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Los Angeles City Council is considering sending "Dear John" letters to the registrants of cars seen in an area of San Fernando described as having a "thriving street prostitution problem". The plan would use automated license plate readers to identify vehicles that stopped in the area. Council member Nury Martinez claims "If you aren't soliciting, you have no reason to worry about finding one of these letters in your mailbox. But if you are, these letters will discourage you from returning."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/12/01/the-age-of-pre-crime-has-arrived/
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The Age of ‘Pre-Crime’ has Arrived
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 02 2015, @06:06PM
Someone asked, "How can we make a bad situation worse?" And, this was one of their "better" ideas.
Prostitution is real, and it's not going away. Supposedly "the worlds oldest profesion", it hasn't been stamped out in any country, or any religion, or any culture. It's here, and it's here to stay.
Criminalizing prostitution only encourages exploitation. The drug cartels in Mexico are more than enough proof that criminals will step in to cater to illegal clientele.
Criminalizing protitution isolates prostitutes from society - they lose most, if not all, of the benefits of being a member of society. They end up exploited by just plain pigs or men, by trafickers, by the cops, and just about everyone who knows them.
So, we have an already bad situation, and someone asked, "How can we make things worse?" Fine, we'll start guessing which cars in the neighborhood are there for the purpose of soliciting. And, we'll send these moronic letters to their home, hoping that the women in their lives open the letters.
Complete and utter idiots. This helps who, exactly? And, how does it help them?
The article is a very good read - anyone who skipped TFA missed out this time around.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday December 02 2015, @08:37PM
Criminalizing both sides just leads to exploitation. There's absolutely no reason not to criminalize the people that pay for sex or the pimps and human traffickers.
In the modern era, sex isn't exactly hard to get if you don't mind one night stands and going to questionable clubs. Nobody is mandating a relationship or marriage before sex in the US.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday December 02 2015, @10:26PM
There's absolutely no reason not to criminalize the people that pay for sex
There is: Freedom. If someone wants to sell sex, and someone else wants to pay for it, they should be able to do so; they own their own bodies. Your puritan, authoritarian nonsense should vanish from the face of the planet, however.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday December 03 2015, @06:41AM
You would say that. Infectious disease and human trafficking are pretty compelling reasons for it to be illegal. It's pretty damn hard to ensure that people are actually choosing to be prostitutes and not being coerced.
At some point most people grow up and realize that freedom isn't unlimited and that there are costs associated with civilization. I'm sure that Somalia is available for people like you that want freedom
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday December 03 2015, @06:57AM
You would say that. Infectious disease and human trafficking are pretty compelling reasons for it to be illegal.
No, because the fundamental right to control your own body is more important than petty safety concerns. Don't want diseases? Be careful about who you sleep with. Of course, even if there was no way to do that, I would still be against outlawing prostitution.
As for human trafficking, you're just insane. That's like saying we should ban Bittorrent software because it could be used to infringe upon copyrights. Advocating the ban of something merely because it could be abused makes you even more of an authoritarian. Ban sex trafficking, not prostitution. Hard to enforce? Too bad. We don't (or rather, shouldn't) make random things illegal simply to make the job of law enforcement easier.
Furthermore, some people suggest making it legal but regulating it (mandating protection, checking for diseases, etc.). Most of your specific issues with it should disappear at that point.
It's pretty damn hard to ensure that people are actually choosing to be prostitutes and not being coerced.
Man, properly enforcing the law sure is hard. Might as well just throw everyone in prison. Man, catching bad guys is so difficult. Might as well just give police the ability to bust into any house at any time and conduct searches; they might catch some bad guys, so it's worth it. Fuck freedom.
At some point most people grow up and realize that freedom isn't unlimited
Translation: "At some point, most people become authoritarians like me." No one said anything about unlimited freedom, but the fundamental right to control your own body is such an important and basic right that it's simply reprehensible to infringe upon it.
I don't care what "most people" support or reject, because popularity is irrelevant to me, at least in the sense that it won't cause me to alter my beliefs.
and that there are costs associated with civilization.
