Economics and human rights
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Let’s look at weapons as a commodity. Potentially dangerous, but protecting life, useful, developing the economy of goods, from the sale of which the tax is paid, i.e. the budget is replenished.
Buying a weapon for self-defense is no more dangerous than buying pyrotechnics, cars, motorcycles, pneumatic hammers, chainsaws, knives or axes.
The state is obliged to help citizens to protect their lives and property, that’s why the police exist. But the police will not have time to arrive at the time of rape, murder, robbery. So, the state can not provide citizens with protection of their life and health. Therefore, it is obliged to allow them to do this on their own; to acquire weapons for self-defense.
Everything is extremely simple. On one side of the scale is the observance of human rights to life, to health, to work, to rest, as well as budget revenues, which means pensions, allowances, roads, kindergartens and schools. And on the other side of the scale is a violation of human rights, a budget deficit, low pensions, bad roads, queues in kindergartens, underfunding of medicine and science, crowded school classes, street crime and serious crimes. So what makes sense to vote?
The criminal will remain a criminal, regardless of what he was armed with a crime – a knife or a pistol.
A law-abiding citizen will not cease to be a law-abiding citizen if he has a gun under his jacket.
If this is not the case, how is the policeman different from the bandit? After all, they are both armed.
Quite often, before, drivers kept a mount – a heavy metal club – under the seat. Almost all drivers, almost every car.
How often did they use it?
Do policemen often shoot?
Do gunmen often shoot?
Why then would law-abiding citizens suddenly open fire?
The presence of goods on store shelves and vegetables on other people’s gardens does not make people thieves.
The presence of beautiful women and men does not always lead to adultery.
The weakness of children is not a provocation of violence.
The sale of knives does not lead to an increase in murders and does not force a person to kill.
There is a notion of presumption of innocence, so it is necessary to separate “flies from cutlets”.
Theft is a crime, a deviation from the norm. The presence of this fact does not lead to the closure of shops and the enclosing of fields and gardens with barbed wire.
Murder is a crime, but not an excuse for prohibiting the sale of knives, axes, hunting rifles, etc.
Adultery is a personal sin within the same family and is her private affair. It is not good for the state to interfere with the citizens’ bedcourts, if these matters do not threaten the life and health of other people.
Cruelty to the weak – children, women – is a crime. But not an excuse for banning family or procreation.
Let’s focus not on the units of geeks and criminals, but on millions of law-abiding taxpayers.
The legalization of weapons for self-defense, the legalization of the carrying of weapons is not a matter of morality or morality, it is not a matter of the policy of “whatever happens”, but the simple and unconditional observance of the human right to life and health.
From the economic point of view, the legalization of weapons is the preservation of the life and health of taxpayers, the reduction of budget expenditures, new jobs in the legal arms industry – shops, sellers, repairs, maintenance… and this again taxes, taxes, incomes and budget revenues. This decrease in the level of street crime, a reduction in the number of robberies and crimes against the individual.
And it is profitable. It is advantageous for the state to respect human rights.
The right to bear and own weapons is an instrument for protecting life and health – this is part of the human right to life and health. The economic effect, the impact on the country’s budget, the impact on the criminal situation in the country from the legalization of carrying weapons is very significant. Crime and budget expenditures are declining, and budget revenues are increasing.
Everyone has the right to life. It follows from this that he has the right to defend his life. Than? This is regulated by law. A knife and a baseball bat, an ax… or a gun.
It is important to remember that the threat of life from bandits comes against the requirements of the law.
Hence, the right to own and bear arms is an unconditional human right, for this is his right to life.
The legalization of the arms market leads to the confidence of citizens in immediate protection, without waiting for the arrival of police. Simultaneously with the replenishment of the budget, the legal sale of weapons reduces the number of illegal, non-taxable sales.
Think about it. How much does an hour of police work for a country? How many hours does a policeman spend to work on illegal weapons? How many hours will the policeman (police) spend on the investigation of the crime? Multiply by the number of crimes against the person and property. And you will learn how much the budget will save from a simple line in the law “free acquisition, storage and carrying of firearms are allowed”.
However, it can be even easier. If the government is afraid of its citizens, if it manages so that there is a risk of insurrection, then arms prohibit power. If the government manages well, if it does not fear its citizens, then the weapon will be legalized. The rest is wickedness.
If the reader has doubts about the reliability of the data, objectivity and usefulness of the author’s arguments, if the reader continues to be tormented by doubts and habitual notions about what is acceptable, if the reader thinks that legalization is threatening problems, then let’s change the angle slightly.
