The future of marriage

quote:

---

Stop listening to what Rick Santorum says. He's a racist, misogynist, homophobic jackass

---

But thanks to the good senator, we now have a new word in the English language. (Although I feel sorry for all the innocent people who have that name already.)

---

But government...is not simply the way we express ourselves collectively but also often the only way we preserve our freedom from private power and its incursions. -- Bill Moyers (quoting John Schwarz)

quote:

---

The real danger to marriage is divorce, especially the effects of the divorce laws that are "divorce on demand", in which one spouse may at any time and without giving any reason end the divorce and the other spouse is powerless to do anything about it.

---

Huh? A person realizes that they don't want to live with another person any more and leaves. That sounds sensible to me. Sure, this is a "danger" to the notion that marriage is legalized chattel slavery, but that doesn't sound so bad to me.

---

But government...is not simply the way we express ourselves collectively but also often the only way we preserve our freedom from private power and its incursions. -- Bill Moyers (quoting John Schwarz)

quote:

---

I'm not proposing to ban divorce, but rather some kind of reform that would no longer allow divorcing on a whim, but rather to require some kind of reason to be given.

---

What "whim"? One or both parties no longer want to be married to each other. That sounds like a perfectly good reason to be divorced. In fact, I can't think of a better one.

---

But government...is not simply the way we express ourselves collectively but also often the only way we preserve our freedom from private power and its incursions. -- Bill Moyers (quoting John Schwarz)

I still don't see the problem. Someone doesn't want to be married, and so they begin the process of not being married any longer. What is the problem with this?

---

But government...is not simply the way we express ourselves collectively but also often the only way we preserve our freedom from private power and its incursions. -- Bill Moyers (quoting John Schwarz)

quote:

---

To make it more difficult for everyone to get a divorce because you have your knickers in a twist about the possibility that someone might get a divorce "on a whim" seems idiotic at best, IMHO.

---

Hey, isn't Catholic Scientist against gay marriage because of the possibility that someone might fake a gay marriage to get, I dunno, some sort of benefits?

---

But government...is not simply the way we express ourselves collectively but also often the only way we preserve our freedom from private power and its incursions. -- Bill Moyers (quoting John Schwarz)

I don't want to sound unsympathetic, but your solution is to change the laws to force your wife to stay married to you? You really want to be married to a woman who does not want to live with you?Edited by Chiroptera, : Completely changed the content of the post.

---

But government...is not simply the way we express ourselves collectively but also often the only way we preserve our freedom from private power and its incursions. -- Bill Moyers (quoting John Schwarz)

quote:

---

If such a law had been in effect, then at the very least my ex would have had to have given me the reason.

---

And then, maybe not. Maybe your ex-wife could not and cannot quite articulate in exact words why she no longer wanted to remain married to you, she only recognized that she was no longer happy in the marriage. People are like that sometimes. That is just the way people are. Feelings, almost by their nature, are not rational and can't always be logically justified.If she honestly couldn't quite explain the reasons, would you have been satisfied to force her to remain in the marriage despite that she obviously didn't want to? Would you have been more satisfied to have been forced to go through a much more complicated and expensive divorce procedure if the end result was that you were still divorce and still had no real clue as to why?

---

But government...is not simply the way we express ourselves collectively but also often the only way we preserve our freedom from private power and its incursions. -- Bill Moyers (quoting John Schwarz)

quote:

---

I AM CONCERNED ABOUT THE FUTURE OF MARRIAGE.

---

Well, then you should probably be concerned about modern industrial capitalism. The reason most societies were based on families and why people in most societies find families important is that families were traditionally the basic unit of economic production. Agricultural activity was engaged in by the entire family, and even in the towns the shops were tended to by members of the whole family. Even the older children had certain chores that were directly related to productive output of the family, and education (usually limited to training to be a worker in the parents' occupation, usually agriculture) was conducted within the family, usually by "on-the-job-training". Under these conditions, organization along family lines and marriages make sense.These conditions no longer hold. Most people these days work outside the family, and "production" occurs within businesses owned by other people than the workers themselves. Parents will have two different jobs in different locations. Children no longer are a productive member of the family, and are even an economic liability, and are educated in education factories outside the home. Organization along families no longer makes any sense at all, except to traditionalists (in so far as anyone can make sense of the ramblings of traditionalists).In fact, a portion of our social problems is that we are trying force a traditional but no longer viable institution in an environment that where it no longer makes sense.What needs to be done is to either let go of an antiquated organizational scheme that no longer is valid in modern society, or change the typical industrial capitalist model into something else in which the family plays an important part.

---

But government...is not simply the way we express ourselves collectively but also often the only way we preserve our freedom from private power and its incursions. -- Bill Moyers (quoting John Schwarz)

Heh. So there are more traditionalists than I had thought. I still don't understand their ramblings.

---

But government...is not simply the way we express ourselves collectively but also often the only way we preserve our freedom from private power and its incursions. -- Bill Moyers (quoting John Schwarz)

What is amusing* about the conservatives' attempts to legislate their views of morality and family in opposition to prevailing social trends is that they are engaging in "social engineering", which is suppose to be something they don't like. Unless, I guess, it is their social utopias that are being engineered. (And let's face it: conservatives are as much, if not more, utopian as anyone else.) *Okay, I have a warped sense of humor.

---

But government...is not simply the way we express ourselves collectively but also often the only way we preserve our freedom from private power and its incursions. -- Bill Moyers (quoting John Schwarz)

Okay, Ringo, I am now convinced that Hoot is being deliberately silly.

---

But government...is not simply the way we express ourselves collectively but also often the only way we preserve our freedom from private power and its incursions. -- Bill Moyers (quoting John Schwarz)

Or that thing about his sailboat.

---

But government...is not simply the way we express ourselves collectively but also often the only way we preserve our freedom from private power and its incursions. -- Bill Moyers (quoting John Schwarz)

quote:

---

So let's talk about saving the future of marriage in a way most people can appreciate. What about the children?

---

Actually, I'm opposed to state sanctioned marriage to begin with. Civil unions, too, truth to be told, since I don't see any difference. However, as a practical matter, we have a system in place where health care, the determination of who will make decisions for you if you are incapacitated, who will take care of your children, and so forth depend on who you are or are not married to. Until the overall system is changed to something more reasonable, I can't figure out for the life of me why homosexuals shouldn't have the same rights to determine who will inherit their property or who can make important medical decisions for them that heterosexual people have.

---

But government...is not simply the way we express ourselves collectively but also often the only way we preserve our freedom from private power and its incursions. -- Bill Moyers (quoting John Schwarz)

quote:

---

My local high school is so drug-ridden and criminally infested the students call it "The Pharmacy."

---

Holy shit! This ranks up there with Wicca and Christopher Robin in relevancy to the issue!-

quote:

---

There is a real connection between this and the family, you know.

---

And since homosexuals are simply trying to form legally recognized families, what exactly is the problem?

---

But government...is not simply the way we express ourselves collectively but also often the only way we preserve our freedom from private power and its incursions. -- Bill Moyers (quoting John Schwarz)

Good question, Hoot. What would be wrong with group marriage?

---

But government...is not simply the way we express ourselves collectively but also often the only way we preserve our freedom from private power and its incursions. -- Bill Moyers (quoting John Schwarz)