16332--With Great Power Comes Great Instability

I haven't said much on this subject, contenting myself to sit quietly and let people catch on and make their own decisions.  The problem is that people are fighting the wrong fight.

This writing comes a few days after New York's recognition of same-sex marriages.  People are celebrating and making plans to take advantage of the new legislation.  I imagine there are also some people complaining about the legislation.  From my own standpoint, there's nothing to celebrate because it's a decision that doesn't belong to the government to make.

The problem I've had all along with the whole thing is that people have been arguing about which way the government should legislate the same-sex marriage issue and whether that legislation should occur at the state or federal level.  I'm likely to voice this sentiment a few times before the end of this, but this isn't something for the government to legislate in any way at all.  It is flatly ridiculous to me to weigh any input from legislative bodies that are only supposed to do what they're told by the people and can't even do that.

The United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights way back in 1948, insisting that all people had the right to marry and form a family with equal rights in marriage to be entered into freely and with informed consent.  Before the 16th century, even western churches recognized that people had all the authority in their own marriages. A couple simply saying that they were married was good enough for everyone else. How's that for recognizing a commonlaw marriage? Despite these oddities, there are over thirty countries that maintain pretty strict prohibitions against same-sex marriage. The USA isn't one of them, but it does seem to be an uphill roller skating trip for those on the ride.
Overseeing births, marriages, funerals and religious rites are all things We the People handle on our own and do best without adding government to the mix.  Granted, marriage licenses have been used for a great many years now, but they originated to permit people to wed that were otherwise forbidden by law to do so.  In this country, such outlaws have been defined along the whole ethnic/racial lines thing.  The licenses were initially used to permit whites to marry non-whites, a tradition which extended right on into the 20th century.  Racism in the Land of the Free?  Scandalous.  Even in the great nation of "created equal", the last couple of centuries have somehow been thick with persecution based on differences.

Back in the 1990s, popular TV series Quantum Leap lost sponsors over an episode in which time-traveling Dr. Beckett (Scott Bakula) assumed the identity of a young black man secretly dating a young white woman in the American south during the 1960s.  The sponsors were obviously confused and thought that they, too, were in the 1960s.  Still, that was in the ancient 20th century.  Back in 2006, in the more advanced and enlightened 21st century, my mother (a die-hard social activist) informed me of two families she was helping in central Indiana.  Both families, in separate incidents and communities, had been burned out of their homes over some nonsense about having the wrong skin color.  Apparently, brown clashed with the plan for a more limited local palette.  In one case, the family's son had the audacity to date someone's daughter of...the wrong shade.  In the more recent time of 2009, Louisiana justice of the peace Keith Bardwell refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple, again deciding for them that they had no idea of the proper way to behave.  2009?  Are you kidding me?  2009?  2009!  This is peace and enlightenment?

What happened to recognizing commonlaw marriage?  What happened to the rights of the people?  Up until the mid-19th century, commonlaw marriages were commonly recognized, but then the state governments started crushing them underfoot.  Today, only 11 states and the District of Columbia still acknowledge this basic right of We the People.  The requirement for marriage licenses in the USA has been justified on the basis that the state has an overriding right, on behalf of all citizens and in the interests of the larger social welfare, to protect them from disease or improper/illegal marriages; to keep accurate state records; or even to ensure that marriage partners have had adequate time to think carefully before marrying.  So, it's for our own good because we don't know any better.  Our rights have been put into a blind trust because we can't handle them.

Oh, wait!  In the Supreme Court case Meister v. Moore (1877), it was ruled that "marriage is a common right" and that the state laws or statutes that have been created before or since are not legal constraints, but "are mere directives," thereby retaining the legal weight of recommendation only. Backed by this court decision, it is illegal for any state to mandate any form of license or ceremony and, technically, all states must recognize "common law" marriages of all citizens.

We don't need any state laws for or against same-sex marriages.  We certainly don't need to waste the effort of amending the US Constitution over this nonsense.  The government works for us and the protection of our rights.  The last I'd heard, there was a laundry list of better things that our governmental employees should be spending their time on. 

Stop getting misdirected by noise and colors.  We the People are responsible for our own lives and choices.  Back when I was seven years old, I had a conversation with mom about how I would go to college when I finished with grade school.  In that dialogue, I learned that I would have the power to decide which college I attended and what I studied.  I actually got excited (my mind turned to architecture for some reason).  I thought that that Freedom, the power of choice, was the coolest thing I'd ever heard.  I'm still pretty impressed by Freedoms and it baffles me that so many people blow them off.  Don't they see that there are people trying to take their Freedoms?  With all the effort, they must be worth something.  It's like those stories where the Devil's trying to weasel a deal to get someone's soul and you're just aghast at how blind the character is for not realizing that it must be a bad deal.

If you want to get married, go be married. 

If you don't, don't.  No one's forcing you into it just as no one's allowed to stop you.

