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Posts Tagged ‘prohibitionist myths’

The world was beautiful for eons before there were self-aware eyes to appreciate it, and it will still be beautiful for eons after we are all gone. And there are countless other beautiful worlds which have never been seen, and never WILL be seen, by thinking beings.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-14T17:08:13.335Z

Intentionally conflating normal people whose lives are ruined by persecution with shameless politicians returned to prominence by a machine is a choice. A stupid or evil choice, but a choice nonetheless.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-16T17:10:38.247Z

It came from the same place as the "300,000 trafficked children being raped 100 times a day" came from: the Justification for State Violence factory.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-19T15:25:32.902Z

"Vice offenses" is a government dysphemism for "poor people enjoying the same adult pastimes as politicians".

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-20T17:31:41.920Z

If the HPV vaccine had been available 20 years earlier, my beloved Grace might still be alive.Get vaccinated, while you still can.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-21T17:38:43.497Z

If you had written a satire in the 1980s or '90s where the president of the US wears a freaking BALL CAP everywhere, even in serious situations like giving formal speeches or planning goddamned WAR, critics would've said it was unrealistic.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-22T07:50:44.028Z

Actual LOL.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-23T07:57:01.365Z

PROTIP: If you can't use a word without feeling a psychological compulsion to misspell it by replacing one of its letters with "x", find a different word.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-24T16:51:07.852Z

Now if only we can get the US to abolish summary execution for misdemeanors.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-25T17:45:45.761Z

I'm not one to kink shame, but have these people no discretion? I mean really. bsky.app/profile/meid…

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-26T08:12:44.396Z

Your regular reminder that websites outside the US can ignore US law, and the only way the US can stop them is by playing an endless game of whack-a-mole.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-27T18:27:08.695Z

I've decided the proper term for ICE thugs who hide their faces & leap out of vans to abduct people is "goons". I use the venerable term "spooks" to describe most G-men, but as one born during the '60s spy craze I can't help feeling it implies a degree of cleverness completely lacking in ICE goons.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-28T18:34:21.499Z

At this point, his being made into a martyr is probably less damaging in the long run.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-29T16:53:32.222Z

I'm not one to kink shame, but maybe you should keep this between you and your dominatrix.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-30T03:19:42.645Z

His approval rating is still MUCH too high. We need to see "Mussolini's funeral" approval ratings for him and his whole gang.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-01T02:40:20.242Z

Look at the bright side; the next two or three generations will have new cartoon villains to use in fiction, so they won't have to reach all the way back to the historical German Nazis whom absolutely none of them are old enough to remember as anything BUT cartoon villains.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-02T17:59:01.208Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4-G…

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-03T07:57:38.253Z

No. Both used their votes to help THEMSELVES politically. The difference lies not in their motive, but in their interpretation of what kind of vote will improve their political fortunes.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-04T17:52:24.728Z

Actually, YOU don't choose which entity you're praying to; the content of your prayers does that automatically.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-05T17:16:41.634Z

Yes, that's the point.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-07T03:52:48.861Z

I like to think Grace was there in spirit, jamming along on a ghostly bass; Ozzy was probably her favorite musician.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-07T17:51:16.476Z

Trump declares that whales can fly.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-08T17:36:38.666Z

THIS. Reporters need to STOP using Trump's second-grade names for everything. STOP calling legislation that will result in millions forced into poverty and a metastasized police state as "beautiful". STOP using cutesy nicknames for concentration camps. Just fucking STOP.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-09T18:21:48.165Z

The most realistic part of this joke is Trump not knowing that $1000 bills were discontinued in 1969 and banks are required to send any they get to the Treasury to be destroyed.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-10T04:21:57.746Z

Reporters: are y'all ready to use the word "megalomania" yet?

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-11T07:44:20.516Z

"What we need is not a non-volatile storage medium which is impossible to change once created, allowing dependable preservation of their contents, but rather centralized digital media which can be surreptitiously changed by 'authorities' at will, possibly without people noticing."

