We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Yeah, that always works I could write for an hour on why this is logically unjustifiable, practically unenforceable, systemically corrupting, and morally wrong:
Northern Ireland ban on paying for sex is approved by Stormont assembly.
Then again, why bother? A brick wall is conveniently placed and sticking plasters are cheap.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
Explained in two words: Northern Ireland.
Actually, they are copying those splendidly rational progressives in Sweden.
The vote in Northern Ireland is a heartwarming alliance of Catholic and Protestant puritans with modern feminist puritans.
The comments are surprisingly sane at least.
A cross-border ‘trade’ opportunity arises here. Somewhere the intra-Ireland border runs down the middle of the road. Cue upset in the Republic Border counties, and an improved balance of payments.
I wonder what the EU Commission thinks of this restraint on trade.
The Alliance Party opposes the measure, living up to their name?
This describes the treatment meted out to sex workers that opposed the measure
http://libertarianhome.co.uk/2014/01/justice-chair-to-prostitute-would-you-not-rather-do-it-for-free/
But they’re not banning paying for sex, are they? They’re banning being paid for sex.
It’s a reality of the industry, there’s an unlimited number of women wish to be on the game. And a grave shortage of punters wishing to patronise them. Hence the heroic efforts made to attract customers.
If you wish to deter men from paying for sex, put better programmes on TV, or reduce the price of fishing licenses or something.
No, they’re banning paying for sex. It’s called the “Swedish model”. That it is Swedish, should be a clue to the problems with it.
Pretty soon there will be a better alternative:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/18/welcome-to-oculus-xxx-in-your-face-3d-is-the-future-of-porn.html
That will also take care of the American hysteria* about rape on campus.
* extraordinary popular delusion and madness of crowds.
Maybe they will start to check out all the pubs and restaurants on Fridays and Saturdays, asking whether the couples are all “going Dutch”, or whether one half is “paying” for the pleasure of the company of the second one.
Sounds like the craziness of the US university scene is being exported….
From the URL of Snorri’s link:
in-your-face-3d-is-the-future-of-porn.html
Well, if that’s your fetish….
Ban on paying for sex????
Holy crap, they made marriage illegal.
Natalie, I have destroyed all the brick walls in my neighbourhood, and my head is incredibly swollen. What can I do now?
Hire out your toughened-up head to provide a banging-surface for other people. It’s a steady market.
Excellent idea.
Making something illegal, here the payment rather than the act, always leads to that activity being terminated immediately.
These morons never learn and it will be the poorest women in Northern Ireland who will pay the price, because the vast majority of them only go on-the-game because of other problems (such as drug/alcohol dependency) or the simple need to put food on the table.
I’m not saying I like prostitution, but it is a fact and putting barriers like this in place will just make it harder for those who find themselves in this unfortunate situation.
John Galt wrote:
They’d rather ensure that people were made dependent on the state rather than have the option to stand on their own two feet.
Oops. Rather too many rathers in that last comment. Must learn to read before posting. Mea culpa.
Well they certainly don’t want them to lie back and think of Ulster.
Prostitution is a legitimate job. Using the old ‘its a shame that it exists but banning it will cause all these other problems’ argument is no different from the ‘the science may be right but the economics is wrong’ argument often used by global warming ‘deniers’ in the naive hope that somehow surely the evil idiots cannot avoid seeing reason when faced with such outdated concepts as facts and simple logic. Delingpole calls this the ‘dogshit sandwich’ fallacy, which basically says that a turd doesn’t taste better if you spread jam on it.
Even though I have no doubt that many prostitutes do not enjoy their jobs, and feel shame, this is itself a result of the stigma society attaches to selling sex. If you want to make a difference to the lives of prostitutes do your best to remove the stigma.
I agree, PeterT, but it really is very difficult (for most of us, I think) to even imagine a world without such a stigma. It really is that deeply implanted in our psyche. Which I guess only goes to show that we indeed should work hard at removing it.
Draw a Venn diagram, with one set containing those who approve this law and categorically deny prostitution will be driven underground, and another set containing those who proclaim with equal vehemence that making abortion illegal drives it underground.
Would you get a perfect intersection of the two?
