80 PERCENT AGREE, WANT PALMETTO STATE TO LEAVE U.S.
One of the country’s leading technology websites is asking its readers, “What is more important — Craigslist or South Carolina?”
TechCrunch Founder & Co-Editor Michael Arrington wrote a post on the popular website asking that question and encouraging the Palmetto State to again secede from the Union after what he believes to be an “absurd” attempt by South Carolina to end illegal activity on the Craigslist website.
Attorney General Henry McMaster gave the Internet classified company until 5 p.m. Friday to remove portions of its South Carolina site that contained advertisements for prostitution and graphic pornographic material.
When the company refused to comply, McMaster moved forward with a criminal investigation and potential prosecution.
“This whole drama has made me wonder, just how important is South Carolina anyway,” Arrington wrote? “If it really came down to choosing between South Carolina and Craigslist, how many people would rather have South Carolina?”
According to TechCrunch readers, not many people would take South Carolina over Craigslist. Just 20 percent said they value South Carolina more than Craigslist.
That outcome could have something to do with the fact that very few of those folks actually live in South Carolina.
On top of that, they also voted after reading Arrington’s take on the state. And he made it absolutely clear what he thinks of South Carolina.
“South Carolina a former slave state that has less than 4.5 million people and a median income of under $40,000/year, 39th in the U.S. 92% of the state’s residents are Christian, and the gross state product is around $150 billion,” Arrington wrote. “A main driver of economic activity is tobacco, and the Klu Klux Klan has a vibrant and active chapter in the state. On the upside, I hear Myrtle beach is nice, and my co-editor Erick Schonfeld’s mother lives there.”
Naturally, this has led me to ask this question: Which is more important, 2,500 TechCrunch readers (the total number that had voted as of this post) or enforcing the law? Give your answer in the poll below.
*** POLL ***
Was the post-game celebration by USC fans after beating Kentucky worth the $25,000 fine?
- Yes (56%, 87 Votes)
- No (44%, 69 Votes)
Total Voters: 156
Loading ...
Photo: A detective monitors Craigslist’s “Erotic Services” category (NY Times)
If one added all the fiscal impact of all the economic activity faclitated by all the various city Craig Lists sites and compared it to the State Product of SC, I bet Craigs List would win.
Well shouldn’t TechCrunch’s poll be “What is more important, internet prostitution or South Carolina?” McMaster isn’t at all trying to shut down Craigslist, he’s just trying to stop prostitution, something I thought we generally agreed was a good thing.
BtN – Is that counting or not counting the illegal stuff?
This whole thing is absurd. Do you think eBay should be criminally prosecuted because some numb-nuts put a black market Batman DVD on there? Craig’s List has acted in good faith. There’s not much more you can ask of them.
If a bunch of prostitutes taped flyers to a streetlight, would you cut down the street light?
I’ve never been to a prostitute myself, but I am proud to be from Nevada, where we don’t make dumbass rules telling people what they can and can’t do as private citizens. (We try not to, anyway).
The Law is whatever congress writes on a sheet of paper.
P.S. lose some weight
Been to SC, we’re not missing anything by it being gone. SC is one of those states like Delaware, you forget it’s a state until something happens. Really McMaster’s is looking for sensationalism here…don’t get too “antsy” he’s just embarrassing SC…
[...] with their state, either. The Palmetto Scoop, a popular conservative blog in South Carolina, held their own poll today and asked “Which is more important, 2,500 TechCrunch readers (the total number that had [...]
I think you have more problems in SC than CL whores. I bet you have a few truckstops with more underage prostitutes than there are ‘of age’ call girls being offered on the site. What is wrong with the priorities of you people on the right? It is as if you all have problems understanding both math and science.
[...] with their state, either. The Palmetto Scoop, a popular conservative blog in South Carolina, held their own poll today and asked “Which is more important, 2,500 TechCrunch readers (the total number that had [...]
Doesn’t he know that all of the 13 original colonies are former slave states? Does he know that MA is actually the first “slave state” as ships from that colony were the first to participate in the trans-Atlantic African slave trade?
Aside from the bigotry, intolerance, and ignorance of the TechCrunch author and readers, let me say that the SC government is being idiotic in going after Craig’s List. Of course, we’re also idiotic for having public schools, welfare, income tax, and many other forms of government oppression.