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-12T17:08:42.978Z

It always astonishes me to see people making the equivalent argument to, "air travel, including both freight and passenger, should be a government monopoly, because billionaires."It *shouldn't* astonish me because people really are that stupid. But that's the last little pest in Pandora's box.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-13T17:27:32.516Z

Watching Trump name things has given me a new respect for the names Eternian villains choose for themselves.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-14T18:34:26.533Z

This looks like liquid fabric softener.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-15T08:15:13.976Z

The way I've explained it friends who don't live here is: "Seattle people drive on the highway as though it were a surface street; on surface streets as though they were parking lots; and in parking lots as though they were at a square dance and the caller has left the room."

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-16T08:22:47.910Z

Guys, I keep telling y'all that seeing escorts is less expensive in the long run.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-17T19:08:26.779Z

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I know it’s difficult to grasp for the country that took claims of “300,000 sex trafficked children raped 100 times a day” and “invading hordes of terrorist immigrants” seriously, but there are no such things as demons.  And whatever God or gods there may be clearly do not tit-for-tat “punish” entire religions, as even the most cursory examination of the historical record will attest.  I’m bone-tired of having to endure stenographic “journalists” pretending that people who believe Bronze-Age myths are literally true should be taken as anything other than dangerous, deeply-stupid fanatics who can’t exceed a child’s capacity for rational thought.  I love mythology, and I often use idioms drawn from it in my writing; that is not, however, the same as my arguing on national TV that COVID was a pestilence sent by Zeus for our hubris, or claiming that we need a well-funded government program to locate Níðhöggr so we can prevent the collapse of the World-tree.  One thing I actually do agree with Carlson on is that nuclear weapons are much too dangerous a toy for a species largely comprised of perpetual moral and intellectual children who believe the kind of nonsense he believes, and still justify murdering and abusing each other by invoking anthropomorphic deities.

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How, pray tell, are arbitrary immigration laws any different from the arbitrary laws you break?
–  “Imaginary Lines

As the would-be leaders of the French Revolution could explain (if they were still alive), the biggest problem with rabble-rousing is that if one succeeds, he will find himself surrounded by aroused rabble.
–  “The Widening Gyre

It’s long past time for humans, and most especially our governments and other powerful institutions, to stop pretending that the bodies and personal choices of individual women are anybody’s business but their own.  –  “Public Property

Unfortunately, the word “rational” does not actually describe very many people in the modern West.  –  “Not All [Your Group Here]

For True Believers, the idea that someone with actual experience in the topic at hand might know more than someone without such experience [is] like some kind of abstruse and esoteric branch of mathematics.  –  “Holographic Harlots

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The only people who can truly claim to have made an absolutely free choice to do any kind of work are the Paris Hiltons of the world, those who have a guaranteed inheritance, income and secured future no matter what they choose to do with the present.
–  “A False Dichotomy

Though I will never set physical foot on another world myself, I have walked a thousand of them in my imagination.
–  “Ad Astra

If you meet a cop and he wants to arrest you he will do so, even if you aren’t even a hooker, and no magical formula will prevent that.  –  “Magic Formulae

The whole “pimp” and “sex slave” mythology derives from the need to deny the legendary sexual powers of whores by pretending that we’re the pathetic, powerless victims of men.  –  “Don’t Try This At Home

Computers are useful tools and (usually) dependable servants, but apparently generations of science-fiction writers have failed to pound into the heads of the intellectually lazy what a colossally bad idea it is to accept them in positions of authority.  –  “Mechanocracy

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Even in today’s climate of intellectual repression the truth has not yet been banned.
–  “Mind Reading

Most politicians aren’t as stupid as they pretend to be.  –  “First They Came for the Hookers…

Myths don’t just lay down and die; they take a whole lot of killing, and like Rasputin they often get right back up again after one thinks they’re done for.
–  “Pimping the Pimp

At one time, discretion was the mark of a professional or a person of quality; now it’s increasingly becoming a quaint relic of the bygone past.  –  “Blood on the Sand

Women…who are willing to sell out their own gender by assisting a violent patriarchy…can be found in every form of prohibitionism.  –  “Their Own Petard

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It’s hard to imagine a situation where a 4-year-old was involved in criminal activity.  –  Stevie Glaberson

To Molest and Rape

If “there is no reason to believe anyone aided him,” the screws were criminally negligent:

