There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. – Henry David Thoreau
Three more examples of the suppression of individual freedom (by two governments and a huge corporation), plus a fourth item just for fun and a correction.
Creating Criminals (January 15th, 2011)
For reasons which include the fall of the Iron Curtain and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, Western nations in general (and the U.S. in particular) have begun to develop considerable anxiety about people who cross borders without jumping through all of the hoops so beloved by bureaucrats. As I previously discussed, the hysterias about “human trafficking” and “illegal aliens” are actually one and the same thing, so it’s no surprise that unconstitutionally-broad, civil-rights-trampling legislation on both subjects have become politically popular at the same time. But as the State of Georgia has recently discovered to its chagrin, when one turns large numbers of people into criminals with the stroke of a pen, there are often side effects one hadn’t considered:
After enacting…a law designed to drive illegal immigrants out of Georgia, state officials appear shocked to discover that [it] is, well, driving a lot of illegal immigrants out of Georgia…Thanks to the resulting labor shortage, Georgia farmers have been forced to leave millions of dollars’ worth of blueberries, onions, melons and other crops unharvested and rotting in the fields. It has also put state officials into something of a panic at the damage they’ve done to Georgia’s largest industry.
Barely a month ago…Gov. Nathan Deal welcomed the TV cameras into his office as he proudly signed…[the] law. Two weeks later, with farmers howling, a scrambling Deal ordered a hasty investigation into [its] impact…as if all this had come as quite a surprise to him…According to [a] survey of 230 Georgia farmers…[they will] need more than 11,000 workers…over the rest of the season…In response, Deal proposes that farmers try to hire the 2,000 unemployed criminal probationers estimated to live in southwest Georgia…
As an editorial in the Valdosta Daily Times notes, “Maybe this should have been prepared for, with farmers’ input. Maybe the state should have discussed the ramifications with those directly affected. Maybe the immigration issue is not as easy as ‘send them home,’ but is a far more complex one in that maybe Georgia needs them, relies on them, and cannot successfully support the state’s No. 1 economic engine without them.” According to the survey, more than 6,300 of the unclaimed jobs pay an hourly wage of…roughly $8 an hour…[and] few…include benefits…the truth is that even if all 2,000 probationers in the region agreed to work at those rates and stuck it out — a highly unlikely event, to put it mildly — it wouldn’t fix the problem.
…Deal’s pledge to find “viable and law-abiding solutions” to the problem that he helped create seems naively far-fetched. Again, if such solutions existed, they should have been put in place before the bill ever became law, because this impact was entirely predictable and in fact intended…Georgia farmers could try to solve the manpower shortage by offering higher wages…[but that] would drive up their operating costs and put them…at a severe price disadvantage against competitors in states without such tough immigration laws…People are going to lose their crops, and in some cases their farms. The small-town businesses that supply those farms with goods and services are going to suffer as well. For economically embattled rural Georgia, this could be a major blow…
An AP follow-up story describes the predictable results of the astonishingly stupid idea that 2000 lazy Americans can take the place of 11,000 industrious Latinos. The War on Whores has unplanned effects just as the War on Migrants does, but few of those effects are as sudden and dramatic as crippling a major sector of the economy practically overnight.
The Swedish Disease Spreads (February 16th, 2011)
Who needs government censorship when media companies will do it for you? In this June 24th column from the Times-Colonist, Jody Paterson describes how Google has encouraged anti-prostitution activists in Ireland while censoring those campaigning for human rights:
…Ten escorts launched “Turn Off the Blue Light” this year, responding to a major campaign in Ireland to outlaw the last legal vestiges of prostitution. The anti-prostitution campaign is called “Turn off the Red Light.” The escorts picked their name as an allusion to the blue lights on Ireland’s police cars, and the impact of criminalization…The Red Light campaign – a coalition of 39 religious groups, unions, non-profits, feminist organizations, political parties and so on – is pushing for Ireland to follow Sweden…Desperate to be heard on the subject, a few Dublin escorts and supporters struck up their own small rights campaign and bought a Google AdWord – those paid links that you’ve probably noticed at the top of some of your Google searches. The ad linked to the Blue Light website…[and] said: “Turn off the Blue Light: Sex workers in Ireland need human rights, not legal wrongs.” It ran for several weeks without issue. But in May, Google yanked the ad, having suddenly decided the content was an “egregious violation” of company ad policy…[against] selling adult sexual services…Blue Light isn’t selling sexual services. It’s campaigning for human rights…As if to add insult, the company then sold an AdWord to a religious organization leading a campaign against sex trafficking in Ireland…
I guess concern for human rights is more than we can expect from Google, which until it came under fire from rights groups last year was only too happy to whore itself to the Chinese government by censoring search results.