If you feel threatened by someone else's marriage choices, seek therapy or a hobby to get your mind off it.  Either way, mind your own business.  Whether we actually respect each other's right to privacy or not, we all have the right.  Manage your own affairs.

Stop trying to foist your issues and responsibilities onto the government.  The people who work in government are bored and itching for things to do.  If you try to turn control of your life over to them, they'll gladly take it.  Don't expect them to stop where you expect, though.  Control over your life tastes good and they'll never never never stop at one bite.  Why?  Because with great responsibility comes great power.  Don't try to hand it off.  Deal with it.

Any questions?

14886-Give me liberty or die

Awhile back, I was talking with my wife about health care. She related to me someone's proposal to nationalize America's medical care. I suppose this is an issue that's just not going to go away. It's certainly not the first time I've heard it and I doubt it will be the last. The federal government isn't supposed to be involved in this and doesn't have a track record that shows it'll be able to run such a program to our benefit. This isn't to say it can't be done. Many countries have excellent healthcare programs that are nationalized and their people are very happy with them. They do not live in our country. We have a government that once took control of a brothel (through the IRS) and mismanaged it out of business. I can't even begin to fathom the depths of ineptness required to mismanage running a brothel. That alone should make enough of my point, since medical care is supposed to be for the benefit of those receiving care, nationalizing it isn't likely to put it into the best hands.

Our federal government has an instruction book that defines how it's supposed to work. It's called the Constitution. It's the law of the land, but it gets ignored a lot. That's not the way the system is supposed to work. You don't sit down to a board game, play around the rules that everyone's agreed to and expect it to work right. If you don't like it, find another game. Oooh, listen to me, sounding all radical and conservative simultaneously. Face it, we have a lot of rule-breaking politicians in the game. Many seem to want to get into it just to see how much they can cheat the system.

Anyway, with our government being run that way (don't act like it's a surprise), the people who keep getting into it try to meddle in ever more areas outside the set boundaries. With more meddling comes more mess (classic red tape, price increases) and less of people taking care of their own affairs. Unfortunately, people receiving "free" stuff (actually, the stuff of others that's been legislated away from them in a Marxist redistribution of wealth), is one of the great lures of a governmentally run program. Under such relentless socialistic assaults, personal responsibility is very nearly dead. Once the ball gets rolling, people just keep asking the government to do more and more for them. "Somebody should do something!" "There oughta be a law!" Personally, I feel like we have plenty of laws already. I don't get up in the morning and phone a politician to ask how to get through my day. I wouldn't even ask one to hold my wallet for me, let alone housesit. I'm sure not going to ask them to babysit.

One of the ongoing battles involves the efforts to use legislation to protect children from internet and television content. The danger of tarnished innocence is just a click away they tell us, whether it's from a remote control or a mouse. These cries always smack of hyperbole to me and make my eyes roll of their own volition. Whether the dangerous content is on your TV or on your computer, the safeguard is a simple one. Follow: it's your television and your computer. What shows up on them is up to you. You have the right to make those choices. These are rights that have been fought for and it is of criminally tragic proportion to give them up without as much of a fight. If you don't like what's on, change the channel or turn the thing off, but never never ever abdicate your authority away to a bunch of people who can't even handle the things they're already assigned to do.

Likewise, the law and the nature of Freedom saddles you with the burden of making decisions for your children. Anyone attempting to change that should make any responsible adult spew forth bile like a geyser from the depths of his enraged innards. They're your kids watching whatever on your stuff in your home. Should a bunch of strangers you wouldn't let babysit really be responsible for what you can watch? No. The solution is (write this down) that you pay attention to what your kids are doing and watching. No, you don't get to cop out and tell me you're too busy. I pay attention to what my kids are watching on TV, whether we're watching something together or not. I know what's in their video games and sometimes play them with them. They ask for permission to use the computer and are subject to having their shoulders peeked over frequently and randomly.

Blame my parents. Yes, both my parents worked in demanding careers, but I still managed to have home-cooked, balanced meals so often that I barely remember the times it didn't happen. More impressively, that low-incidence of take-out meals occurred even with great New York pizza and Chinese food being readily available.  With such dedication came parents who knew what my favorite TV shows were, what music I liked and sometimes even watched Saturday morning cartoons with me. We were also known to actually talk with each other and they encouraged me to read and...Well, the point is, be in control, don't hand it away. Exercise self-discipline and taking charge of your home will be easy.

We have all the local cable channels available and high-speed internet. External media product is piped into our home daily and the only nakedness I see on a regular basis is my wife's. How is this possible? My choice. I click and click and click, yet I don't find myself accidentally staring at hours of erotica. Neither do the kids. Trust me on this. I don't sleep much, so I know. Maybe Congress is keeping me awake with all the noise they make. If only there were some way to keep those government guys under control. There oughta be a law.