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That's a great synopsis and review, wutitiz.
I don't know if I agree or not with your thoughts about Seattle, but I've gotten a taste of the nanny state you mentioned in Portland. A couple of met kids live there, so I visit from time to time, and as an Idahoan I noticed a lot of nanny things there.
Some are good, others are irritating.
Here in Idaho, for instance, where I live, drivers all own the streets as soon as they get in a car. A pedestrian waiting at an major intersection that has only 2 stop signs will be waiting a long time to cross the street because driver don't stop for them. I've seen a lot of pedestrians get hit and some killed because of this in my many years here.
In Portland, I was startled at first when I was a pedestrian. When I came to a marked crossing, all the cars join g in both directions stopped as soon as I was at the curb. I thought that was a very good thing.
The next day, I crossed the same street at the same place to go to a small market to buy a can of coffee and a few other things, and was shocked that I wasn't given a bag for them automatically. Until then I didn't know I had to bring my own bag or I would have to pay for one. Since I had only a few bucks on me, I had to go put some stuff back to buy a bag.
And I thought that was a bad thing.
Those experiences tend to sum up my general attitude about Portland. The mix of good and bad happens to me constantly there, while here in my hometown, it's all up to a person. I have to say that even though I didn't like not automatically getting a new bag with my groceries, I could understand the rationale, as Portland is a big town, and big towns produce a lot of garbage.
Vice is kind of like garbage. I think most people have a taste for a little vice now and then, men and women alike, but what vice is to someone may not be vice to someone else. My hometown has never had a full-time strip joint in it in it's entire history, but when I was a kid growing up in the 50s, there were about a half dozen brothels downtown, and the citizens thought nothing of them. If anything, I think a lot of women thought having them was a good thing, so drunks out on the town wouldn't be hitting on them or their daughters.
My town was not unusual in this; there were legal brothels all over the state, pretty much like Nevada. It was a county option, so some towns had them, and others not. They were all regulated by specific laws and codes.
And while there was never a full-time strip club in town, 'revues', troupes of traveling strippers, used to come through regularly all the time, and the bar owner would advertise their arrivals in the local paper. When I came home from the Navy in 1969, all the brothels were closed. The revues lasted until the late 70s before they faded away too.
But at the same time, the state liquor stores were open later than they once were, and open more days a week- 6 instead of 5. And i could buy a 6-pack of beer on Sunday. And while there was no nudity in adult establishments any more, all I had to do was turn on HBO and got as much nudity as I wanted.
A guy tried to open an adult bookstore here once, and the city fathers ran him out of town because the local bigwig politician didn't like the idea. And this has always been a conservative town politically.
I'm pretty sure Portland was a lot like Seattle and a lot like my hometown back in the day.
I'm liberal, but I have a streak of Libertarian in me, as many folks do on either side of the political divide. While my hometown would never be called a nanny, I found just as much nannying going on here as I did in Portland. It only differed in the nannying, not the willingness to tell others what they should or should not do.
I think there will always be those who seek out a little vice, whether it's an illegal card game or a night in a hooker's arms, and there will always be those who disapprove of such behavior.
I think that there is less tolerance in general today of both, and I think it's been a long growing divide, just like a lot of other stuff going on. I can see the social value in each, too, as practical control mechanisms for a peaceful society.
And while I'm liberal in a lot of things, I see regulated vice as being not a bad thing so much as a way to keep the peace. After all both vice and virtue are voluntary, and which one chooses is as much a result of a person's upbringing than anything else.
And I'm not very disposed to be required to follow someone else's notions of both, either. I think there are far too many of us who are all too willing to tell others what to do.
As far as I can see, both vice and virtue are equally vulnerable to corruption. The only difference is the kind of corruption, and one side is a much easier target than the other when it comes to finger pointing. But maybe that's the price we all pay for the society we get.
And for sure, the only constant is the fact that things like vice and virtue are shifty, and swing back and forth constantly. There is always some new way to express either one happening all the time.
