Political Theory

Re: "the end of hope"

Bank Run — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 12:05:03 GMT

I wish gentlemen, and ladys, were commonplace. Seems like americans like irrational traditionalism, over rational traditionalism. Like the exessive holidays, and is there goin' to be a new one next year?

A man at work asked me who the boss in my house was. I told him we were anti-authoritarians, and even if one told the other what to do they surely wouldn't have to do it.

Gettin' bamboozled is an institution best left to antiquarians.

My moral side however is for monogomy.

At least as far as I know all the women I have met have been highly deceptive.

Re: Marriage

JCFolsom — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:21:40 GMT

There have been convictions of husbands who raped their wives. Any time it ain't consentual, it's rape, married or not.

The solution for the vulnerablity to accusations for rape, or any other crime in that matter, is simply that the state should have no power to act against you or convict you on the basis of testimony alone. Because of the capacity of people to lie, no one's word can be taken as contributing to "proof beyond a reasonable doubt". This creates a very unfortunate situation. Perhaps, since this is a digression, rather than writing this here and cluttering up an only peripherally related topic, I will start a new topic.

Re: Marriage

Spideynw — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:28:10 GMT

As far as I know under current law, a wife cannot be "raped".

As to getting a contract that sex is consensual, I do not think it should be a requirement, but could be a good idea. The pros for it would be that it would protect the involved parties from accusations of rape. The cons would be that someone could be raped and could not do anything about it.

The exact opposite is true for not getting a contract. The parties involved would have the option of accusing another of rape, but then again, they would not be protected from accusations of rape.

Re: Marriage

JCFolsom — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:47:57 GMT

Whoa, that latter bit is a little odd. It implies either that "you can't rape a wife" or that you need an official contract before having sex to prove it's consentual.

Re: Marriage

Spideynw — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 06:58:20 GMT

In the eyes of the law, marriage should simply be a contractual agreement between two or more people that their property is shared between them and that sex between those people is consensual.

Re: Marriage

MacFall — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 05:22:51 GMT

macsnafu:
MacFall:

Tradition, similarly, acts as a form of slavery to latter generations. Marriage is a creation of both these systems. It amounts to little more then slavery for one or all parties involved.

Not true whatsoever. A voluntary contract is not slavery. Marriage is a voluntary contract.

I would agree that marriage is a contract, or more properly, that it should be a contract, but the problem is that most people don't really see it that way. And that definitely is one of the problems with marriage.

Agreed. However, I think that has much more to do with the state's treatment of marriage than the nature of the institution itself.

Re: Marriage

macsnafu — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 05:11:18 GMT

Brainpolice:
My problem with it is that it seems like little more then an illogical custom for social recognition. That is, the purpose of marriage would seem to be a way for a given couple to legitimize their relationship in the eyes of the community around them.

That's the question: what was the original purpose of marriage? I was thinking it was more of a way organizing a household or family in order to raise children. In which case, there's certainly been less need for marriage in more modern times.

Re: Marriage

macsnafu — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 05:07:57 GMT

MacFall:

Tradition, similarly, acts as a form of slavery to latter generations. Marriage is a creation of both these systems. It amounts to little more then slavery for one or all parties involved.

Not true whatsoever. A voluntary contract is not slavery. Marriage is a voluntary contract.

I would agree that marriage is a contract, or more properly, that it should be a contract, but the problem is that most people don't really see it that way. And that definitely is one of the problems with marriage.

Re: Marriage

wkmac — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 02:23:31 GMT

IMO, State sanction marriage is a tool of planned society and here's why I say that.

1) The State maintains a true marriage only between a man and woman as it's only by this means can a future crop of taxpayers be harvested for the support of the nation state otherwise called pro-creation. It is also by this principle economic force of the nation state that the merchantilist and it's monopolized, central industries can also obtain a work force and customers of which would consume their goods and services.

2) The State can also use this status to grant percieved special tax status and a form of subsidization. As birth rates declined over the last 20 years, special tax offsets like the child tax credit were inacted hoping to encourage more births. Remove all forms of immigration in the US and the US population is flat if not in decline. Not a good formula for a nationstate hellbent on "growing" it's way out of debt.

