Government Attack on Prostitution ends in woman's death
Sad news this morning (here and here) that a lady involved in the "high end" prostitution business killed herself because of government prosecution -- she knew her life was over since she would be in prison for the best
years of her remaining life (from her perspective).
Her mother found the "D.C. Madam" hanged in the shed -- with a note announcing her intention.
Shows what needless government regulation of a peaceful consensual business leads to. Sad it had to end this way -- regardless of what one's personal moral convictions are on this issue.
Comments (16)
who gives a shit, who gives a fuck
Published: May 1, 2008 5:41 PM
Guys don't pay hookers for the sex, they pay them so they LEAVE afterwards.
Published: May 1, 2008 6:04 PM
Post an intelligent and civil comment
Published: May 1, 2008 6:58 PM
New Zealand recently legalised prostitution in order to better police the industry. The effort is on preventing young children from being involved and from women being intimidated or coerced to participate against their will. It also funds free counselling and STD screening services so women can find help anonymously.
From all accounts it has been a success.
Published: May 1, 2008 7:27 PM
It also shows what having a list of clients can get one into. Rather than threaten to release the list, she should have released it widely and publicly as soon as she was arrested.
This was no suicide.
As far as legalization goes, every experience with decriminalizing, regardless of the consensual acts involved, is always successful. That's what the "free market" is all about.
Why is anyone surprised when liberty works?
Published: May 1, 2008 7:51 PM
Curt,
Do you have any evidence to back up your claim that the whore didn't off herself?
Published: May 1, 2008 8:26 PM
Owen: It also funds free counselling and STD screening services so women can find help anonymously.
So New Zealand subsidizes prostitution? That can't be good. What do they need help with anyway if they are just running a business?
Published: May 1, 2008 9:28 PM
I am not sure if I buy the suicide story or if I think she may have been killed to keep a politician from being embarrassed, but either way the government was the driving force behind this woman's death.
Published: May 1, 2008 9:52 PM
The most curious thing is why this woman? Why her enterprise alone? Open up any indy paper in DC and you will find multiple similar services, and yet the government does nothing. There is much more to this story than we will ever know.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Published: May 2, 2008 12:50 AM
Yeah. Suicide. I buy that.
Published: May 2, 2008 2:46 AM
I concur. It seems mighty fishy that she should threaten to "out" dozens of high profile men and then be found dead.
It might have had more to do with some peoples reputations than the government.
I guess we might never know...
Published: May 2, 2008 5:27 AM
Do you have any evidence to back up your claim that the wh*re didn't off herself?
Unless you were in the room when the police discovered the body, you don't have any evidence that she committed suicide either. Other than a handful of people, we are all relying on hearsay and media reports.
So, let's look at the media reports. I find it interesting that this woman predicted several times that government officials who used her services would kill her and make it look like a suicide.
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/may2008/050108_madam_predicted.htm
You may think that Prison Planet is not a reliable news source, but the deceased made this prediction (of a murder disguised as a suicide) herself, in her own words.
I find it even more interesting that it took me about 8 seconds to find this report (including a link to an mp3 recording of Ms. Palfrey making this dire prediction) using Google. But none of the mainstream news media sources even refer to the fact that the deceased made these predictions, repeatedly, over the course of many years.
Instead, there is widespread quoting of a second-hand source that declares the opposite -- that she was suicidal and vowed to commit suicide.
Why not at least report the claims that Ms. Palfrey made herself that she would be murdered and it would be made to look like a suicide?
How is it that Time, CNN, the AP and all the rest totally missed or ignored Ms. Palfrey's own words on the subject?
Published: May 2, 2008 7:38 AM
This is a good topic for a discussion on back-alley economics. I pose this question: How exactly does regulation (whether it be by criminal or civil law), of certain illegal practices, that are socially acceptable by many such as protstitution, assisted suicide, misdemeanor drug use, seat belts, motorcycle helmets and others ultimately affect the overall free market system?
