GOP to ban divorce (so much for small government)

[GIThruster]

Note that government staying out of marriage does not mean that things like beastiality automatically become legal.

If government stays out of marriage, there is no way to may anything illegal. I think we must be talking past each other. How can this not be obvious?

Government used to make adultery and sodomy illegal. Modern societies have for the most part backed off those positions and although it seems to me likely such laws are still on the books in some places, I can't imagine either of them being enforced in my lifetime. There are constant challenges to what is acceptable in marriage and to pretend government is not the only possible arbiter about what is "legal" seems to me requires one play fast and loose with what they think the term means. Only government decides what is legal and what is not.

[Teahive]

Note that government staying out of marriage does not mean that things like beastiality automatically become legal.

If government stays out of marriage, there is no way to may anything illegal. I think we must be talking past each other. How can this not be obvious?

Yes, it seems we're talking past each other.

If government just stays out of marriage, it doesn't make murder, assault, theft, rape, etc. legal. Neither does it make bestiality legal, because bestiality is not related to marriage. You appear to be equating legislation concerning marriage with legislation concerning sex.

I'm simply talking about dropping marriage as a special status defined by law. Family, i.e. the parent-child relation, would still be covered by specific legislation. The rest is contract law.

[GIThruster]

I see now what you're saying but I'm not sure I see this as an improvement. In what ways would this be better than the system we have? Wouldn't we for example, have to then add a host of new laws about things like polygamy? And wouldn't the lack of a legal standard do more to push for things like polygamy than almost anything one might pursue in the current system? I am tempted to think this comes from the whole "you can't legislate morality" theory when in fact that is all we legislate. Why would it be productive or useful to scrap the system we have and not have a legal standard for marriage?

[Teahive]

If several adults can legally live together, legally have sex, and legally enter into contract with each other, then polygamy is de facto legal.

[GIThruster]

And if Perky can rape his pet poodle in the privacy of his home, beastiality is de facto legal?

Sorry but you propose madness. There is no gain and all manner of obscene loss in what you propose and you've argued around in a circle. And in fact no sensible people could possibly agree with what you're saying. Polygamy is most certainly NOT legal, despite that people can live that way.

[Teahive]

And if Perky can rape his pet poodle in the privacy of his home, beastiality is de facto legal?

No. No idea how you get there.

Sorry but you propose madness. There is no gain and all manner of obscene loss in what you propose and you've argued around in a circle. And in fact no sensible people could possibly agree with what you're saying. Polygamy is most certainly NOT legal, despite that people can live that way.

Polygamy not being legal simply means that people can't get the legal privilege that comes with marriage. But living in a certain way is really the essence of marriage, and people can de facto be married even in a state of complete anarchy.

[Stubby]

GIT likes to conflate arguments.
He avoids consideration of the word 'consenting'.
Children and animals cannot consent.

The issue with incestual relationships is the genetic consequences for the children.

Same sex and poly marriages are between consenting adults

[GIThruster]

Polygamy not being legal simply means that people can't get the legal privilege that comes with marriage.

No, that's not what it means. We arrest people for polygamy. You need to stop playing fast and loose with what we have before you propose something very different. Telling everyone the laws we have don't mean anything so we can get rid of them, when in fact they define one of the bedrocks of all society is a silly game. And again, this is the problem with all libertarians. No common sense. If the only way you can win a dispute with the status quo is to completely misrepresent it, that doesn't say much for your position.

I think you really have no apprehension of the consequences for what you're proposing, and the incredible destruction it will do to society to have people routinely living in polygamous, child abusing relationships, to have people raping their pets in their homes, etc. You need to give some thought as to what will happen when you grant these kinds of liberties, all for the sake of unbridling your ideals. Think about what just happened a few months ago when they made beastiality legal in Germany, and how long that lasted. You want to pander to the worst in every human being and I can tell you, that way leads to madness. You need to have a concern as to what is the best for society at large, when you want to change the laws that make society possible.

[Teahive]

I think you really have no apprehension of the consequences for what you're proposing, and the incredible destruction it will do to society to have people routinely living in polygamous, child abusing relationships, to have people raping their pets in their homes, etc.

WTF?
Child abuse remains illegal.
Raping pets remains illegal.

But adults are free to enter into consensual relationships, just like they're free to enter into a contract, or just to meet and talk about the weather.

You need to give some thought as to what will happen when you grant these kinds of liberties, all for the sake of unbridling your ideals. Think about what just happened a few months ago when they made beastiality legal in Germany, and how long that lasted.

