Philosophy, as the modern world knows it, is only intellectual club-swinging. – H.L. Mencken
I’ve often referred to Maslow’s Hammer, the principle that “If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail.” But the concept of “trafficking” has become so vague, so broad, so misshapenly obtuse, that it doesn’t even really qualify as a hammer any more. A hammer, after all, has a definite shape and is really only intended for one purpose, while “trafficking” can mean nearly anything and is used by governments to beat down a wide variety of opponents. It has become what would more accurately be termed a blunt instrument, an object which, though designed for some specific purpose, is effective as a weapon due to its size, weight and hardness in comparison with living tissue. Hammers, baseball bats, two by fours, crowbars, monkey wrenches, pipes, walking sticks and frozen legs of lamb might all be intended for different uses, but when applied with sufficient force to the human skull they will each accomplish more or less the same thing (though perhaps to different degrees of efficacy and efficiency). The same thing could be said of “trafficking” rhetoric; it might not be the best weapon with which any given “authority” can beat an opponent into submission, but it’s more than large, heavy and blunt enough to do the job.
Today we’ll look at two examples, one small and one large. The first is from New York City, and involves a law originally intended to persecute Asian massage parlors. Many old laws with that same intention have been dusted off again in the past few years and employed to harass small businesses the fanatics label as hotbeds of “trafficking” (i.e. prostitution by immigrants), especially because the cops are being given money to do so and catering to moral panics is always good PR. But in the Big Apple, a club intended for the delicate heads of Asian ladies is instead being used to attack people interested in working out or doing yoga:
…the…1978 [law] banning sexual massage businesses…requires “physical culture establishments,” such as gyms, aerobics studios, martial arts and yoga studios — as well as massage parlors — to undergo a rigorous review process. But [many of the gyms and studios are angry because they have to go through the lengthy and expensive process, while few massage parlors do]…“The amazing thing is that [officials] are generally not asking you questions about prostitution…but [rather] about noise and soundproofing,” real estate attorney Joshua Price…said…As a result of complaints about the statute’s application, the city is reviewing the regulation for possible changes, Rachaele Raynoff…[of the] Department of City Planning…said…Raynoff declined to comment on the low percentage of massage parlors passing through the review process…One landlord-representative broker active in Midtown South…said spa tenants were not taking a substantial amount of space in the area, which is popular with tech tenants. “In my experience, they are not competing with our typical office tenants for space, at all…If you are operating a facility like that, you would probably want to be in a building as inconspicuous as possible”…
I’ll translate this from the bureaucratese for you: most business regulation is designed to attract squeeze by allowing large, wealthy companies to pay for harassment intended to shut out new competition; the businesses that are “inspected” most often and most thoroughly are those a bribe-payer wants gone. In this case, the gyms are in prime locations that other companies covet, so those who will profit by the deal encourage the department to harass them. Massage parlors, on the other hand, tend to be in cheaper, less conspicuous buildings that the big boys don’t want, therefore it’s less profitable for the city to inspect them. The weapon originally intended to smite those hated by prudes and racists is instead now hired to the highest bidder, and the prudes are furious about it; if you have time take a look at the hilariously uptight language in that article (complete with an obligatory but totally irrelevant mention of Backpage).
But graft isn’t the only time-honored crime for which politicians have found “trafficking” useful; France has recently employed it for warmongering:
…French forces drove the Ansar Dine militia from the city of Konna after deploying warplanes and hundreds of troops…to Mali, its former colony…[at the] request [of] the Malian government…Mali, long seen as a stable democracy in a volatile region, was split in two last year when Tuareg rebels who had fled Libya after the fall of Moammar Gadhafi seized the major northern towns of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu. The Tuareg fighters were swiftly outflanked by Al Qaeda-linked militants who imposed a severe form of Islamic law in the north…France has been playing a more interventionist role in Africa, declaring that it would fight terrorism anywhere on the continent…[but it] sees Mali as a particular concern because human traffickers and drug smugglers have been able to cross the region’s porous borders and get to Europe without difficulty. The fear is that terrorists based in northern Mali could use the same routes to cross into Europe and launch devastating attacks…
I hope you followed that “logic”: there are African prostitutes in France, therefore they must have been carried there by “human traffickers” (rather than arriving under their own power) by way of Mali (and not anyplace outside of Africa, or that we have no invitation to bomb). Ergo, terrorists!