According to the UN declaration, and according to the reasonable thinking of any person about his personal life, human rights are primary relative to all other rights and interests. And if the author managed to convince the reader that the right to arms is the realization of the human right to life and health, then the state is obliged to realize this right by legalizing the possession and carrying of weapons.
Does it threaten anything? Maybe. Although the facts say the opposite. Nevertheless, if we talk in terms of threats, then we must immediately abandon the sale of knives and axes in stores, prohibit the use of cars, trains, planes and much more. For their use is also associated with threats and consequences.
That is why the author insists that it is necessary to discuss not so much the harm or benefit of legalization, but how the violation violates human rights. If it violates – legalization is necessary.
It is from these positions that all other issues and prohibitions set forth in this book will be considered.
In the modern world, human rights are primary. Every single person, not an abstract society or state. The rest is cunning.
Prostitution and the right to life, health, work, rest
Or … “The state! Do not go to bed with people! Take care of a worthy deed!”
Strange as it may seem, talking about crime, which can be greatly reduced through the legalization of weapons, immediately leads us to the question, and at the expense of which the criminals live, where the maximum of crimes against the person is committed, where the state also does not want to ensure the inhabitants the right to life and health. And also for work and rest. The first thing that comes to mind when talking about crime is drugs and prostitution.
Let’s start with prostitution – one of the types of criminal business that is not criminalized by the will of people employed in it, but by the will of a state that does not want to legalize their work.
The same was in the United States when introducing a “dry law”. Illegal alcohol immediately became the cause of the growth of crime.
If tomorrow some state wants to prohibit milk, milkmen will fall into the sphere of criminal attention. They will forbid treatment – the crime will be dealt with by doctors.
So is it reasonable to prohibit?
A person has the right to work. This right is as immutable as the right to life.
Prostitution is work. If someone does not believe – he can try and make sure.
Maybe this work is not prestigious, it may not be very aesthetic, someone may not like this profession, but so are the sanitizers or pathologists, too, are not among the prestigious professions. The janitor is also not prestigious. Or the waiter.
But just as the state provides the right to work for a nurse, nurse or social worker, it is obliged to ensure the right to work and rest for a prostitute (prostitute), and hence to legalize prostitution.
Not all people want to be prostitutes. But not everyone wants to be policemen, doctors, teachers, plumbers, politicians, officials, dancers, masseurs, hairdressers or programmers.
A woman does not become a criminal by choosing the work of a janitor or waitress. But it becomes, choosing the work of a prostitute.
A waitress woman can call the police if the client does not pay if she behaves badly. And the waitress will get protection, and the client – the punishment. But a prostitute can not.
However, not only a woman, but also a man. For, as prostitutes are of both sexes, so are the clients.
I ask the reader not to consider the author as a sexist. The author will use the word prostitute, woman or she only in the above context. The context of the two sexes is both clients and employees. The female genus will be used solely to reduce the amount of text, as well as the most common type of sexual services. Women’s services for men.
From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 3.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 4.
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Article 5.
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 7.
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
Article 23.
(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
Article 24.
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
Article 25.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
The most important thing in the legalization of prostitution is the reduction of crime around her. Legalized prostitutes are starting to pay taxes to the country, not the mafia and not the pimp. Both the client and the employee are protected by the police from crime (we also remember the right to arms). The crime ceases to receive money from prostitution and weakens. The police do not spend their time and taxpayers’ money on catching a person who decided to rest and catch a person who decided to earn by providing the client with such a rest option.
It would probably be rather strange if the police broke into a cafe and arrested a musician, waitresses and visitors at a time when some are working and others are resting. At the same time, both of them regularly pay taxes.
But the law and the philistine consider the musician and the waiter to be a “white profession”, and “prostitution” is a black one. After all, hardly anyone objects to the fact that prostitution is a profession. Segregated, discriminated in some countries, banned, but a profession. Those. there is discrimination on the basis of occupation, activity, profession.
But who cares? As once the “white people” did not care about the rights of immigrants from Africa.
As for family and morality, it does not depend on the employee, but on the client. In the cafe, you can also twist the adultery, destroy the family and spread diseases in the nearest motel. And not only in the cafe, and not only in the motel.
Prostitution, in terms of business – it’s just a service industry.
The service sector is a very profitable branch of the economy. In many countries, this sector (tourism refers to it, for example) brings a significant share of budget revenues.
From the perspective of human rights, the right to engage in prostitution is the right to work and the right to rest.
In terms of sales – a person can sell either the brain or the body (intelligence skills or body skills). We do not declare criminals models working in art institutes or in the open air of artists. The police do not catch athletes, masseurs, ballerinas, models that earn their body. Skills of this body. No one comes to mind to declare a fashion designer, choreographer or coach as a pimp.
