On election day San Francisco voters had the opportunity to cast a blow (no pun intended – really) for some commonsense. If passed, Proposition K would have effectively decriminalized prostitution in the city. To my astonishment, Prop K failed, by a rather large margin. Some 60% of San Franciscans voted against decriminalization. I have posted before on the subject of legalizing or decriminalizing prostution, and will not rehearse all of the arguments again in this post. Suffice it to say, I think that, on the main, prosections of prostution related crimes – especially those involving escort services – are a tremendous waste of governmental resources, a diversion from more pressing law enforcement concerns, and trample on zones of privacy that are, in my view, none of the government’s business. The San Francisco result was especially disappointing given the city’s widely acknowledged liberal slant. If a decriminalization measure failed by such a wide margin there, its hard to imagine where one might pass. I urge the political proponents of such measure to keep trying, though. They’re fighting the good fight. In the meantime, I’ll continue to criticize politically misguided prosecutions wherever they occur.