[...] with their state, either. The Palmetto Scoop, a popular conservative blog in South Carolina, held their own poll today and asked “Which is more important, 2,500 TechCrunch readers (the total number that had [...]
Hater – that personal shot was out of line.
I think this whole Craiglist thing is much ado about nothing. I understand that local law enforcement agencies are setting up stings that are catching prostitutes and johns working Craigslist, so that should go a long way towards discouraging such actions.
I just hope these efforts don’t shut Craiglist down. A lot of us online types won’t be able to get a date in the real world.
The set the record straight – the problem is not that McMaster is “going after Craigslist for prostitution.” The problem is that CL has already made changes that McMaster approved and now he is threatening lawsuit if there re not more changes. So what? Well, he (as Attorney General) is not applying the law equally. There are actually far bigger sources of adult service ads on and off the internet (i.e. it includes local yellow pages, local metro papers, etc.) and McMaster is choosing to ignore those larger targets (as measured by volume of offensive ads) for a smaller target that will garner more press for his future election efforts.
For a wonderful summary of the issue, check out the Craiglist blog. Start here: http://blog.craigslist.org/2009/05/an-apology-is-in-order/ and then read this: http://blog.craigslist.org/2009/05/local-coverage-of-ag-mcmaster-apology-question/. The second link cites local news sources that also question McMaster’s motives.
If you read that and agree that McMaster is out of line, join the Facebook group to support Craigslist and tell McMaster how transparent his actions are: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=82193692538
I couldn’t agree more Michael.
[...] with their state, either. The Palmetto Scoop, a popular conservative blog in South Carolina, held their own poll today and asked “Which is more important, 2,500 TechCrunch readers (the total number that had [...]
McMaster has made South Carolina the laughing-stock of the country… yet again.
McMaster is making a fool of himself. He will find out how much of a fool shortly.
!
[...] with their state, either. The Palmetto Scoop, a popular conservative blog in South Carolina, held their own poll today and asked “Which is more important, 2,500 TechCrunch readers (the total number that had [...]
These things will happen regardless if they are on CraigsList or not. this is the internet and people will do as they wish. If not on CraigsList, then on some public form. If downloading isn’t happening on Kazaa, it’ll happen on BitTorrent. Not on Bittorrent? Then in IRC. When you attempt to break an online forum up, what you get is thousand smaller forums that have an overall larger impact than the original.
What South Carolina did was give CraigsList a right to start charging a small amount for their adult services advertisements instead of them being posted for free. CraigsList will make millions off of the new revenue stream and nothing will change. There’s a reason why government has been working WITH Facebook and MySpace to deal with sexual predators instead of AGAINST them. Fighting the internet doesn’t work. Not for the state and not for your stupid link bait poll, which ou are losing in expected fashion.
If this is what passes for journalism in South Carolina all I can ask is that a tsunami wipes it from the map.
“Well shouldn’t TechCrunch’s poll be “What is more important, internet prostitution or South Carolina?” McMaster isn’t at all trying to shut down Craigslist, he’s just trying to stop prostitution, something I thought we generally agreed was a good thing.”
We all agree on that? What’s wrong with legalizing it? As Carlin said, selling is legal, ***king is legal, why isn’t selling ***king legal?
McMaster was lost by Time. It’s too bad someone can’t just flick a switch on this guy and send his meatseat packing to the year 1235 where he would thrive burning heretics at the stake for rejecting Catholic dogma.
South Carolina is full of social conservatives who scream “lower taxes”, but their state is a welfare case that mooches off of their liberal neighbors.
For every dollar people in SC contribute in Federal Income Tax, they get $1.35 in Federal spending! My home state only gets $0.62 spent here for ever $1.00 we contribute.
Maybe SC should legalize and regulate prostitution. That way their fiscal conservative tea-baggers can walk the walk.
Individual rights are always more important than laws. That makes even ONE TechCrunch user is more important than the enforcement of an oppressive law.
FatSean,
In case you haven’t noticed, South Carolina’s congressional delegation doesn’t control spending or taxation at the federal level. If it did, I can guarantee you the federal tax burden would be a helluva lot lower.
And re the fellow who whines that prostitution isn’t legal, fine, if you believe prostitution should be legalized, you’re welcome to your opinion. But it isn’t, and Henry McMaster is the chief law enforcement officer in the state, and as such has an obligation to enforce the laws against prostitution and is doing so. And I, for one, am glad he is.