I’ve often warned that laws against prostitution harm everyone and invariably lead to expansions of government power. But even before those powers expand, there is no guarantee that elected thugs will not use the weapons given them by a credulous populace for a totally different purpose than that for which they were originally intended.
The yogscast, one of the biggest gaming channels on YouTube, made a joke about how frozen leg of lamb would be the perfect murder weapon. The idea is that a wife could kill her husband and then cook the leg of lamb for the police while they investigate, thus eliminating the murder weapon.
That is the exact plot of “Lamb to the Slaughter”, the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode (adapted by Roald Dahl from his 1953 story) from which that still is taken. Of course, it’s facilitated by the fact that he husband is a police detective so the cops already know her.
Compare this to “Fried Green Tomatoes”, where the cops unwittingly help dispose of the body.
I’m sure you’ve already read about the proposed bill in Hawaii to extend asset forfeitures to petty misdemeanors.
http://ij.org/petty-misdemeanors-would-trigger-asset-forfeiture-in-new-hawaii-bill
If you go to the link with he ACLU’s response, you’ll also find a response by PASS, the Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery, in support of the bill. By that name, I’m sure you can guess the type of group they are.
I don’t see an issue really with that statement and I think what France is doing is perfectly acceptable. Let me elaborate …
That statement (which I’ve quoted above) is written by a press weenie – not anyone in France’s Defense Ministry. The press guys always get “trafficking in persons” and “human smuggling” confused – they do not know the difference and I think that the trafficking scaremeisters rather like the confusion since adding “human smuggling” to the mix really expands the scope of the problem.
But – as I say … there’s a difference between “human smuggling” and “trafficking in persons”. “Human Smuggling” includes the smuggling of migrant workers – who may not have proper documentation to enter the destination country – in this case – Europe.
“Trafficking in Persons” is supposed to be a more sinister form whereby persons are snatched from their beds at night or some such shit and carted off – ESCORTED – by the trafficker.”
Forget about TIP for a second and just look at “human smuggling”. Does Western Africa have a problem with human smuggling? The answer is yes. First, it’s an economically depressed area that people want to get out of. Second, the borders are so pourous that even individuals in land locked portions of West Africa can quickly and easily cross those borders to get to the coast very quickly – where they can employ “human smugglers” to get them to their final destination in Europe.
This isn’t imagined – it’s real. Now – the scope MAY BE exaggerated – and let’s stipulate for argument that it’s exaggerated A LOT. Still … Al Quaida only needs to move 15 or 20 suicide bombers into Europe at a time.
To calculate that they would use those “hman smuggling” routes and assets … is very good logic imo.
This is the same concern many have with the Southern border of the U.S. – in that, the same routes and methods used to smuggle undocumented immigrants into the U.S. could be used by Al Quaida to smuggle in terrorists. I would say the reason AQ hasn’t used that route yet is because it’s too easy to get their guys in via commercial airline. That’s just speculation though – you’d have to ask whoever is in charge of AQ these days – since Bin Laden now literally sleeps with the fishes.
No. France has a problem with smuggling from western Africa, which is not at ALL the same thing.
Well, they’re saying that these cats are moving to all-points Europe – not just France but … why is the distinction you’re making important?
I mean – I could agree with you and say that Europe has a problem with human smuggling from Western Africa. Well, there are a couple of ways to crack that nut … you can opt for tighter border enforcement at the destination (which I thought you weren’t a fan of) … or you can try to catch the smuggling at the originating points.
Actually – I’d do both if I wanted to protect my population from suicide bombers.
Let’s not forget here Maggie, they got into the U.S. once – and almost collapsed our economy on 9-11. That event was then used to invade a foreign nation (Afghanistan) … and to a certain extent Iraq. Conceivably, I could see nuclear weapons being employed in retaliation for terror attacks that are significant enough in scope.
So pick your poison – we can allow these cats to roam freely into our territories and do their worst – in which case the panic and outrage will cause an outlandish response. Or – we can try to interdict these guys before they get in.
I think France is doing a great thing here. Then again, I’ve actually MET and SPOKEN with actual terrorists. They’re absolutely frighteningly insane. If the only option France has is to drop gasoline on them from that refinery and light them afire – I’m all for it. They’re terrorists – dogs really.
Actually, just thought about this and … I’m wrong. France is NOT going after the originating points of human smuggling in West Africa. They are simply trying to exterminate the elements that they don’t want moving through that smuggling network. So what they’re doing is even more benign than I alledge above … since they aren’t trying to stop any migrant workers from moving … they’re only stopping AQ guys (stopping by terminating them).
