One of my pet peeves involves people who use the cover of “freedom” to take away freedom. For years, the puritanical left has been claiming to support free and open human sexuality, while waging a not-so-covert war on sex. I’m not the only one to notice, and while it’s probably normal for libertarians to notice such things and kvetch about them, conservative Ken Masugi has noticed the left’s game of destruction in the name of liberation too:
…what defenders of free speech on campus, such as the estimable FIRE, among others, may miss is the contradictory place the university has become. Having embraced the sexual revolution and encouraged an atmosphere of promiscuity, much of higher education has now created a legalistic, centralized crackdown on talk about sex. We have become what Tocqueville implied our condition would be without the influence of mores: a bureaucratic nightmare. If we can’t rule ourselves, we will have rules, myriad of them, made for us.
(Emphasis added.)
Whether it involves sex, drugs, cell phones, pit bulls, or even food, those who can’t rule themselves always provide a convenient excuse for self-appointed rulers to take away freedom, and they often welcome their “help.”
I don’t think the goal of the left was ever to get rid of mores. Of course they wanted to destroy existing mores, but not to create a sexually free society. That was only what they wanted the clueless classes to think. The ultimate goal was a wholesale takeover, with new, stricter and far more puritanical mores than the old ones they claimed they were liberating us from. Moreover, they don’t want the new mores to remain as mores; they would like to see them enforced and backed with new laws.
A perfect example is the growing campaign to wage a new, all-out war on prostitution, by rebadging it as “sex trafficking.” The idea is to treat all women who sell their bodies as victims, and all men who buy them as criminals.
The idea is that because some prostitutes are victims of coercion and crime, all are. Prostitution is not seen by these people as an act between consenting individuals, but rather is analyzed in a communitarian manner, where individual freedom, choice and consent mean absolutely nothing.
If this nonsensical logic had remained in law review articles written by people like Catherine MacKinnon, that would be one thing, but these things have a way of first sneaking into the dialogue and then becoming law. Under the old (er, post-Victorian) mores, a woman had no right to sell sex. Under the new mores, a man has no right to buy it. MacKinnon herself claims that there is no such thing as consent to prostitution, and indeed, she has even claimed that consent should be irrelevant to a charge of rape:
MacKinnon thinks consent in rape cases should be irrelevant. Women are so unfree that even if a woman is shown to have given consent to sex, that should never be enough to secure an acquittal. Why? “My view is that when there is force or substantially coercive circumstances between the parties, individual consent is beside the point; that if someone is forced into sex, that ought to be enough. The British common law approach has tended to be that you need both force and absence of consent. If we didn’t have so much pornography in society and people actually believed women when they said they didn’t consent, that would be one thing. But that isn’t what we’ve got.”
These are the kind of crackpots who want to run our lives.
I think they are far more tyrannical than the old puritanical tyrants from whom they claim they claim they are liberating us.
Comments
13 responses to “This new “freedom” is getting to be worse than the old “tyranny””
Umm, I lived for a couple of years in a place where prostitution was generally not consented to. The parents consented, the woman did not.
Thailand, the other ‘land of the free’ (google it). The prostitutes lucky enough to go to farangs (foreigners), mostly end up becoming free. Those that go to brothels catering to locals, otoh, do not. There are those working there to change that. With indifferent success. Sigh.
Who is right, who is wrong? I don’t know. But I’ve seen the free ladies in Thailand, and they rule. And the men suffer. Sigh. And I can’t help smiling at that because the men are, well, mostly abusers.
NOT the case here. But it IS elsewhere. The feminists do have a point. It’s just pointed in the wrong direction.
“I don’t think the goal of the left was ever to get rid of mores.”
Just any connected to Christianity.
.
If I — as a woman — own my body, my sexuality, and my virginity then I should be able to sell them… right?
On the other hand, if my body, my sexuality, and most especially, my virginity, belongs to something or someone else… say, society or to my parents to be sold, then what?
No, I don’t think the feminists have a point in any direction — they have hypocrisy.
Biology is destiny? Yes, it is. It wouldn’t be if there were a convenient way to tell if men were virgins.
Good points all. Donna, you reminded me of the arguments for and against selling organs. I don’t like coercion, but I think the activists involved are obliterating the distinction between what is chosen and what is coerced. No reasonable person would argue that it is OK to force women into prostitution or force people to sell their organs, but equating consent with coercion means the right to decide for oneself what to do with one’s body is eliminated entirely.
Why not apply the same logic to all work for money? Marx did.
Do I have to read Marx to argue about this? Because I’m not gonna. 🙂
However, I do not understand how work and possessions are the same. Especially where one’s body is concerned.
Oh wait… uh oh. I see. My parents own my body because they both (supposedly) contributed physical and emotional ooomph to my creation and sustained me until I was able to sustain myself. That line of thinking will lead us down some ancient paths, eh?
So… back to the 21st Century:
How do the feminists and moralists reconcile surrogate mothers with prostitution? If that’s not selling one’s body I don’t know what is.
Also, why is selling sperm OK but selling a kidney isn’t? There is, of course a huge risk difference, but what authority can say where the risk differential line is drawn? What is acceptable for the individual to decide and what must “society” decide for him?
Where does a blood donation or bone marrow donation fall?
Now I need Tylenol. Do I need to ask my mother’s permission to take some?
Maybe you should have thought about this shit when you were pissing on Republicans in the last election.
I campaigned for Romney, contributed hundreds of dollars to his campaign, and ran for county drain commissioner as a Republican. If everyone “pissed” on them as I did, they might have done better. But WTF, I think did more than most people to have earned the right to complain.
One question out of left field and one off the wall:
If prostitution were legal, would the johns be responsible for any pregnancies?
Why aren’t they now?
BTW, I went back and checked my election posts. I didn’t piss on Republicans. Rather, (with the exception of that loon Michael Savage) I defended them at every turn.
Just a few of my posts in support of Romney:
http://classicalvalues.com/2012/10/if-you-disagree-you-have-no-conscience-and-if-you-have-no-conscience-you-are-a-sociopath/
http://classicalvalues.com/2012/10/we-were-warned-about-this-demon/
http://classicalvalues.com/2012/10/the-last-one/
http://classicalvalues.com/2012/10/fun-loving-libertarians-have-a-choice/
http://classicalvalues.com/2012/10/a-sudden-epidemic-of-bigoted-romney-supporters/
I’m curious about exactly where you think I was pissing on the Republicans during this critical period.
Brett, I think johns are already liable for child support (assuming paternity can be proven):
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081201103201AAdqifM
No reason that would change one way or another if prostitution were legal. These are different legal issues.
Eric
BTW, I went back and checked my election posts. I didn’t piss on Republicans. Rather, (with the exception of that loon Michael Savage) I defended them at every turn.
You probably got confused with your honcho Simon.
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