I’m not going to bullshit anyone. And I won’t pretend there was any glimmer of hope in the combination of yesterday’s SCOTUS rulings on SSM. Taken together, a one or two person decision effectively completed, in the juridical sense, fundamental tranformation. Nutshell: In the ruling against DOMA, Kennedy essentially decreed that the definition of marriage as it’s always stood is bigoted; those who “defend” it defend hate, therefore. This means that any state that likewise defends traditional marriage can sued and the applicable decision will be a SCOTUS ruling in which the state is accused of instituting “vile” bigotry. There can be, per Kennedy, no other reason to deny same sex couples the “dignity” of marriage, even while the “dignity” of the institution is completely undermined by the ruling. But that’s how a post-constitutional, Kafka-esque system works.
But hey, section 2 was upheld, we’re told! It’s not so bad! Federalism lives. Except that it of course does not. The ruling against California’s proposition 8 essentially said no one has standing to show harm from a failure of the governor or the attorney general to defend a duly passed constitutional amendment to the California constitution. Therefore, though the people may speak, all it takes is a governor or attorney general’s disagreement with the law to make the law moot. Should they not enforce it — and we’ve seen this likewise with border security — too fucking bad. They are your rulers and the court has institutionalized their discretion and that’s just the way it is.
Meaning that in states where constitutional amendments defining marriage as one man and one woman were passed, the legal road to overturn that will of the people is clear: the people are, per Kennedy, bigots, and so they have no right to pass such laws, nor the states to enforce them. And if the state happens to have a liberal Governor, well, then that state is effectively a legal dictatorship, per the SCOTUS majority.
I don’t happen to care what you think about same sex marriage. But as I’ve preached for years, how you get there matters. Anthony Kennedy has determined that his voice alone is the voice of reason and compassion and acceptance; those who disagree with him — regardless of their putative reasons — are at base bigots, vile, operating from base motives, looking to demonize and denigrate homosexuals.
This is remarkable legal reasoning, and may just be one of the sparks that fuels a nullification movement. To return to federalism, the states have got to stop granting the final say to the Supreme Court on issues it has no business deciding upon.
And the people need to know that, going forward, electing a liberal governor means that at any moment, their decisions about the laws they’d like to see in their own states can obviated by the governor or attorney general’s refusal to abide them.
That is not constitutional republicanism. It is not representative government. And neither Anthony Kennedy nor some self-appointed moral and social mastermind in state office owns the final say on how a government of, by, and FOR the people, must operate.
It is a long-standing, accepted fiction. But it disappears when we begin concentrating on electing state and local officials who merely refuse to comply, be it with harmful immigration laws or decisions naming the majority of Californians and the majority of an earlier Congress bigots.
And when we elect a state official who then turns on a dime and operates against our interests, we don’t wait until the next election to rid ourselves of him. We sue. We protest. We assemble. We insist upon his or her removal. We engage in civil disobedience. We fight back.
How we get there matters, be it in interpretation (and the convoluted reasoning in these decisions makes that abundantly clear) or in implementation of policy.
The left is content to allow for votes. Unless they lose. After which they shop for courts to do their work for them. The federal government, all the branches, are colluding to expand state power and create the progressive Utopia they believe it is their right and function to force on backward bitter clingers. Who will bow down and accept what they are told or else will be harassed, arrested, etc.
Never before have we seen such a string of rulings whose affect will be to kill the United States as founded.
Either we fight back now or we spend our waning years, as Reagan reminded us, telling our children and our children’s children what it was like in America when men were free.
Unlike Obama, I will bow before no man. And certainly not some dust-farting moral scold who insists that my very reasoned, very principled legal rejection of same-sex marriage is nothing but a badge of my “hate speech.”
Regarding the Prop 8 ruling, one wonders what happens when the people realize that their will can be so easily thwarted and the courts will dismiss them with a wave of the hand and a “no harm, no foul” ruling on standing. By far that ruling was the most disturbing of the day.
governance by referenda is antithetical to republicanism
i read it on wikipedia
The Rule Of Law is over. We have entered the Rule Of The Anus.
that probably sounded really cool in your head huh
It sure did. Your whims and the sensations in your prostate do not make for law.
That’s true. But you know what?
So’s governance by judicial and/or executive diktat.
But hey, when you like the outcome on the issue at hand,
everything will be okay you have my word
douchebag
I think the problem with the initiative/referendum process is that it is often too easy. Some of the changes should take a 2/3 vote.
when you like the outcome on the issue at hand
That’s the part I can’t get past. I don’t want tyranny, even if the tyrant rules my way once in a while.
Mark Levin talked about Dred Scott yesterday and how that decision helped pave the way for the civil war.
I would like to know how SCOTUS can rule “lack of standing” without tossing out previous decisions by federal courts through the same “lack of standing” ruling. Federal courts had no business ruling on Prop 8 to begin with.
Supremacy clause?
It wasn’t the court’s jurisdiction, it was the litigant’s standing. However, it make you wonder why the Walker decision was legitimate since it also did not have the CA atty general arguing for it. Throw out Walker/circuit court and go back to CA Supreme Court ruling.
Actually, by the logic of Kennedy, Walker should have issued a summary judgement in favor of the plaintiffs since the State refused to defend itself.
Neat trick huh? The law is only legal when the state says it is.
bgbear, I knew I was conflating the issue, just tossed it out to see what reaction I would get.
I’m so incredibly sick of leftists in this country. Bastards are all for voting and democracy as long as they get their way.
Leftist and progressives, fascists, the lot of them.
If I remember correctly, this is how Gray Davis and
GovernorAttorney General Moonbeam overturrned Pete Wilson’s Prop. 180.So we’ve literally reached the point where the law is whatever the institutional Left consents it to be, at the time they choose to either consent or withdraw their consent.
That’s tyranny.
Ernst, isn’t that what happened in the Miller decision? Pretty much a summary judgment due to the defendants not showing up in court?
Hell, Ernst, President Obama is the poster child for selective law enforcement.
First: But in Perry, the five Justices who found no standing were Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan (that’s two conservatives and three liberals, if you’re keeping score).
