“Those who give a little liberty to gain a little freedom, deserve neither!”
George Santayana
In an effort to protect the public from itself and frustrated by an inability to eradicate the world’s oldest profession, Manchester’s police, its mayor and aldermen and two state reps have turned to state government to solve their problem. The legislators have sponsored an admittedly punitive bill for the upcoming Legislative session targeting prostitutes who work the city’s streets and the “johns” who solicit their services.
The proposed law would permit police to seize the car of a “first time john”, requiring him to pay towing and storage charges for the vehicle, whether or not he is convicted of solicitation. A subsequent arrest and conviction would result in the permanent confiscation of the offending party’s automobile. This legislation is a hybrid of a 1989 Oregon statute which, although it has withstood an initial court challenge, was primarily designed to address the problem of drunk drivers.
Yet, before passing another law, it’s reasonable to ask about the end being sought. If it’s to regulate individual morality, their efforts will be doomed to fail. If, on the other hand, Manchester’s citizens are concerned about the impact of prostitution on the character and tranquility of their neighborhoods, there are other simple and effective remedies … ones not requiring New Hampshire’s citizens to cede their liberties in the process.
Residents of Charleston, South Carolina, for example, faced the reality their neighborhood had become little more than an open-air market for narcotics traffickers. Rather than looking to government for a solution, the people took action themselves. They organized neighborhood patrols, stood in groups beside the pushers, video taped buyers and recorded license plates of strangers in their neighborhood. Potential buyers got the message, demand dried up and the pushers moved on. A similar program of “monitoring” the prostitutes and their johns could produce similar results.
The proposed legislation, however, would permit the government to effectively fine individuals and, in some instances, seize and dispose of their personal property without having to convict them of any crime … without due process! Consider similar laws in states such as New Jersey where the merest allegation of a crime resulted in the confiscation and disposition of personal property … or the legacy of horror stories from abuses by the IRS before today’s era of a taxpayers bill of rights. Like so many government programs … no responsibility and no accountability!
Proponents will argue current laws are ineffectual, protecting the perpetrators, while the measures being proposed are both reasonable and essential to getting prostitutes and their johns off the streets. If a few innocent people occasionally suffer, it’ll be a regrettable cost to ensure the morality and security of our cities and towns.
Those individuals ought to seriously consider that while the use of Draconian measures to solve today’s “crisis” may seem benign and not impact their lives, someone else’s solution to tomorrow’s dangers may cost them dearly.
Clearly, our democracy is not an efficient system. Its inefficiencies are numerous, but represent the price we Americans must pay to preserve our most basic liberties. Zealots, however well-meaning, must remember that in a free society, the government has no right nor any obligation to protect its people from their own follies, nor can the government force its citizens to act wisely and responsibly through threat or coercion. Rather, it can only seek to educate, reason with and persuade its people … particularly in areas where individual morality and “victimless crimes”, such as prostitution, are concerned.
Laws abrogating our rights of due process are not new, having their origins in efforts to target coastal bootleggers during George Washington’s Administration. By the mid-1980s their scope had been significantly expanded to provided additional weapons in the war on drugs. Today, they have spread like an undetected cancer, covering a wide range of local and state criminal and civil offenses across the nation. With scarcely any public outcry, Americans have slowly but inexorably acquiesced some of their fundamental rights, particularly those protecting them from the loss of life, liberty and property without due process and from unreasonable search and seizure, frequently in the name of saving us from ourselves.
In enacting laws which tamper with individual liberties, we must be ever vigilant. The greater an apparent need to “safeguard” the citizens of our democracy, the more imperative it becomes to sacredly preserve our constitutional rights, ensuring America remains free and its government continues to be responsive to the will of its people and their vehicle for peaceful change without infringing on the rights of any citizen.
