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Comment by jjulius | Hacker News Reader

I support the legalization of prostitution. If someone makes a conscious decision about what they would like to do with their own body, and that includes having sex in exchange for money, then that is their prerogative and they should have the opportunity to do so via a well-regulated "system" of sorts.

"Illegal pornography" is too general a term for this type of discussion. Sodomy is still illegal in many places throughout the world, including fourteen states in the US as of April of last year, but is something that can be a very enjoyable experience for everyone involved. If the "illegal" pornography involves individuals who are capable of making a conscious choice about the acts they engage in, then yes, it should be legal. If the "illegal" pornography involves coercion and/or rape of anyone, or animal, involved, then no, it should remain illegal.

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>If the "illegal" pornography involves individuals who are capable of making a conscious choice about the acts they engage in, then yes, it should be legal. If the "illegal" pornography involves coercion and/or rape of anyone, or animal, involved, then no, it should remain illegal.

Ignoring for the moment that I can kill and eat an animal for my own pleasure... we aren't focusing on if it should be prohibited, but if prohibition of it would work.

People will say that prohibition of drugs is stupid because prohibition fails. I'm interested in if this argument, not the argument that drugs shouldn't be prohibited for any other reasons, holds up.

Illegal porn, at least of the digital variety, is easier to produce and trivial to copy compared to drugs. If prohibition of drugs is doomed to failure irrelevant of one's stance on their morality, then should not the same be true of illegal porn?

As for what I mean by illegal porn, pick whatever you think should be made illegal for whatever moral reasons you want. If you want to ban midgets because Shiva told you so; it doesn't much matter why because my point is talking about the argument that prohibition inherently fails regardless of the moral judgments upon what is being prohibited.

The two cannot be compared. Illegal porn (child porn, rape, etc.) is illegal because of a lack of consent and potential for assault, psychological scarring, etc. of the victim. Drugs are illegal in an attempt to "protect" consenting adults from themselves and have no victim aside from the users themselves.

Here's the same hypothetical that you're proposing from another angle: "If banning whistleblowing is doomed to failure irrelevant of one's stance on its morality, then should not the same be true of war crimes?"

>The two cannot be compared.

They can be compared for the purpose of the argument. The argument that 'prohibition doesn't work' does not place any conditions as to what it can be applied to.

>"If banning whistleblowing is doomed to failure irrelevant of one's stance on its morality, then should not the same be true of war crimes?"

If the properties of whistleblowing that dooms to failure the ban on it are also found in war crimes, and if war crimes does not possess properties that are lacking from whistleblowing that would counteract those properties they both share, then banning war crimes is doomed to failure.

Why does banning drugs fail? Because there is a demand that will not go away and thus the potential for money to be made and there are those who are willing to do anything to make that money. Notice that the moral considerations of drugs do not factor into this.

>and have no victim aside from the users themselves.

Maybe for a college student smoking pot this is the case. There are plenty of third party victims to many other drugs, even some of the legal ones (take alcohol which factors into drunk driving injuries and sexual assaults). Also consider pregnant women who give birth to babies that are born addicted to drugs.

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