We seem to be having a ‘prostituion special’ today.
OXFORD’S “most prolific” prostitute has been banned from selling sex on the streets and in her home for five years.
It is not illegal to sell sex – why has this woman been ‘banned’ from carrying out a legal activity? It is not illegal to accept money for a sex act carried out in your home – why has this woman been banned from carrying out a legal activity in her own home?
Drug addict Nicola Harris worked seven days a week along Cowley Road, East Oxford, and Oxford Road, Cowley, as well as seeing clients at her home in Costar Close in Littlemore.
‘Seven days a week’ – a hard working girl then, who has avoided the temptations of raising money to feed her drug habit illegally. Like stealing or shop-lifting. Now she has been banned from raising the money legally, guess what will happen next?
The 33-year-old, who had been subject to an interim Anti Social Behaviour Order since July 9, failed to turn up at Oxford Magistrates’ Court yesterday to hear the city council’s successful application for a full order.
She was probably at work.
Complaints from local residents began last winter, and Harris was cautioned twice in December and arrested for soliciting in March.
Soliciting is different, that is illegal. What happened to the soliciting charge? Did you not manage to make it stick?
When out on the streets she would take men to Cowley Marsh Park and Agnes Court, off Oxford Road, where police and residents would frequently find used condoms, the court heard.
‘Used condoms’? A girl who was mindful of her own health and that of her customers.
Pc Mike Dix told magistrates the mother-of-one lived a “very chaotic and complicated lifestyle” and would be out on the streets between about 9pm and 3am every night.
Doesn’t sound a very chaotic lifestyle to me. Hard working, a caring attitude towards her customers – and gets to work on time on a regular basis.
He said: “She would be walking down the street, openly looking around, often carrying a garment over her arm, which, I’m informed, is a sign to customers that she’s working.
A discrete trade sign, which even the local policeman needed to have decoded for him – hardly openly soliciting, is it?
“She rarely denied being a prostitute, but often said ‘prove it’ or ‘catch me in the act’.
Here the rub – you couldn’t could you? She had no more need to deny being a prostitute than you had to deny being a policeman. It is a perfectly legal occupation – heavens, you’ll be complaining that she paid her tax on time next.
“Offences of prostitution are quite complicated because it’s not actually illegal to have sex for money, although the soliciting side of it is, and that can often be hard to prove.
Once again – you couldn’t prove it could you?
“She said even if she didn’t necessarily have a drug problem she would continue to solicit with her current customers because it’s a lifestyle choice and she will always need the money.”
As is being a policeman a lifestyle choice. Your choice of words, I’ll bet not hers – ‘solicit with her customers’.
Asked about prostitution, Pc Dix replied: “It’s definitely not just Nicola. She is perhaps the most prolific and well known – her and one other, and we are dealing with the other.”
So you thought you’d make an example of her and prove to the other girls that when you decide that something is against the law, even if it isn’t, you’ll find a way to stop it……
Naeem Chudry, the council’s antisocial behaviour investigator, said: “I won’t go so far as to say this is Oxford’s red-light area. There are other sex workers in Oxford, a handful, and this is the main area in which they operate.”
A handful of girls, carrying out a legal activity in a discrete and caring manner –can’t have that can we? Is your name a clue as to why you want to stop Nicola being independent?
Asked why Harris was specifically targeted, Pc Andrew Reid said: “There are probably about half a dozen other women in the area, but Nicola Harris is by far the most prolific.”
See above -
The court heard Harris lived with her drug-addict partner but her child was taken into care.
I bet you tried to get him on a pimping charge – and failed.
Chair of magistrates Stephen Eeley banned Harris from leaving her home between 9pm and 7am, selling sex at her home and going within a designated area around East Oxford and Cowley, except while travelling on a bus, until 2015.
A bansturbation special – Nicola is now banned from legitimately earning money. Unless she chooses to work from the back seat of the bus – and I hope she does!
