Greetings all, As usual I shall address each person in the order in which they posted.
Decay,
I believe you when you say that there will be a check on the number of people visiting these brothels because of the stigma associated with such places. I also believe you when you say there will be some opposition from women's groups, churches etc... but I still believe that legalizing prostitution sanctions the 'industry'. When we make something legal we are indirectly saying that our society will now accept this behavior. It may be a gradual acceptance, but it is an acceptance nonetheless. The best way to introduce a vice into society is gradually, that way when society finally awakes to what has happened, the practice has already been firmly entrenched.
The issue here now is how we can hope to reverse or stem this tide, and in order to do that, we have to look at the root causes, and one of them is to increase awareness (as you pointed out) not only of the dangers of AIDS but of the detrimental effects prostitution has on society, both in moral and economic terms.
Kekeni, with the Cuban example, Lau diba lasi, but I guess those 'enterprising' businessmen & women will see a way to make money by running brothels and paying women a commission. Now, if the majority of businesses in our country are owned by foreigners, does it not also seem likely that they will be the ones who will be at the forefront of this industry?
We will in effect be pimping ourselves to the world (literally).
Inmate, I have to agree with you about a positive relationship between morality and economic development. This is not some mystical effect however, because in a moral society, the costs of doing business are greatly reduced. For example, in a moral society, there is less danger of having your business robbed, which means you can afford to spend that 'saved' money which would otherwise have been spent on security, on other more productive areas,, like investing in new machines. Also in a moral society, contracts would be more likely to be honored, this means that there will be less money spent on lawyers (which with all due respect to those in Law, is a waste of productive resources) and more money spent on the actual business. It also creates a positive environment for people to do business in. Morality and Prosperity, I believe, as Inmate said are kith and kin.
Decay, I will have to change this style of replying because it makes my responses unecessarily lengthy.
Bro, Ben Carson was also a hero of mine in High School and continues to be.
The issue of single parent families is an interesting one, and I cannot stress enough the strength and love of mothers who raise children on their own. It is interesting to note however, since you mentioned African Americans (I hope I am not going totally off track) that there is among them a very high rate of out-of-wedlock birth, and single parent families. There are consequences to society of having a relatively large proportion of the population raised in single parent homes (and God forbid, homosexual homes). I'm sure your sociological training will come in useful in this discussion and perhaps you could enlighten us on some possible effects. I believe Inmate gave some possible effects.
On another matter, I take it you are in the States. Did you manage to watch Tavis Smiley on the
The state of the Black family on C-Span? Dr Ben Carson was on that show and I only managed to watch the first panel. He was on the second panel which I didn't manage to watch. If you or anyone else saw it, what are your thoughts on it? I was fortunate to have watched it over the net. For those of you who are curious about C-Span, check it out, it's quite informative:
http://www.cspan.org/
Inmate, bro I still haven't received it. Email blo mi mas bagarap or. Could you just post it here instead?
Thanks