McMaster’s problem was not that trying to curb illegal activity on the erotic section of craigslist, he was within his rights as AG to do so. Where he crossed the line and went from zealot to buffoonery was PERSONALLY threatening craigslist owners and executives with legal action. This is what incensed people especially after everyone saw that craigslist practically bent over backwards to please the AG’s.
The threat smacked of political extortion and McMasters is rightfully reaping the public scorn he deserves.
Too bad he had to take a great state like South Carolina down with him.
Congrats Fogle, you and your firm’s candidates have found a way to embarrass South Carolina yet again. You’re doing such good things for our state, why not move back to Georgia and help undermine progress there? Please?
People miss the point. The debate is not over whether prostitution should be illegal or not, its enforcing a law. If you want prostitution legalized start a petition and get voters to change the law, y’know like you typically do in a democracy. The article was childish which is something I didn’t expect from a site like TechCrunch. People don’t notice but if you substituted a few words and South Carolina with a country like “Mexico” or “China” you would see how ignorant and bigoted is sounds. A article just goes massively off-topic and trashes a state they’ve never been too and just undermines their credibility.
I love how Arrington is still winning even with the above poll.
Fellow Republican males must work together to put an end to the ridiculous preoccupation with regulating sex. This whole fiasco with the grandstanding holy roller AG is only deepening the bad reputation the Republican Party has with young and old men who, guess what, like sex.
And news flash…men are needed as the core voters of the Republican Party because victim feminists already completely own the Democrat Party.
Do Republican Party leaders…fire anyone who doesn’t understand what individual liberty is who might still be standing after we MEN refused to vote in 2006 and 2008.
There is room for Christians in the RP if they keep their traps shut where it comes to heterosexual sexual preferences.
And, for Heaven’s sake, Christian men have got to tell their women not to use feminist phraseology in combatting “human trafficking” which has already been proven to be exaggerated by a factor of 100 because feminist and feminist-Christian groups like to refer to all prostitutes as “trafficked women” victims.
Actually, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina there is a strip club called the Doll House that refuses to allow its Russian women, whom it sponsored for student visas, to exchange contact information with men. That policy could be called “trafficking” because it is not liked by the women but you won’t see anything done about that because idiots on the left and right think that women should be kept from giving their contact info to strangers.
Take the IMBRA law, supported by both feminist and Christian-feminist groups that control both parties: this law says that US males must be background checked before being allowed to say hello to a foreign woman. A Republican judge, Thomas Rose, said of IMBRA “there is no fundamental liberty interest in an American contacting a foreigner”. A Democrat judge said of IMBRA “Meeting someone online is like buying a gun, both should require background checks”.
Until the libertarian Republicans vocally take over the RP, the RP will keep losing badly.
Where is South Carolina libertarian Republican Mark Sanford in all this? Is Sanford too scared to speak his mind? If so, he might be badly hurting his chances to be President right now because we males will remember his timidity.
As soon as I see the AG bringing suit against telephone companies, free weekly papers, posterboards and bars that let people meet and get friendly — I’ll believe this doesn’t have anything to do with his political plans.
And yes, I’m sad to say, Craigslist is far far more important than my adopted home state. It’s a major engine of commerce around the world.
Why is the software telling me that my comment is “still being moderated”? Is it visible like it would be on Twitter (and like the other person’s comment that came after it) or am I seeing the reason why newspapers will no longer be viable as for-profit organizations…they moderate what they think people should read. Fact checking can be done in the Legal section of my site. A Republican judge (6th Circuit Bush appointee – on Veterans Day Friday 2006) really did say that Americans had no Constitutional right to say hello to Russian women online or otherwise.
The internet prostitution will just go use another website or take over a different section of craigslist.
McMaster is playing a shell game he can never win.
Wow! What a misogynist screed from VA (JP). Please provide documented evidence for the following claims:
… victim feminists already completely own the Democrat Party.
… MEN refused to vote in 2006 and 2008.
There is room for Christians in the RP if they keep their traps shut where it comes to heterosexual sexual preferences. [Implies there is no room for them if they don't speak out against other sexual acts or orientations.]
… Christian men have got to tell their women…. [Implies ownership, the fundamental basis of all human trafficking.]
… idiots on the left and right think that women should be kept from giving their contact info to strangers.