I have read that there are ‘reasonable’ for keeping marriage ‘traditional’, but those would not necessarily be ‘reasonable for government. Society may have a reason for something without giving government the power to enforce it. We’ve been through this before.
The standing issue is one that I have disagreed with before, but the courts have held, often and in many places that just because you are affected by a law doesn’t give you standing in a court of law – which is a place to mediate disputes between parties, not to rectify displeasure with a specific result of the political process.
As for elected officials that refuse to support a law….I recall the admonitions of the Drill Instructors in AF Basic Training – we will tell you what, where, when AND WHY because we want our people to know why they are doing things….the answer ‘I was just following orders’ is not an excuse for violating liberty. You may disagree with it, but if the people of California voted to re-institute slavery, I would hope the elected officials would refuse. The will of the people is not always a good will and the ability to stand in the face of popular will to do the right thing is something I want people to be able to do. Even if it sometimes goes against what I want….
As for the animus….I can’t see that it is anything else. Nothing said has led me to believe different. Marriage will still exist for straight couples as it always has been, appeals to traditional limits on who might participate notwithstanding. “Changing” the definition to encompass ‘non-traditional’ couples is not the same as saying black is white, blue is red and up is down.
Rational opposition to gay marriage can take many forms, but ‘rational opposition’ by government must take specific forms and opposition to gay marriage by the government fails that test. I would have preferred a finding on the merits in the Prop 8 case, but the DOMA case finding agrees with my position since 1998….
You may disagree with it, but if the people of California voted to re-institute slavery, I would hope the elected officials would refuse.
I do disagree with it. The legislators and bureaucrats in California are obliged to do their duties and uphold the laws of the land, even when they find those laws objectionable. Otherwise, where do you draw the line? Is it “slavery” to force people to drive below the speed limit and wear seat belts? Is it “slavery” to force doctors to serve people they know will never pay? Is it “slavery” to force Catholic pharmacists to dispense birth control, and force Catholic charities to pay for it?
If the Governor and Legislature of California think that a law is unconstitutional or unenforceable, let them make their arguments to the legal authorities. If they’re right, they should have no trouble getting the law suspended until it’s had a chance to go through the courts. But they cannot make such decisions unilaterally. Once that happens, we are no longer ruled by laws — we are ruled by men. And that way lies tyranny. Every. Single. Time.
Can you imagine living in a state where laws on the books are only enforced when the authorities decide to bother? How about where the statute of limitations is longer than the election cycle, such that you could be brought up on charges for actions you took years earlier, when such acts were “winked at” by the authorities?
Do you not see that this is the world you’re blithely walking toward? And dragging the rest of us into?
Does “Marriage” as the Catholic Church teaches it still exist if zombie John Boswell (in life, a self-described ‘devout’ Catholic) shows up with his fiancee, a copy of his Same Sex Unions in one hand, and a Court Order in the other?
I don’t think it will.
And zombies aren’t real anyways.
But I do think somebody is going to show up in a Catholic church with a copy of Same Sex Unions and a Court Order compelling the parish priest to perform the ceremony.
And if they’ve planned ahead, picking the right parish in the right bishopric, the priest will go ahead and do it.
8 did not get voted on through mob rule, it went through a legitimate process to get on the ballot. I doubt a slavery initiative would get the signatures or votes in the legislature.
I don’t think standing was based simply on displeasure with the law. The CA supreme court ruled: “[I]n the past official proponents of initiative measures in California have uniformly been permitted to participate … in numerous lawsuits in California courts challenging the validity of the initiative measure the proponents sponsored” so, it was based on past practice although it was unique that the state was not participating in the defense.
We have the same recourse with recalcitrant politicians we always had – don’t re-elect them. I do find it interesting that people were able to rally support for Prop 8 but not for amending the Constitution (CA) to prevent abortion. A gay marriage has no impact on a straight marriage, but an abortion does affect a life. It IS slavery to be required to provide services without pay. I oppose Obamacare for a significant number of reasons and support those governors who refuse to establish state exchanges.
I can imagine a state where people make laws that protect their liberty rather than demand how people should live their lives…..not sure one exists anymore…
That would be the island nation of Utopia, first described by the Portugese sailor Rapahel Hythlodaeus, a member of Amerigo Vespucci’s expedition to the New World.
The college aged children of many of my friends yearn for Utopia.
Most of them grow out of it.
In keeping with one of the guiding spirits of this blog, how you get there matters, I’d like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that we are where we are today because a mayor in San Francisco wanted to be the governor of California someday. Perhaps I misremember.
From my book An Assertion of Right:
“It has been said that all we can reasonably expect of a society based on an imperfect humanity is “one with some evils, maladjustments and suffering”. Why? Why not work to eliminate evils, maladjustments and suffering? Accept them as the natural consequence of an imperfect humanity? I agree we are imperfect, but that does not give us license to ignore those imperfections. What is worse is to allow institutions WE create to result in evils, maladjustments and suffering by design. Knowing such evils exist and to do nothing but accept the imperfection is to deny our own evil.”
Except for that, you know, slavery part, our Constitution gave us a chance….
If you’re in college and yearning for Utopia still, Mommy and Daddy must be footing the bill.
If Uncle Sam happens to be Mommy, he’s going to do a very un-Mommy like thing and insist that he be paid back.
So, tracy, pushing homosexual marriage on to people unwilling to participate is now freedom?
and if I come across as a bit cranky, it’s because I just got done dealing with Dell support. Uggh.
Knowing such evils exist and to do nothing but accept the imperfection is to deny our own evil.
Hardly. We are not gods. We can never be perfected. This is a mistake that liberals and atheists tend to make quite often. Not all of them of course, but many. Social engineering will not change this.
Blake, my condolences.
“This isn’t Heaven. It’s the world. And there’s troubles in it.”
Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
leigh, according to liberals, if enough laws of the right kinds of laws are passed, society will be perfected, the unicorns will return and skittles will reign from the sky.
Of course, liberals don’t seem to understand there are a lot of people out there that don’t really care much about laws.
Cheers, Ernst.
“We can’t just sit here and do nothing!”