All of them are protected by law. They, their life, their work.
And not legalized prostitution threatens the life and health of a prostitute and her client. It increases the number of crimes, contributes to the growth of crime, reduces revenues to the budget and attracts additional budget expenditures.
Legalization of prostitution, on the contrary, leads to the elimination of budgetary costs for catching prostitutes and their clients, to reducing the budget expenditures for investigating criminal incidents in this area, as well as for the receipt of additional taxes from workers in the sphere of sexual services.
Think and count:
How much time does the police spend in the fight against prostitution?
In what amounts does it cost the budget, or rather the taxpayers, that is, you?
And compare, for example, with the amount of taxes paid by prostitutes in Germany or the Netherlands.
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Fortunately, as in the case of weapons, there are examples of countries where prostitution is legalized. This allows us to evaluate this legislative step in the experiment, both from the point of view of the economy and from the point of view of human rights.
Austria
Prostitution in Austria is legal, but it was not always so. The law of 1885 outlawed both prostitutes and their clients and intermediaries.
Only in 1973 the Constitutional Court ruled that this law is contrary to the Constitution. Since then, the number of officially working in Austria, prostitutes varies between 3,500 and 6,000. They serve about 15,000 customers a day. And they pay taxes from their income.
Austrian laws recognize a prostitute as an entrepreneur, oblige to pay taxes, stipulate compulsory medical examination, and also regulate the places and time of their work.
Belgium
Prostitution in Belgium is legal. Prostitutes enjoy the same rights as all working citizens. Including the right to retirement, security and health. All these aspects of life and work of prostitutes in Belgium are fully protected by law. Taxes also regularly come to the treasury.
Bolivia
In Bolivia, prostitution is legal. This is especially noticeable during the strikes of prostitutes, which happen very regularly.
Brazil
Prostitution in Brazil is legal and probably very beneficial for the budget, as the government refused to provide $ 40 billion in AIDS assistance under the terms of the prohibition of prostitution. Ie, logically, the amount of budget revenues from this type of business to the treasury of Brazil is more than $ 40 billion.
United Kingdom
Prostitution in the UK is legal. However, since 2009, contact with a prostitute, who was forced to engage in body trafficking, is criminally punishable, even if the client did not know about the slave position of the employee.
Hungary
In Hungary, a prostitute is a law-abiding entrepreneur and has the same rights and protections as an employee of any other service or trade. A prostitute has the right to open a business, register it and work as legally as any store. Advertising of services is allowed. Including in the newspapers.
Germany
Prostitution in Germany is legal for EU citizens. State bodies protect the rights of prostitutes, the consequence of this is the safe behavior of clients and the absence of criminal activity around this legal business. Prostitution is considered an official profession. A prostitute pays taxes, complies with laws, and after the end of his career, receives a pension, like people from other professions.
About 400,000 women are engaged in prostitution in Germany. The annual turnover of this legal business is approximately 6 billion euros. With this money, taxes are paid in full, replenishing the budget.
In Bonn for the payment of tax by street prostitutes there are special devices similar to automatic machines for parking payment. A prostitute, going to work, pays through this device 6 euros per shift. As a result, in 2011 the city budget received an additional 250 thousand euros. A quarter million extra income only within the same city! The annual turnover of the entire sex industry in Bonn is about 2 billion euros. (28)
The legalization of prostitution in Germany significantly reduced the risk of crime in this business. Prostitutes can complain about the client to the police, file a lawsuit against him.
Of course, legalization gave prostitutes in Germany not only the right to protection, but also the duty to pay taxes, contributions to the pension fund.
Like in any other country, prostitution is one of the favorite topics of political chatterboxes. And most of their arguments are about morality. The historical perspective allows us to take a close look at these moralists and understand the true value of their arguments.
So at the beginning of the 20th century, in Germany, the faction of the Nazi Party (ie Fascists) in the Bundestag was against the legalization of prostitution, because it “threatens the moral and racial bases of the family”. Der Sturmer believed that the adoption of the law on the legalization of prostitution “is beneficial to Marxists and Jews.”
On February 28, 1933, the day after the Reichstag arson, an “Extraordinary Decree on the Protection of the People and the State” was adopted. A man in his right mind can not understand how prostitution and the arson of the Reichstag are connected, but the arson and the “Extraordinary Decree” led to the arrest of tens of thousands of prostitutes throughout Germany.
