In a recent post, I was writing in what I hoped was a provocative fashion, about thinking long term. In that essay I concluded that stability and adaptability are two features which are identifiably necessary for a state which has any hope of lasting for a significant period of time, and by significant I mean more than a millenia. Stability is not a feature our state and government finds as an essential feature. It is not something on which we base praxis or our lawmakers policy.

Jefferson (and his co-authors) wrote in the Declaration that Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness was the end of government. Happiness in Jefferson’s mind, if not in our less well educated modern ones, meant eudaimonia, which he following Aristotle would have tied to virtue (and the pursuit of the same). Liberty today as well, has been corrupted in meaning. But I would propose that of the three ends of government noted just above are not equal in value for a nation which hopes to last for a significant period of time. Life for example, which many modernist/futurists look to a time when our life span escapes the three score and ten (give or take) that nature has allotted and would extend that indefinitely, which would of course as a consequence redefine “human” and human society and not very likely in a better way. Liberty as well, if liberty is freedom from restraint, will find itself in the mix betwixt the stability/adaptability tension identified earlier.

Three primary factions of our political discourse, the progressive/liberal, the libertarian, and the conservative all naturally hold the same ends of government as essential but prioritize them differently. The progressive values enforcing or “creating” equality as the most important end of government, the libertarian to enforce and protect our liberty and the conservative our Happiness. Part of the difficulty of our discourse between the factions comes when fails to realize this split in underlying assumptions, to address it in our rhetoric, and a failure of imagination. We fail to imagine the consequences and reasons for our opponents points of view and end up just spitting at the other side. In part this means, while I think that Happiness and its pursuit is the most important end of government, that isn’t universal.  So, let’s look at elsewhere first. Read the rest of this entry

A group of evangelical Christians is trying to get the point across that the science isn’t settled on global warming, and indeed that the “cure” may be worse than the disease.

While it may seem like everyone believes in global warming and the impending catastrophe it will bring, a group of conservative Christians countered that message Thursday by launching a national campaign to gather one million signatures for a statement that says Christians must not believe in all the hype about global warming.

The “We Get It!” declaration, which currently has nearly 100 signers, is backed by prominent Christians including Tony Perkins of Family Research Council, Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, award-winning radio host Janet Parshall, and U.S. Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma.

What supporters of the statement seek is to inform Christians about the biblical perspective on the environment and the poor, and to encourage them to look at the hard evidence, which they say does not support the devastating degree of climate change claimed by mainstream society.

The point is that there’s more to global warming than carbon offsets and fluorescent light bulbs. There are people to be considered.

Read the rest of this entry

Recently, I noted a discussion about homosexuality and other things which didn’t get a response (in all fairness I did get a lively one here). I’d like to return to the idea of repugnance and ethics. Consider the following two examples:

Questioning and interrogation in the next 10 years takes a pharmaceutical turn with the perfection and development of a drug which prevented the transference of short term to long term memory. Coupled with the refinements on the early infamous waterboarding which enabled technicians to trigger primal basic primitive organic fears every person held to break the conscious will. In part these refinements included the monitoring method which insured that no organic damage whatsoever would be incurred by the subject. Within 6-8 hours after questioning the subject had no physical or biological/mental memory of the questioning. From the point of view of the subject, it never occurred.  Because of this factor this questioning is now viewed as humane.

This is wrong. It is repugnant and evil. But why? Repugnance is not the reason why it is wrong. It is a cue that there is a problem here. What exactly is wrong with it? In that prior post, I noted that a consequentialist would/should have no problem with either. In fact, a utilitarian argument would, I’d think, encourage and applaud this in a lot of cases not just involving National security but those involving, quite likely, an ever expanding list of crimes for which accurate interrogation of a hostile witness is deemed necessary to get to the truth.

Biblical ethics would, however, reject both. The essential problem with this method is that it rejects the dignity of man. Torture is not wrong because it inflicts pain, because we remember it, or because it is dehumanizing for the practitioner. It is wrong because it strips man of dignity.