Creeping Rot (April 18th, 2011)
Ireland isn’t the only country under attack by anti-whore fanatics; as I reported in this column the Swedish Model is spreading like gangrene across Europe, and the European Commission has “recommended” it for all European countries and wasted public funds on an ad campaign which can only be described as “ridiculous”. On June 19th Laura Agustín wrote:
…By what twisted logic did the European Women’s Lobby decide that a film of a man pretending to lick a series of pussies would work to discourage other men from paying to lick pussies or have their own parts licked, or both? The incoherency of this End Demand product is mind-boggling. The EWL, as noted not long ago in a post about European anti-prostitution trends, has been running a Together for a Europe Free From Prostitution campaign, despite the fact that some members of the EU legally permit and regulate some branches of the sex industry…In the one-minute video, the man (meant to be a sex worker though he looks anything but) doing the licking acts out feeling sickened by it. He brushes his teeth a lot. In contrast, the women throwing themselves back on his bed look quite pleased. Just how is this meant to discourage men from paying for sex?…the psychology of this campaign certainly shows how anti-sex the campaigners are.
Take a look at the video and then ask yourself what kind of mind would actually believe it would discourage men from hiring hookers.
Another Super Bowl Invasion (May 18th, 2011)
Maybe the crows are in cahoots with the grackles:
…Crows have been attacking police in the parking lot of a [suburban Seattle] police… station. They’ve been swooping down and dive-bombing the officers as they walk to and from their cars. Lt. Bob Johns said he recently was flanked by the aggressive birds and “got zinged.” “They’re like velociraptors,” Johns said. One officer used his siren to try to scare away the crows, but it didn’t work. The birds responded by decorating his car with droppings, The Daily Herald reported. State Fish and Wildlife Department biologist Ruth Milner said the birds are simply protecting baby crows that have been kicked out of the nest and are learning to fly. Adult crows are quite protective of their young — a common trait among larger birds and birds of prey. “All they’re doing is defending their nest,” Milner said. She noted crows also can recognize people’s individual features. And they hold grudges. “If your cops have done something that (the crows) perceive as a threat, they could be keying in on them because they’re all wearing the same kind of uniform,” Milner said…
“Velociraptors” indeed. Obviously cops feel compelled to exaggerate the threat of 500-gram birds just as they do everything else.
In Their Own Words (June 10th, 2011)
Regular reader Friend called my attention to the fact that the Catharine MacKinnon quote “All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman,” is a misattribution from the October 1986 issue of Playboy. We do not need to lie about our enemies, so I replaced the incorrect quote with two properly-attested quotes. My sincere apology to Professor MacKinnon for the error.
“Europe free from prostitution…”
So these people have presumably figured out a way to prevent any two people having sex if either of them has given, or will give in the future, anything of value to the other?
Sounds like quite a trick.
That commercial or whatever it was was kinda ewww… I can picture some guys going YEA! Sickened pffft…. sickened all the way to the damn bank…..
nice post Maggie, haven’t been able to keep up on your site as much as I had hoped with the heavy summer course load I had, but now that that’s over I will be going over some of your previously posted stuff, but good to see your still churning them out 🙂
Yeah, I’m kind of obsessive that way. 😉
God I hate crows, every once in a while after a rainstorm a portion of my property will turn into a 3 day pond. There is NOTHING in the world creepier then hundereds of dead slient crows watching you with their beady little eyes as there heads swivel back and forth to keep an eye on you
Funny, but I’ve always been oddly fond of the whole crow family…ravens, crows, magpies, the whole lot of them. Maybe it’s because they’re sacred to the Morrigan, though I liked them long before I consciously knew who the Morrigan was or why that should matter to me.
