Power can be rightfully exercised over someone else, against his will, only to prevent harm to others. His own good is not sufficient warrant.

The governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, is probably going to resign after being tied to a prostitution ring today. Details are sketchy, and Spitzer hasn't admitted much, but he has apologized and says he's let people down. Apparently he was (is?) a patron of a high-end prostitution ring that was busted recently.

Now... I'm not a Spitzer fan. I completely disagreed with many of his policies, and I won't be sorry if he resigns. However, I think it's ridiculous that prostitution is illegal. Why shouldn't women (and men) have freedom to sell sex? You can give it away, but you can't sell it... That doesn't make much sense to me. I know that Americans are prudish, but it's ridiculous for it to be illegal (especially when people who strongly condemn it, like Spitzer, are probably patrons).

Because prostitution is illegal, when prostitutes are victims of crimes they are often unwilling to go to the police. This is not only because they're afraid of going to jail for selling sex, despite being crime victims, but because there have been many instances of police threatening and abusing prostitutes. Outside Las Vegas, where prostitution is legal, not only is violence against the prostitutes negligible, but so are the rates of disease.

Ok, so you don't care about the well-being of prostitutes. Well, how about this: estimates say prostitution enforcement costs major cities an average of $7.5 million per year. In New York City, over $23 million is spent each year outlawing prostitution. After all, someone will always sell sex as long as there is someone else who's willing to buy. It doesn't matter whether it's illegal, people will do it anyway.

Any time the government makes something illegal, all it does is create an underground economy in that something- and spend a lot of our money in the process. Isn't it time we start asking asking whether imposing certain morals and values on everyone else is worth it?

The title of today's post is a quote by John Stuart Mill.