User:Lumenos/Protect massage parlors

=About this page=

Please help rewrite the following letter in "better" English. If we make it funny/funnier it will never work (will it?). If you want to work on a part, first make a section and write "working on this part " so that no one else does it. ~ Lumenos 00:05, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

The deadline is in ten days (2010-July-14). "The document you host started off as the text of an angry letter I sent to the city-council the last week on June, but I hope to refractor it into a speech which will hopefully melt the hearts of the councilpersons. Because of time-limits, I know that I cannot read it all; but fortunately however, I can submit the speech and the documents from Norma Jean Almodovar to the city-council both as paper and CD."

=External links=


 * Cotati considers massage parlor ordinance


 * About prostitution and police corruption:
 * Files donated by Norma Jean Almodovar
 * Videos About Prostitution donated by Norma Jean Almodovar
 * Presentation by Norma Jean Almodovar

=The letter= I read in the Pressdemocrat that the City council plans to harass hard working mothers. ¿Are not their lives hard enough already? Also, it seems that you the council seems to use mendacity for making your case:

“Houts characterized the parlors as ’really ugly stuff,’ describing scenes of filthy hot tubs, condom-filled trash containers and ’scantily-clad’ women.”

¿Where are the pictures about filthy hot tubs? ¿Where are the pictures about condom-filthed trashcans? Excuse my French, but I smell la caca de los toros. Even if these dubious statements are true which is doubtful, ¿why not just order the businesses to clean their hottubs and empty their trashcans?

“The owner of a downtown business said she moved her location after 20 years because of a parlor that opened next door.”

“‘It was very uncomfortable and definitely led to my decision to leave the place,’ said The Hub Cyclery co-owner Claire Fetrow, who described men arriving at the neighboring parlor at all hours of the night, sometimes in limousines.”

Given that these businesses operate from 10 to 10, The Hub Cyclery co-owner Claire Fetrow cannot speak truly. Her allegation conflicts with reality.

“All of them are staffed by Asian women who either immigrated illegally or were forced into the trade under duress.”

——

Cotati Police Sgt. Dave Houts

I notice that Cotati Police Sgt. Dave Houts does not backup this claim. If it is true, Cotati Police Sgt. Dave Houts should go into these businesses arrest illegal immigrants and liberate slaves. ¿Why does not Cotati Police Sgt. Dave Houts do his job? ¿Does not Cotati Police Sgt. Dave Houts want to be known as the liberating emancipator? ¡Cotati Police Sgt. Dave Houts would be known for decades to come as a local hero! I may be wrong, but I believe that I know the answer:

Cotati Police Sgt. Dave Houts does not present evidence of illegal workers and slaves because they do not exist. It seems to me that Cotati Police Sgt. Dave Houts is not truthful.

Besides, even if these are houses of prostitution, ¿So what?:

We need to look at this from 3 angles:


 * 1) 		Ethical point of view
 * 2) 		Constitutionality
 * 3) 		Nuisance

Ethically, nothing is wrong with 2 consenting adults to engage in private sexual activity.

In Lawrence Versus Texas, the Supreme Court decriminalized private sexual activity between consenting adults. The supreme courts struct down all laws regulating private sexual activity between consenting adults including sadomy-laws and prostitution-laws. The Supreme Court decriminalized prostitution.

These businesses are very quiet. They are low traffic. They bother none except people who have imaginary limousines bothering them through the night.

¿Have you thought about the economic impact of this?:

Because Cotati allows quiet bawdyhouses to operate, patrons from all over the county come to Cotati, on each visit, they drop about 2 hundred dollars by buying candy, flowers, stuffed animals, “extraspecial massages”, coffee, et cetera. After the “extraspecial massages”, they often take the courtesan to a restaurant. Even if they do not, take the courtesan to a restaurant, the patrons probably eat at one themselves. The economy of Cotati probably gets about 10 million dollars annually into the Cotatian economy.

Crime and taxes:

The fact is that men have urges to reproduce and get lonely, while some women who need money and are willing to relieve the urges of men and give them companionship. If one closes bordellos, one creates streetwalking. Fighting the streetwalking will cost easily an extra million dollars for law-enforcement annually. Because of the aforementioned economic impact, The tax revenue will shrink by a million dollars annually. Between replacing lost revenue and increased law-enforcement, Cotati will need an extra 2 million dollars annually. ¿Do you want to explain to the taxpayers that taxes will increase 2 hundred dollars annually and streetwalkers will henceforth roam the city?

“The ordinance would prohibit locking massage room doors unless no other staff are on hand to assure privacy. Also prohibited would be waterbeds, beds, or floor mattresses on a massage business’s premises.”

