More on sex workers
When I do a doobie, or vape some THC, I do not dream progressive dreams.
The belief that you should be able to ingest any substance—even, in fact, poison—because you own your own body is a profoundly libertarian, not progressive, idea. Only libertarians start the discussion with self ownership. It was the progressives who gave us alcohol prohibition in the first place. Progressivism as actually practiced has also produced eugenics, wars to end all war, class warfare, depressions and recessions, an overpriced, mediocre public education system, and a justice system skewed against the poor. Because most politicians are authoritarian progressives, people got so fed up they elected Donald Trump president. At least he is an authoritarian populist.
When I talk of progressivism, I include most Republicans—hence the Tea Party, and the emergence of the Congressional Freedom Caucus. Progressivism is the belief that good things come from government—from laws and regulations and central planning and generals and spies and bureaucrats, from declarations and debates and endless struggle to get hold of the levers of government and the commanding heights of society, all to reward your friends and punish your enemies. No thanks.
The progressive institutions are rotting out. The termites are winning. The Federal Reserve Bank was supposed to end the business cycle. Instead we had a 10 year depression and a six year recession and booms and busts galore. The Food and Drug Administration keeps life-saving drugs off the market so gays had to create the Dallas Buyers Club. The civil service has degenerated into public unions that keep killer cops in blue. Bad teachers are warehoused instead of fired.
March 3 was International Sex Workers Rights day. In Carson City, it was make-life-harder-for sex-workers day. Assembly Bill 217, which threatens hotels and motels with loss of their business licenses if some women are making a living providing a service that men will pay for in their establishment, passed its first hearing with virtually no opposition.
As a libertarian, I say it is none of the state’s business whether you buy sex with flowers and dinner, or with marriage and mortgage, or with cold hard cash on the dresser. Driving these marginal sex workers—who frequent lower class hotels and motels—into the street by threatening their support system is cruel but so very progressive. Do you really think the big corporate hotels on the Strip will ever lose their licenses because of hookers?
A business owner should be able to sell his product the way he sees fit, including rooms by the hour to sex workers and their clients. Progressives hardly ever stand up for the rights of business owners. They never ask why we have business licenses at all.
The law enforcement agencies who testified in favor of AB 217 complained about the presence of pimps. While exploitive pimps are simply not that common in reality, they would more likely be present in the lower rungs of sex work. But even if that is true, the best solution is still decriminalization, not more repression. As virtually any sex worker will tell you, they fear the police more than pimps.
The civil rights victory of the near future will be led by heroes with Twitter handles like @mistressmatisse, @avannahSly, and @Maggie_McNeill. The new Stonewall riots will erupt from a police raid on a brothel instead of a Mafia gay bar. Organized sex workers were only grudgingly allowed to participate in the Women’s March in Washington in January. The feminist establishment will soon be forced to accept women’s dominion over body parts besides the womb.