Outside court, Saj Malik, the council’s board member for safer communities, said Harris would be given access to drug rehabilitation and advice on housing, money and family matters.
And another one – is your name a clue Saj Malik? How is Nicola making the community unsafe? She already had access to drug rehabilitation if she wanted it – working seven days a week she could no doubt afford to finance it herself. She already has a house – the one you have just sought to ban her from working in. She did have money, she was working seven days a week, remember? What are the family matters you want to intervene in – you’ve already done that, her child is in care, remember?
Grrr!
Anna is the landlady of the Raccoon Arms. She lives in the Monbazillac area of South West France and still takes a keen interest in British politics.
{ 81 comments }
In three years living there I never saw her. And I was also out at those times.
Just my luck I guess.
Brief point from a baffled monk
If what she is doing in the street is not unlawful, how is there a power to stop her doing it?
Because that’s exactly what ASBOs do – criminalise that which isn’t illegal in the first place.
If they had been used correctly, and the rest of the Criminal Justice system further up the chain had not become worse than useless in the last 50 years, they would have been a very good way of stopping all sorts of criminality that has now become so commonplace that it is near impossible to police.
The rule of Law is dependent on those being ruled to be largely in agreement with the arrangement. In numerous places in the UK, this agreement is missing and lives are being utterly blighted by moronic, yet technically legal behaviour.
I admit that the administration of ASBO’s has been woefully inadequate and that they have been used as an instrument of spite on no small number of occasions though.
Because Anna is wrong. It is illegal to loiter with intent to solicit, which is exactly what she was doing. It is also illegal to live off immoral earnings, ‘earn’ money that is not declared to either the Benefits Office (please don’t try to convince me she is not receiving Benefits) or the Tax Office, as is committing an act of a sexual nature in public, public lewdness and gross indecency, all of which she was doing when she had sex with a stranger in return for cash in the nearby park.
I know that tax offices (& Tax Inspectors) have long targeted suspected prostitutes for tax enquiry. I understand that the prostitutes were amenable to paying tax, providing they were assessed as ‘models’, ‘secretaries’ etc.
I heard of a prostitute who refused to pay tax on the grounds that she would be aiding and abetting the government in living off her immoral earnings, which of course is illegal. WS
Gildas – you might like to refer to my previous post about a girl who was issued with an ASBO for trying to commit suicide – which is also not ilegal.
The ASBO is the last refuge of the bansturbating scoundrel.
Re: ASBOs for non illegal acitivities.
Thank you Anna! I have never really thought about it before. Mea culpa!
“She had no more need to deny being a prostitute than you had to deny being a policeman.”
She had much less need, actually, now that the latter profession is so debased…
‘He said:
English Viking,
The police are not there to enforce morals. That is the religeous police, from several muslim countries, you are thinking of. Is that something you want to see in england?
I fear we will see the infliction of Islamic law in England all too soon, whether I like it or not, but this is not the point.
The Police are there to enforce the law (which in itself is simply the formalisation of a moral code) and the law of the land is now, and has been for decades, if not centuries, that it is illegal to solicit a man (or woman) for sex. She was soliciting, so therefore she was committing a crime, so therefore she should be arrested, tried and punished.
You conflate the civilising effect of basing a country’s laws and standards on the moral code outlined in The Bible (just like the UK did) with the savagery of Islam, under the catch-all of religion.
English Viking,
“She was soliciting, so therefore she was committing a crime, so therefore she should be arrested, tried and punished”.
I’m sorry, I didn’t understand your point. You would appear to be saying that she was soliciting, and fullfilling the requriements of that crime, and that the police ignored this evidence and instead asked for an ASBO?
There was me assuming, with my touching faith in the police, that they had been unable to nick her for soliciting!
My point (and previously your point too, although it appears to have changed) is not to do with the punishment for the crime i.e. an ASBO, it is to do with whether she has committed a crime, and she clearly has committed numerous crimes. That the Police are inept and the Courts inadequate is not in dispute, that she is an upstanding, tax-paying, well adjusted business woman is.
