and my life experience. If I acted in the way that the law does I would be quickly arrested for racketeering.
I disagree that libertarians want people to live in a certain way. they just don't think that other people should pay extra for other people's choices. That is, you can pay extra for your kids to go to religious schools, I will not pay extra for your kids. The point is that people do not have the right to live as they want but they have the right to try.
But I should have to pay extra for government run brothels?
That's the flaw in the libertarian argument. As long as there is a government, someone is always paying for something. That you do not have to pay for schools but I have to pay for the societal fall-out from prostitution (councilling, safety, maintenance etc.) shows the hypocrisy of this position.
And the law - is - a teacher, because that is what you are forced to comply with. If a teacher's morality says he/she disagrees with prostitution, but it is legal, he/she will be forced to teach it, which goes against his/her morality. Can a marriage commissioner refuse to marry a couple in Canada now? No. The law has imposed its morality on you.
Too many modern libertarians are stuck in a 1960's worldview that no longer applies.
If one did not have to comply with the law, one could say it does not teach. Because one does, it does teach.
I'm sorry I meant my last post to be my last post on this issue but nothing you just said makes any sense. Who is asking you to pay for any brothel? I am not supporting state ran brothels but privately owned and regulated by the normal employment laws.
Simply because you are forced to comply with the law does not make it your teacher. That actually makes zero sense. How can you make a moral choice if you are forced to make that choice? I make daily moral choices without any help from the law.
Should I help that old lady cross the street? The morality of parents say yes but the law is silent on the issue.
A true teacher provides you with a view and allows you to come to your own conclusion. A teacher does not hold a gun to your head and force you to comply as the state does
Hugh,
The proposal is for a state-run brothel that would be a co-op. In other words, the public would pay for it like any other service.
Even if it is not state run, how you can say the law is not a teacher is quite beyond me. That is why societies have laws...to enforce a code of morality on it's citizens. That is the origin and basis of the law.
And how can you compare helping an old woman across the street with legalized prostitution is beyond me.
That seems to be the core of what is misleading about your position about this issue; you incorrectly believe that a woman selling her body is no different than her selling a loaf of bread. That sex is just another bodily function devoid of emotion.
If that is true, then we are not human, we are beasts no different than animals in a jungle.
Have you ever spoken to young prostitutes? Most have been victims of abuse and are broken beyond repair. That one would wish a society to endorse this further abuse and profit from it is unfathomable to me.
Why not also license gangland areas where gang members can go and kill each other? I mean if they are going to do it anyway? Who are we to force our morality on them?
You believe your position to be enlightened and worldly. It is the polar opposite. It is rooted in fashionable, trendy politics of secular academic materialism with no bearing on the real world itself.
These ideas work fine in the confines of academia and silver spoon socialists like Libby Davies. For the rest of us, they are unmitigated nightmares.
I didn't see anything that would say that it would be state ran. The definition of a co-op is: a jointly owned commercial enterprise (usually organized by farmers or consumers) that produces and distributes goods and services and is run for the benefit of its owners.
The purpose of the state is to keep order and the peace. I know that you have read those words before because it was in the last post of my blog for which you commented on.
So knowing that is my position how could you honestly portray my position as supporting ganglands? You are missing the point entirely. The state is not in the morality business it is in the order business.
I have talked to many sex workers. That is how I came to the conclusion that legalizing would be helpful. I have also talked to social workers who agree with my position. So don't paint my position as simply being intellectually out of touch.
I am hardly a trendy socialist.
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