“Why not? It’s usually best.”
Lawrence of Arabia (1960[?])
that may be more of a paraphrase than a quote
I’ve taken notice of that over the years, Blake. Obviously, we aren’t having the right laws
rammed through passed.I refuse to live in a world ruled by Skittles!
Let the Starburst rebellin begin
I’d be interested to know just what it is, exactly, that you think our Constitution gave us a chance to do.
As I said in another thread, you can’t just say SSM has no effect on anyone else when modern marriage contracts are enforced by the state when/if a problem arises.
Tracy, you are trying to make a libertarian type argument that is undermined by simultaneously asking for the state’s blessing (and possible services).
You can shack up with whomever you want with no one’s blessing but, your (adult) partner’s, no questions asked. That is liberty.
Why not work to eliminate evils, maladjustments and suffering? Accept them as the natural consequence of an imperfect humanity?
Some hippie dude once said “The poor shall be with you always.” As I recall, the idea was that you would help the poor as an act of personal charity when you had the opportunity — not that you’d advocate for a new-and-improved Board Of Poverty Alleviation funded by Other People’s Money.
To the extent that we create institutions that result in suffering, our usual response is to “perfect” the institutions, by adding ever-more layers of rules and controls. This invariably leads to bloated institutions that cause more suffering than ever. Very rarely do we recognize that a perfect institution is beyond our design, and dismantle our engines of suffering before they grow out of control.
To understand this is not to deny our own evils or imperfections, but rather to recognize them.
Same hippy dude’s disciple also said, “Man is born to suffer as the sparks fly upward.”
More to the point, the same hippy dude’s Old Man set an Angel with a Sword of Fire to guard the entrance to the Garden, ensuring none of us descendents of Adam and Eve would find our way back to Paradise on Earth.
After the twentieth century, you’d think we’d have finally learned to stop trying.
trouble in mind and I’m blue however I won’t be blue always cause of the sun’s gonna shine in my back door someday
Blake, is someone pushing you to marry a same sex partner?
Leigh, I am not for trying to fix your particular evils, nor interested in you trying to fix mine, but if we create institutions that establish evil, we should just accept that as a natural consequence to our ‘nature’? How little do good men and women have to do in the face of human evil….
Gee people…why have laws at all if evil is as inherent in all of humanity? I don’t seek to ‘fix’ society, or even it’s participants – but the institutions we create, to create them to perpetuate evil seems awful cavalier.
Ernst, it gave us a chance to limit the evils of government – a man made institution.
Squid, there is no good reason to create institutions to take the responsibility we, individually, bear for ourselves and others. If we are called to be charitable, then creating a gov agency to be charitable is not satisfaction of that responsibility….I’d argue establishing a church to satisfy that obligation is also an abdication of that responsibility.
tracy, rest easy. The “fix” is in.
May God have mercy on our souls.
tracy, I’m being forced to recognize something I know is wrong and am dead set against. And a majority of Californians have voted twice in agreement with my position.
But, a bunch of fascists in black robes have decreed that I have no choice but to accept that the definition of marriage now includes same sex couples.
And how about the guy who was sued because he refused to make a wedding cake for a homosexual couple? Government is going to try and force him to agree to something he doesn’t agree with. His choice will be to either go out of business or pay a ton of money defending himself. Now that SSM is an acceptable definition of marriage, where does it leave companies who disagree with that policy?
Care to discuss where the force is coming from and who’s freedom is being usurped again?
ernst, you only like Starburst cause of commercial where that chick did that thing with the wrapper.
Blake, I think Islam is wrong and am dead set against it (it’s plans for the likes of me is death). No, you personally don’t have to recognize it, anymore than you have to recognize the marriage of an idiot brother to a Mustang Ranch castaway, but if government is going to recognize a traditional marriage, it has to have some reason to refuse granting the same recognition to a gay marriage (and by reason I mean a governmental reason).
We decided that if a business was open to the public, it had to treat any paying customer the same, regardless of our personal opinion – so that black customer with money in hand, had to be served just like the white person. If that baker opened a business to the public, they have to treat any paying customer the same, even if they didn’t like floozies jumping out of their cakes. I support the idea that a business can refuse to serve whomever it wants, whenever it wants – but as a society we decided that was not acceptable….back in the 60’s.
It leaves companies right where they were – it has to treat paying customers the same, it can’t discriminate because of who they are, what they do in their homes, or how they choose to act outside of the business. A customer with shirt, shoes and money that seeks to engage a business is to be treated the same as any other customer with shirt, shoes and money that walks in the door.
Gee people…why have laws at all if evil is as inherent in all of humanity? I don’t seek to ‘fix’ society, or even it’s participants – but the institutions we create, to create them to perpetuate evil seems awfully cavalier.
Um, we have laws <i.precisely because evil is inherent in all. But even if one recognizes that murderers walk among us, there’s a wide gulf between a law enforcement institution that exists to investigate and punish murderers, versus an institution that exists to identify and pre-emptively prevent would-be murderers.
Perhaps you’d serve the debate better by providing examples of the institutions you have in mind, and the evils they perpetuate.
We decided that if a business was open to the public, it had to treat any paying customer the same, regardless of our personal opinion.
I’m pretty sure “we” decided that this was the case only for providers of public accommodation, which doesn’t include wedding photographers and bakers. Except that our courts seem open to redefining “public accommodation” to suit their whims, just as they have with quaint things like “liberty” and “federalism” and “marriage.”
Well, that’s a bit of a relief. I was worried that you would say something about “form[ing] a more perfect Union.”
Respectfully Tracy you’re wrong though, if you think heterosexual marrage is merely a man-made institution –like homosexual marriage indisputably is.
Squid: food stamps, housing vouchers, expanded/extended unemployment, bank bailouts, corporate cronyism, ag subsidies (not just cash payments but idling land), foreign aid. Specifics: EPA, Education, NEA, SBA, Energy, ‘world’ organizations, Import/Export Bank, HHS & Obamacare, the Fed.
Ernst, I don’t think I suggested that marriage was an institution…it is a sacrament. The word however has been expanded into the secular world to indicate ‘contract’. And I consider marriage to be more than a piece of paper or an event lasting a few minutes in front of friends/family and a preacher.