3) Traditonal heterosexual relationships in the traditional family model is believed by some statist planners to discourage a larger deviant sexual lifestyle among a wider population base that would have the masses throwing the 9 to 5 Monday thru Friday work ethic lifestyle aside in order to spend or I should say "not earn or spend" and instead devote a large part of their lives persuing sexual pleasures instead of pleasures of monetary gain. They are afraid we'd spend 9 to 5 trying to get laid! One of the same reasons we can't be left alone with what is called "illegal drugs!" We just can't be trusted to on our own to say no!

I'm not against marriage, I'm heterosexual in a nearly 30 year marriage with 4 kids so I've added 4 batteries to the Matrix you might say! However, that said, marriage IMO is not and never should be in any way a part of the State at any level nor should any lifestyle ever be given special status over another.

JMO.

Re: Marriage

MacFall — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 20:55:03 GMT

Ennio45:
Religion is a corruption of sprituality. Where spirituality stresses the individual spirit and individual truths, religion focuses only on the 'benevolent leader'. It demands comformity, rules through fear, and serves as an always convient excuse for oppresion.

I agree with this.

Tradition, similarly, acts as a form of slavery to latter generations. Marriage is a creation of both these systems. It amounts to little more then slavery for one or all parties involved.

Not true whatsoever. A voluntary contract is not slavery. Marriage is a voluntary contract.

As for it being necessary to differentiate between an 'available' woman and a 'taken' woman (my words), a woman has a right to have sex with whomever she wants, love whomever she wants, and live with whomever she wants. Men do, too, and both have the right to leave the other.

Just as both men and women have the right to take drugs until they die from it. But there are good arguments that have nothing to do with either tradition or religion that monogamous, heterosexual relationships are by far the best way to raise and care for children. Not everyone is naturally polyamorous. Those who are, let them be - but they shouldn't assume that it's for everyone.

Putting morality aside entirely, I couldn't share myself between two women without preference and the trouble that preference causes. I intend to marry a woman who is like me in that respect. So what if that's what "tradition" prescribes? Just as much as others have the right to be promiscuous, so I and my hypothetical wife have the right to be monogamous, and the fact that monogamy happens to be "traditional" doesn't make that choice any less valid. Calling it "slavery" is just being hysterical.

Re: Marriage

Dingus — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 08:42:01 GMT

One of the biggest obstacles to a fully stateless society, at least in my estimation, is how deeply ingrained the concept of a ruling body is in the human psyche. The state--from a primal tribal leader to the modern leviathan--is a long-standing tradition. Beyond even just customary tradition, it's part of our biological heritage; human beings are social creatures by nature with a tendency to organize themselves into an arbitrary hierarchical collective structure to such a degree that the average person in the street could hardly fathom a society where the traditional state apparatus is absent. Luckily for us, to argue for something solely on the appeal to tradition (or even biological heritage) is not a well-mounted argument. However, that's not to say traditions, or customs, can't be good; I'm sure many can. But there must be other criteria beyond mere tradition for deciding between the good and the bad.

On the issue of marriage, I agree with the general sentiment in this thread that to argue for legally gay marriage is to presuppose that a state should be the final arbiter in the issue of marriage. In a society organized by private contracts, marriage licenses would be issued by private firms and each firm would have their own criteria. And it would be up to other private institutions whether they wished to recognize these licenses as legitimate contracts or not. That is to say if a private insurance firm, who offered discount packages for married couples, decided not to recognize gay marriage licenses as valid, then they would be free to do so. Undoubtedly, there would be other private insurance firms who would be happy to recognize such licenses as valid, and thus gain in business. It's also theoretically possible that any private enterprise could refuse to recognize the validity of marriage licenses issued to interracial couples or polygamous unions, etc. And of course as individuals, we're all free to decide whether or not we’d grant our own personal validity to such licenses ourselves.

Re: "the end of hope"

Bank Run — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 08:18:42 GMT

I wish I had discovered Mencken's In Defense of Women (Maudlin), at least fifteen years ago. Would of saved me a lot of confusion, money, and heartache.

I would say that men are truly more emotive than women, and when women are being emotional, it is illusion. "A women needs her heart to be broken just once."