Or you could decriminalize immigration and accept that terrorism kills far fewer Americans and Europeans than their governments misguided efforts to control terrorism with military blunt instruments.
War and wire isn’t the only solution but it’s the best one. If you define best as giving government more power over its citizens and giving corporations more profit from the taxpayer.
Dead Americans isn’t the real threat here Dave. The threat is an economic collapse brought on by significant episodes of terror.
How does killing AQ in Mali equate to giving France more power over it’s own citizens?
I mean – this is kind where I have to break ranks with most libertarians – because they want to have their cake and eat it too. They don’t want any restrictions on freedom in the U.S. (nor do I) … and then in the next breath they tell you they don’t want to go after the terrorists where they live – as if they will magically disappear if we stay out of their faces.
Well – shipmates – that is the equivalent of voluntarily removing your queen from the chessboard and allowing your opponent free reighn to systematically remove every other piece you have on the board. The western world would not survive such a … quite frankly … “cowardly” doctrine.
I mean – if the goal is to give western civilization to militant Islamfascists – then it’s a good plan I suppose.
“as if they will magically disappear if we stay out of their faces.”
In a word, yes.
yes, because the muslim expansion from 630 AD to 1085 AD was all because christians were all in their face. /sarc
I’ll not snark back.
There’s a difference between centralized state(theocratic or not) aggression and decentralized terrorist organizations.
Assuming what works against the former will definitely work against the latter is a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue being faced.
See – this statement illustrates that you are poorly informed on the GWOT. We are NOT fighting organized terror the way we have typically handled centralized state agression in the past. That’s patently false.
We are fighting an asymetrical battle of containment … worldwide. And that’s quite a bit different than the Cold War … or the First and Second World Wars.
The fight is fundamentally different now – yet you do not realize this. I’m not trying to insult you – it’s just that MOST people who take your position don’t know the facts of what we’re doing.
“We are NOT fighting organized terror the way we have typically handled centralized state agression in the past. That’s patently false.”
Iraq. Afghanistan.
Don’t snark back. Expand your mind. Look up the writings of Andrew Bostom who has provided the most comprehensive compilation of Islamic sourced writings in regard to Jihad, Sharia, and Anti-semitism. This isn’t his work. It’s the words of Islam itself from the founding to the present day. Krulac is absolutely right on this. Leftists apologists to the contrary notwithstanding, there is no toleration in Islam. The two historical
exceptions to that were short-lived; the most enduring and well-known in Iberia.
As anyone who follows the comments here knows, I’m not a big fan of xtianity. But the fact is that Islam was the aggressor for centuries before the Crusades. And xtianity went through an enlightenment which tamed a majority of its institutional brutality. Islam has not. This particular leopard has not changed its spots as even a cursory following of the progeny of the “Arab Spring” will demonstrate.
How is it a bad thing that there is no toleration in Islam? Isn’t multiculturalism a bad thing for western civilization.
And that is really just bad history. Islam was never any more aggressive than any expansive religion.
The crusades are a good point. During the Fourth crusade, the catholic crusade sacked Constantinople and ended the Eastern Roman Empire, the very people that asked for the crusaders in the first place. Islam just destroyed the tiny remnant empire that managed to retake the city.
Religion is always just an excuse. Westerners just stopped using Christianity as a excuse and started using “sharing the benefits of western civilization” and have inflicted just as much human suffering and misery when conquering civilizations.
That’s not to say that all the technology, science and knowledge hasn’t made western civilization something of a net benefit, but that’s more of a side effect. Many nations prospered after being absorbed into Islamic empires too.
Nick,
Your’e missing the original point here. Islam had been expanding for 3 centuries before the xtians struck back. As you’re well aware, I’m no fan of xtianity. But at least one could argue that the xtians doing this were in violation of their own principles. You can’t say that about Islam. Conversion by the sword IS doctrine. I’m sure you’re well-read enough to realize the difference between the Mecca and Medina verses in the Koran and what that implies.
That’s a crazy statement, rmv.
When in history has THAT ever happened? Did Germany back down when Neville Chamberlain signed the document of appeasement and pronounced it … “Peace in our time”. No, no they did not.
