Before diving headfirst into this shallow pool of political controversy, I want to clarify something. The terms of this discussion (per our cross-blog effort) limit this to a civil context. So what, after all, is marriage in the civil context? When you remove the personal meaning, you lose the commitment and love between two individuals. When you next remove the religious meaning, you lose the status as a "blessed union", and the role of a religious group in performing a wedding. After all that, you are left with an agreement between two individuals to cohabitate and share resources. In the eyes of the government, that's all it is at the core: two people living together and looking after one another.
The question is, does the government have the right to sanction (or not sanction) such unions? Yes and no. The government has the "right" to do what we want it to do, to perform what roles we deem appropriate. It's role, at least in an ideal world, is to service us, the citizenry. If we see it valuable to have the government act as a 3rd party which authorizes a special legal status, then by that rationale, it does have the right.
Naturally, the government does not have the right to deny people from interacting, or having sex, or cohabitation, as long as it's within the bounds of what is currently considered legal behavior. Obviously, convicted pedophiles are forbidden to associate with children. And in times past, homosexual behavior was forbidden in some places. All of that is constantly changing, based on what society deems to be criminal behavior. And that's neither here nor there.
If two men, living in a state which does not allow same sex unions, wish to live together, commit to one another, and have a ceremony in a participating church, the government (to my knowledge) would have nothing to say about such an arrangement. However, those men would not enjoy the privileges of a legally recognized union. Those privileges - such as enjoying a special tax status, and being able to visit one another in emergency medical situations, and make legal decisions for their partner - are no small thing. So, if we're viewing this as a strictly civil matter, I see no reason to deny any couple from seeking the recognition. Or alternatively, remove the legal status altogether and make every individual of equal status, leaving unions strictly in the realm of the personal and religious. Either would be fine.
I can see the slippery-slope objection as being: "if any couple can get a civil union, why not three people, or four? Or a man and a dog?". Well, I can't really think of a good reason to object to 3 people being married. The nature of the relationship is somewhat different, but any argument based on "well, it's so psychologically different and special when it's one-on-one" is pretty weak and highly subjective. So, share the flesh baby, and bring on 3-way marriages. To take it a step further, I see no reason why two 50 year old bachelors who have only a platonic love between them could not get a union. If they wish to commit to constant support and cohabitation, why shouldn't they be allowed special privileges in a hospital, or special status in a census? A human to animal union is another story, I think. Animals have no legal status. They also cannot give consent. It would be the same as a man wishing to marry a baby, or a person with critical mental disabilities (i.e. a vegetable).
So, that's all pretty loosey goosie. But that's the nature of civil authority. It bends and changes. However, looking at this with the eyes of an engineer, I firmly believe that it would be best to drop the civil recognition of unions all together. The reason marriages were recognized by the government in the first place was to designate a household, or a family. Since Women's Suffrage, we view legal status as something belonging to citizens who are above the age of consent. It wasn't always that way, though.
Voting was seen as something done on the basis of a household, and the authority of that household was granted to the man of the house. Society was arranged in that manner. Men approaching adulthood found a wife and started their own household. In Greece and Rome, citizenship was exclusively held by the male heads of households. As an interesting aside, plebeian men had no legal standing (to write contracts or take people to court) on their own, they needed a patrician patron to act as their intercessor. The tradition of organizing society by household in civil matters extended onto Medieval and Renaissance Europe, and eventually to the USA. Marriage was the legal device which made that arrangement work.
That's fine, but it doesn't really work that way anymore. We're no longer a society of men and their subservient families, we're a society of individuals. Our values are such that we can live with whoever we choose, in whatever arrangement we see fit. So, looking at it as a matter of design principles, why constantly scramble to update the law to culture? It would be cleaner, simpler, more consistent and more elegant - not to mention philosophically correct - to focus on the status as a free individual, and leave social arrangements in the realm of the personal.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Against Garry Marshall
You probably don't know who Garry Marshall is. He was a comedian and writer for TV shows in the 50's, 60's and 70's. Now, he makes movies. Terrible movies. Well, no. That's a bit harsh. Not terrible, just thoroughly mediocre. So mediocre, through and through, that it's depressing even to learn of their existence.
You see, when a movie is bad, truly bad, there is something to be gained from it. A lesson, perhaps. Or a laugh. I'm not sure. The point is, a bad movie is a joke. We all like jokes, don't we? Yes, of course we do.