You made this assertion, but you have provided no evidence that civilization would magically collapse if we legalized prostitution.
And did you know that lots of people also support unconstitutional democracy-destroying mass surveillance? Maybe they would say the same thing as you, and suggest that most people grow up to accept their point of view and realize that it's a cost associated with civilization.
I'm sure that Somalia is available for people like you that want freedom
I'm sure North Korea would be the perfect country for you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @09:17AM
Actually we should ban writing. There are so many bad things you can do with that technique it is not funny.
Writing promotes crime. You can write blackmail letters. You can defraud someone using written lies, even if you are exceptionally bad at lying face-to-face.
Writing supports terrorists. Terrorists can use writing to communicate and organize attacks. Writing can be used to produce and distribute descriptions on how to build bombs.
Writing harms the children. People can write child porn stories. Or simply stuff that's inappropriate for children.
Writing also can assist in sending state secrets to unauthorized parties. It therefore clearly threatens national security.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @09:20AM
Well, Germany did legalize prostitution, and it doesn't seem to have collapsed.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday December 03 2015, @06:35PM
You're a troll or a psychopath. Or perhaps mentally ill, but this dribble is what I've come to expect from you. Not one valid argument in the lot, most of them addressing things that I didn't say.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday December 03 2015, @10:00PM
Or perhaps mentally ill
Isn't a psychopath (which you mentioned as a possibility) considered mentally ill?
Not one valid argument in the lot
Strange. That's what I'd say about you.
most of them addressing things that I didn't say.
"You would say that. Infectious disease and human trafficking are pretty compelling reasons for it to be illegal."
My response to this was perfectly comprehensible. I rejected the notion that they are compelling reasons for it to be illegal, that the "human trafficking" bit suggests that we should ban something merely because it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys, and that some people support legalizing prostitution but regulating it in such a way that it greatly reduces the chances of either of your scenarios occurring. I don't see the problem here.
"It's pretty damn hard to ensure that people are actually choosing to be prostitutes and not being coerced."
I responded the way I did because it suggests that it is justifiable to ban something merely because it makes the law harder to enforce or because it could be abused.
"At some point most people grow up and realize that freedom isn't unlimited"
Now, here's where you seem to imply something about me that just isn't true: That I support unlimited freedom.
"and that there are costs associated with civilization."
Meaning what? There is no reason that it is necessarily to make prostitution illegal in order to have civilization. Why would that be a necessity or a cost that we must accept, especially considering that it is legal in some places?
If those don't address what you said, then you must be using a different language than me that looks exactly the same as English.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2015, @04:21AM
You would say that. Infectious disease and human trafficking are pretty compelling reasons for it to be illegal.
So you're also going to ban people from having multiple sex partners FOR FREE? I'm pretty sure plenty of people would be fine with reinstating those "old school" laws where sex outside marriage is illegal and often punishable by death... ;)
The human trafficking problem is often because it's not legal. So the hookers are forced to put up with crappier conditions. Whereas fast-food workers know that if work conditions get too crap they can report their boss without themselves getting charged for a crime too.
There are other issues with human trafficking - to bypass immigration/border controls - but in many of those cases the "victims" aren't actually victims - they want to be "trafficked". Nobody kidnapped them. In many cases yes they get cheated - people told them lies (promises of high salary etc) they paid a fee and find out the salary and work aren't as promised. But this happens to other workers as well, not just prostitutes. So the solution should cover those workers as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @09:05PM
> Someone asked, "How can we make a bad situation worse?"
No they didn't and to characterize what happened like that is to utterly misunderstand how people work.
It makes for great rhetoric. But it's empty and useless rhetoric.
What actually happened is that they put ideology ahead of both empathy and practicality.
Sound like anyone you know?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @10:33PM
No they didn't and to characterize what happened like that is to utterly misunderstand how people work.
To not understand that people don't mean everything they say to be taken literally is to utterly misunderstand how people work, oh enlightened person.
What actually happened is that they put ideology ahead of both empathy and practicality.
Not to mention that their ideology doesn't favor freedom.