A [typical and representative] Arkansas police chief serving a 30-year sentence for murder and rape has escaped from prison and remains at large…Grant Hardin…has been in prison since 2017 for first-degree murder and rape [committed while]…he…was the…police chief of Gateway, Arkansas…[in] a makeshift [disguise that wouldn’t have fooled and competent guard]…Stone County Sheriff Brandon Long [claimed he]…did not have any knowledge of how Hardin was able to escape…[and] has “a lot of questions”…Nathan Smith, the former…prosecutor [on his case said]…Hardin…”He has no moral core or center”…Hardin pleaded guilty in October 2017 to first-degree murder…of…James Appleton…[and] is also serving 50 years in prison for the 1997 rape of an elementary school teacher…that was [depicted] in the 2023 television show Devil in the Ozarks

Micromanagement (#1039)

It only starts with people the state wants you to hate and distrust:

The [US] government has collected DNA samples from upwards of 133,000 migrant children and teenagers—including at least one 4-year-old—and uploaded their genetic data into [CODIS,] a national criminal database used by [cop shops] and [spook houses, which was]…originally built for convicted sex offenders and violent criminals…Experts say…the DNA dragnet [will soon] be used for more extensive profiling…CBP [demanded DNA samples from as many as]…2.8 million people [altogether]…a sweeping expansion of biometric surveillance…that explicitly targets migrant populations…

Torture Chamber (#1332)

Any civilized country would be deeply ashamed of this:

Unfortunately for…the estimated 55,000 pregnant women who [are violently hurled into US] jails every year, little data exists on the impact [being confined in filthy cages] has on pregnancy…A 2024 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office…found that “comprehensive data on pregnant women incarcerated in state prisons and local jails do not exist…[despite the US having] one of the highest maternal mortality rates” and “incarcerat[ing] women at the highest rate in the world”…between 1980 and 2022, the female prison population in the U.S. grew by more than 585 percent, more than twice the growth rate of the male prison population.  Much of this increase has been attributed to [the government’s pro-carceral jihad of the early ’90s]…Women have seen drug-related arrests increase by 317 percent since 1980, while men have seen a 69 percent jump.  Today, more than half of [caged] women are [locked up] for drug and property offenses…

Blunt Instrument (#1408)

“Sex trafficking” is no longer a magic brain-pause spell, but that hardly matters under the racist, anti-migrant MAGA regime:

A…[racist] Louisiana [politician named]…Beth Mizell [has proposed a new bill targeting Asian massage parlors]…Mizell[‘s head spun around wildly as she projectile-vomited racist “sex trafficking” myths for other politicians to masturbate to, drawing heavily on the wanking fantasy of the submissive Asian woman and peppering her rant with puritan-pleasing dysphemism like]…“illicit”…[while panting about] “6-10 men a day, seven days a week”…The bill also would prohibit keeping bunk beds inside massage parlors [so as to cut into massage workers’ income]…

The Vultures Descend (#1489)

Your “leaders” know what’s best, so shut up and obey:

One might have thought that last November, when Missourians voted to enshrine “reproductive freedom,” including abortion, in the state constitution, that would be the end of the conversation…But local Planned Parenthood affiliates are still fighting in court to overturn the web of restrictions, known as TRAP laws, that made providing abortions virtually impossible in the state…These include a 72-hour waiting period…and a rule that providers must have admitting privileges at a hospital 15 minutes away, to name just a few.  In a pair of decisions in December and February, Jackson County Judge Jerri Zhang agreed to temporarily suspend enough of those old laws to allow abortions to resume in Missouri while the court case heads to a January 2026 trial.  But…the state supreme court overturned Zhang’s rulings, ordering her to [change her mind.  Politicians have also]…voted to put yet another constitutional amendment on the ballot—this one repealing the reproductive freedom amendment and banning virtually all abortions…

Panopticon (#1540)

“Safety” has become the State’s universal excuse for violation of civil rights:

…Texas [cops] performed a nationwide search of more than 83,000 automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras while [hunt]ing…a woman who…had a self-administered abortion, including cameras in states where abortion is legal…Sheriff Adam King of the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office [blatantly lied] that…“her family was worried that she was going to bleed to death, and we were trying to find her to get her to a hospital…it was about her safety”…Elizabeth Ling, senior counsel for If/When/How…[said about 26% of abortion] criminal[ization] cases…originate after [a busybody foolishly trusted by] the person getting an abortion [snitches] to police…