The crosswalk thing is interesting to me. I used to live in Seattle and run in Green Lake Park. I had to go across a marked crosswalk to get to the park, and rarely did anyone stop, including police cruisers. Now I live in Bellevue (Seattle suburb) and there are a couple of marked crosswalks near me that I have to traverse, both as driver and pedestrian. It's hit or miss, but much more likely here that cars will stop to let me cross as a pedestrian. If I'm driving I always stop for pedestrians waiting to cross; waves are exchanged. If we could all just stop at crosswalks we would have a better society.
Not true. For example, Texas has some of the best and most liberal. CT is extremely conservative and a waste of time. If you are in the Hartford /Springfield area, go to Springfield.
Then Texas isn't typical. The point I am making is that it doesn't matter whether it is a liberal or conservative state. Some have strict laws with strip clubs and such and others don't.
Virginia has some of the strictest laws I have seen and when I was growing up there, it was definitely a conservative state. On the other hand, Oregon has some of the looses strip club laws and it is much more of a liberal state, though at the time it use to be a more red state, not sure I would call that conservative for Oregon, they tend to have a Live and Let Live attitude here.
The crosswalk thing is interesting to me. I used to live in Seattle and run in Green Lake Park. I had to go across a marked crosswalk to get to the park, and rarely did anyone stop, including police cruisers. Now I live in Bellevue (Seattle suburb) and there are a couple of marked crosswalks near me that I have to traverse, both as driver and pedestrian. It's hit or miss, but much more likely here that cars will stop to let me cross as a pedestrian. If I'm driving I always stop for pedestrians waiting to cross; waves are exchanged. If we could all just stop at crosswalks we would have a better society.
Portland is one of the only places I have been where cars will stop for you just about every time.
Portland is one of the only places I have been where cars will stop for you just about every time.
It's a strictly enforced law.
That's what happens when one way of thought becomes more predominant than the other way. We always get as many intrusive laws we don't like as much as the intrusive laws we approve of.
I believe that the happiest communities are those where there are equal numbers conservatives and liberals serving in all city offices. Only this prevents both extremism and anarchy, and only a fool would think one side or the other is correct all the time.
That's why an ambulance or a patrol car on duty is exempt from the mandatory stops in Portland. Sensibility flies out the window when one side has too much say. We are all prone to want to tell others how to think and act. Only some are less willing to do so than others. And that's where the old saw "Power corrupts" comes from.
Seattle also was not the left-liberal bastion that it is today. A stripper named Candy Renee said that she was a staunch Republican, and filed for office in 1956 saying that she wanted to "see everyone get a fair shake." Quoth Candy,
Seattle/Washington didn't become a liberal bastion until the California invasion in the 80's, it's been downhill ever since.
Quote:
Originally Posted by weltschmerz
Wait...what? Are you telling me that some strip clubs don't allow hard alcohol?
In socialist liberal loving Seattle strip clubs don't allow any alcohol, instead they'll have a "2 drink" minimum of pepsi at $10 a cup.
Quote:
Originally Posted by weltschmerz
How utterly bizarre! Why? What difference does it make if the strippers are topless or nude?
Good question for the progressives that took over the state.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hammertime33
I just read online that in Canada you have to stay 3 feet away from strippers though - no lap dances. That seems utterly bizarre.
It's 4 feet in Seattle, a law passed after the "progressives" took over.
There was no 'forced prostitution.' As for 'racketeering,' I scratch my head to know what that even means. 'The numbers' game used to be considered a 'racket' when the mob ran it. Now the state government runs it, and calls it the 'lotto.' It's the same thing; is it still a 'racket?' Who knows.
I never did hear the details about the club's 'mail fraud.' What did they do, mail some racy photos of strippers? I think it was just another phony charge tossed onto the pile by prosecutors.
The money laundering was probably the one thing that Frank was in fact guilty of. Writer Anderson says that he thinks it was in Frank's nature to try to skim to avoid taxes. It was a game for him. When cops arrested him at his home, he was in his bathrobe. In the pocket of his robe was over $10,000 cash.
So yeah, the money laundering was part of what did him in, but a large part also was Seattle libs who couldn't stand the thought that somewhere out there, someone was having a good time.
Is that why another strip club sprung up in its place? Because liberals don't want people to have any fun?
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