Cross posted @Pseudo-Polymath.

Back in March / April, I had a lengthy discussion with commenter Psi regarding my post on Mindless-process Design, with regards to evolutionary theory and intelligent design. Towards the end of the discussion Psi brought up the topic of ethics and morality, to which I responded,

…how does a purely naturalistic methodology, in a purely natural realm, produce an abstract notion (e.g., evil)? And further beyond that, how does one’s mind, built purely by mechanistic forces, not only comprehend that something is evil, but that evil is wrong? For that matter, why would something – anything – be considered wrong? On who’s authority?

Psi responded by referring me to a couple of posts he’s prepared under the subject “Being good without god”. Although I promised to respond to Psi’s posts within “a few days”, it’s been over a month… sigh. Well, here is my lengthy response, albeit passed the “few days” boundary. (note: I encourage you to read this comment in our thread, as well as Psi’s posts, to get a groundwork for my text) Also, I have mined posts that I previously wrote, at New Covenant, which pertain to this topic, although in some cases I have rewritten my original commentary for clarity towards this discussion.

There are quite a few issues that Psi writes on in his posts. Rather than simply address them one by one, I will attempt to comment on them topically. Essentially, I think that Psi is positing that religious belief is inherently irrational, that humans can behave in morally upright ways without the need of adhering to religion or belief in a deity, and that ethical thought and standards for humans came about through the strictly natural processes of evolution.

If you want to skip my lengthy post, and simply get to gist of my point, then here it is: It is my assertion that while humans can be good without [the existence of] god, they have no basis with which to justify why they should be.
Read the rest of this entry

Frequent commenter in these here parts, Dan Trabue and others brought up the discussion of homosexuality and Scripture. It is said, where two or three or gathered there will be four or five opinions on theological matters and that seemed to be the case. As this conversation too often brings up lots of heat and little light, I’m going to put most of it below the fold. Read the rest of this entry

Two posts. First, Richard Chappell notes:

Some people judge that homosexuality is immoral, because they find it intuitively repugnant. They must also be aware that a few short decades ago people thought that interracial sex was immoral, on the same basis. This suggests that such intuitions provide a very flimsy basis for discrimination. Indeed, I find it completely baffling that homophobic conservatives fail to realize that they are the modern day equivalent of yesterday’s racist conservatives. Why are they not humbled by history? What makes them think that their disgust-based moral intuitions are any more reliable than their grandparents’ were?

There are two aspects to this, one fairly trivial. Mr Chappell goes from “Some people judge … because” to “homophobic conservatives fail … equivalent of yesterdays racist conservatives”. The “some people” goes from an adjectival description that (rightly) describes a small minority, while on the other hand to my reading “homophobic conservatives” is less likely to read as an even smaller subset (those in the “some people” category of before who are also conservative) to a notion that of a notion tarring essentially all conservatives as homophobic.

In the comment trail, Brandon argues for repugnance as a basis for other issues such as incest, which Mr Chappell finds acceptable.  I offer two alternative tests:

 Consider abmnemnopaedophilia, that is hiring young children (from poor family backgrounds) so that one might apply a drug which prevents the creation of long-term memory and then “use them” for the purposes of sexual enjoyment. That is, paying a family to give up their child for a night’s “entertainment” (with material renumeration) along with the application of a drug which prevents the child from having any memory (the next day) of nights events. This, from a purely utilitarian standpoint, should have no issue. That is, no lasting or measurable harm is done, the paedophile gets his “reward”, and the family gets some much needed financial assistance. It would seem that the primary argument against is repugnance (or perhaps virtue ethics).

Consider also the following sort of slave trafficking. In this sort of traffic young orphan girls from third world cities, who have been captured by street elements and sold locally into brothels might then re-acquired into first world, say European or American brothels. In those brothels, these girls are still sexual chattel … but they get better clothes, better food, work more reasonable hours and have a substantially improved lifespan and as well, the third world nation gets an influx of captial. Again a utilitarian can offer no complaint.