Yea, I can dispute it…
Didn’t a tent-making johnny-come-lately type booster of that hippy dude’s preachings have something to say about that? Something about slaves obeying their masters and wives their husbands?
And speaking of slaves and wives,
Tracy, if you’re going where I think you’re going with your evil man-made institutions in need of correction line of reasoning, then I’m going to have to stop taking you for a thoughtful person.
Apologies to you if the link between slavery and traditional (one man, one woman) marriage that I think you’re attempting to suggest is the result of my misaprehension.
there is no reason to be upset about the gay marriage
especially not with a 4-day weekend coming up
ECUADOR!!!
If you want to rummage around in a category error of your own devising, who am I to stop you?
EEEEKKKK no Ernst, my concept of marriage is ‘and they became as one’. the idea that one is master and the other servant tends to come from those that oppose marriage rather than embrace it….and frankly, despite suggestions to the contrary, many gays support ‘marriage’ as a traditional commitment between two.
T
Which I guess it is.
This is what I’m driving at regarding “category error,” e.g., how are two women or two men to become “as one flesh“? to complete the quotation you offered.
Ernst, well, given a man and woman DON’T actually become one flesh, but function as a single unit, the makeup is hardly restrictive.
tracy, I think you’re missing an important phrase, “and a man shall leave his mother, cleave unto his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” (going from memory here)
Tenthers/Nullifiers – and I count myself among them – must come to grips with the fact that we will eventually have to face the logical outcome of our actions: the 21st-century version of the Brown v. Board of Education aftermath. This is not the happy yellow brick road we’re skipping down.
It’s for all the cookies; we back down, or we’re crushed. Or, we win somehow; but I really can’t see the USFedGov leviathan letting that happen. And it remains to be seen how many state executives/legislatures *really* have the balls for it, once it comes down to that; and how many will join FedGov in rounding up their own citizens.
Just so long as we all concede that, no matter what road we go down, this isn’t going to end well.
God, I depress myself sometimes. More ammo, please.
Blake, not all of society ascribes to Scripture, even if it’s wisdom is often universal. As noted to Ernst, they don’t actually become one flesh.
Pelosi: Republicans Have ‘Spent Millions of Taxpayer Dollars Defending Bigotry’
Kneel before Zod.
becoming one flesh is a big ask
“becoming one flesh is a big ask”
kinda happens when you have put your weiner in a girl’s pussy.
Metaphor Examples
Tell that to my children.
but function as a single unit, the makeup is hardly restrictive.
Oh really?
Do tell me how two men or two women have children without involving a third person?
One doesn’t need marriage to fuck so WHY marriage?
Because, contrary to all the other faux handwringing about do it for teh childrens! in this instance it is reality.
Marriage is because OF the children. The ideal place for the raising of generations is with their bio mom and bio dad who have entered into the public institution of marriage.
While we cannot all achieve that ideal, that doesn’t negate it.
who is “anti science” is this discussion?
And that’s bona fide Supreme Court Opinion, and not just the botulinin talking!
“While we cannot all achieve that ideal,”
they want us to pursue another ideal that has never been tried or has and failed. what effin’ losers.
bill clinton bigot
The obvious retort is Republicans have spent millions of taxpayer dollers defending Bill Clinton’s bigoted law because it was the law of the land, and you don’t get to pick and choose which laws you’re going to defend based upon personal opinion –I’m looking at you two, Obama and Holder.
I wonder how many other Democrats supported it?
What’s magical about two partners? I say this is a direct slap at polygamists.
Unlike gays, polygamists have a long and well documented history from ancient times until the present day.
the makeup is hardly restrictive.
I’m afraid it is: male and female are cosmic complementarities. A whole human comprises a male and a female, just as yin and yang are complementary.
Yin and yin is redundant, as well as incomplete. There’s no way around that.
The actual injustice is not that we don’t want to legalize SSM, it’s that some people are unable to sexually bond with members of the opposite sex in the first place. Just another in the long, LONG list of injustices in this world that aren’t perpetuated by other people.
Tracy, perhaps you haven’t thought about what the legitimacy of SSM will do to straight, same-sex relationships. Already, expressions of affection between friends of the same sex has to be calculated to not be too affectionate, lest there be misunderstandings. The idea of an intimate, non-sexual relationship between same-sex friends is quickly evaporating, as young people now believe that all intimate relationships are essentially sexual, and that all sex is intimacy. That’s a dangerous equation to uphold because it’s a filthy lie, and like all lies that societies believe, it will do an immense amount of harm.
For example, now that fornication is OK, it’s difficult to orchestrate genuine courtship, wherein the non-sexual aspects of a relationship are explored without oxytocin and other hormones distorting one’s perspective. Furthermore, sharing the most intimate part of your body and soul with too many people makes it harder to form healthy bonds later, because serial bonding and “dumping” can only leave scar tissue on the heart. Especially for women. Good relationships are hard enough without handicapping yourself, solely because society says it’s worse to be a prude than a slut.
Society must constrain and corral and limit the public concept of when sex is legit and when it isn’t, lest sex expand to consume all other relationships. Most of the condemnations of homosexuality in the Bible refer to entire societies wherein there are zero sexual boundaries: everyone did everyone, which meant that normal parent-child relationships were obliterated, healthy sibling relationships disappeared, and everyone else was a friend “with benefits,” which meant “we’re all each other’s sex toy.”
Surely the hearts of the people in those sex-saturated societies were so damaged that they could no longer love. Having all been “legitimately” molested as children, they would have developed pathologies beyond our worst nightmares. God did them a kindness by wiping them out.
I am very sorry that I have to say “No” to people who cannot bond with the opposite sex, through no fault of their own. It hurts because I know what it’s like to be alone, and I know that the desire of many gays is to develop healthy, moral marriages.
But a same-sex coupling cannot function the same way as an opposite-sex coupling: not within the family thus created and not in society at large. The consequences of effacing sexual differences and of denying sexual complementarity are too dire.
