Travesty: Abhisit Vejjajiva charged with 'murder'

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Yingluck. The Prime Minister's given name is Yingluck.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Yingluck. The Prime Minister's given name is Yingluck.

Who are you critiquing here?  BRTD did mention her:

...Thaksin's crew...

It's hard to maintain simultaneously the belief that Yingluck lacks power of her own and the belief, which I seem to recall you've articulated in the past, that she, being a woman, is out to oppress the poor white men living in Thailand by taking away their right to buy Thai women's bodies, but on further reflection I'm sure you manage just fine.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm not saying she lacks any power of her own, just that she is unquestionably part of the group that's hard to describe as anything other than "Thaksin's crew" just because the party they run as keeps changing their name.

'The Reds' doesn't work in this context?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It's hard to maintain simultaneously the belief that Yingluck lacks power of her own and the belief, which I seem to recall you've articulated in the past, that she, being a woman, is out to oppress the poor white men living in Thailand by taking away their right to buy Thai women's bodies, but on further reflection I'm sure you manage just fine.

Her power comes entirely from her brother, brother.  As does her social conservatism - which is a direct pandering to the people (who always love authoritarianism and hate to see anyone have any fun, in any country).

I think both Shinawatra siblings are, for all their other faults, smart enough to know that one can find ways make one's own fun if buying access to people's bodies ceases to be an option.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Her power comes entirely from her brother, brother.  As does her social conservatism - which is a direct pandering to the people (who always love authoritarianism and hate to see anyone have any fun, in any country).

I think both Shinawatra siblings are, for all their other faults, smart enough to know that one can find ways make one's own fun if buying access to people's bodies ceases to be an option.

Good lord man, if you think any such laws apply to rich people, you're more naive than I thought!

Of course they don't apply to rich people. That's the problem and that's always been the problem, a principle with which I'm sure you can agree even if we will never see eye to eye on the particular issue under discussion.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think both Shinawatra siblings are, for all their other faults, smart enough to know that one can find ways make one's own fun if buying access to people's bodies ceases to be an option.

Good lord man, if you think any such laws apply to rich people, you're more naive than I thought!

Of course they don't apply to rich people. That's the problem and that's always been the problem, a principle with which I'm sure you can agree even if we will never see eye to eye on the particular issue under discussion.

No, the problem is the existence of such laws, Nathan, not the fact that some people find a way around them.

True. Ideally laws against selling sex should be considerably more forgiving, and laws against buying it commensurately sterner, than what I'm given to understand most countries actually have.

The worst approach, which is unsurprisingly the one you appear to prefer due to your own concupiscent selfishness (or selfish concupiscence, it's all the same), is the one taken by the countries in blue on this map. The ones in green often have more sensible approaches than the ones in red, of course, but some variant of the principle behind red would of course be ideal.

I also love how Nevada's laws are so twisted it has to be parsed by county.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Sweden has generally sensible prostitution laws, at least as written.

Antonio, this is a corner of the market I'm hugely uncomfortable with leaving unregulated, even if there are at times positive externalities to doing so. Tons of things (and people) end up slipping through the cracks.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Antonio, this is a corner of the market I'm hugely uncomfortable with leaving unregulated, even if there are at times positive externalities to doing so. Tons of things (and people) end up slipping through the cracks.

...so, that means we agree, right?

I'm not sure what you are saying.

It means we more or less agree, yeah.

I was confused by your question about my problems with the laws in the countries in blue on the map, sorry.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

As a side note, that wiki map seems like an oversimplification that's really misleading. Ontario's and Sweden's laws would both be shown as blue on there, but as people have pointed out they're extremely different.

Yeah, looking into the subject more, it's...not a great exercise in the cartographic arts. And the original generalization I made about it was, um, not always right.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

What makes a moralistic concern 'out-dated'? How does one know when a moralistic concern has ceased to be 'of the times', so to speak? Is it simply a question of popularity or is there some other factor? If the latter, how might we extrapolate this so as to predict what moralistic concerns will become 'out-dated' in the future?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think the idea is that the whole transaction is wrong but somebody in the position to be the consumer in such a transaction would generally speaking have more options.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It's always fun to see certain Swedes butt into threads to label people racists/sexists/anti-semites/whatever he feels like today.

Wait, no, tiresome. Tiresome is the word I was looking for there.

It often is, which is why it's especially refreshing when he's completely on-point, like right now.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

opebo, your version of the global prostitution industry would be easier to believe in if you didn't have quite such a blatant vested interested in it.