Laws, like houses, lean on one another. – Edmund Burke
The inability of naive people to understand the power of legal precedent is one of the greatest forces for evil in the world. These well-meaning dunderheads simply refuse to understand that once a law is passed and enforced unchallenged, or when the state prevails in challenges to that law, that other laws and procedures can follow on the trail blazed by the first one. It makes absolutely no difference what the “intent” of the first law was, nor if the laws which follow it were passed with completely different intentions; once the precedent is established that it’s OK to criminalize xa, laws that criminalize xb, xc and xd are quick to follow, all leaning on the first like Burke’s row houses. Any legal weapon given today to any state actor for use against people you dislike, will be used tomorrow against people you like, and once the process gains momentum it’s nearly impossible to stop before it reaches xz.
It seems so obvious, one has to marvel that people still don’t get it; they’re willing to give “their” guy extraordinary weapons to deal with what they view as a menace, and can’t seem to fathom that someone else with very different ideas about what constitutes a menace will occupy the throne in a very short time, and that extraordinary weapon will still be available to him in the armory, to use however he pleases. Useful idiots are so convinced of their own righteousness, they’re unable to conceive of anyone branding them as evil. It’s the result of a sheltered existence in which the force of the state has never been used against them, just against others they can feel good about standing up for. Last weekend I was tweeted at by one such idealistic fool, who insisted it’s possible to draw a “bright clear line against ‘hate speech'”, differentiating it from other kinds of speech so as to allow censorship. This nitwit was seemingly unaware that “hate crime” laws have already been extended to cops via so-called “blue lives matter” laws in several states; from there it’s only one more step to criminalizing speech that criticizes cops or politicians, and a package of laws going through Congress right now paves the way for paying for sex to be classified as a “hate crime” by defining it as “gender-based violence”. And after that, it’s just one step further to defining speech about decriminalization as “hate speech” because it “promotes gender-based violence”. But do sheltered idiots who talk about “bright clear lines” vs “hate speech” get that? Nope, because never once in their sheltered ninny lives have they seen laws and policies maliciously applied to harm them or those they love. They just sit in their freaking ivory towers and blame some convenient “other”, when in actuality the laws used as weapons of oppression were supported and cheered on by previous generations of useful idiots exactly like them, who never admit that oppressors rarely take power; they’re given it by privileged idiots to fight Muslims, “sex trafficking”, “terrorists”, “Satanists”, “sex predators”, “criminals”, “illegal aliens”, drug users, whores, communists, Jews, black people, the “yellow peril”, “witches” or whoever the fashionable villain of the day might be. And the evil effect of those laws remains long after the moral panic is gone, causing both direct harm themselves and indirect harm by propping up the still-more-evil laws that inevitably follow them.
Hi Maggie, I’m curious to know at what age you personally began working as a sex worker. How did you ‘decide’ one day to become a sex worker? Did it just look appealing or was it financial need or did someone bring you into it against your will or thru coercion? Also, was there any abuse at all in your childhood (I’m curious to know if a person who had a joyful and abuse-free childhood finds sex work to be an appealing career option). These are the things that I hear from other sex workers and I’m wondering how you began, since you are an advocate of sex work. Thank you kindly for your honesty.
What I’m curious to know is why you drop in here from outer space, without doing any reading at all, and start asking me stupid questions that a little reading of my blog (or my bio in my book, or my bio in any of a dozen places online) would answer. These aren’t even true questions; what you’re asking me to do is confirm moronic prohibitionist stereotypes that I debunk on a regular basis.
I’m also curious about how did you “decide” one day to become a prohibitionist? Did it just look appealing or was it deep sexual problems or did someone bring you into it against your will or thru coercion? Also, was there any abuse at all in your childhood (I’m curious to know if a person who had a joyful and abuse-free childhood finds trying to control other people’s sex lives to be an appealing lifestyle). You haven’t heard these stupid lies from other sex workers, so why do you think I’m stupid enough to believe you did when I talk to more sex workers in a week than you will in your whole life?
“Also, was there any abuse at all in your childhood”
Maggie…who hasn’t? What parent hasn’t been an incompetent parent, consistently or sporadically?
Frustrating isn’t it? You ask if they really think this new power is not going to be misused if the Trumps and Obamas and Bushes and Clintons all get to use it? And they said two of those four were Hitler-Satan. But they just gloss over it and go back to the purpose they imagine for it, like it’ll be worded so nothing else can happen with it.
Thanks Maggie for saying what needs to be said. “Hate” and “hate speech” can refer to some very bad stuff, but they can also be used as mindless labels to defame whatever you don’t like. A dangerous process. Think of the label “communist” or “communist sympathizer” as used in the 50s.
Yes, legislation opens the door for new legislation and the law is always open to interpretation. In the UK, the government recently passed The Modern Slavery Bill. I watched some of the debates on TV. There was a lot of ‘aren’t we wonderful to do this’. The Bill itself was pretty innocuous. Companies would be compelled by law to examine their supply chain for ‘unfair practices’ and publish the results. But there would be no repercussions for not acting upon the outcomes. It was a weak bill. That was deliberate. The government resisted any attempt to give it clarity or strength. Why? It’s on the statute books and now it can be raped by politicians (male and female) to give any outcome that they want.
If Brexit goes through, the rape of prostitutes will begin.
“No, “democratic” State practice is nothing more or less than State practice. It does not differ from Marxist State practice, Fascist State practice, or any other. Here is the Golden Rule of sound citizenship, the first and greatest lesson in the study of politics: you get the same order of criminality from any State to which you give power to exercise it; and whatever power you give the State to do things for you carries with it the equivalent power to do things to you.”
Albert Jay Nock – March 1939
I love you.
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There are so many slippery slopes in the US nowadays. We’ve seen the war on terror gradually erode the Fourth Amendment and the privacy of personal communications, for example. Any action requires a deep evaluation of unintended consequences. That applies not only to personal rights, but also economic decisions by the state. It seems very few people in political life are deep thinkers who can estimate where things lead. It doesn’t matter if they have a good heart — some of our most destructive laws were enacted with good intentions by “reformers.”