Germany banned bestiality two months ago, it had been legal since 1969.

[GIThruster]

I'm sorry but I'm not going to keep repeating myself. You don't make any sense. You keep trying to sell the idea that we should change the law because it won't make any difference and that's just an absurd and preposterous notion. I don't think you understand how absurd you sound. If it won't make any difference why change it? Not even you believe what you're selling.

The trouble is, you don't understand what marriage is, that it is a social contract before witnesses the entire society thereby benefits from. If you don't even understand the basic subject, how are you going to critique it?

Do you understand why all Western Civilization has always required witnesses at weddings?

[Teahive]

I'm sorry but I'm not going to keep repeating myself. You don't make any sense. You keep trying to sell the idea that we should change the law because it won't make any difference and that's just an absurd and preposterous notion. I don't think you understand how absurd you sound. If it won't make any difference why change it? Not even you believe what you're selling.

Nice straw man. But I'm not arguing that it won't make any difference. Unless you're referring to things that are unrelated to marriage, such as bestiality, or child abuse. Or are you saying that those only happen within legally recognized marriage?

[GIThruster]

But adults are free to enter into consensual relationships, just like they're free to enter into a contract, or just to meet and talk about the weather.

No they're not. For instance, married folk are forbidden to marry others. You're acting as if that weren't true and people ought to be able to marry and divorce without any of the trappings that go with. The trappings that go with, entail a social contract with the force of law. You are proposing all that be set side for reasons you won't explain. So I'll ask again, why do you propose this change where social contracts are utterly set aside for the sake of individual liberty? And I'll ask again, do you understand why marriage has always required witnesses?

And to be more pointed, how do your libertarian ideals protect children from the reckless and irresponsible behavior of adults?

[Stubby]

" Eisenstadt v. Baird, the 1972 case that overturned a Massachusetts law banning the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried people, may rank “as the single most destructive decision in the history of the Court.”

[MSimon]

And to be more pointed, how do your libertarian ideals protect children from the reckless and irresponsible behavior of adults?

Laws don't protect children. Adults paying attention protect children.

Take for instance alcohol. Laws don't protect children from that. Parents do. For illegal drugs it is even worse. For decades kids report that it is easier to get an illegal drug than a beer. You know why. Criminals don't card.

It is not a matter of making bad things go away. You can't. No matter how many laws you pass. It is a matter of what it costs to keep up the pretense so people like you can be fooled into believing you are protected. It is a typical trick of government and you know it. TSA ring a bell? The DEA is the Same. They have a fear for everyone. If you give up your fears to God (or what ever) you become a free man. Most prefer slavery. And the #1 trick of government is making you a slave to your fears.

"It is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting." - H.L. Mencken

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” - H. L. Mencken

It is not that heroin, or alcohol, or LSD or what ever, isn't dangerous. It is that government (beyond certain very limited means) can't protect you from it. And once you go beyond those limited means you wind up being attacked by your protections. Alcohol prohibition being a perfect example which does not trigger your internal fear machine.

Read 1 Samuel 8. He lays down the cost of your fears.

Here is what I see. Christians prate on about their faith and how it is so good, but I'm not seeing it. I don't see the surrender to God that is supposed to happen in true faith. You have the choice of surrender to God or surrender to Rome. The vast majority praise Jesus and surrenders to Rome. While wailing about the cost of the surrender to Rome. It is all in 1 Samuel 8.

Let me quote one sentence:

18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day.”

Christians are all the time crying out from the exactions of the King. And yet they want the King to placate their fears while deriding the fears of that other faction. You set an example. You want the DEA they want the TSA.

It will not get right until Americans get right with God. By any means necessary. It is not the means - it is the end. If Woden works for you. Praise Woden. If Jesus works for you. Praise Jesus. And God forbid if LSD or some such works to calm your spirit. Praise LSD. Will there be casualties? Any method has casualties. Peace of the spirit is only attained by intense work. What ever your method.

My point. Conventional piety is a cover for the lack of faith. And just as in the time of Jesus there is a LOT of conventional piety going around. It is a cover for spiritual emptiness. Either God protects you and you find peace. Or Rome protects you and you find eternal strife.

So why are the kids going libertarian? The are not (or less) living in fear.

[GIThruster]

It is a typical trick of government and you know it.

No simon, it's a 3,000 year-old legal practice.

Are you stoned? You sound nuts.