Finally going back to my exchange with Tracy, it’s a bit dodgy to use colloquialism (a “sacrament” is a “contract” in everyday common usage) when it’s convenient, and then insist upon literalism (a husband and wife don’t physically become one person) when it isn’t.
Out for the weekend. Have productive and pleasant exchange of views and opinions all
–or not.
See ya Monday!
Your children are you?
“Your children are you?”
science- yes him and his wife!
They’re both, then? Imagine how large that geometric progression could get.
lgbtxyz crowd are anti science like the gaia crowd. sh!t for brains
” Imagine how large that geometric progression could get.”
this ain’t hard – sperm + egg = baby. happens all the time see: nature. when you argue basic facts your side sounds stoopid.
Wow. I didn’t know that. You are totally telling me something new.
Still, I am not getting how some of my DNA plus some of my wife’s DNA equals me. Or even us.
Even though I do, kind of suspiciously, look a lot like my dad. Only with blue eyes.
“Still, I am not getting how some of my DNA plus some of my wife’s DNA equals me. Or even us.”
try the metaphor link above
I never met a phor I didn’t like. But because I’m not sure what you’re talking about: what link?
Oh, I got it. But, see, the problem with metaphors is they’re just metaphors, and not literally true.
Which presents a problem when you’re making a literally-true argument with them.
The problems of smug pedantry and empty sophistry also present themselves. Such is snark.
sperm + egg = baby
link
Similar problems exist with smugly dismissive statements. Now what?
“Now what?”
faggotry is a public health menace- see: aids
Non sequitur makes you look gay.
Too glib?
Maybe this kind of exchange just isn’t very useful.
Ernst! Interesting conclusion! Conceded. Which I guess is then the place that Darleen leds to – procreation. Of course, we don’t need marriage for procreation, we don’t need marriage for a father and mother to create and raise children in a household. And of course, we have procreation without those things – even if I concede all the negative ramifications of doing so – though, if a man and woman procreate and raise children all without the ‘marriage’, I don’t know what detriment the children suffer.
And while the ‘ideal’ is certainly preferrable, it is not the government’s place to enforce it, though it probably should do nothing to prevent it either. But that is however only one instance in which marriage is supported. Non-fertile couples are not prevented from marrying, nor are fertile couples REQUIRED to procreate – so procreation is not the foundation of government sanction of marriage (though I will admit it probably was the reason people demanded government recognize ‘valid’ marriages originally).
dicentra: interesting take on same sex friendships. My daughter (adopted) is straight, has many friends. Her close friends all say ‘love you’ and hug each other when they say good bye…don’t think anyone thinks it’s sexual. Her closest friends are active members of the Mormon Church. She turned 18 in December, just graduated high school and last week, went on her first date (not counting prom a month ago). I’m not willing to give up a liberty because some people abuse it. And because some parents have failed in raising their children is not reason we must all retreat to the lowest common denominator.
The sexual degradation of society finds it roots much earlier than the current discussion over gay marriage. You can argue, (I’ll concede) that without that earlier heterosexual revolution to serve as fertile ground, the current ‘gay’ advancement could not have happened. Even feminism can share in the blame. If gay marriage is to be the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’, it is minuscule weight is somewhat out of proportion to the actual causes.
dicentra, I find your final paragraph statement “same sex coupling can not function the same way as opposite sex couple’ obviously correct, but not the conclusion that in their external interactions fail. My partner and I were active participants in our community/neighborhood and well accepted (I can’t say fully because one couple refused to socialize with us – that was their choice, not our inability).
Ernst, colloquialism? Baptism, marriage, death rites are all sacraments, I don’t think baptism or death rites are informally ‘contracts’ . Marriage also doesn’t require organized religion’s blessing to be a sacrament – at least IMO. I personally don’t think an Islamic marriage bears the same characteristics as a Christian or even secular one in this country. I was noting that ‘marriage’ has a specific secular legal connotation – it is no longer just a religious sacrament. It’s characteristic, even if you will, definition has changed from a personal commitment to a legally binding contract.
Seriously: “faggotry”. Are you stuck in middle school, man?
“Seriously: “faggotry”. Are you stuck in middle school, man? ”
nah just observant of the commies
or nazis
also what you got about cigarettes?
“Seriously: “faggotry”. Are you stuck in middle school, man? ”
#occupy was railing against the 1% me too
“Seriously: “faggotry”. Are you stuck in middle school, man? ”
anti darwin?
forward to proggtardia!!11!!
Because if they were, they’d have to know in advance. Which they don’t always.
Case in point, here. But there’s more than one way to skin a cat, as they say.
“Non-fertile couples are not prevented from marrying”
effin proggtardia. fags and other non-fertiles are
allowed
but don’t bring up – sperm+egg=baby: because no sperm + no egg FOR THE EQUALITY PEEPS
It seems to me that folks are making various arguments in good faith here.
That’s an obvious good. That’s worth encouraging.
Railing on “fags and other non-fertiles” isn’t worth your own time, nr.
Family went back to the hotel earlier than expected, so interrupting my weekend.
Abe:
and
Yes 23 chromosome pairs, half from me, half from my wife. Two into one.
And I’m not making a literally-true argument, you’re attributing that to me just like Tracy did.
Tracy:
I disagree with the proposition that a sacrament is, or ever was, just a personal commitment.
this we know about faggot “marriage” they need the state to recognize them the fags ain’t “libertarians”
But, see, what you said was this:
So: did you mean this literally, or figuratively? I think it matters. Your children are not the sum of you and your wife. That’s not quite how it works. And even if it did work that way, genetically, they would still be different beings than the sum of you two.
I don’t discount the miracle of making a new life out of the two of you. Far from it. I just don’t think it’s quite so simple as it sounds. For instance: my parents had six. No two of us are alike. So: out of two, six?
Just because once wasn’t quite juvenile enough.
“Railing on “fags and other non-fertiles” isn’t worth your own time, nr. ”
after seeing stuff like this:
Star witness at Zimmerman trial to defense lawyer: ‘That’s real retarded, sir’
ain’t playing the game no more
“Just because once wasn’t quite juvenile enough.”
oh do the Ad hominem
faggots don’t make peeps neither do lesbians. you be 2+2=5 territory
I’m going to address this here, since it’s the more active thread:
What about your children? Or their children? their children’s children? Do you think they might need and or want society’s blessing? What if they just take their cues from society?