The trouble with having so many pretendy wee parliaments is that the rascals have to think up laws to justify their pointless and futile existences. I cannot think that in the year 2014 there is any real problem which has not already been addressed, usually in a futile manner, by legislation. Hence they are reduced to laws such as this, or making shops charge a shilling for a paper bag.
The trouble is that if you set up legislative assemblies, legislation is what you will get. It is one of the fundamental flaws of so-called representative democracy. My feeling is that if you have to have parliaments, they should only meet in the months of November to February, in the open air, with no coats or umbrellas allowed.
JohnK has the right of it. And one reason for this is that most of the real work has been surrendered to Brussels, so they end up spending time on pointless trivia like plastic bags, or banning fox-hunting, or gay marriage.
Also the proposed restrictions on meeting need a change – as suggested, the result would be that the legislature would fly themselves to Sydney (at the taxpayers’ expense, of course) on the 1st of November every year, and stay there passing stupid laws until the 28th of February.
“Parliament should meet only in the months of November to February, at Latitude 55N or more, in the open air, etc etc”
Andrew:
A most salient point. There would have to be a new law to close that loophole.
Copying Sweden and so on.
In the case of Ulster – an alliance between the “right” and the “left”.
On the “right” it is an effort to legislate morality (a confusion of crimes and SINS).
And on the “left” it is a particular form or feminism (not all feminists – a particular important faction).
Any opposition to this measure will be falsely presented as a “pro prostitution” position.
“If the women can be punished, why not the men?” will be the cry.
The basic principle that the law should not be in the business of punishing SINS (as opposed to aggression – such as FORCED prostitution) will not be understood.
Ah I see that my comment had already been made by Natalie.
On Ed’s comment.
It is rare for the Alliance Party to make a strong stand and on anything.
It would be interesting if they started to grow a spine.
PeterT & Alisa,
“. . . this is itself a result of the stigma society attaches to selling sex. If you want to make a difference to the lives of prostitutes do your best to remove the stigma.”
It is not necessary to have any particular opinion as to whether such a societal stigma is good or bad, or as to whether selling sex itself is good or bad, in order to oppose the proposed violation of the right of human beings to do as they please with their own bodies. Paul Marks’ comment above is relevant.
WRT the stigma i seem to remember that the probability of divorce increases with the number of previous sexual partners of the wife. (It might also increase with the nr. of partners of the husband, i don’t remember because i don’t plan to have a husband.) Therefore it seems rational for a man to be wary of marrying an ex-prostitute, and therefore it is rational for an ex-prostitute to hide her past. So the stigma cannot be eliminated altogether.
I might also find a rationale for women to stigmatize prostitutes, if i put my mind to it, but i won’t.
None of the above entitles the government to interfere in ANY way, of course.
At least, not the national government: local governments might be able to do something, though i don’t know what. Not all local governments can ban prostitution, obviously, but it *might* make sense for some of them.
@Snorri – I recall the study (though not in detail), and don’t think it considered prostitutes within the study. Which makes sense, because in aggregate, “number of previous sexual partners” *tends* to be a sloppy-but-useful shorthand for “number of previous failed relationships” for most folks. But asking the latter tends to get doors slammed on your nose, whereas the latter is edgy and interesting.
Politicians are prostitutes.
That is deeply insulting to prostitutes. Most prostitution is a fundamentally honest free exchange of money and labour between two willing participants.
“… the vast majority of them only go on-the-game because of other problems (such as drug/alcohol dependency) or the simple need to put food on the table.”
Apart from the “problem” of putting food on the table, a problem that sends most of us seeking employment, it’s very rarely true.
But you have to understand the economics of the industry to understand why.
For a start, as I mentioned in an earlier comment there’s absolutely no shortage of women (or presumably men*) wishing to sell sexual services. Why? Why not? It’s not particularly hard work. And because it’s a market it behaves exactly like any other market. (Actually, because its generally exempt from taxation/subsidy, whore pricing is quite a good indicator of male disposable income – economists please note). Like any market, earnings are set by supply & demand, remembering on the supply side is the competition from other earning opportunities for eligible females.
Broadly speaking, hooker earnings tend to be, broadly speaking, similar to what the girl would earn if the same girl was doing any other work rewarded a level of attractiveness. For the less attractive shop assistant/waitress. For the more attractive, high profile PR work etc.