PS They did nick her for soliciting. We don’t know from the info in the post what had happened to this case, it could still be pending, although I suspect that, due to already high-lighted shortcomings of the Justice system in the UK, she was probably either just warned or on-the-spot fined.
Surely Sharia Law is merely the ‘civilising’ efect of basing a country’s laws and standards on the moral code outlined in The Koran?
You are entirely correct, apart from the civilising thing. It should be immediately apparent upon a comparison of Western, post-Christian (sadly) nations and any number of Islamic nations, which are the most advanced, humane, decent and civilised. You could also look at the clamour to claim ‘asylum’ from the Islamic nations, into Western nations, which is not replicated in the opposite direction, to see that people all over the world would rather live under a Christian (post or not) based legal system than an Islamic one.
Your subtle attempt at equating the two does not work.
EV – she could be funding her addiction by burgling, claiming benefits, etc but instead she’s been working to do it.
Not my choice of employment either but why you are so upset about her working in the oldest profession I don’t know. To me the whole way she’s been treated does sound like an abuse of process at least. Maybe she wasn’t prepared to offer the traditional uniform discount?
The corrosive effect on society is my main objection. I would still tell her she is wrong to behave how she does if she chose to conduct her ‘business’ legally, which the current laws allow her to do, but I accept that what goes on in her home is between her, the customer and God. She will answer to Him for moral defects, not me and not the Courts. However, she should answer to the Courts for her criminal behaviour, which includes, at the risk of repetition, soliciting, public lewdness, performing a sexual act in public, gross indecency and last least, littering. I also suspect that ‘her own home’ is quite probably no such thing, and is likely to be some form of ‘community housing’. I object to having my wages robbed by the Gov to subside drug addicted prostitutes’ housing.
I have already offered Anna 10-1 that she is on benefits, you can have the same deal.
That she chooses to fund her other criminal habit by committing the above crimes instead of burglary is not sufficient grounds for her beatification.
Englis Viking,
Do you give your wife money – or is she entirely self sufficient.
Did the availability of sex within marriage form any part of your decision to marry?
I support my wife in all ways possible, including financially.
I was able to form sexual relationships before I met wife. It may seem hard to believe, but I am still capable of doing so now, even though I am married, although I choose not to because I realise that this is wrong. So to answer your question, I do not think that availability of sex had a bearing on my decision to marry.
If you are trying to equate the sanctity of marriage with grubby fumblings for a tenner, you are not only being rude, but childish too. As a married lady yourself, do you just ‘perform’ in exchange for your husbands’ cash?
If she was committing benefit fraud I suspect they would have charged her with it. I certainly don’t like the sound of her lifestyle, I doubt she does deserve to be sainted.
I like even less the idea that, without being convicted of anything, others can restrict her choices as the same could easily happen to me, or you. Afterall, we both post somewhat right of centre things on blogs for one. I don’t doubt lots of PC types object to that too. Does being named, shamed and ASBO’d for that sound attractive to you?
The fact that she has not been convicted is not evidence of her fine character, merely the inadequacies of the Criminal Justice system.
Drug possession and child-neglect are just two more crimes she has committed without being charged.
I agree that the ASBO should only be issued as a result of a conviction, but that fact does not hide neither her own criminality in general nor the depravity of prostitution in particular.
The PC types will come for me (and maybe you) one day, I don’t doubt that. Unless I go for them first.
@English Viking: I need some help.
I understand that people enjoy certain things. Having a good meal prepared and served to them, using some ones car and race track to do some racing, learning tennis, getting a massage, having sex. But WHY is only the last one on that list morally wrong?
Also, I understand that if you work in a shop or an office, or you teach tennis, or you drive a taxi or you sell sex you are doing things for people that they want, and are prepared to pay for, and hurt no one in the process. So WHY is the last one on the list morally wrong.
I
See the comments on ‘Religious Intolerance’.