AQ doesn’t care about oil. AQ doesn’t care about Haliburton. AQ doesn’t care about Israel aside from the fact that it’s a nation of “infidels” that’s plopped down on a piece of ground they consider holy – and to be theirs.
THE motivating factor for AQ there, rmv – is the rage they feel AT YOU for not acknowledging Allah as the “Great and Powerful One”. AQ hates YOU – rmv – because you’re tolerant of homesexual lifestyles. AQ hates YOU – because you allow YOUR women to stand beside you – rather than 10 paces BEHIND you. AQ hates YOU – because you value a system of government made up of laws created by MEN – NOT GOD! They don’t like the userous way you use money.
Go back to Osama Bin Laden’s “Letter to Americans”. I’m tired of linking it but you can google. “What do WE call you to do?” He asks. “We call you to Allah”. He also goes on to say that he “calls” us to give up our promiscuous and deviant ways and turn to the Koran as the sole source for our laws.
They will not stop until we’ve eliminated them – or they have established a Caliphate in the west.
RMV – when they come to our doorstep – it’s YOU that they’re coming after. They’re not coming for some anomalous notion of government. They are coming specifically for … YOU.
But, we don’t have to eliminate them all the way to salting their lands with salt or something. As long they’re not actually powerful enough to take over the west and set up their “Caliphate” we don’t need to engage in an epic battle of civilizations where only the acceptable outcome is the Total Annihilation of the opposing side.
Yes, Islamists have launched terror attacks that have killed thousands, but that’s all they can do.
Marxists and Neo-Nazis have killed thousands but we don’t try to “eliminate” them, because they’ll never be powerful enough to put in any of their insane schemes into practice.
@krulac
re: Letter to Americans
Some of the answers to “Why are we fighting and opposing you?”
“Because you attacked us and continue to attack us.”
“You attacked us in Palestine:”
“You attacked us in Somalia; you supported the Russian atrocities against us in Chechnya, the Indian oppression against us in Kashmir, and the Jewish aggression against us in Lebanon.”
“Under your supervision, consent and orders, the governments of our countries which act as your agents, attack us on a daily basis;”
“These governments[under your supervision, consent, and orders] prevent our people from establishing the Islamic Shariah, using violence and lies to do so.”
“You steal our wealth and oil at paltry prices because of you international influence and military threats. This theft is indeed the biggest theft ever witnessed by mankind in the history of the world.”
” Your forces occupy our countries; you spread your military bases throughout them; you corrupt our lands, and you besiege our sanctities, to protect the security of the Jews and to ensure the continuity of your pillage of our treasures.”
blahblahblah. It goes on a bit. He later mentions usury and whathaveyou and glosses it with a veneer of Islamist language. The vast majority of given reasons for why is due to perceived US interference in the politics of a region.
This is all completely far afield of this post. So, I’ll be stopping my participation in this thread jack.
Big fan, Maggie.
AQ and suicide bombers are every bit as much “phony emergencies” as human trafficking, and the so-called war on terror is nothing but misdirection designed to get the masses in Western countries to look the other way while the police grab too much power and use it to harass people like Maggie.
You might as well push for a war on falling coconuts. Outside the Middle East they kill more people every year than terrorists do.
“they got into the U.S. once – and almost collapsed our economy on 9-11.”
No, the US government almost collapsed our economy, in what was some part pure unthinking panic, and in some part using a crisis to extend their power.
I’m going to call our obsession with terrorism a moral panic.
Things that kill more Americans than terrorism: driving instead of flying to avoid tsa lines, bathtubs, not vaccinating a portion of the population, legal firearms, jay walking, coal mining, etc.
Things on that list which are better excuses government excuse to spend billions on violating my privacy and right to free association, none.
Moral panic. Irrational over reaction to an exaggerated threat. Let me know when they find saddams nuke he gave to bin laden for a birthday present. Until then, give me liberty and I’ll take my chances by still driving to work everyday and using the bathtub.
The Asian massage parlors in NYC are probably already paying graft to the cops, both in cash and in trade, which the gyms wouldn’t be doing.
This could be a “bribe” issue, but probably isn’t. Most code compliance is complaint driven. If the office gets enough calls complaining about a non complying usage it will send out the inspectors. Otherwise, nothing.
You have to put this story in context with the fact that, in places like NYC, everything is regulated. There is no way the inspectors could enforce all the regulations on the books against all the businesses. So they just enforce the regulations when someone complains they aren’t being enforced.
