PainefulTruth
Romantic Cynic
(This is both a political and moral subject, so I shamelessly put it here cause this forum is seen by more people.
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We've all heard that famous and very effective 10 year old tagline of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. What is it promoting, freedom...in "Sin" City? Yes, but is that the whole story--freedom from what and what does that mean? The ads don't say but they imply three things: freedom to gamble, sexual freedom and, though they'd never say so, the freedom to use drugs. But aren't those things immoral? Who says? According to The Paineful Truth's Golden Rule of adult morality, Morality is the equal rights of all to their life, liberty, property and self-defense to be free from violation through force or fraud. It's corollary is: All immorality is the result of a moral/legal double standard.
So then should any of those three freedoms be illegal everywhere, including Vegas? The answer is a resounding "No!", they shouldn't be illegal anywhere, though with an equally resounding "But..."
Look at gambling. It's the wellspring that made an otherwise barren desert bloom. The fear was, and it happened initially, that it would draw organized crime. But then what happened. Organized crime thrives on black markets. Las Vegas and Nevada ripped the advantage for crime out from under it and they turned ligit. It's a microscopic experiment in gambling like the one they had against alcohol, Prohibition, on a national level, which was undermining law and order until they repealed it. Alcohol wasn't evil, its black market was.
What about sex? Other than the unstated result of encouraging the immorality of the fraudulent breaking marriage vows, I see no problem.....consenting adults and all that. But around the country most of those prohibitions have fallen by the wayside. The glaring remnant of course, even in Vegas, is prostitution. Why is it illegal there? It's legal in the state so....wtf? The authorities' policy of don't ask, don't tell allows it to thrive there, but it's still a black market, undermining the law and corrupting officials, which is immoral. Why not legalize it like most of the rest of Nevada, which as far as I know, doesn't suffer for it? In fact it promotes keeping it clean both morally and medically.
Then there's the U.S. black market in drugs which is the biggest of any kind ever in the history of the World. They're illegal on the federal level as well as state and local. It's Prohibition II on a level the first one never imagined. It not only corrupts all of those governments, as the current movie, The Counselor, shows so well, it's turned much of Mexico into a country so rife with primitive, reptilian evil, only souls that are already dead participate in it. As Brad Pitt's character says, "You might want to think about that the next time you do a line". Would that black market dry up if they legalized it? In a heartbeat. Then why don't we do it? Do-gooders and the ones who are benefiting by the War on Drugs--a war that was started as a replacement for Prohibition I to keep the money flowing. Nobody ever asked (except a few like me), why they didn't pass a constitutional amendment for the War on Drugs (Prohibition II) like they did for Prohibition I. That was the beginning of the end for the Constitution, but that's another thread.
Are any of these three freedoms immoral? Not on their own, but the black market in them is. That's why I would not partake, but also why I ally myself with other libertarians who want to bring a halt to black markets by legalizing the victimless crimes that drive them. And yes they are victimless crimes. Any person who gets so drunk or high they harm others is never so drunk or high they don't know what they're doing--until they pass out, then they're not doing anything but maybe wetting themselves.
We've all heard that famous and very effective 10 year old tagline of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. What is it promoting, freedom...in "Sin" City? Yes, but is that the whole story--freedom from what and what does that mean? The ads don't say but they imply three things: freedom to gamble, sexual freedom and, though they'd never say so, the freedom to use drugs. But aren't those things immoral? Who says? According to The Paineful Truth's Golden Rule of adult morality, Morality is the equal rights of all to their life, liberty, property and self-defense to be free from violation through force or fraud. It's corollary is: All immorality is the result of a moral/legal double standard.
So then should any of those three freedoms be illegal everywhere, including Vegas? The answer is a resounding "No!", they shouldn't be illegal anywhere, though with an equally resounding "But..."
Look at gambling. It's the wellspring that made an otherwise barren desert bloom. The fear was, and it happened initially, that it would draw organized crime. But then what happened. Organized crime thrives on black markets. Las Vegas and Nevada ripped the advantage for crime out from under it and they turned ligit. It's a microscopic experiment in gambling like the one they had against alcohol, Prohibition, on a national level, which was undermining law and order until they repealed it. Alcohol wasn't evil, its black market was.
What about sex? Other than the unstated result of encouraging the immorality of the fraudulent breaking marriage vows, I see no problem.....consenting adults and all that. But around the country most of those prohibitions have fallen by the wayside. The glaring remnant of course, even in Vegas, is prostitution. Why is it illegal there? It's legal in the state so....wtf? The authorities' policy of don't ask, don't tell allows it to thrive there, but it's still a black market, undermining the law and corrupting officials, which is immoral. Why not legalize it like most of the rest of Nevada, which as far as I know, doesn't suffer for it? In fact it promotes keeping it clean both morally and medically.
Then there's the U.S. black market in drugs which is the biggest of any kind ever in the history of the World. They're illegal on the federal level as well as state and local. It's Prohibition II on a level the first one never imagined. It not only corrupts all of those governments, as the current movie, The Counselor, shows so well, it's turned much of Mexico into a country so rife with primitive, reptilian evil, only souls that are already dead participate in it. As Brad Pitt's character says, "You might want to think about that the next time you do a line". Would that black market dry up if they legalized it? In a heartbeat. Then why don't we do it? Do-gooders and the ones who are benefiting by the War on Drugs--a war that was started as a replacement for Prohibition I to keep the money flowing. Nobody ever asked (except a few like me), why they didn't pass a constitutional amendment for the War on Drugs (Prohibition II) like they did for Prohibition I. That was the beginning of the end for the Constitution, but that's another thread.
Are any of these three freedoms immoral? Not on their own, but the black market in them is. That's why I would not partake, but also why I ally myself with other libertarians who want to bring a halt to black markets by legalizing the victimless crimes that drive them. And yes they are victimless crimes. Any person who gets so drunk or high they harm others is never so drunk or high they don't know what they're doing--until they pass out, then they're not doing anything but maybe wetting themselves.
