[LAF] rights

[steve ash]

Ed, ur diatribe like that of Sarah's has no practical reality whatsoever.

Of course all rights are equal, as long as they don't seriously harm another person, as the right not to be harmed or exploited is the paramount right, a realistic concept of 'freedom from' overides 'freedom to' by necessity. So that gets rid of your rapists, murderers and active racists for a start. A community can police itself in these matters on an individual basis, it doesn't need generalised and ineffective laws. A community simply doesn't tolerate exploiters. This is not dogma or ethics  it is practical reality.

But this has nothing to do with the issue at hand, some sex workers are exploited some are not (lets not quibble about irrelevant ratios or pretend only one side exists), the exploited sex worker has a right to be free from her, his or hir exploiter and the harmless, non-exploited sex worker has right to live their life how they choose, free of the impositions of imaginary ideologies social theories or abstract ethical beliefs. I've no interest in ethics as such, or any other imposed fantasy, simply the freedom from harm and freedom of action for every individual, without exception, for that is the only road to universal well being, which is itself the only road to personal well being. Either everyone is free or no one is.

Those who would ban unexploited, free prostitution (whether for pleasure
or charity) would in fact increase rape, for how else would the sexually frustrated man or woman or transexual achieve their sex needs. I suppose you would argue for some pre-scientific notion of pure 'free will', or some other Christian fantasy, but that would be simply risible, the facts of the matter are accessible to any scientific study. So how do you parse that in your ethical programming.