Commenting on Hoosier Review
Five-sixths of ITA’s current staff have, at one point, written for one or another iteration of the IU alternative news source Hoosier Review, a brand that has gone from College Republican news organ to campus-based reporting and commentary service to, now, a more libertarian-slanted site. These connections are bonds of affection for some of us, including myself, and so I continue to read the site.
Two posts recently caught my eye. However, they both deal with sex, so I’ll put them below the fold. (Don’t worry: This is a bloodless site, and so the discussion is G-rated.)
Joshua Herring writes that, despite his libertarian credentials, he supports the efforts of Nevada brothel owners to lobby in favor of their own taxation. The brothelkeepers view this as a way to increase their worth to their neighbors. Herring, like many other libertarians, supports the legalization of prostitution because it will improve the lot of the women (and it is, primarily, women) who ply the trade.
Christian Science Monitor (despite its name, not a religious paper) reports today on the outcome of a real-world experiment in legalizing the oldest profession, this one in Germany. About 1.2 million customers participate in the market daily (out of a population of 15-64 year old males that’s only 28m). Even after legalization, though, opponents of legalization and sex workers themselves say that the promises of proponents of legalization haven’t been met. One group has clearly profited from the law, however: local German governments. The city of Cologne earns more than 700,000 in taxing the market.
Second, Jessica Pollack took a swipe at the ACLU for failing to jump on some silly campus speech code. (FIRE took up the cudgel instead.) But Pollack’s swipe looks a bit petty when one considers the ACLU’s admirable efforts to drag North Carolina into the twentieth century. (No, that’s not a typo.) The state has a two-centuries-old law against “cohabitation,” a ban that’s pretty much insipid and furthermore unconstitutional in light of the SCOTUS ruling on Lawrence in 2003. What rankles, though, is that three dozen people or more were charged under the law in the past few years, and at least one of them has lost their job over it. ITA contributor Ed Brayton criticized this on his personal site, and all I can do is agree with Brayton.
13 Responses to “Commenting on Hoosier Review”
The woman bringing the case against the N. Carolina law wasn’t actually charged under it. I thought a person had to be affected by a law in some way to challenge it. On second thought, though, I guess she is affected by it because technically she’s breaking the law by living with her boyfriend.
Anyway, I agree that with the Lawrence decision as precedent, this law doesn’t seem to have much chance of standing. However, I do think the Lawrence decision was wrong, even though I wouldn’t have supported a sodomy ban and I probably wouldn’t have supported a ban on “cohabitation,” either.
She lost her job for being in violation of the rule, whether or not the sheriff actually arrested her. (And on a side note, what kind of sheriff would fire someone for doing something illegal but then not do anything baout hte crime being committed?)
Within the currently dominant legal point of view one can justify just about anything. As a profession our legal sorts lack rigor, they lack grounding. It took Math about 100 years to get serious about rigour. A closed and restricted reasoning ability confined to narrow legalities will probably take twice as long. This close mindedness is why Bork is so hostile to Jaffa, who, in return, being 90 or so, blasts away at all the fish caught in the positivist barrel.
Of course, another “real-world” experiment in legalizing prostitution would be…erm…Nevada itself, and I’m not aware of similar complaints from Nevada prostitutes.
For another thing, prostitution has always been pretty acceptable in Germany, and brothels have always been patronized in high numbers. You (or CSM, one) seem to be implying that legalization has increased the trade, but that’s simply not true – at least, not to any significant degree. (If I misinterpreted this, apologies.) If the government isn’t holding up its end of the bargain on legalization (by affording protection), then we can well demand that it start doing so, but outlawing prostitution again will only mean that these millions of German men who patronize the industry will again be doing so in violation of the law, just like they were before legalization. Hardly a bold stride toward a kinder, gentler Germany.
But anyway – since prostitutes in Nevada aren’t currently taxed, then it seems sort of beside the point to argue against legal prostitution by saying that government doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain. My reason for supporting the Nevada tax was precisely that – so that we would have some grounds for demanding that the government extend the same protections to prostitutes that it extends to other working people. Remember – the prostitution industry in Nevada is ASKING the government to tax it – not the same story at all as in Germany.
The real issue, though, is that I think you probably can’t think of a good reason why prostitution shoudn’t be legal. It’s interesting that you cite the same NC example I put in my post about prostitution on HR. If you agree that this woman has a right to choose with whom she lives (and presumably has sex) with or without the government’s blessing, then on what, exactly, would you base an argument that a woman couldn’t charge for sexual services? It’s her body, after all, is it not?
Men pick up girls for mindless sex all the time in dance clubs and bars. These men (and the women too, in almost all cases) are just looking to have good time. Good luck enforcing a law that says that all sex has to be in committed, loving relationships like the one this woman allegedly has with her boyfriend. The only difference between prostitution and a good one night stand is that prostitution is more honest about what’s going on. Is that maybe your problem with it?
