From: Steve Edwards <SAlanEd@concentric.net>
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 1996 13:53:17 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Sex, drugs, and libertarianism
Message-ID: <1.5.4.32.19961029215453.0069cc98@pop3.concentric.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


This isn't about crypto but since cypherpunks is the most interesting
libertarian forum I know, I thought I'd throw it out.

I live in a sort of urban pioneer zone, a historical district in Nashville
wedged between low income housing projects.  We have an interesting mix of
people here, black, white, asian, redneck, yuppies, country star wannabes,
drug addicts etc.
I was walking back from the convenience store the other day, when I began
talking to a young lady.  She offered to give me a blow job for $2.  I don't
patronize prostitutes, less from moral concerns, than from concerns for my
health and safety.  Nonetheless, $2 for a blow job says to me that the
market for sex acts has hit rock bottom.  Forthrightly, she told me she
wanted the money for crack, which has also become very cheap here.

It has been said many times in this forum that prostitution and drugs are
victimless crimes.  Is this really so?  Although I am generally in concert
with libertarian views, I would say that the young lady I talked to was
definitely a victim.  Also, if we are a society, rather than fortress-like
individuals, we should be concerned with the inevitable spread of disease
and insanity that is the result of "victimless" crimes.

On a similar note, I read an interesting article that connected the recent
drop in the crime rate to the rather startling increase in drug use among
young people. The claim that was made is that drugs have become so cheap
that people don't have to steal as much to buy them.  Based on the evidence
of the $2 blow job, I'm inclined to believe it. 
 

SAlanEd@concentric.net, SAlanEd@aol.com,
http://users.aol.com/salaned/cyberplace.html

"Life, he himself said once, (his biografiend, in fact, kills him verysoon,
if yet not, after) is a wake, livit or krikit, and on the bunk of our
breadwinning, lies the cropse of our seedfather..."