“Whoring is no more
I assume the many customers who have been using these services have been arrested or at least a couple of them. Since the girl is under so much police and council camers during their many hours of overtime spying on hookers at work. Legalise a woman’s right to use her body and get them off the streets. No pimps. Anyone who is willing to blow some one for money should be allowed to keep the full amount.
I noted a statistic that Westminster had 10 times more hookers and rent boys than any other area of the UK. No invoices for small expenses at the government. Hypocracy is the basis of the law.
That’s why the Government’s official rate of inflation is so low, because it is based on the cost of a rent boy and a gram of coke.
The solution to prostitution is to legalise, regulate and tax it as you would any other form of income. The whole issue is a minefield for feminazis as on the one hand they want to defend a woman’s right to do what she wants ( and be financially independent from MEN) but at the same time it means that men get sex ( that they enjoy and men must be banned from doing anything that they enjoy according to feminazi doctrine) . Not only that , if men can get sex from prostitutes , they will have even less incentive to be in commited relationships with women and that women will have no men to support them so they can have their “lifestyle choice” and so they will have to go out to work instead of sitting at home doing F*** all except watching Deadenders and Jeremy Vile.
I can’t imagine what business it is of the police to enforce some puritan morals upon us. What I find even more disturbing is that there is tacit and active support among the public for this nonsense.
If an actual crime is committed, then please do something useful, but criminalising something that has caused no-one harm, has been voluntarily exchanged, really is none of the police’s business.
…but criminalising something that has caused no-one harm…
Except her kid, eh?
Has there been any research done to determine if the presence of licenced brothels in an area has an effect on the number of rapes committed?
She’s a girl? That sounds worrying, as under- aged sex is definitely illegal. Or, perhaps she’s a WOMAN?
Ian R Thorpe,
It is true that the Bible does not call Mary Magdelene a prostitute, and that the woman at the well was not her but another woman who had numerous men, including one which ‘was not her own’, but it is clear from the Bible that they are two different people. It is also clear that Christ was referring to her sexual behaviour, and frowning on it, rather than condemning her for not having a father, brother, etc. John 4 makes this clear. She was a harlot in the sense that she slept around, often with men who were married to someone else.
It is merely ‘tradition’ that MM was a prostitute, and perhaps we do her a great disservice. What is clear is that Christ was not averse to telling people who were living immoral lives to stop doing so and to repent. The woman caught in adultery was told to ‘Go, and sin no more’, for example.
[1] Judge not, that you may not be judged, [2] For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again. [3]And why seest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye; and seest not the beam that is in thy own eye? [4] Or how sayest thou to thy brother: Let me cast the mote out of thy eye; and behold a beam is in thy own eye? [5] Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam in thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.
Mathew Chapter 7
Amen
Gildas the Monk
John 7:24, … but judge with righteous judgement.
The prohibition on judging is not a blanket ban on disagreeing with a persons sinful behaviour. If it was, Christ would not have been able to say ‘Repent’.
The verses you quote from Matthew 7 apply to a person who is pointing out a lesser crime (a mote) when they themselves are committing a greater one (a beam). The scripture then proceeds to exhort those who have removed the beams from their own eyes to cast out the motes in others, as they can now see clearly.
Context is everything when reading the Bible.
I can see the Abbott needing a word in your shell-like.
I think I am acutely aware of the meaning, EV. But thank you for your reply.
Gildas the Monk
Comments are in a cocked hat (AGAIN, please sort it out, it ruins the thread).
The above comment is a reply to Indigomyth, the following is a reply to AaTA.
Actually, Satan means ‘adversary’ in Arabic. In Hebrew, it means accuser.
I do use the KJV. That the Devil has suceeded in planting doubt in your mind as to what God himself has said, just as he did in Genesis 3, is not a reason to dismiss all translations. Look for Formal Equivalence in a Bible, not a Dynamic Translation.