Until the libertarian Republicans vocally take over the RP, the RP will keep losing badly. [The Libertarian Party is a different one.]
… [Mark Sanford] might be badly hurting his chances to be President right now because we males will remember his timidity. [Barack Obama is U.S. President right now. Hadn't you heard?]
Jake,
You’re right on. The fact is, it isn’t McMaster’s job to make laws, but to enforce them.
A lot of these left-coast techies seemed to have missed that lesson in civics class. Ya know, the whole three branches of government thing.
The people of South Carolina, through their elected officials, have made prostitution a crime. As the state’s top cop, it is McMaster’s job to ensure the laws are obeyed.
If you don’t like the law, encourage your legislators to change it. That’s democracy.
But don’t take it out on the executive branch for ensuring people obey laws passed by the legislative branch.
- A.F.
Adam,
Maybe you should lay off the grits for a while.
the worst kind of pundit is one who blindly follows their leaders, even when they stray intellectually and morally. You should have called McMaster out on this for selective and inefficient enforcement, Adam. Instead you blindly followed your AG and engaged in intellectual dishonesty.
Adam,
With all due respect, you can’t honestly believe that the men who disagree with you are all “Left Coast Techies” – as if you would want to alienate an entire class of upwardly mobile male engineers, many who work in the Myrtle Beach area, who are driving the economy now. No, most of the men who disagree with you would be military servicemen and vets. Sure, you can find a holy roller vet to argue with me here, but the fact of the matter is that holy rollers are a minority in the military.
In 2008 servicepeople made it very clear they wanted someone similar to Ron Paul albeit most would prefer someone without the anti-war rhetoric that doomed that campaign.
So continued BS about the Republican Party standing against heterosexual lifestyles that politically correct church-goers don’t like will only create a civil war within the party that those who want freedom from big government cannot afford.
So rather than conduct a civil war against the majority of servicepeople and vets + “Left Coast Techies”, you might want to stop pontificating about how you don’t like things like strip clubs.
We don’t need to hear an argument in favor of big government mimic the lefties when they say “The majority voted for this law so its fair”. We live in a Republic not a democracy. If enough people say a law is unfair, it doesn’t matter if the majority says it is.
Believe me, the law and order stuff was only relevant to the Republican Party during the race wars of the 80s when the Democrats pretended that upper middle class people weren’t being mugged in New York City and Giuliani had to finally say “enough is enough” about the muggings and vagrant loitering in Times Square.
Now a bigger issue is that you just allowed a rabid feminist to comment and you did not criticize her.
If you are a conservative you are obliged to argue with feminists.
Look at the way she used the lefty phrase “Human Trafficking” and jumped all over me for saying “Conservative men need to tell their women to stop using feminist phraseology”. That comment was filled with paranoia which is the hallmark of feminism.
You have to join in kicking that type back to the Democratic Party and, for Heaven’s sake, don’t date or marry someone who would fly off the handle about someone saying “conservatives need to tell their women not to be feminists”.
Statistics show that men refused to vote in NC and IN which caused Obama to win both heavily Republican states. The Men’s Rights Movement, which any real conservative man should be informed about and participating in, was critical of Coleman in Minnesota because Coleman was pandering to feminists – he would have won if he hadn’t ticked off thousands of men like that.
A comment the above feminist “Republican” made was that libertarian Republicans already have their own party, the LP. This shows ignorance of the fact that almost half of Republicans are libertarian, not social conservative. We fully intend to take over the Republican Party and give socons a minority voice as long as they play fair and don’t tick us off too much.
Socons would be smart to push now for a third party amendment while they still have 22-24% of the electorate. As they die off and control only 16-18% of the electorate in 2016, the libertarians who will control the Republican Party will ignore them or condescend to them like some socons are doing now by stealing the tea party rhetoric…which isn’t fooling anybody.
By the 80s, the South managed to largely shed the image of monkey trials, Bible thumpers and ignorant rednecks. Sadly that image is returning and the region’s inherent pugnacity leads many of its residents to be proud of the fact. As long as voters keep electing grandstanding, self serving pols like McMaster, the trend will continue and the South will become an intellectual and cultural backwater, valued for uneducated cheap labor and not much else, kind of like a north of the border Mexico.
Let’s all support the AG with some birthday wishes:
https://secure.donationreport.com/donation.html?key=4B5O2CTOIQ3I
…but don’t send him any strip-o-grams!