Should Prostitution And Gambling Be Legal?

Question

If prostitution were legal it could be regulated and all but eliminate forced prostitution. Those that wish to do that line of work should have the option.

As for gambling, shouldn't a person be able to do what they want to do with their own money?

Answer 1

Yes and yes.

Answer 2

once you get past all the stuff about regulation and safety you come to the real meat of the question. both are suppoded to be victimless crimes but are they really? how many families have lost everything because one member blows its money on gambling? are not the kids and the other spouse victims? what about the employer that has money or goods stolen to cover gambling debts? what about the family time that never happens because watching the game or the race that the rent money is bet on? as for prostution i doubt very much is very many hookers are proud of what they do. most are either beyond caring or are soul sickened by it. ditto for many of the johns. how does it feel to know you just paid somebody to touch you? there is real damage done to both parties even where its legal. very few women become hookers because they like the work. almost all either have no other skills or have some driving need [ drugs] to earn as much as they can as fast as they can with no thought paid to the price. its an old problem that has no good answer but i do not support any state run gambling at all. its a tax paid largely bu those that can least afford it. prostution has always been with us and always will be so maybe there is a place for legal brothals as a means of reducing the damages. let the gamblers go play cards with their friends.

Answer 3

I agree with you about regulation for prostitution and gambling, but would also add drugs to the equation. People are going to abuse all of the above vices, however, if they were regulated and and those regulations were really enforced, this nation would see a great reduction in crimes involving these potential freedoms and the prison system would have a vast reduction in overcrowding. Also, we wouldn't be sticking people that have addictions to these particular vices in prison populations with violent offenders, murderers and rapists; the people who REALLY belong in these institutions! (Then the nation could really afford to provide intervention services - probably for free - to the people who truly want help for their addictions).
The rest of us would be able to enjoy the freedom being an American provides, without worrying that Big Brother was shaking his head and clucking his tongue at us! As Americans, we should have the choice to spend our money and enjoy the fruits of our labor as we see fit, not as the religious "right" believes we should. Isn't that the reason America was founded in the first place - to avoid persecution by those who didn't agree with the founder's beliefs?

Answer 4

Gambling and prostitution are illegal because the government has no real way of regulating it, in other words the government would have a hard time getting their cut. It's hard to tax something that can happen any where at any time.

Answer 5

Prostitution is legal in some counties of Nevada.

Gambling is legal all over the place.

The government is trying to make online gaming illegal and looks like they are making progress

Answer 6

I think prostitution should be considered for legality (??) in light of the Suffolk murders. But gambling...I thought it was already legal (in Britain anyway). I think there should be regulations to prevent people from getting too addicted to spending all their money...but yeah...

Answer 7

gambling is legal in some places but i think they should provide a help program for people who become addicted to gambling, prostitution is also legal in some places, but if its illegal whats the diference between prostitution & porn stars? they are both being paid for sex...

Answer 8

Criminality presupposes a theory of justice.

Justice presupposes a theory of rights.

Rights presuppose a theory of property.

Property Rights presuppose a theory of homesteading, as well a certain philosophical insights, ie. synthetic theoretical propositions.

Locke ;

"[E]very man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself."

Rothbard ;

“developing the Roman theory of acquisition, Aquinas, anticipating the famous theory of John Locke, grounded the right of original acquisition of property on two basic factors: labour and occupation. The initial right of each person is to ownership over his own self, in Aquinas’s view in a ‘proprietary right over himself’. Such individual self-ownership is based on the capacity of man as a rational being. Next, cultivation and use of previously unused land establishes a just property title in the land in one man rather than in others. St. Thomas’ theory of acquisition was further clarified and developed by his close student and disciple John of Paris (Jean Quidort, c. 1250-1306), a member of the same Dominican community of St. Jacques in Paris as Aquinas. Championing the absolute right of private property, Quidort declared that lay property ‘is acquired by individual people through their own skill, labour and diligence, and individuals, as individuals, have right and power over it and valid lordship; each person may order his own and dispose, administer, hold or alienate it as he wishes, so long as he causes no injury to anyone else; since he is lord.’ This ‘homesteading’ theory of property…[i.e., t]he Aquinas—John of Paris—Locke view is the ‘labour theory’ (defining ‘labour’ as the expenditure of human energy rather than working for a wage) of the origin of property.”

- Murray Rothbard, Economic Thought Before Adam Smith, (Massachusetts, USA: Edward Elgar
Publishing, 1995), 56-7.

In sum, yes people have the right to engage in the activities. Unless, under certain circumstances, they contractually agree not to.

Answer 9

It's already legal in the places that tolerate it.

Not everyone wants to live in Vegas!!!

Answer 10

gambling could be legal but prostitution should not be because you could get STD's