Especially the part about changing attitudes amongst the "progressives" re: prostitution in our new "Victorian Age" and the explicit consent laws in California.

We have come so far yet we have so far to go.  I only hope that our freedoms are not destroyed by these attitudes.  We all need to counteract these ideas with our own voices.  Not only here on TER but subtly on social media and amongst friends.  Ideas and beliefs CAN be changed by people willing to speak up.  We cannot lose our freedoms of expression or our sexual freedom because of the slippery slope these new attitudes and laws create.

BRAVO!

"... In order to make these strategies more publicbly palatable, anti-prostitution advocates (and the lawmakers who love them) have been doing their damndest to drum up fear about the great sex-trafficking menace. Sure, sex trafficking exists, and like all human trafficking it's terrible. But it's nowhere near as prevalent as these folks would have us all believe. Time and time again, their numbers and rhetoric have been debunked; in 2014 alone, the "true stories" of several famous sex-trafficking victims-turned-advocates have fallen apart. But this doesn't stop politicians like Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.) from pushing "anti-sex trafficking" legislation that conveniently "saves" women by expanding federal wiretapping authority and web censorship capabilities. As I've said before, when the government goes after "sex trafficking", somehow everybody becomes a little less free. "

Exactly, what a pile of crock shit. It is nothing but scam to replace the EPIC FAIL "War on Drug" scam for the purpose of ripping off the american taxpayers by the LE and NGO industries.

Legalization for those of us in the U.S. is a pipe dream, and a lost cause. I doubt if legalization will ever take place, I'm all for especially from the clients perspective, as I suspect that legalization would lower the cost of p4p.  

It's when JCA stops getting nominationed as the top 5 leading candidate for TER's very own yearly SPOTY candidate nominations.

Unfortunately, you got mountain dew guy being your SPOTY-come-lately. You got some serious competition, so I suggest you double up on whatever it is you're good at and help me win the bet I made with Gag.  

ROFLMAO

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Your Right to Liberty is a Natural Right.  It comes to you from God (or if you don't believe in God, it comes from your Humanity).  That Right is pre-political; it is superior to any laws made by Man.  It is moral to use your Liberty in any way you see fit, as long as you don't deprive others of their Life or Liberty.

Sophistry?  Yeah.  Maybe.

But the point is that the "legalization" argument is a concession to "the other side".  We're fighting on their turf, trying to convince others that they should give back to us "rights" that we somehow surrendered to the Collective at some point (When did that happen, btw?  I must have been snoozing when everybody was bellying up to the bar to go and give away their natural rights...).

And if you fight on that turf, you've lost before you've started the battle.  If you try to get others to "make your thing legal", you're implicitly acknowledging that others have the right to make those decisions for you.  They can make it legal this week, they can make it illegal next week.  They can say you can do it in *these* areas, but not in *those* areas.  They can make whatever regulations they choose, no rhyme or reason necessary.

Sorry.  I ain't buying it.  I have the Right to my Life and my Liberty.  I can do what I will with them, and engage in any behavior I choose with other consenting individuals, who are also using their Natural Rights, in the way that best suits them.

Don't argue for "legalization".  You are already allowed to engage in trade for services, including sexual services.  When you talk to other people about these issues, don't get down in the muck with them, engaging in idle banter about prostitution; talk about Liberty; talk about self-governance and self-responsibility; talk about sovereignty.

Legalization?  Meh.  There's a much more important principle involved here than that.

The sex trafficking scare seems a bit removed from the fears during late 19th Century. New villains and different dangers said to be at play.

The free speech aspect talked about in the article is also different. Some people object to hate speech. When looking at who is objecting and who is defending it, some of the individuals objecting can be identified as being Democrat or hold more liberal views, and some of the individuals defending hate groups can be identified as aligning with conservative views. So there's a jump made to show that all the people who object to hate speech are either liberals, closet liberals, or liberals posing as conservatives. Likewise, all people defending the proliferation of hate speech are painted as conservatives, buying into conservatism, or leaning conservative.

The notion that lots of people find hate speech distasteful to say the least, irregardless of party affiliation or politic idealism is ignored. So the message is, "If you don't like hate speech, then you're nothing but an evil liberal, and you know liberals are evil because they object to hate speech." There is a flaw in this thought process, but I'll let the reader find it for his/herself.

concession.    It should be de-criminalized and the rest is none of their fucking business.  Last thing we want is the government regulating, taxing, etc.

END OF MESSAGE

Agreed.  The governing principle is indeed simple:  Consensual behavior between or among adults is not the business of law enforcement.  
That means decriminalization, not legalization.

...in all of this.  It's been legalized in several states now, but has made nobody better off, from what I understand.  Massachusetts has imposed high fees and onerous regulations on "legalized" suppliers, which inevitably creates a black market.

Several states have imposed limits on how potent the "legal version" of the product can be, which (again) creates a black market.

Just leave issues like this alone.