Comments on: America’s Anti-Reagan Isn’t Hillary Clinton

By: RiShawn Biddle

RiShawn Biddle — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 12:05:03 +0000

By the way, in the case of prostitution, I say for the most part, it isn’t exploitive. This isn’t to say there aren’t exploitation issues. There are. Chinese and Mexican women smuggled into this country and forced to work in brothels is one example; another is street prostitution where women get paid almost nothing for their work.
But both problems have little to do with prostitution itself; after all, selling one’s sexual services for money isn’t that much different from stripping or high-end fashion modeling.
In the case of smuggled women, the problems are, for one, an immigration system that isn’t based on excluding criminals, terrorists and those with contagious diseases, but on excluding people based on whatever political scare tactic in effect, be it the decision to restrict the number of H-1B visas issued because of fears of foreigners supposedly taking jobs from qualified Americans (false) or that there are too many foreigners within our midst (despite the fact that there is no one in this country who can trace their lineage back to a true native American; not even the Indians, who originate from Mongolia.)
Such a warped system of immigration gives incentives to smugglers to move women to this country. After all, these are able-bodied women who want to move to this country because of the economic and social opportunities; they would be able to arrive here legally under an immigration system based on the ability to maintain employment and they would be hired. Until immigration is made more sensible, people-smuggling will continue to occur; instead of becoming prostitutes, they’d just work in other areas such as maid services and restaurants.
The other problem is the fact that prostitution is illegal; when government makes a generally non-criminal activity a crime, it essentially removes itself from regulating it and thus imposing work and wage laws that would make such labor fair and equitable. Pimps exist because prostitution has been made illegal and thus they are able to take advantage of those problems. Make it illegal and the government can impose wage and work condition rules that would work in favor of these women; porn is already subject to those rules and more because it is legal.
Consider how we deal with the the janitorial industry. This is an industry that many, including the SEIU union consider to be exploitive, especially because the firms allegedly hire workers who are considered illegal under our immigration laws and pays them poorly. Yet we don’t ban the industry. Why? Because as far as we are concerned, the problems aren’t inherent in the industry, but in the laws with which the industry and its employees tangle. So we push for the feds to enforce wage and hour laws, promote unionization of the industry and fine them (in theory) for hiring illegals. We don’t ban the industry itself.
If it’s a manner in which we treat janitorial services, what makes prostitution any different (besides the moral arguments)?

By: RiShawn Biddle

RiShawn Biddle — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 11:25:22 +0000

What exploitation? Last I checked, the women engaged in pornography (and much of prostitution, by the way) are over the age of 18; many have been engaged in other forms of sex-related work (stripping, for example) and were of free mind and body to choose. Whether their decisions were wise is a far different question; but they made their choices.
In the case of porn, exploitation doesn’t even exist. On average, most porn actresses will make up into the four-figures for a given day’s work; that adds up to a middle-class income (and in the case of a Jenna Jameson, a millionaire’s income) over a year. Adding to the lack of exploitation; women such as Jameson, Danni Ashe and Belladonna have parlayed their success into their own production companies, which has further improved the possibilities for women to have careers once they’ve exhausted their looks.
Now if you simply object to porn based on your own moral arguments, Seymour, then that’s your right. But last I checked, the Constitution doesn’t allow you or anyone else to impose moral judgements unless they involve actual crimes. So there.
When you have some facts to prove your argument, Seymour, perhaps I’ll consider your position more credible.

By: Joel Thomas

Joel Thomas — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 03:33:09 +0000

I support the illegality of child porn and vigorous prosecution of all involved with it, whether selling or purchasing.
But who is to say with regards to other materials? My Senator, then Congressman, Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, raised a spirited objection to the televising of “Schindler’s List” as obscenity that should be shocking to the conscience of any family-oriented Christian.
The American Family Association, run by far right-wing United Methodist pastor Donald Wildmon, tried to get the networks not to run “Saving Private Ryan.”

