[WS:] I agree with your general point, but I'd take exception to characterizing prostitution as a victimless crime. More often than not, some form of coercion of sex workers occurs, and this creates vicitmization, just as child labor or sweatshops do. I think conservative attitude toward prostitution is rather ambiguous - on the one hand it is a business contract between private parties, which they support, but on the other it is "promiscuity" or sex outside a family structure, which many of their constituents oppose.
More generally, conservatives and libertarians are not against society, they are against a certain type of society, one that can be characterized as "nurturing" (i.e. providing protections and means of subsistence.) The society type they support is a "bipolar" one - in which the upper classes have almost unlimited freedom and protections and the lower classes are subjected to stern discipline and social control. Corey Robin made that point quite nicely is his book "The Reactionary Mind."
>From that pov, the proper meaning of Thatcher's quip is "There is no
such thing as a nurturing society (aka welfare state,) only the market
that allow freedom of action to those with the means to pursue it,
and the patriarchal family that disciplines and takes care of everyone
else." This is the essence of the "subsidiarity doctrine"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity.
Wojtek
On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 10:27 PM, Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:
>
> On Mar 27, 2012, at 9:56 PM, Mike Ballard wrote:
>>
>> Carrol said:
>> You are still confusing moral categories with ontological categories.
>> Individualism as a theory of society is quite consistent with opposition
>> to
>> individualism as an ethical canon.
>> In other words it would have been quite consistent for Thatcher to
>> condemn
>> individualist behavior even while asserting individualism as a social
>> theory
>> (society does not exist, only individuals and families).
>
>
> The contradiction--and it is a humungous one--is between Thatcher's
> statement that "society does not exist" and her vicious upholding of laws
> condemning victimless crimes (crimes incapable of giving rise to a tort
> action in civil law) such as incest, pornography, drug use, prostitution,
> blasphemy, and so on as "crimes against society." Such laws are all
> expressions of the totalitarian view of "society" (identified with the
> political institutions of the ruling class) as a super-individual endowed
> with absolute sovereign power over its "members." Thatcher was
> disingenuously portraying that notion of "society" as being held by the
> "Left" whereas in practice she was among its most eager proponents.
>
>
> Shane Mage
>
> "L'après-vie, c'est une auberge espagnole. L'on n'y trouve que ce qu'on a
> apporté."
>
> Bardo Thodol
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
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-- Wojtek http://wsokol.blogspot.com/