You tell people to reduce their security. If people want locks on doors, that is okay. ¿Will you next tell hospitals that they cannot lock away radio-isitopes and narcotics?

“It also would make both the property owner and the owner of a business found to be operating as a brothel subject to criminal penalties.”

¡It is so nice to intimidate landlords into evicting their tenants!

If this new ordinance goes to trial, one will get plea-bargains, but if it goes to jury-trial, one may get only acquittals:

Lumenos thinks the following part is "good English"
After citing Lawrence Versus Texas, the jury should realize that the law is unconstitutional and refuse to convict.

Even without Lawrence Versus Texas, the purpose of a jury is 2-fold:


 * 1) 		Determine whether a law is broken.
 * 2) 		Determine whether the law is just.

If determining whether a law is broken was all that is needed, we would not need juries, just judges. A jury refusing to convict for an unjust law is called jury-nullification. The most famous example in American History is juries refusing to convict captured fugitive slaves as being fugitive slaves, thus liberating them.

Someone accused under this ordinance at jury-trial, should plead "not guilty" (which is the truth), and explain that they did nothing wrong. The jury should conclude that they didn't do anything wrong (no victim, no crime) and acquit.

This ordinance targets working mothers. These mothers do whatever it takes to support their children. ¡If a mother is arrested, Protective Services might take away her children! ¿Why is the city-council anti-family?

= Criminalization leads to police-corruption =

When prostitution is a criminal offense, police often demand sex under threat of arrest. Indeed, to get prostitution crimilalized, the police already make 4 statements which seem to not be true:


 * 1) Condom-filled trashcans
 * 2) Filthy hottubs
 * 3) Illegal immigrants
 * 4) Sexslaves

As far as I can tell, none of those statements are true. Imagine how corrupt the police would be if they could intimidate sex and money from these women under threat of arrest.

= Human-Trafficking =

None argue that human-trafficking does not exist. Most human-trafficking is illegal aliens snuck through the border. Human-trafficking is a boogyman used for persecuting prostitutes. In the document, “Human Trafficking Evokes Outrage, Little Evidence” I submitted both as a printout and on CD-R courtesy of Norma Jean Almodovar, one learns that despite over a decade of trying to find these trafficked women in the American Sex-Industry, one finds only 1,362 alleged cases of human-trafficking for the sex-industry between 2000 and 2004 with only 148 cases being strong enough to go to trial. The antiprostitution-people claim 50 thousand people trafficked annually. That number seems greatly exagerated.

As for sex-slaves, certainly, somewhere in this country, we must have them, but police have not liberated even 1 of them between 2000 and 2007 —— 0 sex-slaves found. The same thing goes for prostitution of minors —— 0 minors found.

In 2009, Road Island used human-trafficking as an excuse to criminalize prostitution. After criminalization, the police started persecuting prostitutes  ——  no trafficked women or sex-slaves found. After closing bordellos, for the first time in decades, Road-Island has streetwalkers ——  One cannot eliminate prostitution; but only however,  force it from indoors to outdoors.

Recriminalization of indoor-prostitution in Rhode Island
Back in 1980, Rhode Island overhauled its prostitution-laws. In so doing, Rhode-Island accidentally decriminalized indoor prostitution. Other than getting an extra billion dollars in out-of-state money annually and the near disappearance of street-prostitution, Rhode Island had no problems. In 2009, after 29 years, because baseless claims about human trafficking, Rhode Island recriminalized prostitution.

The results were a loss of a billion dollars in out of state money annually, the ruined lives of many women just trying to make a living. Also, many clients had their lives ruined in token client-arrests. With the closing of bordellos, street-prostitution exploded. As far as I can determine, the law lead to no trafficked women being found at all.

= Supposedly, antiprostitution-laws help victimized women, but make their lives harder. =

¿In which other field of law-enforcement does law-enforcent arrest the alleged victims? Given that few people enjoy being arrested and that an arrest can greatly curtail future-employmentn and living options, the police do not do these women any favors. If the police truly believe that these women are exploited, ¿why do they ruin their lives? Understandably, all of this presupposes that most women in prostitution do so involuntariy:

Most women are prostitutes voluntarily.
Most prostitutes are voluntarily so.

Arresting all alleged prostitutes who do so voluntarily takes away resources from truly exploited women and and girls.
By arresting all alleged prostitutes, one takes resources away from finding minors and exploited women.

= None asked whether these women are exploited. =

¿Why did not the city-council ask the women in the massage-parlors whether they are exploited? Before acting, the city-council should investigate. Each member of the city council should look each woman in the eye before letting the police arrest them and destroy their lives.

