Respectable Idiots (II)

... and their thoroughly not-respectable moral compass and arguments

One of the most alarming aspects of the "contributions" of so called respectable members of society to any controversies involving this industry is their tendency to attribute per se moral goodness/wrongness to certain classes of people, services, and relationships. To put it another way, if you or your "thing" happens to be on the right side of their tick list, we should just have lots and lots of unquestioned endorsement of you/it; on the wrong side of the tick list? IT IS EVIL AND MUST BE BANNED!

Let's test out some of these points/counter-points.

"Prostitution should be banned because it's bad. It's bad because it's associated with undesirable things like gang participation, drug use by providers, and [insert more stuff courtesy of the likes of Family First]."

Rarely do people who make such a point stop to ask whether criminalisation will actually serve to stop prostitution and the assumed connection between it and All The Bad Things. Also even if there is a close or inevitable correlation (and there isn't) between prostitution and All the Bad Things, have these people gotten the causation backwards, i.e. are some of these people doing some Bad Things because of their existing situations whilst they happen to work as prostitutes?

They also do not ever care to take into account the utilitarian benefits obtained by providers and clients in a decriminalised context -- things like lower incidences of violence against providers, STIs, and so forth. In testing out and dismantling their arguments this way I do not in any way intend to grant their underlying assumptions as being correct -- my point is that even if somehow there are the correlations alleged, matters are hardly as simple as these idiots think.

But if you turn the tables and argue about their pet likes, are you in for a surprise!

Because all the complicated issues of correlation/causation and everything else no longer matters. "WE SHOULD GIVE PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT TO HETEROSEXUAL COUPLES WHO ARE MARRIED OVER EVERYONE ELSE!" scream these idiots. Reasons provided include how such relationships always benefit kids most and whatever else these people can come up with. They will assume absolutely that certain things will inevitably produce good whilst ignoring the reality that, for example, incentivising people to stay together in problematic or dysfunctional relationships can damages kids.  They will also ignore studies that show, for example, comparable enduring homosexual/gay relationships these days are some times proven to be more stable/longer lasting than heterosexual marriages. These people will also ignore the profound iniquity of potentially disadvantaging kids born to the "wrong" parents who dare choose relationship models that such busybodies do not approve.

In truth, these people's methods are simplistic and puerile. Yet the mainstream media rarely call them out on their defective reasoning and moral inconsistencies. More importantly, we seem to be developing a society where sizable numbers of people cannot see through such crappy reasoning. Are you scared?