The rest of your post descended into waffle. Sorry, you lost me at ‘universally applicable tests’, as if you really knew what you were talking about, when you’ve already proven that you have no understanding of Biblical languages, of which Arabic is not.
Comment at 35 should be at 52.
I give up. Good night and God bless you all, wherever this comment finally appears.
EV,
//I would give my last breath in exchange for happy, healthy future for my daughter. Or my sons. I fear it will be breathed in vain, due to the immoral swamp which deluges the nation.//
Well, I am someone that believes that children are largely products of their upbringing. Therefore, I am certain that if you have raised your children to be happy and healthy, then they will be. It does not matter what corruption and immorality surrounds them, they will not succumb to it, because you have shaped their character to reject it.
Out of idle curiosity, do your children share your religious convictions?
Indigo,
I attempt a reply. but have no idea where it will end up.
My children have been told the truth, as I see it. I cannot live their lives for them; they must decide.
I have been most careful NOT to indoctrinate. False conversions are worse than no conversions.
To answer your question, 2 appear to believe the truths expounded in The Bible, not because they feel that they ought to, but because they have made an informed decision. One is wavering; I would much rather he state himself an Atheist than pretend, merely to please me.
And here’s the opposite reaction……………
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/7945785/Councils-pay-for-prostitutes-for-the-disabled.html
EV,
I left another message, but the comments system appears to be going haywire.
//I would give my last breath in exchange for happy, healthy future for my daughter. Or my sons. I fear it will be breathed in vain, due to the immoral swamp which deluges the nation.//
I said in my missing comment that I am sure that if you have raised your children well, then it will not matter what filth surrounds them, they will reject it. I believe that children are mostly the product of their upbringing, therefore if someone has raised their children correctly, they will turn out ok. I am sure that you have raised your children well, therefore it seems likely that they will stand above the corruption of the world. Out of idle curiosity, do your children share your religious convictions?
//If, as humanity,we subscribe to the
Who else will the Police arrest?
Isn’t prostitution just promiscuity with a financial reward?
A bit like so many things in life, really?
Sister Eva
No thats marriage!
Hmmm, the police may be on a collision course with the councils and disabled pressure groups if they keep this up…
*gets popcorn*
*settles down to the Victimhood Poker World Series*
I wish I’d read your comment before I posted mine
JuliaM: I wish I’d read your comment before I posted mine
JuliaM: I wish I’d read your comment before I posted mine earlier
He he, popcorn it is
I shan’t comment on the legal or moral aspects of this case since there seems to be something to said for both sides.
I would rather hope that someone is trying to help her get out of this horrid situation.
Yes, I know, there are always people who are only too willing to inflict their morals on other people, but this carry on can hardly be good for her.
All rather yucky if you ask me.
Nicked yer stuff.
Just looked at her home address, using street view on Google Earth and it’s a nice little close of tidy modern houses.
Safe enough for her and her clients.
My last post was in reply to this, it didn’t line up for some reason
Ian R Thorpe August 14, 2010 at 18:38
Read more: http://www.annaraccoon.com/politics/the-righteous-in-full-flood/comment-page-1/#comment-25198#ixzz0xzFiqURk
“At last
English viking,
The clamour by asylum seekers to live in a country that will pay them for not working is fairly evenly matched by the clamour of steel errectors, engineers, bricklayers, financial service employees amongst others, to work in Muslim countries which will pay them far higher wages than they earn at home.
People live and work in other countries to their best advantage, not becasue one religeon is superior to another.
No I don’t ‘perform’ in exchange for cash – but I recognise that there would have been no marriage without the availability of sex. What makes you think that there are no grubby fumblings within a marriage? Many women would disagree with you.
I am trying to establish at what point you think sex, marriage, and the exchange of money, change their nature.
Does marriage sanctify all grubby fumblings? Is all sex within marriage duly sancitfied, no matter how fleeting, whether indoors or outdoors. If the marriage doesn’t last, how long do you have to be married before whatever grubby fumblings with the marital bed are graced with your approval?