The social contract isn’t between you and me and everybody else. It’s between the dead and the yet to be born.
If I may be allowed another analogical argument, we’re just caretakers of the camp-ground. We have a responsibility to, if not leave it better than we found it, at least leave it in no worse condition. This is a ancient oak we’re proposing to cut down. Are we sure the view of the horizon will be more appreciated by the next campers than will be the shade the oak would have provided had we left it standing?
If natural couples don’t require ‘marriage’ to raise children, then certainly gays don’t need ‘marriage’ for anything whatsoever, save as a feeble attempt to rescue their standings from centuries of natural rejections by hetero-normals.
Biologically speaking, leaving any talk of religion out of it, gays are but drones: incapable of reproducing naturally, they are doomed to lead superfluous lives. So, bitter, they’ve begged for accreditation from our current Government, which is happy to throw them a feel-better-pill simply for their votes. Gays, by forcing their strange, twisted ways on our society by attacking and successfully undermining the purposeful institute of marriage. That purpose, for all these centuries, is to successfully raise human children the way they should be raised: given proper role models from opposite-sexed parents. Granted, marriage isn’t what it was prior to what’s transpired in the last half-century of left-leaning decline, but this attack may well finish it off. The clowns have arrived, to marry as same-sex partners, with no purpose except to share things that a simple contract could’ve managed just as easily.
Know this: no matter that our short-term government has deemed that gays can marry. Gays can never marry and consummate a marriage correctly, to become as one flesh; because that one flesh is only the result of two opposite-sexed adults bringing into this word their natural children.
Gay marriage is a government sham, and won’t survive a century I’ll warrant. When this current version of steeply-declining Rome finally falls, so will end the sham of gay marriage.
Burke!
There’s a fissure here that we often gloss over because we’re all so often simpatico in most other ways.
Velociman weighs in:
Speak for yourself, buster. One of the primary functions of marriage is to civilize men. In those societies where men are not bonded by law and custom to their wives and children, the men end up preying on the women and children, who form the core of any society.
Witness the inner city, where the
menboys sire children on various women but do not marry them: instead of directing their considerable energy toward bettering the lot of their wives and progeny, they form criminal gangs that ruin the upcoming generation and degrade the very concept of manhood, given that hardly any of them lives long enough to acquire wisdom, let alone impart it.In contrast, when men are looped back into society through marriage commitments, we get the interstate highway system, skyscrapers, and footprints on the moon.
Nothing forces a man to grow up faster and better than the expectations of a wife: women are more likely to be grounded in What’s Most Important In Life.
This is ancient wisdom we’re attempting to wrest. We do so at our peril.
“Railing on “fags and other non-fertiles” isn’t worth your own time, nr.”
from what i see or read trayvon was a self described nigger. i agree. time to use the English language to describe the enemies of western culture. the faggots pick this fight. let’s describe the enemy accordingly.
I’d prefer that they took their cues from us. Because society is, pardon the expression, fucked.
That’s if you accept the notion of a literal social contract, which I don’t.
I’m not proposing or otherwise suggesting that any metaphorical oak be felled. So.
“women are more likely to be grounded in What’s Most Important In Life.”
yea right
“Because society is, pardon the expression, fucked.”
by whom?
gays are but drones: incapable of reproducing naturally, they are doomed to lead superfluous lives. So, bitter, they’ve begged for accreditation from our current Government, which is happy to throw them a feel-better-pill simply for their votes.
Point of order: Drones exist for the express purpose of fertilizing the queen. You might want to try another metaphor.
I’m pretty sure we can make all kinds of reasonable arguments against SSM without inventing empty, meaningless lives for our opponents. Plenty of people who can’t reproduce naturally (or, like myself, have failed to do so) are in the same boat as gays, progeny-wise. Although it hurts to be left out of the circle of life and be as superfluous as China’s “bare-branch” males, there’s no need to rub it in.
That’s if you accept the notion of a literal social contract, which I don’t.
Do stay on your desert island, Mr. Kaczynski.
Railing on “fags and other non-fertiles” isn’t worth your own time, nr.”
from what i see or read trayvon was a self described nigger. i agree. time to use the English language to describe the enemies of western culture. the faggots pick this fight. let’s describe the enemy accordingly.
Actually, I’m starting to get nauseated by it. There’s no need to resort to “pervert” talk to make the point.
Unless you’re a Moby. In which case, get lost.
“empty, meaningless lives for our opponents”
no my life has meaning without wife/child. it is also financially better. this is where this perversion is heading.
I understand Genesis 2:18-24 allegorically. “Tell that to my children[,]” was a retort. ” 23 chromosome pairs, half from me, half from my wife. Two into one[,]” was meant metaphysically.
Also, I agree that our children are more than the sum of us. That’s why I’m [(Jonah) Goldberg gambit] hurt that you would think I was making a reductionist argument like my kid is my clone[/Goldberg gambit].
“Railing on “fags and other non-fertiles” isn’t worth your own time, nr.”
from what i see or read trayvon was a self described nigger. i agree. time to use the English language to describe the enemies of western culture. the faggots pick this fight. let’s describe the enemy accordingly.
Actually, I’m starting to get nauseated by it. There’s no need to resort to “pervert” talk to make the point.”
Jeantel does pervert
Why is “nigger” off limits? Who made that call?
link
frakin’ html
Indeed.
As best as I can tell the Protein Wisdom community is divided along a spectrum ranging from libertarian/libertarian-leaning social conservative sympathizers to social conservative/social conservative-leaning libertarian sympathizers with libertarian/libertarian leaners suspicious of social conservatives and social conservative/social conservative leaners suspicious of libertarians in-between.
Oh. And at least one libertine.
This is one of those issues that works the libertarian/social conservative fissure like the San Andreas fault.