= One should ask these women what they believe should be done. =

¿Why does the city-coucil believe that it can disrupt the lives of people without their input? The city-council should go to the massage-parlors band ask each woman what she believes they should do. None thought to ask the women. The city-council is very paternalistic in a bad way. These are adults —— not infants. The city-council shows arrogance in treating these women like children.

While asking the women in the massage-parlors what they believe the city-council should do, ¿why not investigate the massage-parlors personally?
Cotati Police Sgt. Dave Houts made some dubious accusations about condom-filled trashcans and filthy hottubs. Personally, I would not believe such incredible accusations without photographic evidence. The council-members should investigate the massage-parlors personally.

If the council-members would investigate, I am certain that they would get the opposite impression Cotati Police Sgt. Dave Houts wants them to have. One should take what police say about prostitution with a grain of salt. Please investigate for yourself. Other things the city-council will notice:


 * 1) No illegal aliens.
 * 2) No slaves
 * 3) Voluntary work
 * 4) Good working conditions
 * 5) Safe-working conditions
 * 6) No unpleasant odor.

= Antiprostitution-laws violate the separation of church and state. =

Since nothing is wrong with prostitution, ¿why is it against the law? It all goes back to temple-prostitution in the middle eat about 3 thousand years ago:

Some religions in the middle east had temple-prostitution. The ancient hebrews could not compete against temple-prostitution, so they declared pleasure a damnable sin. That is why prostitution is illegal and half the men here have sexually mutilated genitals.

The only reason prostitution is illegal is on religious grounds. All other excuses are just excuses for skirting around the religious issues.

= Antiprostitution-Laws infantilize women. =

Laws telling women that they cannot be prostitutes basically tell women that they are not competent to decide what to do. If we will go down this road, ¿why not just take the vote away from women too? Perhaps, all women should be barefoot and pregnant. Evidently, the suffragettes and feminists were wrong. That is the message this legislation sends.

= These new regulations which require licensing might be nothing more than a fee-grab. =

= Crime in the alleged bawdyhouses =

Other than prudes causing trouble, ¿how many times in the last decade have the police had to respond to an incident in an alleged cathouse in Cotati? I honestly do not know, but I suspect that the answer is 0.

= Disease =

In the bordellos of Nevada, one finds 0 incidents of aids-infection in 30 years. As stated in the New York Times, the rate of AIDS infection among indoor prostitutes who do not use intravenous narcotics and use condoms is only half of 1 percent (.5%). Among the aforementioned group, no evidence exists of these prostitutes spreading AIDS to their patrons. ¿Do you really want to force prostitution onto the street where the AIDS-Rate is upto 49%?

= Safety =

In the bordellos of Nevada,no murder or rape has happened ever. Streetwalking is extremely dangerous:

Streetwalkers are routinely, raped and murdered. The rapists and murders are sometimes clients, sometimes police, sometimes pimps and sometimes serial killers. Potterat et al., 2004 states that the homicide-rate of prostitutes is 204 per 100,000 ——  that is the highest homicide-rate of any human group. The murder-rate of taxicab-drivers is 29 per 100,000. Almost all murdered prostitutes are streetwalkers. Indeed, the only reference to a murder of a prostitute in a first-world country I could find in a bawdyhouse in the first-world is in the cathouse Pascha Köln, Germany. In the firs-world, millions of streetwalker are victims of violent assault annually and thousands are murdered. annually.

Serial killers
All of these serial killers targeted streetwalkers:

Jack the Ripper killed 5 streetwalkers, Gary Ridgway (aka the Green River Killer) confessed to killing 48 streetwalkers, Robert Hansen murdered between 15 and 21 streetwalkers, Robert Pickton, Steve Wright murdered 5 streetwalkers.

What passing this legislation means.
If this legislation passes, it will force prostitution onto the streets. This will lead to more rapes and murders. In effect, this legislation is prorape, promurder, and antiwoman. That would make Cotati prorape, promurder, and antiwoman. The city-council would be prorape, promurder, and antiwoman. The city-council-members in general and those voting for the legislation in particular would be prorape, promurder, and antiwoman. You the city-councilmembers should ask yourselves:

“¿Do I want to be prorape, promurder, and antiwoman or antirape, antimurder, and prowoman?”

= Persecution =

These regulations will lead to persecution of alleged prostitutes. ¿Do these women deserve persecution? ¿What did they ever do to you. Most of these women are mothers. ¿Do you really want to tear apart families? ¿Have you no heart? These regulations will lead to police raping them ——  when one criminalizes prostitution, history shows that police extort not arresting.

= Decriminalize prostitution =

rather than this wrong-headed legislation, ¿why not do the right thing and decriminalize prostitution in Cotati?