Since you had sexual relationships before marriage, how long did they have to last before they avoided your tag of ‘degrading”?
English Viking,
Again you are making presumptions – that her child is in care because of neglect. We don’t know that. Her child may be in care becasue it is not possible to provide the care that it needs in any normal home. There are many children born every year – yes, even to fine upstanding bible reading women – who suffer from deformities of mind or body which means that they would be unlikely to live in a ‘home’ environment.
Would you make the same assumption of ‘neglect’ if she wasn’t a prostitute?
I’m not entirely sure the entire history of my sex-life is any of your business, but I’ll do my best to answer. You’ll understand that I am giving you my opinion, not asking you why you think I’m wrong or for a dissertation on the evils of Christianity.
…No I don
Reminds me of the Woody Allen joke: “Is sex dirty? Only if it’s done right” .
Not sure this post will appear in the correct space, they appear to have gone haywire…again. This is a reply to Anna @ 16:18.
The child is not being ‘given’ care, in a hospital or care-home, for example. It has been taken ‘into’ care, i.e. foster parents or a children’s home.
No, I would not assume this to be the case if she were not a drug addled prostitute and her so called ‘partner’ were not equally drug addicted and feckless.
Thereby hangs our difference – you see I don’t see that anybody else’s choice of manner of sex or venue, entitles me to describe it as ‘degrading’. Your belief in the ‘sanctity’ of Christian marriage apparently bestows you with a belief that you can now pronounce on other peoples sex lives as being above or below your own in the morality stakes.
My morality concerns what I do, not what others do, where sex is concerned. I don’t believe that the state has any more business legislating on the manner in which we fornicate than on the manner in which we defacate. They should be soley concerned with ensuring our safety – and for the benefit of doubt, that includes the physical safety of our children, thus I can condemn paedophilia within those guidelines.
‘Into care’ can apply equally to a hospital or specialised care home.
By the way, didn’t I read somewhere that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute?
Does Christianity condemn her as a degraded person, no doubt avoiding her tax burden, living in subsidised housing, and neglecting her children?
That’s as may be, EV, but there are plenty of non-feckless prostitutes who merely offer the service to make ends meet and help feed their children. It’s a very bad thing to make general principles from a single bad instance.
And further to that, the fact that a perfectly reasonable activity is criminalised is much more likely to lead to instances like this woman in Oxford. If being a prostitute was as well-regarded as, say, a banker, then what would the issue be?
I shall have to go now – you see part of the price I paid for an ‘un-degraded’ sex life was a commitment to snuff out the life of an innocent chicken, remove its entrails, bake it in the oven, and then slice it, before laying it in front of my husband at the prescribed time, this of course makes me morally superior to anyone who merely hands over a tenner.
It is very difficult to debate these matters in this way, not face to face. You put words in my mouth and make statements that are not true, but it would take forever to write rebuttals, and this is a comment box, not an essay box.
I did start the comment with the statement that what I was offering was my opinion, not a request for a dissertation on the evils of Christianity or a list of reasons why I’m wrong. You asked me some questions, I answered them, you get on your high horse and attempt to trump morality (not mine, BTW, God’s) with amorality and then complain that I dare expound my views whilst you appear to think yourself free to expound yours. Ironic.
The State has similar rules on defecating as fornicating; one is not allowed to earn a living from doing it in the street. With regard to the State’s duty to keep it’s citizens safe, removing criminals from the streets is just one of the ways they do this.
You are correct in thinking that I believe the moral code that is at the core of The Bible is superior to all others, and I shall say so at every available opportunity.
Mary WAS a prostitute, she repented when Christ showed her the error of her ways. Note that he didn’t stroke her hand and tell her ‘Now, now dear, don’t worry about all this immoral stuff, just so long as you are happy, eh? At least you are earning good money, and can afford your own drugs.’
Anna @ 17:24
Christianity does not condemn. It speaks the truth and warns that there is coming one who most certainly will condemn, who will judge, who will execute punishment.