But "ideology" is such a dirty word. What we really need are more clear and sensible positions like yours, where you put forth the ideology that empathy and practicality are more important than ideology.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @10:59PM
> To not understand that people don't mean everything they say to be taken literally is to utterly misunderstand how people work, oh enlightened person.
That's funny since you are literally taking my words literally. I'm talking about the idea expressed in those words. Nobody went into that intending to make the situation worse.
> where you put forth the ideology that empathy and practicality are more important than ideology.
I concede. Treating people like people instead of relying on some arbitrary set of rigid rules is definitely ideological. You got me sheldon cooper!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @11:39PM
Nobody went into that intending to make the situation worse.
Which is your problem: You took that statement literally. Does he literally believe people went into the situation intending to make things worse? I don't know, but I doubt it.
I concede. Treating people like people instead of relying on some arbitrary set of rigid rules is definitely ideological.
My problem is that you seem to treat "ideology" as a bad word, but you subscribe to ideologies yourself. They're just different from the ideologies other people subscribe to. Ideology shouldn't be a bad word, but you should argue in favor of the ones you think are correct instead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @12:49AM
> . Does he literally believe people went into the situation intending to make things worse?
Have you seen his posting history?
The guy is not subtle.
> My problem is that you seem to treat "ideology" as a bad word,
I treat strict adherence to ideology as a bad thing. That sort of simplification is black and white thinking which is great for physics and software, but not so much for people. Empathy and practicality are pretty much the opposite of black and white thinking. They require human judgment on a case by case basis. If that counts as ideology in your book, then your dictionary has defined ideology in such a broad manner as to be meaningless.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @01:02AM
I treat strict adherence to ideology as a bad thing.
I would say it depends on the ideology. I don't know every ideology that exists, so I can't say that strictly adhering to any ideology is necessarily bad.
If that counts as ideology in your book, then your dictionary has defined ideology in such a broad manner as to be meaningless.
The definition of ideology is broad in the first place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @01:39AM
> I would say it depends on the ideology. I don't know every ideology that exists, so I can't say that strictly adhering to any ideology is necessarily bad.
Forest and trees man. It isn't necessarily the content of ideology that is bad. It is the strict adherence part that is bad.
> The definition of ideology is broad in the first place.
That's a false dichotomy. It isn't a case of "broad" versus "not broad" it is a case of "broad" versus "anything under the sun."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @02:00AM
That's a false dichotomy.
No, it's not. I simply called it broad. That's not a false dichotomy. I did not specify the exact degree to which it is broad, and nor did I say that "broad" and "not broad" were the only two things that exist.
It isn't a case of "broad" versus "not broad" it is a case of "broad" versus "anything under the sun."
The actual definition is pretty vague and closer to the latter, sadly. I didn't come up with it. That's why I generally don't even bother using such terms unless someone else brings them up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @03:15AM
No, it's not. I simply called it broad. That's not a false dichotomy. I did not specify the exact degree to which it is broad, and nor did I say that "broad" and "not broad" were the only two things that exist.
Jesus christ. For someone complaining about literalism, you are way too fucking literal.
You offered that up as an excuse as to why your meaninglessly broad definition was acceptable. The "I didn't literally say that" excuse is simple denialism.
The actual definition is pretty vague and closer to the latter, sadly.
So, lets think this through. You are complaining that I used a word with a definition that is so broad as to have no essentially meaning. And that's meaningful to you?
Fucking dictionary pedants. Context dude.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @05:00AM
You offered that up as an excuse as to why your meaninglessly broad definition was acceptable. The "I didn't literally say that" excuse is simple denialism.
It's not denialism; it's just that you accused me of doing something I wasn't doing. I communicated my point by saying it's broad, and you somehow got from that
So, lets think this through. You are complaining that I used a word with a definition that is so broad as to have no essentially meaning.
Well, it began with you complaining about my use of the term being too broad, so I simply decided to point out that the actual definition is, in fact, extremely broad. I see this as valid.
Fucking dictionary pedants. Context dude.
Words have meanings. It seems to me that you were trying to redefine it to be less broad than it really is, without even being clear about how broad your new definition was.