However, a movie that is designed and built expressly for the purpose of being mediocre is, well, a horse of a different color. There's nothing to be gained there. It's got no character, good or bad. It's not art. It's just... a thing. A blank entity. A hole in space and time. Last night I mortgaged my future by watching Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday. It was really bad. Among other crimes, it failed to live up to it's explicit promise of showing Jason Going To Hell. But I enjoyed myself nonetheless, because it was trash. Wholesome, stupid, doo-daa garbage. It was bad. It was funny. And it kept me company before night-night.
Today, I've learned that Garry Marshall has been paid - yet again - to assemble bankable actors into a romantic comedy that will be forgotten in less than a fortnight. He has been paid to give young couples a trifle to build a date around, before retiring to an unsatisfying night of dry-humping, or dejected masturbation. Now that I know, the knowing has made me sad. I do not yet have the means to make Garry Marshall sad in return. But I do have a blog with a readership of two. I have a voice. I have a means to shake my angry rooker in the air with impotent fury and condemn. And I do condemn. I condemn Garry Marshall to living death, and eternal hunger for living blood.
You see, when a movie is bad, truly bad, there is something to be gained from it. A lesson, perhaps. Or a laugh. I'm not sure. The point is, a bad movie is a joke. We all like jokes, don't we? Yes, of course we do.However, a movie that is designed and built expressly for the purpose of being mediocre is, well, a horse of a different color. There's nothing to be gained there. It's got no character, good or bad. It's not art. It's just... a thing. A blank entity. A hole in space and time. Last night I mortgaged my future by watching Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday. It was really bad. Among other crimes, it failed to live up to it's explicit promise of showing Jason Going To Hell. But I enjoyed myself nonetheless, because it was trash. Wholesome, stupid, doo-daa garbage. It was bad. It was funny. And it kept me company before night-night.
Today, I've learned that Garry Marshall has been paid - yet again - to assemble bankable actors into a romantic comedy that will be forgotten in less than a fortnight. He has been paid to give young couples a trifle to build a date around, before retiring to an unsatisfying night of dry-humping, or dejected masturbation. Now that I know, the knowing has made me sad. I do not yet have the means to make Garry Marshall sad in return. But I do have a blog with a readership of two. I have a voice. I have a means to shake my angry rooker in the air with impotent fury and condemn. And I do condemn. I condemn Garry Marshall to living death, and eternal hunger for living blood.
Friday, October 21, 2011
TRIUMPH!
After at least 3 years of trying, one of my emailed comments to Andrew Sullivan's blog, The Daily Dish got quoted in a blog post. I'm the last one quoted in the blog.
I realize it may seem that I'm blowing this out of proportion. But you just don't understand, man. Like, hundreds of thousands of people follow this blog daily. And of those, a probably-not-insignificant percentage write in. There's a ton of indirect conversation going back and forth between the readers, the staffers and Sullivan himself. Kind of a little micro-culture in itself.
This has been a good week. The law of averages has asserted itself, in the form of proving that not all dictators can escape to switzerland or saudi arabia. I got to see the original Ghostbusters in the theatre. And I got to use the phrase "Herman Cain's stink-pizza" on a popular blog. God be praised.
I realize it may seem that I'm blowing this out of proportion. But you just don't understand, man. Like, hundreds of thousands of people follow this blog daily. And of those, a probably-not-insignificant percentage write in. There's a ton of indirect conversation going back and forth between the readers, the staffers and Sullivan himself. Kind of a little micro-culture in itself.
This has been a good week. The law of averages has asserted itself, in the form of proving that not all dictators can escape to switzerland or saudi arabia. I got to see the original Ghostbusters in the theatre. And I got to use the phrase "Herman Cain's stink-pizza" on a popular blog. God be praised.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Hiatus of sorts
Hey fellas. I've been writing pretty regularly for the past few months so I think I'm going to take a break for a while. I've had a steady output, but I've been writing a little quicker and more slapdash than before, and I'm not really focusing on quality.
So it's not a permanent thing, more of a kind of crop rotation. I'm gonna let the fields fallow for a while and come back fresh in winter. Winter's a good season for writing because there's not much else to do but sit around and fume about the state of the world. If I were smart I would have intentionally taken off the summer and come back now, but I didn't think that far ahead.
I'm still gonna comment on your blogs (of course). I've got a couple of blogs that I wrote before that I've been polishing, so I might release some of those off and on. But I'm hoping to restrain myself until the Iowa caucus.