I believe that Christ most certainly would tell this girl to stop, to repent, to earn her bread the old-fashioned way (with a job) and to stop wasting the resources of the State and to look after her child herself.
You read it somewhere Anna but it was wrong in many ways. I once wrote an article on this to piss off American fundamentalists.
The “woman at the well” in the New Testament to whom Jesus says “go womand and sin no more” (or something like that, is not Mary Magdalen but simply a ‘harlot’. At the time the King James Bible was written harlot meant something different to its present meaning, a vagabond, pikey, whatever.
According to Robert Graves, of I Claudius fame, who was a classicist and translator, the word describing her in the ancient Grek texts means ‘loose woman’ rather that harlot. Graves explains (in The White Goddess) that a loose woman then would not have meant a lady of negotiable affection but an unattached woman, a woman without husband, father or brother to control her.
So it seems the Pharisees were into issuing ASBOs to women for simply not being the property of a man. Which brings us back to certain people involved in this case.
Thad@ 17:42
There is a reason that it is not well-regarded Thad, and it’s nothing to do with the Labour party or the ‘righteous’.
I suppose you’re another one who would be perfectly happy for his daughter to turn tricks for few quid?
BTW Banker was a really, really bad choice for a moral comparison with a prostitute.
EV,
Personally, I would much prefer to see destitute women becoming prostitutes to earn money, rather than taking money from the taxpayer, through Benefits (I grant that this woman may be on Benefits, I am just remarking on the general principle that prostitution is better than taking Benefits).
Would you consider it more Just for someone to become a prostitute, and get money through consenting exchange, rather than to take handouts of cash from the State?#
//Whoring is no more
You attempt to explain YOUR understanding of words in the bible – but which one? King James’s or any of the multitude of other versions. I wager you, in common with many, hold a mental picture of ‘Satan’. Nasty piece of work, eh? Actually the word simply means ‘adversary’ in Hebrew. ‘Adam’ merely means ‘man’ in the same language.
The suggestion that the Bible is lacking a scientific foundation is nothing less than a colossal understatement. The Bible has failed fair, impartial, and universally applicable tests in multiple fields of science. If God truly is the inspiration behind this purportedly divine declaration to the world, he shows absolutely no interest in its understandability or accuracy in astronomy, cosmology, zoology, botany, anthropology, geology, ecology, geography, physiology, and several other disciplines not covered in this chapter. In fact, the Bible handicaps those who use their
As I have never spoken in defense of prostitution, I would be most grateful if you did not imply that my children would be engaged on an honourable career if they were to have sex with strangers.
I would give my last breath in exchange for happy, healthy future for my daughter. Or my sons. I fear it will be breathed in vain, due to the immoral swamp which deluges the nation.
Benefit payments exist (or used to) as a safety net to ensure that people did not resort to whoring, body-snatching, theft, etc, etc. They are not designed to supplement these activities. There is nothing wrong with a person using the Welfare System to help themselves through a rough patch. It becomes wrong when a person considers it a life-style choice, a permanent way of life.
You cut a little too close to the bone, really. I thought we had smoked a peace-pipe. Perhaps I was mistaken.
EV,
//You cut a little too close to the bone, really. I thought we had smoked a peace-pipe. Perhaps I was mistaken.//
Sorry, I did not mean to imply that any of your children were engaged in that form of activity. I was merely trying to establish an idea of the moral hierarchy that you work with, while expressing my own moral beliefs on these matters, in relation to a general principle, not a specific instance. In that sense, I was only asking what you would consider the more moral course of action, were your children to be in such a situation (as I think you did something similar with Kingbingo). I meant no offence.
// There is nothing wrong with a person using the Welfare System to help themselves through a rough patch. It becomes wrong when a person considers it a life-style choice, a permanent way of life.//
Indeed. However, I would still consider it a more moral course of action for someone to voluntarily resort to prostitution, rather than to accept handouts from the State.
