Again a New Hampshire neighbor leads on a libertarian issue.
Prostitution is one of the top activities of gangs and organized crime, after drugs.
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bunny ranch kittery comin up!
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I forget her name but she worked her ass off to try to get it legalized in NH.
She was a free stater.
Um…
Her dad was a right wing rep also
I personally don’t think the bad stuff about the right wing is really right wing it’s just bad stuff and anti Liberty stuff that the right wing for some reason adopted it’s not right wing it’s just bad.
(I said that because of her dad) who was so called Republican
elilzebeth edwards (sp?) was a free stater state rep and sponsored legalization or decrim legislation for prostitution perhaps 5 years ago, i forget which…
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In Germany, as far as I know, it works pretty smoothly:
The northeast is again forming a block to reform prostitution laws.
We have seen Maine, above. Now add in Vermont, Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, and New York, in the northeast, and Tennessee.
Note that New Hampshire is not even mentioned.
Like with marijuana, New Hampshire is falling far behind its neighbors
in reform of laws related to consenting adults… far far behind.
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Apparently, New York city is not prosecuting prostitution like it used to.
There is an interesting graph in this article, wrt Manhattan.
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/survival-system-future-decriminalized-sex-work-18147593.php
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Interesting discovery - it seems that although prostitutes
in the Netherlands must be 21 yo, raised from 18 yo,
their clients need only be 16, which is the age of consent
in Netherlands. Some would like to see that raised to
18, or even higher.
For consistency, I would assume that both ages should be 18, or whatever the age of majority is.
The owners of a business (the prostitute) must be
of legal age to sign contracts.
But just as even young kids can walk into a store
and buy stuff, i.e. they an consent to the sale
of goods and services to themselves, so those
of age of consent to sexual services might be
younger than the person at or above age of
majority who is selling.
I’d compare the service in question to drugs, tattoos, and medical services rather than a candy store. Wearing my minarchist and parental hats, and keeping in mind both the Overton window and STDs, I find the age of majority to be a reasonable Schelling point.
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My personal opinion is … If sex between two people
at or above the age of consent is legal, then involving
money should not be a consideration.
Sixteen year olds are allowed to work, albeit usually
their hours are kept below a certain point, and sixteen
year olds are allowed to purchase other things as
well.
In other words, the only consideration would be if
they were being trafficked. Otherwise, consent should
be the only fact considered.
The following page has some very interesting comments
about prostitution, not so much about the legal minimum
age to be a prostitute, or use the services of a prostitute,
but there are some interesting comments that the liberty
community would find interesting.
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The libertarian philosophy is there should be no law without an act of violence effectively… though boxing is generally a consensual sport that should not be criminalized either so said exception for anything where the parties involved are voluntarily acting should also always be included (not to mention things like assisted suicide), so it’s not entirely exclusive of any violence if those persons involved are knowingly and voluntarily participating.
That said I wouldn’t suggest a move to New Hampshire if you’re planning to setup some sort of underage brothel any time soon. It ain’t going to go over well. If on the other hand you’re concerned about the rights and freedoms of young people (and it’s not involving sex) being routinely violated by the state that is a HUGE untapped area of activism you might have a chance in hell at making progress on… so umm yea focusing on something a little less controversial might be a bit more productive activism wise. For instance lowering the age of drivers licensing or better yet the elimination of drivers licenses. I suspect both of those would be widely supported in circles with genuine philosophical libertarians anyway. Not sure how far you’d be able to get with a bill proposal… but I would definitely go and speak in favor of restoring human rights to all people. It’s wrong to threaten 80 year olds with violence for driving just as it is for 14 year olds.
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I believe that what is legal/legal/lawful needs to be looked at.
That’s why I started that thread on making NH the most
libertarian state.
If you want to go one step further (and I intend to do this for
any other posts to that thread, the research just takes a
while), and you are looking at secession, it might be a good
idea to know what other countries are doing. After all,
the US has only one state, and at that not every county,
that has legalized prostitution. Since THIS thread has
taken up the question I thought it best to bring this up.
