Metal Reviews

Who gives a fuck what NAMBLA argue? Hey, let's ask Hitler for reasons why Jews should be annihilated! Of course harm is being done, as stated by every organisation on the face of the planet that doesn't want to have sex with children. Children are not capable of giving consent - this is not some wacky rule that Liberalism would destroy because it infringes on the child's liberty.

Prove it? You have the automatically wrong conception of the world. Proving is science. Ethics can be constructed and still be universal; it's a process.
Why do you accept living in a world where selling off your body, your vagina is the only way you can afford to live?

Where does consent come from except this moral universal law? Essentially what I'm saying is that could consent come from our conception of 'icky stuff'?

Perhaps. I'm not arguing against moral universal laws like Fridge is. Adults having sex for money and adults having sex with children are very, very different things.



Yeah, tea partyers are to libertarianism what Stalinists are to socialism. They're really just populist conservatives with brains full of conspiracy theories, bless - a lot of even right-wing libertarians are pretty disdainful.



Ah, right, see where you're coming from now.



Well, the boundaries to what is acceptance and what isn't are pretty broad. You'll accuse me of realpolitikism or something, but there's the common sense way and the utopian, fantastic way, and that's how I'd call the differences. Politics is the art of the obtainablah blah.

Ah, gotcha.

Well, honestly, if no suffering or damage is occurring, I'd have a hard time arguing for its inherent immorality. Of course, in today's world, pedophilia has negative connotations within the current zeitgeist.

Yeah, I'd claim morality changes over time. Doesn't make Nambla any more correct, though.

You don't prove anything in science, you merely work with the best possible models until they are disproven. And you're right, ethics can be constructed- but without an objective, extra-human standard to measure them against, how do you apply them universally?

Selling off your body is not the only way you can afford to live. If it were so, I'd be fighting against it. It is, however, an option that must not be taken away from those who choose to engage in it.

Are not "human rights" as an abstract authority an extra-human standard?

Why should it be an option at all. My conception of how it works that it's only chosen under frameworks where it's legal are because it's so lucrative. There should be ways that people's labor can be fulfilling rather than having to debase themselves. You don't see prostitution as a glamorous profession right?

Reality = Giant steamroller crushing idealists under its wheel.

You gonna make a world without prostitution? There is only one way to do that, and that's through virtual reality so real you can't tell the difference.

It's only utopian or fantastistic in our current conception. Why it has to remain that way is where the modern Left fails.

I'd just like to point out that Frig in two days has not only said a 13 year old girl deserved to be raped but he also sided with NAMBLA and agreed that there is no inherent immorality in pedophilia.

@Diomedes: my utopian politics isn't idealistic if you look at history. There have been outbreaks of this fervor in Chile to Germany. It just has to be pushed further. History is a constant, dialectic progression yet right now we are at a point where it seems like it can't be pushed any further. That's where politics as defined by Zizek and Fredric Jameson, who Zizek really draws from, comes in.

Who said anything about no prostitution?

I'm all for calling a pig a pig. Giving it shots and putting on some lipstick still makes it a pig. Just like checking for STDs and putting taxes on prostitution still makes it immoral and harmful for society. Keeping the pig in the mud helps everybody realize that it's a pig. Keeping prostitution illegal points to the inhumanity and immorality of it.

It's not about doing away with it in some idealist utopia.

How do you know that the legalization of prostitution isn't part of the progression?

Prositituion is currently legal in Chile .. Germany currently taxes prostitution.

mwahaha I have started great things.

Personally I don't see anything immoral about prostitution because even though I get all emotional about sex and think it's a special thing, I don't think this is an opinion that is universal to all people (or even one that should be universal to all people). I've seen Sasha Grey videos and I don't think she's getting particularly attached to the dudes bonin her. I agree that most of the women in prostitution are probably there out of desperation and didn't dream of selling sex as a little girl, but legalizing it makes it much less dangerous for everyone involved.

That's how I interpreted it anyhow.

Well, I don't think we'll ever reach the point where society is prostitution free. I just don't think that means we should accept it and proceed to capitalize off of it economically. With legalization it will grow, not go away. I'm for reducing it as much as possible, not growing into a a trillion dollar a year industry.

If you'd read closely to what I wrote I was never opposed to the legalization of prostitution. I wasn't pointing out Chile and Germany in and of themselves as pinnacles of the revolutionary ideas I hold. Merkel obviously contradicts that but the SPD in Germany pre-WWI or Chile between 2003-2005 with the Cochachamba(sp?) water riots and later the electing of Evo Morales through the people's fervor is what I was pointing out. I owe a lot of this to Rio's recommendation of Paul Mason but anyways.

Don't assume that I'm holding some Hegelian teleological progression towards perfection. Legalization might be a step towards my goal insofar as it clears the muck of illegal prostitution. If you understood the dialectics you would understand that theses rise out of their antitheses. The total acceptance of prostitution might lead to the elimination of it. This might be idealism but it's the world I want to live in and I don't understand why it's so ridiculous that other people might want to share this.

I'd say this is a less "moral" viewpoint, actually. What about the people enslaved inside the illegal system, forced to stay there and be harmed just so you can 'prove' that prostitution is a bad thing?

Or .. the synthesis of regulation has already happened because of the antitheses of prohibition.

Throwing these into the mix:

The goal is to help those people. I don't see making it legal, cleaning it up slightly, and turning into something that lines the pockets of some businessman as the best way to go about things. The problem here is that the world and the people in it are not perfect, and never will become so, not matter how hard we try. So we can't expect any solution to be a perfect fix. I do, however, think some options are better than others. So, as I said, I think it better to work to help reduce prostitution and get women out of that lifestyle than to clean it up a bit, grow it into something monstrous, and then pat ourselves on the back for doing such a good thing.

Reminds me of something the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said.