“That’s if you accept the notion of a literal social contract, which I don’t”
oh good anarchy
you all can say stuff but two/three… same/different sex ain’t effin’ marriage. find a different word like retarded or stupid maybe proggtardia?
I think that used to be metaphorically true. It ceased to be so once the feminist movement convinced enough women that they were just men without dicks.
And enough men that having a dick was something to be slightly ashamed of.
still waiting: who exactly made the decision that “nigger” is a banned word. what other words can “they” ban?
And while the ‘ideal’ is certainly preferrable, it is not the government’s place to enforce it
Government never “enforced” it. You are free to shack up with any other consenting adult(s) of any configuration. Go all Harrad Experiment or hippie commune.
Government is neutral on how you privately want to run your life (usual caveats about harm/slavery/etc here)
However, the government, through its representatives and under the auspices of state or federal constitutions, can and should set standards of public institutions, including contractual relations – be it tenant/landlord, employer/employee or marriage.
The government doesn’t penalize you for NOT getting married. It does sanction the institution OF marriage.
newrouter is making a case for the state over the individual, here. So, color me anarchist, on that scale.
but nigger is only a “bad” word if paula uses it 27 years ago. the black ghetto folks like Jeantel, be ok with what cracker. eff this sh!t
So are you Hobbesian or Rousseauian Slart?
Ernst: “The social contract isn’t between you and me and everybody else. It’s between the dead and the yet to be born. ”
Thomas Paine to Edmund Burke (or actually, regarding Burke’s defense of the monarchy:
““Those who have quitted the world, and those who have not yet arrived at it, are as remote from each other as the utmost stretch of mortal imagination can conceive. What possible obligation, then, can exist between them- what rule or principle can be laid down that of two nonentities, the one out of existence and the other not in, and who never can meet in this world, the one should control the other to the end of time”
No father wishes for his child that the world he leaves is the same as the world as he found it….or, maybe some do.
serr8d, my partner adopted a child from China when her biological parents abandoned her. Might she have been raised by a couple in China? Maybe, her odds were not good. She has benefited from our efforts greater than she would have otherwise – to dismiss us as drones, unable to help the next generation live and raise others is a blanket statement with more than a few holes.
I think you only get to use nigger if you’re prepared to self identify as a crazy-ass cracker, and vice versa.
with all that implies for racial harmony.
“newrouter is making a case for the state over the individual, here. So, color me anarchist, on that scale. ”
no
link
As I know that Rousseau was fundamentally flawed, I cannot tag myself as a disciple.
Hobbes, though…I’d have to think about that.
mr. Slartibartfast
there are degrees of fed Gov’t. me most of it is pork barrel and should be gone.
Thank you for the reminder that Thomas Paine was a solipsist.
I think my child deserves a world that’s no worse than the world of his grandfather. That oak tree I was talking about shouldn’t be taken down simply because we think it’s detracting our momentary view of the horizon.
if you can’t say nigger about the “knock out game” now can you describe the “boston bomber” in the future?
Think hard. You’ve painted yourself into a corner by rejecting Rousseau.
Your window is Locke, Montesque, and the Founders.
The thing to read, by the way, is Bloom’s chapter “Two Revolutions and Two States of Nature” in his The Closing of the American Mind.
Would the “knock-out game” be more palatable if it was a cracker game?
Painted myself in a corner by rejecting Rousseau? Must be a really, really big corner.
Rousseau’s views of primitive man and culture were…not even wrong. There’s a LOT of space available, having negated that.
“Would the “knock-out game” be more palatable if it was a cracker game? ”
just sad how a totalitarian a’holes use peeps
Hobbes: The state of nature is hell on earth and the only way out is government
Rousseau: The state of nature was paradise on earth until government wrecked it and the only way back is the right sort of government.
another loser
That men are actually wicked, a sad and continual experience of them proves beyond doubt: but, all the same, I think I have shown that man is naturally good
is the rousseau guy ban nigger or faggot?
or jihadi? or islam?
What else do you expect from totalitarian a’holes? You want to fight back? Don’t be an a’hole. Thereby showing the peeps that the world isn’t what the totalitarian’s say it is i.e., one a’hole tribe against another with the Leader standing between you and the mob.
Start speaking english if you expect an answer, newrouter. I don’t understand what “ban nigger or fag or jihad or islam” is supposed to mean.
By the way, Slart, I feel I should mention that if you try to get out of the corner by rejecting social contract theory altogether, you only succeed in making your situation worse. Because then your choice becomes either Throne and Altar, or Will to Power and The Transvaluation of all Values.
As the Grail Knight said,
choose wisely.
Me? I think I’m going to have to go long on Throne and Altar. As long as the grandkids don’t sell it for some of that hot Will to Power and Transvaluation of All Values stock, their grandkids are going to be in clover!
Or, I suppose you could do a Keynes and blow the seed money on whiskey and women.
Not that Keynes was into women.
If I don’t get to check back in, again, have a profitable weekend.
Ernst, gee, I give Scripture credit for wisdom even if it isn’t inspired, yet you dismiss Paine because he was an atheist? (I’d have to go back and reread, but maybe that was just an accusation made against him.)
If not Paine, maybe Jefferson?
“We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.” –Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1813
“Hobbes: The state of nature is hell on earth and the only way out is government”
Confucius say man have right idea but too dumb to look to paste big heaven label on government which keep government from being held responsible for hell it fail to keep on other side of wall. No one want to walk up 200,000 stairs to complain to top boss who dwarfs you like you dwarf dried snowpepper. Especially if they have to offend chosen representative of him on Earth and lots of guards with spears who are trained to see everyone as enemies and less than human.
Modern nuts call heaven “history” which of course doesn’t make it heaven OR history. But political power flows from the barrel of a gun. At least at first.
“[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” ~~ John Adams
We either control ourselves, or The State will control us — or, vice versa, The Bigger the Government, the smaller the citizen.
The eradication of marriage is just one more step towards moving into Life of Julia — where The State replaces God/Parent/Spouse.
Sex without ethics or boundaries is just so much bread & circuses.
Blake wrote on 27 June at 2:21 PM:
I would say this applies to all of those, both on the Left and the Right who embrace an Ideology.