Or maybe it was just due to Poe’s “The Raven” or Heckle and Jeckle.
The solidarity of these birds can be amazing. Years ago, a magpie with an injured wing fell into my garden. We picked it up and popped it in a cage, and took it inside where we fed and watered it until it recovered.
On the day that it was ready for release, we brought the cage outside, only to find all the gutters, trees, and fences lined with silently staring magpies.
When we opened the cage and set the injured bird free, all the rest took off as one and flew away. They still visited the garden after that, but never attacked us or showed any fear or hostility.
I watched the video, and WTF?
First off, despite years in the business, I’ve never actually met a man who made a living working servicing only women. He may exist out there somewhere, but if so, he’s very, very rare. All the male sex workers I’ve met cater to other men.
But let’s accept for a minute that he’s real. Then what we just saw was a man giving several women pleasure as his job. What’s so awful about that?
Much is made of the idea that sex workers may, or may not, always enjoy their jobs. But you never hear the same said of chartered accountants? Do we assume accountants seriously like, and look forward to every client they have? Do we expect accountants to experience orgasmic pleasure from doing the books of each client? Do we not expect accountants to prepare for client meetings, and relax afterward? Then why apply different standards to sex workers?
I had regular clients I really, really liked. Others, not as much. Some days I felt more keen than others. But when that door opened, I put on the smile and I was on! The job was about the clients pleasure, not mine. It’s like expecting accountants to get their sums right.
We have such seriously twisted ideas of what sex work is. We can’t get the idea that it’s a job. Not every one is suited for it, just like not everyone is suited for accountancy. It’s not always enjoyable, but sometimes it is, and there’s the pride in a job well done.
I am a Chartered Accountant, and worked in the profession for a few years before moving into management.
Orgasmic pleasure would not describe what I felt at the sight of the client’s books.
That commercial is weird. It seems, and this isn’t something I’m willing to bet money on or argue about, but it seems to be a way to say to men, “How would you like it if…” not understanding that most men would like it just fine. There seems to be the assumption that because the women aren’t all cover girl models in their barely-twenties, that men watching this will be going, “EEW! UG!! YUCK!!!”
The assumption seems to be that all men are Shallow Hal, and thus the idea of sex with anyone who isn’t gorgeous will cause a non-gorgeous man to suddenly realize what a horrible thing he is doing hiring a woman to have sex with non-gorgeous him.
There also seems, though, to be some assumption that sex for pay is instinctively, inherently revolting to anyone. The idea seems to have lingered in the minds of those who made this that even a very horny man would be disgusted if even stunningly beautiful women started saying to him, “Please, I’ll give you $200 if you let me give you a blowjob. Please?”
IOW, the people behind this PSA are living in another world, and I only wish they would leave the people in this world alone.
The funny thing is that women are the ones who have always framed sexual relations in commercial terms, even though the manner and terms of payment may vary.
Yes, there are women who are exceptions, although they are so rare that they should be made to wear RFID tags so that they can be protected and encouraged to breed.
Men are simply working in the environment created by women, and get beaten over the head when they try to negotiate the price or change the terms from buy to rent. And women don’t come with a guarantee of performance, or instruction manual when men DO buy.
If the less materialistic women were encouraged to breed, and this actually had an impact on the gene pool, all you would achieve would be a decrease in the desire of men to work (or at least to work beyond mere survival). Eventually, civilization even might collapse…
What evolution has given us actually works, be careful when tampering with it.
Well, right now maybe civilization would collapse. We’ve nearly reached the point where work ethic can go Cheney itself, and the machines can do the work. We’re not there just yet, but we’re not far from it.
The key line in the video is “If I had to . . . ”
I know plenty of people who if they had to teach math would want to vomit, but I love it. Coercion and slavery are evil, freely chosen actions are not.