 |
| Via cvsflags |
Quote of the Day
Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half sorrow.
Swedish proverb
Image of the Day
The Slippery Slope of "Gay Marriage": Plural Marriage/Polygamy
I originally saw this theme on a Reason FB thread the other day and intended to comment on the one groom/two bride Montana court challenge, but I ran into browser issues. Let me basically say from the get-go, my analysis of plural marriages is very similar to my analysis of "gay marriages". I do not believe that the State should intrude on voluntary adult relationships/lifestyles. This does not mean that I personally agree with nontraditional lifestyles, anymore than I believe in the use/abuse of recreational or prescription drugs. It's just that I believe that the State, when it intrudes unduly on victimless crimes, often creates worse problems than it solves.
As I've written in past posts, I have a Thomistic sense of tolerance. If and when we consider the cultivation of virtue, it cannot be compelled in a million uncontrollable ways. I don't personally agree with the choices of a gay or polygamous lifestyle. But I am not responsible for the sinful choices of other people, so long as they don't violate the unalienable rights of others or myself; they have free will and are entitled to learn life's lessons from making mistakes.
I do think society/community has a right, if not duty, to promote the constructs of traditional marriage and family through community, and any attempt to force contradictory policy on voluntary community is socially destabilizing (I find a surrogate measure in state resident voting). If the state was to enlarge its category of constructs or variations thereof, I would personally oppose modifications because of unintended consequences of socially experimental policies, but I would respect the community's decision. It may very well be that I would seek out a new community more consistent with my own values. Note that I am talking about promoting particular relationships, which is different from banning them or regulating them. This is a point I've been repeatedly making on libertarian FB threads. I am not talking about intervening in relationships with which I disagree; I don't think a rainbow-colored certificate makes the relationship; the State's recognition is a dubious blessing: I have no idea what any pro-liberty individual wants the State's involvement in his/her relationships. Am I contradicting myself? Should traditional married couples be any more accepting of State entanglements of their relationships? To the extent that the legal context is consistent with the private sector social context consistent with the principle of Subsidiarity, I find it less objectionable, but to be frank, I increasingly find that the State's meddling with marriage and family unduly intrusive, if not counterproductive, and would prefer that we privatize the institution of marriage.
Facebook Corner
(Rand Paul 2016). Rand Paul calls for government to get out of marriage altogether
Separation of church and State. Govt should have never been involved!
Separation of church and state is NOT part of the Constitution. A twentieth-century jurist cited something written by President Jefferson. Keep in mind that Jefferson was by principle someone who believed in the principles of federalism (i.e., where a balance of power with the states was in their favor) and he was writing about a Connecticut law. (Connecticut at the time had an official state religion. Recall the Bill of Rights at the time referred to the federal vs. state government.)
The regulation of marriage as traditional dates back to English common law, a base for the American legal system, and the Tenth Amendment included responsibilities for marriage and public morals, among other things. And the idea that marriage is simply a religious construct is absurd; it is a social construct that has evolved for thousands of years across cultures, religions, etc. Let us not confound regulation of private relationships with the exclusive heterosexual nature of the marriage construct. I do nonetheless believe that marriage should be fully privatized .
(National Review). Zandria Robinson still has a job at the taxpayer-funded University of Memphis.
Whoops! According to Wikipedia, "According to the US Department of Justice, blacks accounted for 52.5% of homicide offenders from 1980 to 2008, with whites 45.3% and "Other" 2.2%. The offending rate for blacks was almost 8 times higher than whites, and the victim rate 6 times higher. Most homicides were intraracial, with 84% of white victims killed by whites, and 93% of black victims killed by blacks." Apparently an inconvenient truth to the diversity industrial complex.
(Rand Paul 2016). This president really does think he's a king.
What I don't understand is a vacillating SCOTUS that says, on one hand, the Congress can't delegate the power of line-item vetoes, but on the other, can cede monetary policy to the Fed and can indirectly raise a de facto tax.
Of course, the fascist attempt to "force" a raise is delusional, economically-illiterate, counterproductive policy. To give an example, it gives employers more of an incentive to downgrade full-time positions to part-time and/or hire more part-time or subcontract, raise hiring criteria and/or require more productivity from existing workers, etc., with all the relevant workarounds application to dysfunctional minimum-wage policy.
All new taxes must originate from the house of reps!
It's not really a tax, because the government never touches the money. It simply regulates a wage policy that happens to be an indirect form of taxation. And the fascists will argue that the 1938 Congress gave Obama that power.