*Not my area of expertise 😉 Data collection thanks to a long term associate who was a bar hostess when I met her & has subsequently been running a string of hookers. They really are a perfectly normal bunch of girls doing a job. (They don’t bite unless you pay them to) The stigma thing doesn’t tend to be much of a factor because, surprisingly enough, they don’t often go around telling civilians what they do for a living & you’d rarely recognise them off duty. Girls with drug/alcohol problems compete poorly in the marketplace because they are, after all, providing a service doesn’t sit too well with drug/alcohol problems. Like most other jobs.
Perry,
I apologise to prostitutes.
Would it be fair to call politicians lying thieving scum then, remembering they’re the lowest life form and even then that’s debateable?
Of course, Natalie, the stigma is a totally separate issue – sorry for drifting OT.
I was once on a jury about a case involving a brothel, and I don’t think that many prostitutes would be willing. They might be better termed ‘consenting’.
Also, the stigma comes from the fact that no skills are needed. ‘Garbologists’ are also stigmatised, for the same reason. Even if pros and garboes were to be given ‘honorary’ uni degrees, their jobs would be still be stigmatised. You don’t even need to go to school to do those jobs! And that’s aside from whatever germs might go with either.
I wonder if escorts or courtesans have self-image issues? You might need a High School education to be good at those jobs, and there is less stigma involved.
But they’re not banning paying for sex, are they? They’re banning being paid for sex.
Like Snorri said, it’s the Swedish model, where selling sex is legal but buying it isn’t. This is where radical feminism is taken to such extremes that it becomes a parody of itself – women have no agency and aren’t responsible for their actions.
Incidentally, Swedish men who travel to other countries where prostitution is legal and engage the services of a prostitute can be prosecuted when the return home.
Natalie, I don’t find it totally off topic. Almost by definition people who think they know best will also have no qualms about making their views of how people should behave into requirements. You will not find many people, and fewer politicians, who will feel strong disgust about some issue yet be loath to take action to prevent it or reduce it (or better yet, make a symbolic gesture by passing a law that cannot be enforced well).
@Eric & Snorri
You’re having trouble with:
“But they’re not banning paying for sex, are they? They’re banning being paid for sex.”
Think about it, for a moment. It’s the same as drugs. Legislation, on its own, cannot reduce the number of people who wish to buy drugs or the quantity they wish to buy. Incentives may alter but the demand remains unchanged. So the legislation always bears on the supply side. If you legislate to make the buying of a product/service illegal the onus is on the seller to satisfy demand by providing the route to circumventing the legislation & changing the incentives. They’re on the source side of the transaction. The buyer side is simply a demand without a source. It has no agency.
Or to put it another way, punters won’t be leaving cards in fone boxes in the hope of attracting passing hookers.
Bloke: there are several problems with your analogy.
Leave aside that (to the best of my knowledge) selling illegal drugs is always illegal, while buying them is not illegal in every country.
The main problem remains: demand for drugs does indeed go down when buying is criminalized. Look at me, for instance: if buying beer were to be criminalized, i’d emigrate rather than risking a criminal record; or, worse, going without beer.
Demand for prostitution HAS decreased in Sweden (again, to the best of my knowledge). At the same time, people with a reputation to defend are presumably most deterred, thus skewing the clientele of Swedish prostitutes in an undesirable manner.
Yet another problem is that when you say “banning paying for sex”, i interpret it literally (in the literal sense of “literally”) while you, apparently, didn’t mean it literally.
Snorri
Demand for something & incentive to obtain are two different things.
Look at your own beer analogy. Your demand for beer is unchanged. What changes is your incentives to meet that demand. As your potential beer supplier, I need to re-change them so you buy beer.
Markets always tend to clear.
You can’t ban “paying for sex” anymore than you can ban paying for anything. Unless you remove the money that’s paid. Otherwise, the money’s there, the demands there. Waiting for a supplier to complete the transaction. The only thing you can do is move the supply cost up past where the money available is insufficient to meet demand. Against competitive market pressure to reduce that supply cost. Which is pretty well always unsuccessful.
Hence the drug trade, bootlegging, smuggling….