For example, in Hamburg in the spring and summer of 1933, 3201 women were arrested, only on suspicion of prostitution, 814 of them remained in prison for quite some time.
Prostitutes “disappeared”. The party of the Center of Germany was pleased and voted on March 24, 1933 for giving the government of Hitler emergency powers. The Social Democrats objected to these powers (well, the members of the Communist Party of Germany were already in prison at that time).
Those. in pursuit of morality… Germany received Hitler.
A very clear story for moralists and champions of the prohibition of prostitution. Which is not tricky. As it was said above – the legalization of prostitution ensures human rights for work, life, health and recreation. And human rights and Hitler are diametrically different concepts.
But back to history.
Very soon, the Nazi government, which received full power, softened its moral principles.
On September 9, 1939, the Nazi government issued a decree restoring the regulation of prostitution. The decree stated that “where special prostitution houses still do not exist, the police should organize them in suitable areas for this.” By 1942, the police organized 28 brothels in Berlin. (4) That’s all there is to know about moralists, the price of their words and arguments.
Greece
In Greece, prostitution is also legal. It can be used by men and women who have reached the age of 21. Of course, from their income they pay taxes that supplement the country’s budget. Employees of this profession (as, indeed, the employees of many other professions – cooks, drivers, pilots, etc.) should undergo regular physical examination.
Denmark
In Denmark, by law, only those people who have some other source of income can be engaged in prostitution. (31) There is a certain logic in this. The source of income outside of prostitution allows us to assert that it was not poverty and need that pushed the market for sex services, but something else. To some extent this is an insurance against trafficking in human beings and compulsion to engage in prostitution. A well-fed person is difficult to force something, if he does not like it.
Proponents of morality in this connection want to point out that at the main place of work, a prostitute can be a teacher, an educator, and a trainer. Or a financial worker, a pilot, a bus driver, a waitress. Danes do not care. They are worried about another – some Danes believe that the services of a prostitute must be included in the state social package for the disabled, along with medical assistance.
Israel
Prostitution in Israel is legal. Brothels and pimping are illegal. The annual turnover is approximately $ 2 billion shekels a year. (4)
Spain
Prostitution in Spain is illegal. And this immediately leads to the growth of crime. So, according to Wikipedia, in 2007 in Spain, only officially found 1035 victims of sexual slavery.
However, it is useful for moralists to know certain facts. So in 1076, in some parts of Spain, the ban on prostitution was treated very ingeniously. A woman who was at night in the vicinity of a male bath could be raped with impunity. Such an unusual concern for morality. It was herded, probably also by select moralists…
Morality quite often took very bizarre outlines when it came to prostitution. So in 1325, King Jaime II founded the first red light district in Spain in Valencia and surrounded it with a high wall. The king ordered all women of easygoing demeanor to move into this quarter. It is important to note the word “move”. Those. despite the prohibitions, prostitution continued to exist.
Further medieval moralists did as follows…
Many municipalities began to ask the king to allow them to create the same neighborhoods in their cities. The permission was obtained and the “red lights” appeared in Tarragona in 1325, in Barcelona in 1330, in Castellón in 1401 and in Mallorca in 1411. Also brothels were opened in the kingdom of Valencia in the cities of Orihuela, Elche, Sagunto, Vila-reale, Alsir and Gandia. And before 1450, also in the cities of the kingdom of Aragon: Daroca, Huesca, Jaca, Barbastro, Sobreba, Cataluyde and Zaragoza.
In 1476, Queen Isabella, the wife of King Aragonese Ferdinand, ordered all prostitutes in Castile to pay tax. Probably, to maintain morale in society.
Catholic kings widely distributed licenses to open brothels to city municipalities, charitable organizations and their associates. As a result, brothels were opened in 1479 in cities such as Segovia, Cuenca, Toledo, Valladolid, Logroño, Madrid, Medina del Campo, Palencia, Ecija, Carmona, Sevilla, Cordoba, Granada, Jerez de la Frontera, Malaga, Salamanca, etc. As they say… all for the sake of morality…
Since then, prostitution in Spain has been banned, it has been allowed many more times.
Currently, brothels in Spain are banned, but there are quite a few “clubs” that do not hide much and function as semi-legal brothels.
On 25 January 2005, the Spanish National Court of Justice declared prostitution a legitimate economic activity in the lawsuit between the National Association of Entrepreneurs of Messalina and the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs of Spain. A judge from Barcelona recognized the right of a prostitute to pay contributions to the system of state social insurance, because the woman is engaged in “labor for the benefit of society.” However, the courts referred to the European Court’s decision of 2001, in which prostitution is regarded as a “legal form of economic activity”.