Except that there’s nothing to prevent those who will profit from the enforcement from making the “complaints” themselves, like cops & fundies do for adult businesses.
Well, that is exactly what happens. Most of the complaining is done by competitors, troublemakers or people with a grudge.
I would like to respond to one of Thursday’s links in Friday’s column:
Those 8 million kids did not die from lack of GMO rice; they died from lack of carrots and other foods rich in nutrition. And “lack” in this instance means “poverty”.
I doubt that people who can’t afford a cheap vegetable like carrots are going to be able to afford a rare, man-made rice that doesn’t even look like rice should look like. Oh, but they’re gonna get it for FREE? Well, then, we can’t also give the poor kids some carrots for free, in that case.
Susan,
Rice is grown in a much larger percentage of the world than carrots. The way the Golden Rice project is set up is to breed the gene into locally grown varieties and let the local farmers produce it. That leaves the autonomy in the hands of the locals rather than international relief organizations. Plus, rice is more robust in storage and transportation by primitive means – the most likely to be available in 3rd world countries, than iare carrots. That’s why Golden Rice instead of carrots.
And if the project is successful it won’t be rare and it won’t be expensive and it will fit into the current cultural preferences of the target beneficiaries.
Introduce the gene into local varieties? Yeah, what could possibly go wrong with that?
Or, we could lower the cost of food in Bangladesh so the kids can get proper nutrition. Or, simply give the families some money to buy nutritious food. But I guess that would make too much sense, so we gotta mess with the food chain by splicing genes into it. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Susan,
Aid programs have decimated local food supply chains time and again. If people get the food for free, then the local farmers can’t support agriculture. Net effect is to create agricultural deserts in 3rd world countries. Thus leaving them dependent upon international charities of dubious staying power.
The golden rice people are trying to avoid that trap by giving local people the means to produce nutritious food on their own. But I can see that you are of the “give a man a fish and feed him for a day” school. Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.
Number One:
You can feed people for free AND support local farmers by buying the food from local farmers.
Number Two:
You can support local farmers by giving money to poor people to buy food from local famers. Here in the United States, it’s called the food stamp and WIC programs, which have supported US farmers for decades.
Assuming that this “golden rice” won’t disrupt the food chain, what happens when the global food speculators push up the price of this rice, thus becoming unaffordable? Guess you didn’t think that far.
Susan,
Even if “global food speculators push up the price of rice” you’re still going to be dealing with a 3rd world supply chain. Speculation is a seriously time-sensitive activity where 10ths of a point translate into big gains or losses. These folks aren’t going to have time to wait for indigenous folks to load up the donkey cart and bring their rice to market to capitalize on the higher price.
Secondly, by supplying this to lots of local farmers – which is what the golden rice initiative is doing – you’re not going to have the capacity to corner a market like one would with the big industrial farms in the West. Such a diverse set of rice growers would insulate these folks in the 3rd world from any such speculation if it occurred.
Every transaction has a cost. Commodities futures try to reduce transactional costs as part of making their margin. They are not going to go running around 3rd world countries confiscating or buying up rice supplies or optioning futures from 10,000 smallhold farmers. It isn’t worth their time. To get that approach, you’d have to have a coercive government, something on the order of Kruschev’s “management” of the Ukraine under Stalin where he brought on the Holdomor.
I realize that the idea of people controlling their own destiny is something of a bogeyman for you. And that you’d feel better is some paternalistic gov’t was there to take care of their every need without their having to own responsibility for it. But that breeds dependency and if the aid orgs or the hollywood types go running off on the latest fad “crisis” these people we’ve made dependent are left high and dry. It is far better that they be able to take care of themselves than to be dependent upon us. But I guess you didn’t think that far ahead.
“You can support local farmers by giving money to poor people to buy food from local famers.”
Still touting the “give a man a fish and feed him for a day” approach, I see.
Have you ever wondered why 3rd world dictators and bureaucrats get so rich? It’s because the aid the 1st world sends them for their poor never gets to them. It gets skimmed off and sent to Swiss bank accounts.
The most effective means of bringing people into self-sufficiency are the direct “micro-development” loans. Things like a few hundred dollars to a woman in New Delhi so she can start a delivery service by buying a bicycle. So she doesn’t have to rely on the largesse of donors in the West, or whatever minscule amount trickles down to her after the skimming and graft.