The Unattainable Ideal


But here I rather depart from the point, which is this:  that the
average woman is not strategically capable of bringing down the
most tempting game within her purview, and must thus content
herself with a second, third, or nth choice.  The only women who
get their first choices are those who run in almost miraculous
luck and those too stupid to formulate an ideal--two very small
classes, it must be obvious.  A few women, true enough, are so
pertinacious that they prefer defeat to compromise.  That is to say,
they prefer to put off marriage indefinitely rather than to marry
beneath the highest leap of their fancy.  But such women may be
quickly dismissed as abnormal, and perhaps as downright diseased
in mind; the average woman is well-aware that marriage is far better
for her than celibacy, even when it falls a good deal short of her
primary hopes, and she is also well aware that the differences
between man and man, once mere money is put aside, are so slight
as to be practically almost negligible.  Thus the average woman is
under none of the common masculine illusions about elective
affinities, soul mates, love at first sight, and such phantasms.  She is
quite ready to fall in love, as the phrase is, with any man who is
plainly eligible, and she usually knows a good many more such men
than one.  Her primary demand in marriage is not for the agonies of
romance, but for comfort and security; she is thus easier satisfied
than a man, and oftener happy.  One frequently hears of
remarried widowers who continue to moon about their dead first
wives, but for a remarried widow to show any such sentimentality
would be a nine days' wonder.  Once replaced, a dead husband is
expunged from the minutes.  And so is a dead love.

Gettin' shacked up is surely gettin' bamboozled.

Re: Marriage

Brainpolice — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 07:50:28 GMT

Ennio45:

Religion is a corruption of sprituality. Where spirituality stresses the individual spirit and individual truths, religion focuses only on the 'benevolent leader'. It demands comformity, rules through fear, and serves as an always convient excuse for oppresion. Tradition, similarly, acts as a form of slavery to latter generations. Marriage is a creation of both these systems. It amounts to little more then slavery for one or all parties involved. As for it being necessary to differentiate between an 'available' woman and a 'taken' woman (my words), a woman has a right to have sex with whomever she wants, love whomever she wants, and live with whomever she wants. Men do, too, and both have the right to leave the other. I would reccomend reading 'Sex Slavery' by Voltairine De Cleyre. It presents an excellent (although somewhat dated) arguement against the institution marriage.

My criticism of the institution or custom of marriage is a bit different. My problem with it is that it seems like little more then an illogical custom for social recognition. That is, the purpose of marriage would seem to be a way for a given couple to legitimize their relationship in the eyes of the community around them. But I think that they must feel insecure in their relationship if they truly feel a need for it to be legitimized by the community. In objective reality, once a marriage takes place, pretty much nothing really changes about the character of the relationship itself. It merely carries greater meaning in the eyes of society, and perhaps in the eyes of the couple in question. But there doesn't seem to be anything logical about this.

There should be no need for such a custom in order for one's relationships to have meaning. The people in the relationship itself determine its true meaning or significance, not some religious institution or governmental apparatus or "society" or "the community". It need not be formally recognized by such groups and abstractions in order to be legitimate. I suppose it makes sense if it is thought of as a voluntary contract (even if it's just a metaphorical one) between two (or more, yes, voluntary polygamous marriages are okay in my book, although I wouldn't personally prefer them) people in which they agree to commit themselves exlusively to eachother, but I pause at the notion that one party can stop another from opting out.

Re: Marriage

Ennio45 — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 07:22:59 GMT

Religion is a corruption of sprituality. Where spirituality stresses the individual spirit and individual truths, religion focuses only on the 'benevolent leader'. It demands comformity, rules through fear, and serves as an always convient excuse for oppresion. Tradition, similarly, acts as a form of slavery to latter generations. Marriage is a creation of both these systems. It amounts to little more then slavery for one or all parties involved. As for it being necessary to differentiate between an 'available' woman and a 'taken' woman (my words), a woman has a right to have sex with whomever she wants, love whomever she wants, and live with whomever she wants. Men do, too, and both have the right to leave the other. I would reccomend reading 'Sex Slavery' by Voltairine De Cleyre. It presents an excellent (although somewhat dated) arguement against the institution marriage.