Distractor

The one was a picture of a large number of crosses which Trump said was a burial site for 1000s of white farmers, when it was in fact a memorial following the death of 2 farmers. The memorial was intended to represent all farm deaths of all races. Farm deaths are an issue but the victims are of all races - they kill the farmers, their families and the workers.

There was a video of a political leader singing a song that translates to "Kill the Boer" i.e. kill the white Afrikaans farmer. This video is: a) more than a decade old, b) from a rally of a minority opposition party i.e. not the political party of the people Trump was meeting, c) from a political party that has been losing votes in recent elections, led by someone who was expelled from the ruling party, d) is of a historic protest song from the apartheid era i.e. more than 30 years ago.

This video resulted in a court case, where the court concluded that a "reasonably well-informed person" would understand that when a protest song is sung "even by politicians, the words are not meant to be understood literally, nor is the gesture of shooting to be understood as a call to arms or violence."

This video was a big deal at the time but it's not current, not representative of the government's view, and the person depicted in it is increasingly being sidelined in South African politics.

You're missing the point, this law is not anti-sex work. You can be pro sex work and still be in favour of this law.

Legalising prostitution doesn't make illegal prostitution go away. On the contrary, by normalising prostitution, the demand increases but the legal (voluntary) supply doesn't. This increased demand is then supplied via increased sex trafficking by crime syndicates. This is a huge problem in the Netherlands that they haven't managed to solve in the 25 years prostitution has been legal.

Even for the legally registered prostitutes, the improvements are limited. Financial exploitation and violence remain rampant.

By decriminalising the prostitutes, the Swedes are effectively providing them with legal protection. By criminalising the buyer, they suppress demand, which reduces sex trafficking, and is the best protection for society as a whole.

As a feminist, I'm a staunch advocate of bodily autonomy and have no issue with sex workers. However, what cost should society accept for their right to provide these services? If for every 10 legal prostitutes, 1 additional person is forced into sexual slavery, is that cost worthwhile to you? How about 1 sex slave for every 5 legal prostitutes? How about a 1 to 2 ratio?

According to this source:

the [Netherlands] government struggles to calculate the number of individuals in its regulated sex trade (numbers range from 6,000 to 30,000)

The law has also failed to curb trafficking, with a reported 5,000 to 8,000 victims each year, two thirds of which for purposes of sexual exploitation

So, best case scenario = 30,000 prostitutes vs 3,333 (5000 x 2/3) sex slaves = 1 slave for every 9 registered prostitutes

Worst case scenario = 6,000 prostitutes vs 5,333 sex slaves = 8 slaves for every 9 registered prostitutes

Now some of these people would have been trafficked anyway, but there is a lot of evidence that trafficking has increased substantially since legalising prostitution.

So, where do you draw the line? Personally, I find the societal cost to be unacceptably high to justify legalisation of prostitution.

I agree from a bodily autonomy perspective that everyone should have the right to do what they wish with their bodies. If the sex industry was primarily individuals or small scale brothels, with everything voluntary, then legalising prostitution would make sense. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

The sex industry is huge, with large crime syndicates involved, so legalising prostitution in the Netherlands resulted in higher sex trafficking. Once prostitution was normalised, the demand for services increased but the supply didn't. Human traffickers bring in women to meet the demand and the Netherlands government haven't been able to stop it.

There are a lot of online sources confirming this, including this recent (long) report: Failed Promises: The history of legal prostitution and sex trafficking in the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

An e-book and a sofa

Thanks for the summary, very helpful.

To my knowledge, the words man/woman are not originally a social construct - they're the biological terms for human males and females (like a bitch is a female canine, and a rooster is a male chicken). However, as science has advanced, it's become increasingly clear that biology is not as binary as male and female.

On the other hand, we have binary gender roles, which are a social construct. Since external genetalia generally form the basis for assigning gender roles, there is a very close but not exact overlap between gender roles and biological sex. The argument is that since gender roles don't always match biology, the words man/woman are social constructs. Effectively, they're trying to adapt the original definitions, but are not unexpectedly meeting with resistance.

Going back to this specific law, my immediate question would be: what determines whether you're biologically male or female? Is it your current genetalia or the genetalia you were born with, i.e. what about trans people that have transitioned? If it is the genetalia you're born with, then what about hermaphrodites? If it's your genetics, then what about intersex people? Etc.

The law wasn't written to account for all these complex biological possibilities. So it sounds to me as if the scottish courts were trying to simplify by effectively letting a dr. make that decision. I assume as a next step the UK will face court cases challenging the definition of "biological".

Adding to the complexity, in my opinion, is that this particular case is about equality. This raises difficult questions about privilege, and nature vs nurture. The chess example comes to mind, where trans women have been excluded from the women's only tournament. The main tournament is open to all genders, so they can still play, just not in the women's only tournament. The argument is that due to gender roles, cis women are likely to have faced much higher barriers to learning chess as children than trans women. Those disadvantages from enforced gender roles is why the women's league even exists, as an attempt to encourage more women to participate, and trans women wouldn't have had to overcome the same barriers.

So, coming back to equality, what is more important, your current gender presentation, or the gender role in which you were raised? The answer to that question depends on so many factors in each situation, that I'm not convinced trying to force people into existing definitions make sense. It feels to me as if we need new legal definitions with more categories, but it is going to be extremely difficult to create definitions that adequately address the issues.

The description was clear enough to me 🤷🏻‍♀so I clicked the link. She has an awesome voice.

Thanks

I've been debating trying this but I'm not an IT expert, so feeling overwhelmed and nervous to even start. Do you have any guides or websites that you could recommend?

Sadly, not true. Most people in South Africa still drive manual cars because they're cheaper. The drivers aren't any better. Anyone can learn to drive a manual, it just takes a little longer.

Personally, I suspect that automatic cars are safer because there is less the driver can do wrong in an emergency.

A big issue with Switzerland is that the EU lacks direct democracy i.e. the ability for the people to force a vote.

It's actually pretty awesome. I mean sometimes they end up forcing a vote on stupid things but generally it's a safeguard that allows the people to block legal changes. So a situation like the Trump tariffs couldn't happen in Switzerland if the majority of the population objected.

Personally, I think the EU would be a stronger democracy if they added it, and the odds of Switzerland joining would increase substantially.

I feel you, although I'm not sure this counts as minor

The 2nd half of the article also mentions an AI generated song released by China's state run media.

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2025-04-03/-Liberation-Day-or-a-price-to-pay--1CgrB0bz7by/index.html