I would argue that both of these situations are “intuitively repugnant.” As well, one might be able to hoist reasoned arguments why they are bad, however there also utilitarian reasons why they are “good.” However one might ask those who would support either of the two test cases, “Why are you not humbled by history?” Why do you think your utility-based moral intuitions are reliable? Perhaps instead of proving a reason to doubt “repugnance” might we find instead utility a flimsy basis for ethical decision-making.
Mr Schraub asks:

A new ad out tries to force McCain into that question pro-lifers never want to answer: if abortion should be a crime, how much time should women who have them serve?

[…]

I’ve yet to hear a coherent justification (at least, one that isn’t nakedly paternalistic — e.g., women are irrational creatures controlled by their emotions, so they can’t be punished) for why abortion can be outlawed (as murder), but the murderers should get off scot-free. I suppose if someone doesn’t think abortion is murder, but still can come up with a reason for it to barred, they could dodge out of this, but the few arguments I’ve heard on those lines are also pretty paternalistic (it’s a serious decision, and we can’t know if you’re taking it seriously enough unless you’re willing to prove it somehow to the state).

A counter question that “pro-abortion proponents” never want to answer (or offer coherent justification) for is why they are for regulation (are paternalistic?) on virtually every other phase of life/issue, e.g., gun ownership, seat belts, hay rides, retirement, school regulation, and so on …  but when it comes to killing the fetus brook no regulation or oversight at all. Paternalism per se is not a thing from which the left shirks … except in the case of abortion. The “pro-abortion” proponents also fail to offer “a coherent justification” for the notion that the pater, i.e., father, has any rights at all in this matter, which is unfortunate.
Now, the argument for regulation of abortion that I’ve made is not, I think, paternalistic (that is based on the idea that the state is wise but women are “irrational creatures”) but motivated instead by the idea that virtue is the path to happiness and that providing an environment in which virtue can flourish is one of the primary ends of the state. My argument was not singling out young women by any means, but was based on the notion that every serious ethical personal decision that affects society, i.e., marriage, divorce, abortion, and end-of-life issues might rightly be confronted by methods in the public square so that the society might be assured that the person(s) involved recognize that a serious ethical decision is being made. Men or women considering marriage often declaim they would climb any mountain or brave any raging torrent to be with their beloved. Aboriginal American cultures often had such barriers, fasting, vision-quest, or other feats to overcome which one might argue served this purpose. In modern Babylon, i.e., our culture, civil courts currently serve something of that purpose. Currently our courts have a limited set of tools, like prison, fines, and service. It seems likely if we considered the task of the courts to assign barriers to demonstrate one’s resolve, a larger set of tools might be assigned to their disposal, which could then be also used perhaps at a generically higher level, for those who don’t present their case in court.

That is basically a less mocking restatement of the “serious ethical decision” argument. It is one I’d argue for at a local level, so that if/when barriers would be set, they would be made at a micro-scale to be proportionate and be seen as reasonable to those setting them. However, in policy, it is one I don’t ascribe to on a national level. I’m currently of the opinion that these decision of abortion, euthenasia, divorce, marriage, and so on should all be made locally, at the village/precinct level.  At the local level, one response to deciding to forego the regulations put up in these matters is that, you must face the set consequences … or move (preferably prior to breaking the law and facing said consequences).

Dan Trabue (blogging here) and I had a discussion recently arguing a little about theological points. I’m going to return to some of those here, and hopefully both continue the discussion as well as draw some other into it.

Before I crack Mr Cone’s book, some quotes I found in the last few days:

It makes sense if you understand that Liberation Theology views history and social wrongs as the primary emphasis of Scripture. Liberation theology teaches that salvation history is the story of the oppressed vs. the oppressor. And God is on the side of the oppressed. Liberation theology teaches that capitalist countries such as the U.S. do what they do militarily to keep poor people poor, and the rich people rich.

