Obviously everyone is talking about Governor Spitzer's use of prostitutes. It's important to talk about prostitutes, as they don't get enough press.
Actually, I have at least three things to say, feel free to pull up a chair.
First, before today, Eliot Spitzer seemed to present an anti-prostitution front. There are a variety of stories that corroborate this, here's one. So, y'know, there's the whole irony thing.
Second, when he was district attorney for Manhattan, he went after the Gambino crime family, who, among other enterprises, ran (and continue to run) prostitution in New York. In fact, there's a rumor floating around that Spitzer got caught on tape in conversations with a Gambino-run prostitution business. So, y'know, there's more irony for ya. Hope it didn't get on your shoes.
Third, why is prostitution illegal? Why is it not, instead, government-controlled, the way they do booze in Virginia and other states? Obviously I think that giving someone an orgasm should be celebrated, but also, don't we have better places to spend our money then on supporting a puritanical ideal that promotes illegal activity instead of hindering it? There's an intelligence expert who says the same thing about torture and extremism (torture breeds extremism, while yielding little more information than obtained through standard, and humane, interrogation methods.) So let's fix that, ok? Let's let consenting adults lie and spend our tax dollars dealing with other crime, 'k?
Oh yeah, and I also believe we should eliminate the federal income tax and, in its place, create a federal sales tax. So, y'know, I'm obviously completely off my chum.
The Gift
-
[Christmas, 1965 or thereabout]
The boy was very young; perhaps 7 or 8 years old. He loved everything about
Christmas - the lights, the music, Santa ...
10 months ago
3 Comments:
We're off our chum together, Stu. I'm with you all the way on this.
a national sales tax would be regressive, hurting the poor and helping the rich without doing enough to dissuade excessive consumption. rebuttal?
I read a CATO Institute paper that suggests that if you couple a national sales tax with a specific type of universal rebate, it would become non-regressive. We'd need to lower the perceived poverty level in order to make it excellent for everyone (addressing regressiveness).
As for dissuading excessive consumption, I understand that argument, but I have two responses: One, the tax would only apply to new items, and only to non-essentials (no tax on food, no tax on medicine, no tax on soap, etc. Two, if I were given a chance to put a national sales tax into effect, I would also move a considerable amount of money from certain nation defense areas into our education system, specific to economics and individual/family budgeting and, in general, math.
Post a Comment