Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Glenn Greenwald: Prostitution is a victimless crime

I didn't realize that! But here it is in his defense of Eliot Spitzer:

Hiring a prostitute is "reprehensible"? I wonder what adjective Sloan would use for a crime with an actual victim.

Hey everybody, these girls like their jobs. They're not victims!

Later in the article, Greenwald describes a "prostitution ring" (his scare-quotes) as a "small business that brokers meetings" shortly before he opines that the prostitution laws should be abolished. Viva Las Vegas.

5 comments:

  1. I couldn't help but notice that it took until near the end of one of the earlier Spitzer articles for the NYT to mention that he's a Democrat. (In the current one, they manage to mention it in the third paragraph.) If he were a Republican, we all know it would be mentioned within the first sentence. We also know that Greenwald wouldn't be nearly so "open-minded" about prostitution.

    (This is a comment on the media and not politics, so I don't think I'm violating my Lenten pledge not to talk or write about politics.)

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  2. Also, if Greenwald thinks prostitution is a victimless crime, perhaps he should talk to Mrs. Spitzer. Or to a prostitute who has been beat up by a "client" or a pimp.

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  3. Susan, good points, but to your second one he'd probably say something like "Well then working for Wal-mart is just as bad. People get mistreated by their managers there."

    To us it seems like a moral quandary that he's digging himself into, but to him we are all being "puritanical" because we think that there is such a thing as sexual morality.

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  4. You should also mention that he transported this hooker from New York to Washington DC to stay with him at the Mayflower Hotel. This becomes a Federal crime because he crossed state lines. There is also the trafficing statute that the Feds use to bust those rings that import women from foreign countries.

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  5. Pauli,

    Yeah, God forbid that any kind of sexual behavior is considered "wrong". Unless it's (heterosexual, married) monogamy or chastity, of course. /sarcasm

    I just realized something else about this Spitzer scandal that adds insult to injury for his poor wife...his "date" with the high-priced whore was on the evening of February 13 -- right before Valentine's Day. What a jerk!

    The fact that this guy tried to shut down crisis pregnancy centers and carried water for the abortion industry makes so much sense in light of a scandal like this.

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