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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Let me get this straight. According to Lepage...
-over 90% of drug crimes in Maine are committed by people of color
-he wants to shoot another politician in the face
-he wants to declare people of color the enemy of white people, with heavy implications that the government should declare war against people of color
-black people come to Maine from NY to sell heroin and impregnate white girls
Jesus fuck that's horrifying.
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How? If it's her own choice then it shouldn't be held against her so long as she wasn't doing anything illegal or manipulative in the process of that as a career. Actually it's more likely she would've been exploited and not the other way around. Unless you just mean that sex worker-negative attitudes are commonplace in general.
edited 27th Aug '16 10:17:29 PM by AlleyOop
Libertarian ideology holds that all services other than the military and very basic organizational governance should be handled by the free market. Police, firefighters, utilities, schools — all should be private companies competing for business. We've tried that: in fact, they all used to be that way. In the old days, policing was indistinguishable from criminal protection rackets, and we've seen what happens when firefighters are paid by their subscribers — they let houses burn down. No money to pay for the ambulance up front? Better hope your subscription is current or you have to get yourself to the hospital.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg. No regulatory standardization — good luck getting your computer to work with another manufacturer's. No product safety — it's caveat emptor if your beef is contaminated with e. coli or your "penicillin" is rat poison. Private courts — pay the judge's fee and hope he rules in your favor. No environmental regulation — hi, Beijing. It goes on and on. People don't magically turn into happy neighbors when you remove all restraints. They all turn into the biggest assholes they can imagine because it's the only way to stay on top of the pile.
Libertarians want to throw human civilization back a few thousand years, before we'd figured out the idea that a society can organize to govern itself and establish rules and regulations to control behavior and promote the welfare of the whole, and that the societies that do so prosper.
edited 27th Aug '16 10:27:05 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![]()
I was indeed saying that anti-sex-worker attitudes are indeed present in the US - not least in the fact that 49 out of 50 states make prostitution illegal.
And there are perfectly good reasons, from a governmental perspective, to maintain the ban on prostitution - number one being that legalizing and regulating prostitution is a major fucking headache.
Could be also argued against it that the costs of sending men who seek the services and sending the women that provide them to jail and adding another source of revenue for criminal organizations far outstrip the advantages of keeping it illegal.
Besides, if it is regularized it can be taxed and governments love things they can tax.
Awkward page topper ho!
edited 27th Aug '16 11:51:31 PM by AngelusNox
Inter arma enim silent legesEh, prostitution should stay illegal. A lot more harm than good would come of it, and likely we'd see an influx of ST Ds including HIV/AIDS getting spread around. Besides, a lot of women get abused through prostitution, and making it legal would just make it easier to do. There are some things that should just stay illegal.
Though this
might do a better job explaining my stance, since I suck at debating, especially online.
edited 28th Aug '16 12:17:43 AM by randomdude4
"Can't make an omelette without breaking some children." -Bur![]()
The fact that Unproblematic Prostitution has Truth in Television examples (even if it doesn't name them) would disagree with you there. Several European countries have regulated prostitution, and apparently it's doing rather well.
edited 28th Aug '16 1:38:23 AM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.Nevada has legal prostitution and while it isn't perfect it's a million times better then the alternative.
Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?You may not think that someone who has voluntarily engaged in prostitution has done anything wrong, but (spoiler alert) some people in the electorate, and not just the alt-right, do consider that to be a moral blemish on Melania's part.
How's it disingenious if it is correct? I thought thinks through and realized it is based in slut-shaming. Just because most people don't realize that, doesn't stop it from being so.
And how many people share a prejudice has no effect on it's validity. You don't go around excusing other prejudices with "not just the alt-right, do consider that to be a moral blemish".
Personally, I see the legalisation of prostitution as an important step in revamping the whole service industry.
The whole sector needs better guards, regulations and oversight to prevent the rampant abuse that goes on... which amounts to indentured servitude in a new mask. Legalisation, recognition and unions need to happen. And, not just for sex work. :/
edited 28th Aug '16 6:14:31 AM by Euodiachloris
From the TTIP Thread: Germany's economy minister - U.S.-EU free trade talks have failed
"The negotiations with the USA have de facto failed because we Europeans did not want to subject ourselves to American demands," he said, according to a written transcript from German broadcaster ZDF of an interview due to be broadcast on Sunday.
"Things are not moving on that front," said Gabriel, who is also Germany's vice chancellor.
The U.S. and the EU have been negotiating the TTIP for three years and both sides had sought to conclude talks in 2016 but they have differences over various issues, including agriculture.
Shocking Numbers Reveal GOP’s Big Secret: Trump Is Bankrupting The Republican Party (PoliticsUSA)
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edited 28th Aug '16 6:29:51 AM by IFwanderer
1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KVProstitution should be legalized for the same basic reasons that casual drug use should be legalized: people will do it whether you allow it or not, and making it illegal sends it into the black market where it is ripe for crime and abuse. We can come up with regulations to keep it as safe as possible, but it will always exist, and pretending otherwise is just asinine.
Regulated sex workers can be systematically tested for STDs, for example, and would have access to healthcare and legal protection against abuse.
edited 28th Aug '16 7:57:00 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Also, no matter where you go in the First World where prostitution is illegal, a fair amount of the prostitutes are women brought over from other countries to be Sex Slaves, complete with all the horrors that includes. Including their lives being under threat 24/7 from their pimps and being in danger of outliving their usefulness once they can't earn money for the crooks in charge of them anymore.
Legalization and registration cuts down quite a bit on that market, and if full scale registration is going on it probably means a lot less women being exploited or abused in the process.
edited 28th Aug '16 8:08:37 AM by TheWanderer
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |It's worth noting that legalized prostitution doesn't magically make illegal prostitution go away. If you set up regulatory requirements — like mandating good working conditions, health screening, etc — then there will be people who can't meet those basic standards (or don't want to because doing so drives costs up and lowers their profits) will continue to operate illegally.
In any case, the problem with unregulated prostitution isn't so much the prostitution itself, but pimping. That's where the vast majority of the abuse happens. The problem is that it's nigh-impossible to separate the two.
edited 28th Aug '16 8:23:02 AM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

@Antiteilchen: That isn't the normal use of the term "slut-shaming," and your use of the term is disingenuous even if it is technically correct.
You may not think that someone who has voluntarily engaged in prostitution has done anything wrong, but (spoiler alert) some people in the electorate, and not just the alt-right, do consider that to be a moral blemish on Melania's part.