I don’t think that money should have any bearing on whether
acts are legal or not. I do not support trafficking.
There are some other questions to looked at, see the link
about the age for prostitution above,
In the US, in some states 16yo can marry, and in some of
those states, the “disability of age” is removed… that is to
say, those 16 yo are considered of age of majority with all
rights of adults, I don’t believe that “age of majority” is a
good measure of whether or not a person is allowed to
frequent a prostitute.
It might interest you to know that in many European
countries, brothels are illegal, as is pimping. But
prostitution is legal. When I speak above of younger
prostitutes, it is only to draw attention to the fact that
even though they are of age of consent, the only reason
it would be illegal is because there is money involved.
This doesn’t make sense to me.
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Lots of things are legal for minors with parental consent. Fine, make that a requirement for visiting prostitutes. When my son reaches 16, I’d certainly want to know if he’s blowing his allowance on hookers.
Trying and failing to think of other cases where exchange of money should make an interaction illegal.
Anyway, for legislative practicality, a minimum age of 18 would of course be essential.
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The following article has a lot to say about the age of prostitutes,
and the age of first sex for young teens… the Atlantic is not known
for spreading fear, and this is no exception.
The Atlantic also wrote a very loooong article about national
divorce a while back, and included pictures and some text
about the liberty movement and secessionists in NH.
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I of course come from the individual anarchist tradition, and find that so called age of majority laws violate the rights of individuals who are able to give reasonable articulated consent. I find it odd that in Roman times, a 7 year old was treated as an adult(age of majority) for capital crimes. That 14 year olds were allowed to consent to join the militaries of the various post CONsitutional period, up till turn of the 20th century. That while distasteful to today’s “modern” senses that 14 year old women would often marry men in their 20’s.
Don’t misunderstand me, I do not subscribe to any type of non-consentual act performed by any individual of any age, including 60 year olds with dementia, but to make consent based on an age of majority is repugnant to anyone who believes in the basic concept of self-ownership. Parents have the choice to be parents and choose to teach their children what self-ownership is, and all the responsibilities that follow it. Unlike make-believe, reality doesn’t allow for “do-overs” .
By all means deprive those more intelligent and educated individuals below your artificially created age of consent rules their human rights.
/rant
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When I was researching Judith Levine, author of “Harmful to Minors: the Perils of Protecting Children From Sex”, I came across a reference to the Western World’s obsession with children and sex, but I can’t seem to remember where I saw it. At any rate, she brought up the subject of America’s early obsession with keeping our young girls safe from horrible people.
Apparently, there was some sensationalist magazine/newspaper in England that ran a story about a small number of girls who had been kidnapped and forced into “white slavery”. The story turned out to be completely fabricated, but before that was revealed, the English speaking world had reacted to this fiction by passing legislation to “protect” the young girls.
I don’t say that all girls are innocent, but I do say that the story that precipitated the panic was untrue.
On another note, one of the biggest reasons that other legislation was passed against young sex was that American governments, including the federal government, didn’t want to have to pay social benefits to young girls who got pregnant. It was simply a matter of money.
Instead of reacting to the fact of the pregnancy, they reacted to the money/cost that they would have to pay for the girls care, and for the children who would be born to non-taxpayers.
On still another note, the reason why child labor laws were passed was that a hundred years ago employers could pay children less for their work, often very dangerous work with long hours, than they had to pay adults for the same work. The adults, who were voters, saw to it that they would have work, instead of the kids, by passing laws proscribing work by the young.
[Edit: In one of the US states, there is a statute that expressly renounces the common law that a 14 year old boy was incapable of rape.]
It all came down to money. Capitalism sucks.
It also ruins our society.
The former US surgeon general Jocelyn Elders lost her job because of how she felt about genuine sex education (I’m a little hazy, but she might have even suggested teaching kids how to masturbate)… she has written the introduction to Judith Levine’s book.