I Spy (#1542)

Wave bye-bye to the last remaining shreds of your privacy:

In March, President Trump [issued] an [illegal imperial edict demanding] the federal government to share data across agencies, [violating the Privacy Act of 1974 and paving the way for] a master list of personal information on Americans that [w]ould give him untold surveillance power…[his henchmen] have…turned to…Palantir, the [cop-enabling surveillance firm which started out by spying on sex workers, by forcibly cramming]…a key Palantir product called Foundry into at least four federal agencies, including D.H.S. and…Health and Human Services…pav[ing] the way for…Trump [and his creatures] to easily merge information from different agencies…creating detailed portraits of Americans…including their bank account numbers…[and] medical [records]…[in order] to advance his political agenda by policing immigrants and punishing critics…Privacy advocates…and others] have filed lawsuits to block data access…[even] Palantir employees have been unnerved by the [scheme]…and [are trying to claim it’s not their fault if a tool they created specifically to destroy lives is used to destroy lives]…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Whores and actresses…both tend to be dehumanized into symbols for other people’s psychological needs and problems.  –  “Projection

The mind of a control freak craves being able to cram everything and everyone into neat little boxes, and to adopt a “one size fits all” approach to everyone forced into a given box.  –
Confined and Controlled

Though the pace of change is usually glacial, it is inexorable.  –
The Mills of the Gods

Prohibitionists want to “save” sex workers like the Inquisition wanted to “save” heretics:  preventing them from “sinning” by any means necessary, even if it means they end up tortured, locked in dungeons or dead.  –  “Rescued To Death

If the deities or forces that control reincarnation wanted us to remember past lives, we would.  And if they didn’t, the Divine will couldn’t be circumvented by a parlor trick.  –  “Flying Saucers

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It may be that centuries hence the erotic appeal of synthetic whores will exceed that of human ones, but nobody reading this will be alive to see it.
–  “The Pygmalion Fallacy

Evil…[is] the attempt to inflict control upon others that they neither desire nor require.  –  “Leviathan

Refusing to accept that every person is the “captain of his soul” opens the door to violence and coercion.  –  “Rhyme and Reason

The sexual abuse of children is nearly always perpetrated by people the victim knows, often inside the nuclear family worshiped as a cultic totem by those who publicly fantasize the most vociferously about imaginary pimps with magical ninja powers pulling screaming children through the internet and confining them in dog crates to be raped by 100 men a day in truck stops.
–  “Pay No Attention To That Pervert Behind the Picket Fence

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They’ll do whatever they want!  –  Mary Faith Casey

Whatever They Need To Say (#648)

Gentrification is one of the most common motivations for persecution of all kinds of sex workers:

Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto has declared a gentrification war on South LA’s Figueroa Corridor under the guise of ending sex trafficking…she has weaponized an archaic law, The Red Light Abatement Act, to shut down immigrant-owned motels…in preparation for pre-Olympic gentrification…subject[ing] an already over-policed neighborhood to further hypersurveillance and…raidsThe Act makes the property owner responsible for vice crimes committed on their property…Essentially, businesses can be forced to shut down based on a [mere evidence-free accusation] that sex work is happening on their property, whether or not they knew of the activity.  As a result, property owners discriminate against sex workers…

The Last Shall Be First (#1147)

Puritanism is throttling the entire world:

Hungary’s parliament [has] passed an amendment to [its 14-year-old] constitution that allows the government to ban [LGBT] public events...another [increase in] authoritarianism…by the ruling Fidesz-KDNP coalition led by populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán…The amendment codifies a law fast-tracked through parliament in March that bans [such] events…including the popular Pride event in Budapest that draws thousands annually…That law also allows [pigs] to use facial recognition tools to [harass] people who attend prohibited events...with fines of up to 200,000 Hungarian forints ($546)…The new amendment also states that the constitution recognizes two sexes, male and female…denying the gender identities of transgender people, as well as ignoring the existence of intersex individuals

The Last Shall Be First (#1342)

Florida knows it will lose any challenge to this law:

A transgender woman was arrested last month for refusing to leave the women’s restroom at the Florida State Capitol.  Marcy Rheintgen, a 20-year-old college student…acted intentionally to challenge Florida’s antitrans bathroom law…sending 160 letters to state representatives, the attorney general, and…Ron DeSantis [announcing the planned date and time of her visit and] asking that she not be arrested for using the…women’s restroom…[creepy pigs] followed her inside and warned her that if she did not leave…she would be arrested…but…opted to arrest her [for “]trespass on property after warning[” so she]…won’t be able to challenge the [bathroom] law…in court…

The Cop Myth (#1492)

This one directly describes very typical cop behavior as “uncharacteristic”:

A…[New York cop named]…Aaron M. Alshaman…[was rewarded with a paid vacation for attempting to burn his girlfriend’s house down at 4:30 AM while wearing his magical clown costume]…The two-family, two-story house is still intact and livable but it is damaged…the fire was [quickly] deemed to be arson and…strong…evidence [points to]…Alshaman…

Torture Chamber (#1501)

A society can be judged by the way it treats its prisoners:

For decades, America relied heavily on psychiatric asylums to treat—or, in many cases, to warehouse and neglect—people with serious mental-health conditions.  Then the grand project of “deinstitutionalization” began…[start]ing [in] 1963…the funding for that vision never materialized.  Instead, new policies criminalizing poverty and addiction swept up people in severe psychiatric distress, who often ended up in county jail—where…they might languish for months or even years…The number of people jailed pretrial has nearly quadrupled since the nineteen-eighties; people with mental-health issues tend to be detained significantly longer than the rest of the population.  Today, the nation’s three largest mental-health providers are New York’s Rikers Island, L.A. County’s Twin Towers Jail, and Chicago’s Cook County Jail…private companies…[are] contract[ed]…to provide medical and mental-health care at a capped cost; any additional money expended…comes out of the corporation’s earnings…[so, predictably,] jails that provide…health care through the top five companies in that market…[have] death rates…eighteen to fifty-eight per cent higher than those of jails whose medical services were publicly managed.  Of the five…NaphCare had the highest death rate…

The Puritan Recrudescence (#1517)

Censorious politicians aren’t just copying each other; they’re vying to make their new laws the most unconstitutional:

Missouri…Attorney General Andrew Bailey [is] push[ing] regulations to [censor the internet without bothering to go through the legislature].  Under a new [proclamation by a politician without lawmaking power], commercial porn sites are required to [violate the privacy of] users…at both the website and device level.  [How Bailey imagines he has the power to do this, or how his magical proclamation demanding device filters will stand when others have been struck down, all while somehow magically]…upholding the privacy rights of legal-age users, [is unclear, as is how he imagines he has the power to determine how]…search engine[s work]…

It’s bad enough when human reporters parrot politicians’ bloviation, but it’s intolerable when a website uses a computer program to do it (while insulting readers’ intelligence by sticking a fake byline on it).

Thought Control (#1526)

A few sane judges are the only thing protecting US libraries from morally-defective control freaks:

A lawsuit filed against Rockford [Michigan] Public Schools [seeking to ban] over 14 library books [absurdly labeled] “sexually explicit” has been dismissed by the Court of Appeals…The lawsuit was filed by [outside agitators who hid their identities to dodge public ridicule]…and…the court…said…they had no legal right to sue because criminal claims require a prosecutor’s approval…[and] the books were not illegal…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Police departments all over have discovered that criminal accusations are a valuable way to enrich themselves at the expense of the public.  –  “They Just Don’t Get It

Sex worker rights are human rights, and there can never be too many voices speaking up for them, nor too many occasions on which to speak.
–  “Never Too Many

[Some “feminists”] seem…to imagine that if it weren’t for…bogeymen like “the Media” and “Patriarchy” subjecting girls to “sexualization”…we would all grow up in a blissful, chaste state and never, ever, ever be interested in dirty, nasty sex…and that this would be a good thing.  –  “China Dolls

It’s probably impossible these days to work for any company larger than a mom-and-pop that doesn’t have some questionable association.  –  “Dilemmas

Overbroad laws, no matter how good they may sound to some, are only ever used to increase the power of those who already have it at the expense of those who don’t.  –  “Rough Trade (#1129)

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