I welcome comments here or for an author to write an article attempting to address this question, so that others may respond through debate.
Published: May 2, 2008 3:18 PM
John, that's pretty easy.
Among other changes, there is a list which has been demonstrated over and over:
1) The price increases. There are fewer providers, those that are left have higher costs for evading the law themselves.
2) Because the transactions now occur in an environment of coercion and force, the more ruthless practitioners "rise to the top". Business practices that would otherwise put purely voluntary operations out of business (violent pimps are a perfect example) thrive.
3) Corruption of the state's agents flourishes.
4) Contempt for the law becomes more wide spread, since it is even more demonstrable that "the law" has nothing to do with right and wrong.
5) Vast sums in treasure and lives are spent enforcing the law, which in the end comes to absolutely nothing when the law is eventually repealed (alcohol prohibition was an example of this in spades).
Published: May 3, 2008 1:04 PM
Last year, I was conscripted by the state to serve on a Jury to decide a case involving prostitution. She alleged that her husband brought her to Australia, and immediately forced her into prostitution.
One of the defence arguments, to support the case that she was a willing whore, was that if she had been crying as much as she said, that would have been noticed, and been bad for business. The Manageress of the brothel (sex-working is decriminalised in NSW) said that it was not uncommon for prostitutes to cry about their 'careers', but they didn't have anything else by which they could earn money. In short, the 'Happy Hooker' is pure myth. the turnover at this brothel was high, because the 'staff' wanted to get out of the business as soon as they could afford it!
The principle of projection is where you blame other people for your own thoughts. If she had often thought of suicide, she might have disguised the source of the thoughts as 'others', or 'they'. I do find it plausible that she might have been depressed for years, and the depression finally got to her.
Published: May 4, 2008 8:34 PM
Deborah Jeane Palfrey stated publicly that she wouldn't commit suicide. She stated so because obviously she was at risk in being "suicided" by the U.S. government given what she knew. Below you can listen to her said statement and the entirety of a July 23, 2007 interview with Palfrey:
"DC Madam Predicted She Would Be Suicided: 'Rape, beating, maiming, disfigurement and more than likely murder disguised in the form of just another jailhouse accident or suicide would await me,' Palfrey wrote--Time Magazine curiously quick to re-affirm suicide story," Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet, May 1, 2008 http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/may2008/050108_madam_predicted.htm
As an Associated Press report stated, "Blanche Palfrey had no sign that her daughter was suicidal, and there was no immediate indication that alcohol or drugs were involved, police Capt. Jeffrey Young said." See:
"Police: 'D.C. madam' kills herself in Fla. coastal town," Mitch Stacy with contribution from Matt Apuzzo and Matthew Barakat, Associated Press (AP), May 1, 2008 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080501/ap_on_re_us/escort_list
Dan Moldea, who is the only source being quoted in the media as to Palfrey's supposed suicide threat, is an apparent fabricator of quotes useful in backing up the U.S. government's position. For his apparent fabrication of interview quotes with Sirhan B. Sirhan, see:
"The Curious Case of Dan Moldea," Jim DiEugenio, Probe, Vol. 5, No. 4, May-June 1998 issue http://www.ctka.net/pr598-mold.html
For more on that, see:
"Professional Conspiracy Debunker Claims Friendship with Deborah Jeane Palfrey," Kurt Nimmo, Infowars, May 1, 2008 http://www.infowars.com/?p=1873
See also:
"Palfrey Considered Call Girl's 'Suicide' Possible Murder: DC Madam employee also found hanged despite family's insistence she was upbeat, positive," Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet, May 1, 2008 http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/may2008/050108_possible_murder.htm
"Suiciding" is a common method in Western-intelligence-style "wetwork" assassinations of people who have information damaging to said governments. For example, see "Who Killed Jonathan Moyle?: A British Journalist and the Iraqgate Factor," Colin Barraclough, Columbia Journalism Review, July/August 1993.
Published: May 5, 2008 11:09 AM