And, to be honest, I have little concern for her kids. Given that I am someone whose heart remains un-melted by UNICEF appeals that use starving African children, it would be a great stretch for me to go all gooey over the offspring of a drug-addled whore. Perhaps I manifest what you perceive to be a callous Libertarian heart? The argument you use about the tax-payer having to pay for the care of her kids, is not an argument against prostitution, but rather an argument against State subsidised child care and social services.
The results and consequences of her own inferior lifestyle (drug addiction, disease etc) are entirely her own fault. Indeed, it is the ultimate justice to allow these people to suffer the effects of their own idiocy. In that respect, there is no need for the law to punish them – they will die in their own time (a far better, more permanent and more fitting punishment than any the law imposes). In that respect, the tree of the human population prunes its own diseased branches.
Indigo, (don’t be surprised if this comment appears here, there and everywhere)
Forgive the abbreviation; I find myself replying to so many that I really need to find a way to save time.
If you meant no offense, then I will take none.
The difference between myself and Kingbingo is that I do not speak in defence of prostitution, whilst he does, therefore it would be strange that he should take umbrage at his daughter becoming a whore, whilst I would be mortified.
I do not see it a more moral course to claim on the insurance policy one has paid into than to become a whore.
We are in agreement that TV shots of wide-eyed, begging children in Africa are far from a good reason to give a remote person your bank details – sometimes giving cash will make things worse. However, I do have a concern for ‘my own people’ (I know I’m making it worse for myself, that I open myself up to all sorts of accusations). I am concerned that a child must grow up, not with a loving father, for all his faults, not with a mother that cries with fear for what may be for her children, (I’ve seen it, don’t fisk me). I fear for children that are hardened to the world, and it’s wicked ways, even before they make double digits.
I am not so hard that I wish to see prostitutes die in the gutter, either. They should be helped to see the error of their ways, like I was mine. They will not see their error if ‘normal’ people sing their praises.
I have kept friendly company with all-sorts.
Most people would have, at one point, considered me ‘all-sorts’. I do not hate these people; I hate what they have become, I hate that others encourage them.
If, as humanity,we subscribe to the ‘survival of the fittest’, the ‘dog eat dog’ ideology you appear to espouse, then the bleeding victims of knife attacks or car accidents would be left to rot by persons like yourself, whereas I ( I hope I would live up to this) would risk, and even perhaps give, my own life, in exchange for a whore’s.
That is why I will not be shouted down by Libertarians, when I speak on the matter.
“The difference between myself and Kingbingo is that I do not speak in defence of prostitution, whilst he does, therefore it would be strange that he should take umbrage at his daughter becoming a whore, whilst I would be mortified.”
This is insane. I am happy to speak in defence of prostitution, but I would be mortified if anyone in my family became one. It is the lifestyle choice of another person, someone I do not believe I know better than.
I speak in defence of smokers, yet I do no smoke. I speak in defence of drug takers, yet I do not take drugs.
Am I not allowed to speak in defence of Jews, because I am not one? Am I not allowed to speak in defence of Muslims, because I am not one?
Am I not allowed to defend the rights of people to make their own decisions about how they live their own lives?
My morality is very clear and very strong. I do not, however, believe that my morality is the code by which all others should live their lives. I am not that arrogant.
It is not arrogance to speak the truth.
Smoking is a choice, being ethnically Jewish is not, therefore your logic is no such thing, merely an attempt at emotive point scoring. Have a gold-star.
Am I not allowed criticise the life-style choices of others, and those who encourage their criminality, because I am not one of them?
Your morality is relative, therefore it is no morality at all.
EV,
My morality is that I am neither better nor worse than any other human being.
It is arrogance to assume that you speak the truth over and above other versions of the ‘truth’.
The can be only one truth. It cannot be raining and not raining at the same time in the same place.
You appear to confuse a moral with an opinion, then think that opinion moral because it is yours.
At last….well put.
Pharisees.