By: Eric Seymour

Eric Seymour — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 02:55:52 +0000

RiShawn,
Well, that’s the classic defense of so-called “victimless crimes.” I don’t want to get into that debate here and now, but suffice it to say that I don’t buy those defenses. Just as with prostitution, pornography involves exploitation of the people involved (usually women), and it degrades and poisons our entire society. Although I wouldn’t push for outlawing Playboy, I certainly agree with banning the most extreme examples of hardcore porn.

By: RiShawn Biddle

RiShawn Biddle — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 01:32:34 +0000

The problem with your argument, Eric, is the definition of obscenity as a crime; what offends your senses is therefore a harm to your well-being or to that of someone else. But is one truly harmed by something they consider obscene? Are you physically injured? Does obscene material meet the general standard of crime, that is, someone committing injury or death to another or robbing them of their life, liberty or property.
Last I checked, hardcore porn such as that produced by Rob Black of Extreme Associates (who was charged by the Justice department with conspiracy, sending obscene materials via mail order and transmitting obscene materials through computer) does no physical harm to anyone. Nor is it put in your face: One would have to either enter a porn shop (in Indianapolis) or in more liberal (philosophically in the old style classical liberal sense) corners of the world, the back room of a mom-and-pop video shop (in Los Angeles) to pick one up. Or one would have to actually search for the material on the Internet. Where oh where does this material, offensive as it might be for the Eric Seymours of the world (the RiShawn Biddles just find it dull to watch) actually harms anyone?
One would certainly argue that with the exception of kiddie porn and anything involving actual rape, obscenity is one of those crimes that actually shouldn’t even be on the books. Whether eight prosecutions a year isn’t an increase in your book doesn’t really matter in a factual sense; when one ramps up from 4 obscenity cases in a decade to 8 a year, it shows that the feds are devoting resources to prosecuting activities that don’t meet the definition of crimes. And that’s absolutely ridiculous.

By: Eric Seymour

Eric Seymour — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 21:37:54 +0000

Thanks. I don’t happen to think that 8 prosecutions per year (in a nation with tens of thousands of porn producers and distributors) represents a “crusade.” I do think that only 4 in a decade (most if not all of which were probably under Bush ‘41) is rather negligent, however. Obviously we have very different views on this subject.

By: Ed Brayton

Ed Brayton — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 20:33:45 +0000

In the 1990s there were a total of 4 prosecutions nationally for pornography; in the last 5 years there have been 40 and many more are pending. The AG has announced that this is one of his top priorities and he has set up a task force specifically to carry out such prosecutions. By any reasonable criteria, I think this can be called a “major increase.”

By: Eric Seymour

Eric Seymour — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 20:20:06 +0000

Again, what is a “major increase?” You haven’t provided any actual details. Has Gonzales increased the budget from $0 under Clinton to $1 million out of a multi-billion-dollar budget? That would be a huge proportional increase (infinity percent!), but still only a very minor budget item.
If you don’t think any adult pornography should be illegal, fine. But I personally think some types of porn are horrible enough to be outlawed (e.g., porn that portrays a rape or purports to be a “snuff film,” even though the participants were consenting and no one was actually killed).
The reason I’m so insistent about this point is that it’s so easy to spread misconceptions by using terminology loosely.

By: Ed Brayton

Ed Brayton — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 20:07:15 +0000

I don’t think much of that really has anything to do with my original claim, which was simply that the DOJ is currently engaged in a major increase in prosecutions for consensual adult pornography, similar to the one that Ed Meese attempted when he was Reagan’s AJ. My statement was true. I suspect that the “unnamed sources” are FBI agents and prosecutors who would prefer to put real criminals in jail, not those who aren’t hurting anyone. I know if I was a prosecutor, I’d much rather prosecute crimes that actually have victims.

By: Eric Seymour

Eric Seymour — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 19:59:52 +0000

I certainly wouldn’t want to see prosecution of organized crime and narcotics significantly scaled back to finance a “crusade” against porn. But the article doesn’t mention what the comparative budgets are. Will obscenity prosecution cost 10% of the violent crimes budget? 1%? 0.1%?
All we have is an article that cites unnamed sources who are unhappy with Acosta and Gonzales’ priorities. It’s possible these are libertarian-minded people who don’t think we should spend a cent on prosecuting obscenity until organized crime has been completely eliminated–if then. I respectfully disagree.