Cheers!
-D
P.S. Thanks again for the eels. They were very scrummy and unmistakably regal. Sorry to mensh, but if you've finished with the lawn edger could you pop it in the post?
So it's not a permanent thing, more of a kind of crop rotation. I'm gonna let the fields fallow for a while and come back fresh in winter. Winter's a good season for writing because there's not much else to do but sit around and fume about the state of the world. If I were smart I would have intentionally taken off the summer and come back now, but I didn't think that far ahead.
I'm still gonna comment on your blogs (of course). I've got a couple of blogs that I wrote before that I've been polishing, so I might release some of those off and on. But I'm hoping to restrain myself until the Iowa caucus.
Cheers!
-D
P.S. Thanks again for the eels. They were very scrummy and unmistakably regal. Sorry to mensh, but if you've finished with the lawn edger could you pop it in the post?
Monday, October 10, 2011
On Libertarianism
Against my own better judgement, I'm becoming more and more convinced that libertarianism as a political ethos is not the best way to secure liberty, and is in fact, self-defeating.
Let me start by posing a question. I would describe libertarianism as the mentality that places liberty as the highest civil good, above other concerns like security or prosperity. Agreed? The question is this: is it the highest good because it is practical (i.e. because as an ideal, it works best to make a society work well), or is it simply intrinsically good (i.e. good in itself, regardless of how it "works" in society).
I believe that answer that I'd get from most true believers is: both. It does work best as a guiding principle in a free, capitalistic society. It's also good in itself, as a matter of principle. An even more sensible answer might be, that when it comes to economic concerns, free markets are best for practical reasons. And when it comes to personal liberties, that's more a matter of principle. Others have described this better than I have, but I'm just trying to say that this is the description of libertarian ideals that I subscribe to.
I'm coming to believe that on both counts, libertarianism fails to live up to it's goals.
"Free markets and limited regulation produce the best economic results for society as a whole."
It's all about jobs, jobs, jobs. If there's anything that every single election cycle has taught us, it's that. A "good" economy, in the eyes of the majority, is one where unemployment is low and wages are not just good, but gaining ground. Despite the "socialist" machinations of our Imperial President Obama I, we're coming off of a decade of record low regulation and taxes for the upper class "job creators". According supply-side economics, this should be trickling down in the form of more job opportunities and general economic vitality. Not so. Besides the fact that we're currently in a pretty deep recession, wages really haven't made much progress at all, despite the fact the worker productivity is at an all time high.
https://www.google.com/search?q=productivity+up+wages+down&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1&rlz=
People are working harder, doing more with less, contributing to overall profitability, yet this boon isn't making it back down in the form of new jobs. The money is traveling up, but not back down. Where is the money going? Well, the money's going to shareholders. Which, from the perspective of a CEO, is entirely correct. The purpose of a corporation is not to employee people; its purpose is to give money back to its shareholders.
It's certainly true that money is being generated, but is that enough to qualify as an improvment to the economy. This has been covered by many liberal politicians, but look at the wealth inequality that's present in the US today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States
"The scope of federal government must be limited, because individual liberty is the highest ideal"
I'm not going to mount a long, futile argument regarding which ideal is the highest or most critical. What I will say is this, the federal government is not the only party capable of limiting individual freedom. The bill of rights only guarantees your rights as far as they relate to the government. The feds certainly have supremacy when it comes to the power to coerce with force, but there are other means of coercion. Those of us who are lucky to be employed right now, probably see ourselves as dependent on that job. There are a number of policies that one must abide by at work, and those aren't necessarily limited to what you do at work.
Consider also the point of wealth inequality, as it relates to personal liberty. The possibility (possibly the reality) is that with a small group of people controlling a large portion of the wealth of our nation, they'll wield an unhealthy amount of influence over the democratic process. The forms of a democratic republic aren't in danger, but without restraint of the upper class we run the risk of a de facto oligarchy.
OK, so what's my point? What am I proposing? That libertarianism is a bad idea? No, it's excellent to keep the focus on liberty. But the modern libertarian movement is too preoccupied with the Feds. Refocus on this: "In the interest of liberty, and the good of society as a whole, power and wealth should be carefully limited among private and public entities. Any large concentration of wealth and coercive power should be broken up into smaller pieces." This isn't a new idea. Around the turn of the century (1900's), the issue of corporate "trusts" was given a lot of attention. Many polititicans took a stand on this, and spoke of the need to break them up. A more recent example is the breakup of the AT&T Bell System in several smaller, more competative companies. It's worth pointing out that since the breakup, many of the "Baby Bells" have reformed themselves into powerhouses, through mergers and acquisitions that were not adequately restrained by the government (AT&T and Verizon being the two biggest examples).
