Thank you for your replies Wooden Shoe and Xris. Isn't it amazing how parallel prohibition of any one of these activities is to another (e.g. historical alcohol prohibition in the USA to modern drug prohibition by the USA)? Of course, I have trouble getting in their heads, but there are still groups that support complete prohibition of alcohol.
A Poster He or I wrote:Prostitution is a little trickier, as it creates pimping to go along with it. I feel pimping should not be legalized, but how to keep it at bay while legalizing prostitution per se, I have no ideas.
Actually, I would argue that
pimping is mainly a problem created by prohibition and is not unique to
prostitution. Indeed, I believe that is the purpose for which mobs are formed and become so significant. Mobs act like a government and police force for those activities which are criminalized by the overarching, official government. Indeed, the title '[illegal] protection agency' is often synonymous with
mob, and the way they charge taxes and force their own customers is remarkably parallel to that of the actual government for its legalized businesses. Where things like gambling, alcohol selling & buying, drug dealing and prostitution are legal, there is no need for mobs/pimps to act as taxing 'protection agencies' (with the irony of often being the main thing from which people need protection).
Of course, we can also take the word
prostitution and by extension
pimping more metaphorically, in which most talented and/or hard-working members of the working class are being
pimped around there bosses. It's remarkable how easy it is to say the 14-hour-a-day-working-but-realatively-not-well-paid-sun-drentched-roofer can be described as
selling his body like the common streetwalker and the wealthy share-holders, business execs and governmental cronies living off the fruits of the working class can be described as exploiting the
desperate and vulnerable and where calling such people pimps barely seems metaphorical anymore.
Thank you for reply, A Poster He or I.
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Thank you for reply as well, Jellymeat. You are wise to bring up the Prison Industrial Complex, which provides a great deal of explanation why politicians and governments exacerbate the problems in society which they claim to fix.
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Existence wrote:Scott wrote:Putting any specific activity aside, I want to know if in general do you support criminalizing unhealthy/dangerous but victimless/consensual activities? Or do you agree with the arguments for legalization above, which allegedly apply to each instance of an unhealthy/dangerous but victimless/consensual activity?
I would need more information to adequately address this question. Are you asking that victimless/consensual activities be legalized without restraint? An example of restraint would be age. There are more than enough young adults who would like to be able to use drugs without being arrested for committing a crime. [...]
Great question! Unfortunately, the answer is a little of a yes and no. In a sense, yes I am asking that consensual activities be legalized without restraint. However, in the case of many situations--particularly young children, the severely mentally retarded and the severely mentally ill--I would argue that one or more of the participants are
incompetent to consent and that any alleged consent is invalid and negligible. I would support laws that reflect that, such that if a normal 30-year-old has sex with an otherwise seemingly willing 12-year-old it is not considered consensual sex but rather rape and if instead sex he gives the 12-year-old a joint, a beer or the chance to gamble it would similarly be considered the non-sexual equivalent of rape, i.e.force-feeding, forced-joint-smoking, etc.
Existence wrote:At what point is one able to determine when an activity of consensual participants is victimless?
Really, I personally use the words victimless and consensual interchangeably in the philosophy of politics.
Existence wrote:Should I assume the legal definition of age of consent when addressing this question? And if so, does this legal definition of consent negate the question?
I'm not sure I understand these two questions. What may be throwing me off is that the legal definition of age of consent varies from one jurisdiction to another. (We may or may not have more luck sorting these issues out in the topic,
incompetence to consent.
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PaulNZ, thank you for your replies. I do not see a reason to believe the prohibition and legalization of drugs would be so particularly different than of all the other consensual activities that have been or are illegal in many jurisdictions past and present including:
prostitution,
homosexual civil unions,
alcohol,
paying employees poorly or choosing to work for low pay, and
gambling. (If you think the drug issue is so different and are interested solely in talking about drugs, you may or may not find one of the following topics more useful:
All drugs should be legal or
marijuana legalization.) Your worry about the effects of legalization and the creation of a black-market to avoid taxes seem to be disproven by the lack of a major black market for tax-free cigarettes, alcohol and prostitution where those things are legal (discounting of course many illegal varieties of these legal things not dealing simply with tax avoidance such as underage prostitution, drunk driving and smoking-cigarettes-during-pregnancy).
Have you any evidence that the release of prohibition of criminalized activities increases actual usage (e.g. did significantly more people start drinking alcohol again once prohibition was lifted in the USA)? Have you any statistics regarding how this would effect government-spending on things like rehab and hospitals considering such services are often provided even during prohibition? Have you any comparison of typical 'tax and administrative' rates on the black market (i.e. that paid to mob bosses, protection rackets, lawyers and such) versus the legalized costs you mentioned? (Please don't take these questions as an attack because I am genuinely curious about such information.)
Since I am not looking to just talk about drugs, are you,
PaulNZ saying or do you agree with the following:
I think a balance is required with regard to legislation, health services and education about use and consequences. Making minor alcohol, tobacco, prostitution or gambling activities such as possession of small amounts and use offenses which could be dealt with by way of an instant fine, similar to a traffic ticket with no record. This together with education and improved health services (separate specialist court for alcohol, tobacco, prostitution or gambling by addicts) but with the same hard sentencing regime for those in to the manufacture and sale of alcohol, tobacco, prostitution or gambling might be a start. To simply let society go for it for the sake of choice appears to me to be counter productive. If not, why not?
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Invictus_88 wrote:So if government loses the right to impose taxes, how can it afford to secure, ensure, and protect the liberties of the people?
In this topic, simply for the sake of simplicity, I personally will talk only about consensual activities performed by and between people and NGO's not between the government/state and people. I have created a
new topic to address the unique issue of taxes and attempt to answer your question.