(Libertarianism.org). "Revolutionary Americans felt, on a gut level, the inestimable value of individual freedom and the dangers of government power—a feeling that was articulated in writing by Paine, Jefferson, Adams, and other libertarian authors." #July4th
I think we celebrate one of the most remarkable experiments in world history, an independent nation of immigrants based on unalienable rights; within a century, we would become the world's largest economy and the most politically stable republic, a model for all aspiring revolutionaries.. Were there mistakes? Yes. The corrupt bargain over the abomination of slavery should have been confronted at the outset, instead of ending in America's worst war. Obviously, our defenses against tyrannical government were insufficient in design; a weak federal court system unconscionably intellectually surrendered in the 1930's to an authoritarian President and Congress, notably contradicting the principles of limited government, guarding against tyranny of the majority. I do not underestimate the struggle to regain our lost liberties, to end this unsustainable "bread and circuses" populist whoring and pandering politics, but one day there will be a price to pay for failing to rebuke the corrupt populist politicians.
“Ours is a government of the people. It represents their will. Its officers may sometimes go astray, but that is not a reason for criticizing the principles of our institutions. The real heart of the American Government depends upon the heart of the people. It is from that source that we must look for all genuine reform. It is to that cause that we must ascribe all our results.” Coolidge. That is what we celebrate.
To the OP: as much as I like Coolidge as the best President of the twentieth century, unfortunately, that's not saying much. Harding and Coolidge cut spending during the post WWI depression, which wasn't the most popular thing to do. His style of government was like his manner of speech: limited in nature. What we really celebrate on the Fourth is freedom from petty tyrants, abuses of the majority that the busybody central State imposes on us. What we celebrate on the Fourth is not so much the gluttonous, pandering federal government, whose bloat is stolen from taxpayers, but from the intrusive creep of authoritarian rulers in our everyday lives.
Why do we only have 435 members in the house of reps. ? Where once each rep. represented 30,000 they now represent 750,000. Members in the house were to increase with the population.How can 1 person represent the diverse views of so many.Restore the 40,000 to 1 and you will have much greater representation.
I think [commentator] needs more background in statistics. You don't need more numbers of legislators; this might be good for professional politicians but will hardly budge the line of scrimmage. What we need is more process-oriented reforms; for example, the Confederate Constitution required super-majorities for major legislation, forbade omnibus budgets and allowed a line-item veto. We need to stop abuses of authoritarian power, e.g., executive orders. We need process reforms to limit the risk of corruption that accrues from power (say, committee chairmanship, seniority, etc.) The issue is not too little government, but too much government.
(Catholic Libertarians). I re-wrote my previous post as an article so that it is easier to read and share. Be careful to not let your remembrance of independence and freedom today turn into “Americanism” which is a heresy condemned by Pope Leo XIII. Happy Independence Day! ~Mark
I have some nuanced disagreements here. I do agree that faith in one's country, co-equal or greater than one's faith in God, is an error; yet one can believe in American exceptionalism without believing in the sense of Barry that all nations are special to their residents. Despite less than 5% of the world's population and having only a fraction of its resources, we account for nearly a quarter of global GDP. We are a nation of immigrants, we have comparatively remarkable social mobility. Now, of course, like all human institutions, our government is fallible.
Leo, however has a fondness for authority, particularly among the faithful on matters of faith and morals; he didn't like the creeping modernism/secularism, that American Catholics, brought up in a culture that arbitrarily separates Church and State, want to apply American political or cultural values to the Church: e.g., a "democratic share" of power with the hierarchy, independent thinking on matters of faith and morals, a "more diverse, inclusive" hierarchy, American Catholic positions on matters of morals to the point almost every Catholic Dem for federal office advocates unrestricted abortion and "gay marriage" and whose social politics is almost totally devoid of any religious context.
Much of what Leo obsessed with before the twentieth century is spot on: we have "progressive" Catholics who have little regard for prayer or spiritual/moral development and are wholly dismissive of the Church's "old-fashioned", obsolete moral teachings; they furthermore feel that the Church has lost its moral authority for its poorly handling of rogue priests who violated their vows and engaged in sexual misconduct.
Leo did hold some authoritarian principles on Church matters which I think are unduly paternalistic; I think the issue has less to do with classical (economic) liberalism than a failure of the Church leadership to engage a morally corrupt, sexually-obsessed culture. I also think that Leo longed for more direct entanglements with the State, which I think is a gross strategic mistake: Jesus Himself sharply distinguished between the earthly and heavenly kingdoms. I think the fuzziness in identifying with the State confuses and disheartens the faithful. We've seen recent popes resurrect the libelous smear of social Darwinism against capitalism and suggest that capitalism is more a divisive conflict in selfishness than a more inclusive growth, jobs-yielding engine of goods and services that make consumers as a whole, including poorer ones, better off. They don't seem to grasp that the greatest wealth occurs not by catering to the 1%, whose consumer needs are modest, but from the 99% of other consumers, whose resources are limited and hence require necessary economies of scale.
Marriage and Family
Political Cartoon
 |
| Courtesy of Robert Ariail via Townhall |
Dionne Warwick (with the Spinners), "Then Came You". The first of Dionne's 2 #1 songs, both collaborative efforts.