Like it or not, the best means for these people to lift themselves out of poverty is for them to do as much as they can themselves. Why do you think they turn to sex work? Because of the autonomy. They control their destiny far better that way than any coercive rescue or aid organization or criminalizing gov’t ever could. Because in most of these cases, they are not interested in autonomy and in some cases they are interested in outright incarceration.
Cash infusions and food dumps are only good for the short-term. They tend to distort the cultures and create perverse incentives – graft, corruption, skimming, etc., just like they do in more advanced societies, except most of those have enough cushion, it’s not a matter of life and death. In the 3rd world it is – and giving aid through local gov’t just gives them a bigger oppressive club to swing. Look at the Food-Aid concerts from the 1980’s – the Marxist gov’t in Ethiopia was using the Food-Aid supplies as bait for mass murder. The current examples are not as egregious, but they are still exploitative.
The best thing is for private groups to get the money for building businesses, farms, etc., directly to the beneficiaries. They bypass the middle man, they don’t feed the corrupt bureaucrats, and they don’t create perverse incentives – and they usually have people on the ground to help and consult. The best thing the US gov’t could do is to make it clear to the respective gov’ts that they’d better keep their good squads and corruption under control, or else.
Gov’t to gov’t subsidies don’t work – unless your ultimate goal is to enrich the ruling class at the expense of the taxpayer.
Almost nothing we eat today is “natural.” You never find corn growing wild, not wheat for that matter. Modern carrots are nothing like the original wild root. Gene splicing let’s you change plants around more precisely, but it isn’t any less “natural” than the mutant plants we all eat every day.
Apparently carrots were more like turnips – white flesh, purple skin – until somewhere toward the end of the 1600’s. There were some white and yellow varieties but it apparently took some serious hybridizing to come up with the orange carrot we have today.
A variety of things “could” go wrong with genetically modified foods, however, the likelihood is so miniscule as to be negligible. How can one know this? Because, outside of selective breeding, a form of genetic modification that’s been going on since the beginning of agriculture, there’s also a much more modern, much less controlled form of genetic modification that’s been in use for decades, with no adverse effects.
It’s known as “mutation breeding,” in which seeds are exposed to radiation or chemicals in order to stimulate genetic mutations, leading to new varieties. This method is obviously considerably more unpredictable and less controlled than direct genetic modification – after all, one doesn’t know in advance what genes will result from an irradiated seed, whereas the developers of GMOs know exactly which genes are being introduced to the species. Nevertheless, there are no groups protesting mutation breeding, few regulations regarding its use, and no environmental disasters resulting from the process.
That’s a good point. My brother did his PhD in plant genetics – they would set up 30 or 40 parallel breeding lines and subject them to various mutagens, put them in a growth chamber and then “force” them to an early maturation. Because this was before they could set up “markers” they actually had to see the mature plant before they’d know if anything useful had showed up.
Most people don’t have any idea how time consuming creating a new cultivar used to be. Before modern labs, you had to keep track of various cross-strains and back-breeding that would make a stud book look like a Dick and Jane primer. And if you had access to a greenhouse, you might get 3 generations a year. It could take decades to get a new variety with useful characteristics.
My brother teaches at a small college now but he does some plant breeding – cherries and elm trees. He’s trying to find a hardier cherry for cold weather climates and a dutch elm disease resistant cultivar for the elms.
He lost his entire generation of cherry trees – 12 years of work – because they got caught in a cold snap that was atypical for the area. He tried to recover by grafting, but the damage was severe enough that it wasn’t successful.
That’s what plant breeding was like before the “evil gene splicing” came along. But because the public is generally ignorant of scientific subjects they are easy prey for the Neo-Luddites in our midst.
Some of these mutant strains are certified organic. But! the evil words “genetic” and “engineering” are not present, so it’s all good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTMIz0_Iij8
It doesn’t mention human trafficking but after reading this post I remembered this annoying add every time I went to the cinema. Trafficking is effectively government speak for white slavery despite the fact that most migrant prostitutes in the US are from Asia and Central America, and just like other migrant workers they are working in the US through choice. Most these laws are easily circumvented so they are not targeting “traffickers”, they are targeting prostitutes and their clients.
[…] these are actual crimes, but the truth is they aren’t (except on paper); they’re simply blunt instruments defined so vaguely that any competent prosecutor can jam nearly any business into one or more of […]
[…] that these are actual crimes, but the truth is they aren’t (except on paper); they’re simply blunt instruments defined so vaguely that any competent prosecutor can jam nearly any business into one or more of […]