An Ideology is a system of ideas developed in the sterile laboratories of the minds of it’s creators, far away from Reality. It is a system constructed in fantasy and whim.
It is a pristine thing that, when applied/enforced in the messy Real World is subject to collapse. Therefore, to ‘keep Hope alive’, as it were, to have the system remain immaculate, force must be applied.
Request: Blake, could it be Sweet Tarts instead of Skittles?
Stupid work got in the way and I had to leave the thread yesterday. Cool the way it took off.
Damn, Bob, did you just date yourself or what?
Ah, those were the days: a Saturday matinée and sweet tarts by the handful.
Sweet Tarts and Pixie Stix!
-Damn interesting discussions [a special ‘Bravo’ to Ernst for his commentary].
-Ernst wrote:
Methinks Uncle Sam will demand involuntary servitude as his payback.
Tracy…
-When one quotes Tom Paine in agreement, one marks themselves as an Ideologue and/or Leftist. The Rights Of Man is the work of a Leftist Mind. Paine approved of the French Revolutionary’s smashing of all institutions into rubble in order to Immanentize The Eschaton in France [‘Year One’ and all that]. He wanted a pristine Democracy to arise from the ashes of Christendom. Such a system was implemented and it led, not to freedom and liberty, but misery and death – as it does in all Revolutions.
-As for Jefferson: where Paine was, for all intents and purposes, what we call today a ‘Red’, TJ was a ‘Pinko’ – flirting constantly with Leftism like the snobby dilettante he was, enjoying his wines, quoting Rousseau and Voltaire.
-The antidote to the nonsense of such misguided men is Edmund Burke.
This snippet from him is, I think, particularly appropriate at this time, in this Age Of Leftist Hegemony [from Reflections On The Revolution In France]:
Bob, sheesh, it’s almost like you don’t believe that “things will be different this time.”
These, evidently, encompass the entire universe of possibilities. The way I see it is this: the state of nature is the state of nature. Whether it’s (figuratively) hell or paradise is an assessment, not what is. I see government as a necessary evil, and think there’s perhaps an optimum level of government where there’s enough of it to keep the peace, but not so much of it that it infringes too much on freedom.
Which sounds a bit outside the binary Hobbes/Rousseau universe, but I could be wrong on that point.
Including the American Revolution?
Mr. Belvedere, despite Burke’s affection for the United States, his opinion of our plans was less than unequivocal admiration:
“It is claimed that “…the people of England have acquired three fundamental rights, all which, with him, compose one system, and lie together in one short sentence; namely, that we have acquired a right
“To choose our own governors.”
“To cashier them for misconduct.”
“To frame a government for ourselves.”
“This new, and hitherto unheard-of, bill of rights, though made in the name of the whole people, belongs to those gentlemen and their faction only. The body of the people of England have no share in it. They utterly disclaim it. They will resist the practical assertion of it with their lives and fortunes. They are bound to do so by the laws of their country, made at the time of that very Revolution which is appealed to in favour of the fictitious rights claimed by the Society which abuses its name.“
And:
“The very idea of the fabrication of a new government is enough to fill us with disgust and horror.”
from Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790
I think it is interesting that in fact you are correct, both Jefferson and Paine were quite Liberal, they opposed the State – as promoted by Burke – as a supreme/sovereign power over the individual. There is a reason many of us conservatives qualify that claim with ‘classical liberal’. Unlike Burke, a classical conservative that believed we were subservient to the State/King but with ‘rights’.
Including the American Revolution?
We have to recognize exactly what our “revolution” did, because unlike the French we were merely cutting an umbilical cord, declaring that our masters across the sea no longer had jurisdiction over us. Imperial Britain was like a spider plant, sprouting little versions of itself on runners that sought out new ground and rooted themselves apart from the mother plant. All we did is cut the runner after sprouting our own roots.
Same with all of the other colonies, whether of Britain or Spain or Belgium: the post-colonial configuration depended on the nature of the mother plant who sent out runners. British colonies have fared much differently than the Spanish and Belgian colonies because the British exported its excellent common law tradition, whereas the Spanish exported feudalism. (Beats me what the Belgians did, but Francophone Africa isn’t exactly paradise, so…)
In contrast, the French revolution was in response to internal rot. The ruling class was utterly depraved and degraded, French governing institutions were shot through with corruption, and the Church offered no moral edification. The task, therefore, was to “purge” an internal cancer from the body without killing the patient.
These kinds of revolutions never end well, because the governing institutions are already in a state of degradation, and those who lead the effort to set things aright are inevitably Charming Sociopaths who merely want to be the corrupt rulers themselves. The purging also gets out of control, with the passions of the people overwhelming any judgment they might have had, and madame la guillotine claims more innocent lives than guilty before Napoleon comes and restores an iron rule.
The ousting of Bastista from Cuba, the Tsar from Russia, the Shah from Iran, Mubarak from Egypt, Qaddafi from Libya—it’s all frying pan to fire. Any armed revolution we might attempt here, now, would be of the same species as the French revolution, and with the same awful results.
Any armed revolution we might attempt here, now, would be of the same species as the French revolution, and with the same awful results.
This is one big reason why I would prefer dissolution over revolution. Just twenty states in Flyover Land saying, “You know what? Fuck it. We’re out of here.” Then it’s up to Barry Hussein Lincoln to decide just how much blood he wants on his hands.
For myself — as long as everyone stays the hell offa my lawn, nobody gets hurt.
Jefferson was the original limousine liberal.
See Jack Rackove’s description for evidence.
Squid, I have suggested the same. Stay off our lawns.
dicentra, very good.
Ernst, yep, all good liberals (unlike today’s version which are just a different face of the same classical conservative, statist coin)
I’m going from memory here, because I don’t actually have a copy of Rakove, but, if I remember correctly, he includes Edmund Burke among your “good liberals.” I don’t know Burke as well as I should, or would like too, but I can’t help feeling that your characterization of Burke as a promoter of the supremety of the state over the individual is unfair to Burke. Burke, according to my (albeit) limited understanding, was a defender of tradition, not the state.
And certainly not the state as we have come to understand it.