I have no doubt that many would dismiss this out of hand, since it involves government intervention into the private sector. Too bad. If you think that you've got a better ally in wealthy stockholders than you do in your local congressman, you're gravely mistaken.
Let me start by posing a question. I would describe libertarianism as the mentality that places liberty as the highest civil good, above other concerns like security or prosperity. Agreed? The question is this: is it the highest good because it is practical (i.e. because as an ideal, it works best to make a society work well), or is it simply intrinsically good (i.e. good in itself, regardless of how it "works" in society).
I believe that answer that I'd get from most true believers is: both. It does work best as a guiding principle in a free, capitalistic society. It's also good in itself, as a matter of principle. An even more sensible answer might be, that when it comes to economic concerns, free markets are best for practical reasons. And when it comes to personal liberties, that's more a matter of principle. Others have described this better than I have, but I'm just trying to say that this is the description of libertarian ideals that I subscribe to.
I'm coming to believe that on both counts, libertarianism fails to live up to it's goals.
"Free markets and limited regulation produce the best economic results for society as a whole."
It's all about jobs, jobs, jobs. If there's anything that every single election cycle has taught us, it's that. A "good" economy, in the eyes of the majority, is one where unemployment is low and wages are not just good, but gaining ground. Despite the "socialist" machinations of our Imperial President Obama I, we're coming off of a decade of record low regulation and taxes for the upper class "job creators". According supply-side economics, this should be trickling down in the form of more job opportunities and general economic vitality. Not so. Besides the fact that we're currently in a pretty deep recession, wages really haven't made much progress at all, despite the fact the worker productivity is at an all time high.
https://www.google.com/search?q=productivity+up+wages+down&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1&rlz=
People are working harder, doing more with less, contributing to overall profitability, yet this boon isn't making it back down in the form of new jobs. The money is traveling up, but not back down. Where is the money going? Well, the money's going to shareholders. Which, from the perspective of a CEO, is entirely correct. The purpose of a corporation is not to employee people; its purpose is to give money back to its shareholders.
It's certainly true that money is being generated, but is that enough to qualify as an improvment to the economy. This has been covered by many liberal politicians, but look at the wealth inequality that's present in the US today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States
"The scope of federal government must be limited, because individual liberty is the highest ideal"
I'm not going to mount a long, futile argument regarding which ideal is the highest or most critical. What I will say is this, the federal government is not the only party capable of limiting individual freedom. The bill of rights only guarantees your rights as far as they relate to the government. The feds certainly have supremacy when it comes to the power to coerce with force, but there are other means of coercion. Those of us who are lucky to be employed right now, probably see ourselves as dependent on that job. There are a number of policies that one must abide by at work, and those aren't necessarily limited to what you do at work.
Consider also the point of wealth inequality, as it relates to personal liberty. The possibility (possibly the reality) is that with a small group of people controlling a large portion of the wealth of our nation, they'll wield an unhealthy amount of influence over the democratic process. The forms of a democratic republic aren't in danger, but without restraint of the upper class we run the risk of a de facto oligarchy.
OK, so what's my point? What am I proposing? That libertarianism is a bad idea? No, it's excellent to keep the focus on liberty. But the modern libertarian movement is too preoccupied with the Feds. Refocus on this: "In the interest of liberty, and the good of society as a whole, power and wealth should be carefully limited among private and public entities. Any large concentration of wealth and coercive power should be broken up into smaller pieces." This isn't a new idea. Around the turn of the century (1900's), the issue of corporate "trusts" was given a lot of attention. Many polititicans took a stand on this, and spoke of the need to break them up. A more recent example is the breakup of the AT&T Bell System in several smaller, more competative companies. It's worth pointing out that since the breakup, many of the "Baby Bells" have reformed themselves into powerhouses, through mergers and acquisitions that were not adequately restrained by the government (AT&T and Verizon being the two biggest examples).
I have no doubt that many would dismiss this out of hand, since it involves government intervention into the private sector. Too bad. If you think that you've got a better ally in wealthy stockholders than you do in your local congressman, you're gravely mistaken.
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