The ACLU has historically opposed hate speech codes. The two federal cases that I know of that struck down hate speech codes, one at the University of Wisconsin and one at the University of Michigan, were both brought by the ACLU. Unfortunately, neither university appealed the district court’s decision, so it didn’t set a wider precedent in either case. But I still wish the ACLU would do a lot more in this regard. They don’t attack hate speech codes with the same vigor and passion that they attack other civil liberties problems, it seems. I’d like to see them seek out cases to bring similar suits all over the country so that one of them, at least, will get to a higher court and set a precedent against them.
She lost her job for being in violation of the rule, whether or not the sheriff actually arrested her.
But the fact that she wasn’t arrested or charged makes it sound like she lost her job because her employer didn’t approve of her lifestyle–law or no law. That’s probably grounds for an equal employment lawsuit, but I don’t see the connection to the law in a strict sense. I know I’m splitting hairs here, but…
The real issue, though, is that I think you probably can’t think of a good reason why prostitution shoudn’t be legal.
Actually, I can think of plenty. Prostitution degrades its providers, its patrons, and society as a whole. Just like cocaine being illegal dissuades a significant number of folks from ruining their lives in that way, prostitution being illegal keeps a significant number of people from shattering their marriages and/or families that way.
For a similar reason, I sympathize with outlawing cohabitation. Strong marriages and families are important to society and widespread cohabitation weakens those institutions. (Also, cohabitation is in many cases a far less favorable situation for women than is marriage.) I recognize, however, that the time for making a public stand on that issue was about 50 years ago.
“I recognize, however, that the time for making a public stand on that issue was about 50 years ago.”
Actually, much earlier–about 250 years ago, when the Industrial Revolution was ginning up in England. Sometimes praxis is superstructure, as a post-modern Marxist might say. (And if such a creature exists, what a tortured life he must lead.)
Joshua Herring seems to be talking about a different post than the one I wrote. (Reading comments to my posts, I sometimes feel like Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka of Something Awful.)
If you say so. Starting off a post talking about how much HR has changed, then pointing to two posts that caught your eye, one of which (admittedly not mine) you call “petty,” might have given me the false impression that you were taking issue with what I posted.
Mostly, though, I got that impression because you cited the Germany case as a “real-world experiment” in legalizing prostitution – which seemed odd considering that Nevada’s legal prostitution certainly qualifies as “real-world” too, no?
The implication seemed to be that the case in Germany somehow proved that such “experiments” are doomed to end badly (certainly a subtext of the CSM article, by the way, which points to Sweden as another country that has turned around on legal prostitution after trying it). But since you say that’s not what you meant, it seems I got the wrong impression.
That may be an accurate assessment of the CSM’s writer’s outlook, but it’s not entirely a fair assessment of what the writer actually wrote. The exceptions for illegal workers, for instance, may be undermining the benefits of legalization (see below for more on regulation and the experiments).
The Nevadan and German experiences aren’t exactly comparable, are they? Nevada has long used federalism as a way to arbitrage its laws (divorce and gambling being the two most obvious examples) whereas Germany is a big country by itself. (Germany’s population is 80m; Nevada’s only 2m.) Comparing the experiences of those two nations would be like urging Japan to adopt (pre-handover) Hong Kong’s legal code as a replacement for its own laws; it ignores the rather significant differences that sheer size imposes on a polity.
Specifically, though, the different outcomes might also be due to the different natures of the Nevadan and German political economies. The Monitor article does note that Germany’s strictly-regulated labor market has hampered the workings of the free market in providing social coverage to prostitutes….
I continue to wonder why you’d think that I was disagreeing with the substance of what you were saying. Generally, as longtime readers know, when I disagree with something, I tend to make that clear by saying “I disagree with this.” (I learned that clever trick in composition classes.) Noting that HR has changed might be a way to subtly introduce that, but in this case it wasn’t, and if that conveyed the wrong impression, I apologize. And I only said that Jessica’s post looks a bit petty when one ignores the whole context; need I point out that a simple dismissal of the ACLU in a post that demonstrates only a knee-jerk (and simplistically right-wing) understanding of the group does, indeed, objectively look a bit petty? When Atrios does the same in regard to conservatives, I think it’s petty too, but I never wrote for Atrios and indeed I don’t read Eschaton anymore.
I just finished a couple of final papers about speech codes. I now know the law of speech codes inside and out. I am completely speech coded out. Bleh.
I really like Eric’s argument that criminalizing prostitution forces some otherwise uncommitted, prostitute-patronizing people into committed, caring relationships out of necessity. That’s so good for society!
[Extremely offensive portion of this post deleted by moderator]
Because that’s what you want, right? That’s so much better for society than, God forbid, prostitution.
The above post came from the same IP address used by our friend, “Aaron.” This is your first and last warning. Cross the line like that again and you will be banned.
Aaron, are you daft? It was the content of your post that was way, way over the line. Posting under a different name was just a weasely bonus. Re-posting it was not a smart move.
Saying something like that to someone in a bar will get your butt kicked. Here it gets you banned.