No? I didn't think so.
According to this cover article in "Reason", pretty much anyone who has ever enjoyed a mutually profitable personal arrangement is either a trafficker or is being trafficked. The statistics are very dubious, and the penalties are no longer a misdemeanor and a fine, or several nights in John School. Now, any asset, real or personal, may be seized and sold because it might be linked to your "illicit activity".
I don't know if this is a result of the "zero tolerance" or if it is just in line with the general attitude that your personal business is now subject to everyone's attention. If my enjoyment in meeting new friends here is going to make me a trafficker, I don't know if it's worth being on a list of traffickers for the rest of my life or losing my car or some other valuable asset. Doesn't make a difference if I am married or single, or if I have no other reason to care what people think.
Sure takes the fun out of it.
Hands
I haven't had time to finish it all, but the first couple of pages that I have read have a grasp on the subject better than most any other article I have seen.
If you want intelligent writings:
Elizabeth Nolan Brown
The Naked Anthropoligist - Laura Agustin
Melissa Gita grant
There are more, but these three are amazing. A simple Google will pull their sites and work up.
Happy reading
Despite the fact that it has been proved countless times that the "War on Drugs" is an utter failure, our policy makers seem to be obsessed with "wars" on abstract ideological concepts rather than tackling the underlying issues that lead to injustice and suffering in our society.
According to this cover article in "Reason", pretty much anyone who has ever enjoyed a mutually profitable personal arrangement is either a trafficker or is being trafficked. The statistics are very dubious, and the penalties are no longer a misdemeanor and a fine, or several nights in John School. Now, any asset, real or personal, may be seized and sold because it might be linked to your "illicit activity".
I don't know if this is a result of the "zero tolerance" or if it is just in line with the general attitude that your personal business is now subject to everyone's attention. If my enjoyment in meeting new friends here is going to make me a trafficker, I don't know if it's worth being on a list of traffickers for the rest of my life or losing my car or some other valuable asset. Doesn't make a difference if I am married or single, or if I have no other reason to care what people think.
Sure takes the fun out of it.
Hands
In the "reason" article there is a picture of a handcuffed girl. That to me defines "trafficking" and maybe "Kidnapping" YES....the magazine made money off this girl. OH, but she is a model you say, but so are many providers.
Going to and coming home from work.
Nothing but assholes in front of me and maniacs behind me
A-holes in front, maniacs behind.
You must be that guy in the lane right next to me, who slows down to avoid passing me and who speeds up and won't let me pass him! I'll wave to you next time ... with my 38
If so, that's I!
A few bullet holes would actually improve its resale value anyways.
According to this cover article in "Reason", pretty much anyone who has ever enjoyed a mutually profitable personal arrangement is either a trafficker or is being trafficked. The statistics are very dubious, and the penalties are no longer a misdemeanor and a fine, or several nights in John School. Now, any asset, real or personal, may be seized and sold because it might be linked to your "illicit activity".
I don't know if this is a result of the "zero tolerance" or if it is just in line with the general attitude that your personal business is now subject to everyone's attention. If my enjoyment in meeting new friends here is going to make me a trafficker, I don't know if it's worth being on a list of traffickers for the rest of my life or losing my car or some other valuable asset. Doesn't make a difference if I am married or single, or if I have no other reason to care what people think.
Sure takes the fun out of it.
Hands
Has anybody noticed the coincidence that this "trafficking" scam surfaced around the time there was widespread acceptance of marijuana and the start of the collapse of the "war on drug"?
The LE and NGO industrial complex had to INVENT another scam to rip off the taxpayers since collapse of the "war on drug" meant no more tax money coming in.
Now as was then nothing changed as far as the MINISCULE and RARE instances of real sex trafficking once every blue moon.
So now instead of them pouring billions into the war on drugs we're being ripped off to pay for this new SCAM, sex trafficking.
In spite of all the SCARE TACTICS and POPAGANDA by LE and NGO industrial complex very little actual evidences of trafficking have been found. To wit, the prosecution and conviction of trafficking crime have been very few and far in between. When was the last time we read about it? considering the HUGE economy behind prostitution of all kinds from the streets to the massage parlors to independent escorts and/or agencies?
I'm telling you people SEX TRAFFICKING DOES NOT EXIST!
Neither does SEX SLAVERY.
People don't be sheeple and let the power-that-be brainwash you otherwise.
I know victims of it. But it is rare. And everything they are doing to fight it isolates it's victims and prevents them from escaping from it.
Because they don't actually give two shits about people who are trafficked. They simply want to score political points and cash without putting themselves in too much danger, and maybe see a few naked bodies in the process.
If there was any real interest in preventing it, they would put all that money into child abuse prevention and have better options for kids who run away. They would invest in creating better economic opportunities for young people and increase self esteem projects to raise the inner personal strength of children. They would decriminalize. The job of fighting trafficking is better suited to a social service-centered org rather than the police.
I have gotten to know many providers well enough to hear their stories of how they got into the business, and in many cases they chose to be what LE would call "trafficked" because either it beat the circumstances they were living under (often sexual brutality within their own home or community) or seemed a lot more exciting than the alternate career opportunities (factories or fast food, e.g.), or both.
In this set of circumstances, the pimp is like the undertaker: No one particularly likes him/her, but they are glad he/she is there.
That some pimps are conniving and brutal, there is no doubt, but the best defense against that kind of thing is having the "victims", not be victimized by the law who will bust them for trying to assert their rights.
not only the 'enhancement' of Prohibition through overreach but all the property rights violations that become fair play to these zealots. Let no one of us here ever again, for monopolistic or personal gain reasons, speak against decriminalization or legalization; we must all now push-back together.
For the Prohibition part, we have not only Maggie McNeill but now Amnesty International for advocates. For that nasty Asset Forfeiture arm of this beast we have the Institute for Justice applying some pushback.
[Someone is bound to see all this and decide it belongs in P&R or LC. So be it.