Quote:
Originally Posted by Rusty van Reddick
Wanting to protect your daughters from the most exploitive aspect of rape culture is about as "liberal" as you can get. Seeing women as objects that you can purchase is pretty damn conservative. Seeing any human as chattel is.
At least that's one way to spin it. Can go either way.
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I wasn't going to respond to this topic, but here goes. An interesting issue with a lot of complexity.
I try not to use "conservative" and "liberal" labels whenever I can, because most people already "know what they are", identifying strongly with one or the other, which inhibits open forum. As Rusty pointed out, you can define modern liberalism as inline with second-wave feminism (as we all should be), and define modern conservatism as a strictly economic perspective on the world that may commoditize all things including human skills, happiness, and suffering. On the other hand, one might view conservatism as a policy free from intervention (and by extension - free from moral authoritarianism), and liberalism as a system tempered for the benefit of the greater good. I think most Canadian Liberals see it the first way, and Conservatives see it the second way. Both are right. Both sides would likely agree that violence and threats to public safety are what is absolutely unacceptable.
A libertarian might say that drugs or prostitution only affect those directly involved, and so should be allowed so long as both parties understand the risks. In my view, this libertarian perspective grossly oversimplifies the nature of these issues. It's naive to assume there is total "freedom" to make healthy decisions in either case. Neither addicts nor prostitutes can "choose" to stop.
A more authoritarian or prescriptive view would be to tell people what is good for them. Obviously the problem with that is that nobody
really knows what's good for someone else, and a system like this can open the door for all kinds of abuse. It's exactly this kind of patronizing attitude that led to Alberta's shameful past of eugenics, but also incarcerates people needlessly in the case of prohibition of alcohol, and probably, marijuana.
I think the best attitude towards prostitution and drugs is something like we have now: prohibitive but sympathetic. Punish higher-ups and ring leaders most severely - reprimand street level perps, be open to the idea that they could be victims, and offer rehabilitation/resources to help them achieve autonomy and security. That article in the Herald today about Suburbia's 190 charges actually underscores good policing towards low level perps: occasionally bust them, detain ones with charges of violence, ban them from certain areas where they continually get in trouble, offer them rehabilitation and resources for a second chance somewhere else. How could it be improved? More and more we are open to talking about these issues in schools and government, which in my view is the absolute best course of action. Teach empathy. Enable voice of all human beings. Practice seeing injustice and power inequality. Political parties using these issues to sway voters does not do the issues justice, it only gets politicians more time in the press. That said, codifying the progressive attitudes already prevalent in police forces and courts could help protect the marginalized populations who live in these grey areas.
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