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From: robison@eosp1.UUCP (Tobias D. Robison)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: RE: Sin in NY State plus.....
Message-ID: <533@eosp1.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Jan-84 12:16:25 EST
Article-I.D.: eosp1.533
Posted: Wed Jan 18 12:16:25 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Jan-84 05:17:12 EST
References: <258@hogpd.UUCP>
Organization: Exxon Office Systems, Princeton, NJ
Lines: 47

State certified prostitutes , and other legal sins have of course been
common in Europe.  There are many pros and cons but I would like to
describe one moral argument against state involvement which has
tremendous force when one takes the time to think about it.
Let's take the case of a state which allows prostitiution provided
that the prostituites are certified (and perhaps their health
monitored) by the state.

Much of the activity that the prostitutes engage in will be the sort
of thing that we like to think of as adult consensual activity.
However some of it will be of a very different nature.  Some of the
clients are rabid psychotics who kill or seriously injure their
companions.  Some of the prostitutes live in fact in a state of
involuntary slavery, against which the state makes no real attempt to
protect them.  The result is that the state is condoning a process
which which destroys and tortures some of its citizens.

Some of this harm is unavoidable in any state, but one can argue
(in my opinion, one SHOULD argue) that at least the government should
not condone this kind of destruction, nor profit from it, but
should be doing its best to stampt it out.  In addition,
the state should never suffer from the following conflict of interest:
Balancing the desire to eradicate the evils of a vice against the
state's need to manitain its revenue from the vice.

The above argument is expecially powerful in the case of beaten and
tortured prostitutes, but it applies equally well to taxes on
(and state support of) cigarette smoking, drinking, and gambling.

In the cases of gambling and drinking, the state condones the utter
destruction of lives and families caused by addiction.  Without
question, the state support of gambling gives more people the
opportunit to discover their addiction and fall prey to it.

For all of these commodities, it is easy to see that the state now
has a vested interest in the economic benefits its taxes.  Only a
brilliant demonstration that the state loses more from welfare support
of the unfortunates might persuade dollar conscious legislators to give
up the income from gambling, alcoho, and cigarette taxes, which
play a large part in many state budgets.
In fact, I think that there is only one appropriate use for such taxes:
to aid the victims of the practices that are taxed.

				  - Toby Robison
			          decvax!ittvax!eosp1!robison
				  or:   allegra!eosp1!robison
				  (maybe: princeton!eosp1!robison)