This is, at the base, a theological error which may have actually technically be heresy (that is be rooted in incorrect ideas about God and Trinity). John Zizioulas (among others) in his writings has explained that in the first centuries of Christian development there was a struggle between three notions of Truth. Jewish thought held that truth was to be found in history (which sounds very similar to that cited above). Greek though viewed truth in a Platonic or more eternal sense. Christianity held that Jesus was truth, that truth was to be found in the incarnation (see John 1). In the fourth century the Cappadocians succeeded in synthesizing this in their ideas of hypostasis, trinity and so forth. This synthesis is central to Christian thought and doctrine, but is rejected in the first quoted section.A teaching from that patristic era (I think the source was John Chrysostom) that while the rich should aid the poor from their abundance, this is not a one way street. That is, while the rich should being charitable, aid the poor, the poor in turn, being charitable, should pray for and on behalf of the wealthy. And that does not mean that the poor should pray that the rich “come to their senses” and aid the poor, but that the poor should pray for the health, well being, and good things on behalf of the rich. Liberation theology teaches the opposite of that and because of that is very very wrong. Charity is a primary virtue of Christian life, and by denying charity from the poor to be given to the rich rejects that virtue to be held by the poor. All Christians are called to be charity not just “the oppressors.”

Furthermore the teaching that the US and other powers “do what they do to keep people poor and the rich rich”, is categorically false. Malthusian ideas that wealth and prosperity is a zero sum gain and that there is a fixed amount of “wealth” or resources to go around is old and more importantly wrong! It doesn’t even make anthropological sense. Henry Ford didn’t build cars and and industry to “keep the Black man down” and neither did Rockefeller, Carnegie or any 18th century capitalists, just as Bill Gates didn’t build Microsoft for that purpose. The number of people intentionally framing policy in a racial context is not as large as the racial theorists pretend, in fact it is much much smaller. The vast majority of the US and other powers consist of people getting up in the morning and working hard constructively to make and produce things for their family and clan. This production and constructive activity rarely if at all considers the “other” in a racial or ethnic context at all.

Worse is this from here:

If whiteness stands for all that is evil, blackness symbolizes all that is good. “Black theology,” says [black liberation theologian James] Cone, “refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community . . . Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.” Small wonder that some critics have condemned black liberation theology as “racist idolatry” and “Afro-Nazism.”

Before you can have a race war in America, you must first set forth an ideology that legitimizes race hatred and keeps that kind of hatred at a boiling point. The theology of Cone seems to be on this path, absolutizing “blackness,” which in turn gives the KKK, Aryans, and kindred spirits an excuse to absolutize “whiteness.”

The result? Two gods vying for supremacy, locked in mortal combat, with no possible resolution, even if by fire, as some groups seem to want.

What can be said positive about the quote from Mr Cone above. In a future post, I will develop further the notion that the ideas of Mr Cone that his theology can be viewed as similar to the prosperity Gospel but the gist of it is that if the Gospel means that God will help them “destroy their oppressors” then how different is that from the Gospel means “I will get rich” or that other earthly desires of mine be satisfied?

In the prior thread, I had suggested that the “resident alien” idea that Rowan Williams had proposed describing the early Christian church was the proper view of that a Christian should take in society and especially when confronted by oppressive situations. Mr Trabue responded that:

Considering one’s self a resident alien in a society with no rights or liberties – where one can’t vote to make changes – makes sense.

Considering one’s self a resident alien in a society where you are a minority voice – makes some sense, too.

Nonetheless, as resident aliens in a culture where we do have a voice and a vote, it also makes sense to work for positive change. And there’s certainly nothing unbiblical about doing so.

[…]

There certainly is not the first thing wrong biblically for voting one’s conscience in a democratic system where one has a voice and a vote, I’d hope that you’d agree. And, in fact, I’d find it shocking if a Christian said that, while they personally were OPPOSED to genocide (for instance), they wouldn’t want to push their personal religious beliefs off on their society when it engages in genocide.

There are three points to make in a response to this sentiment:

• There is, for a Christian living in a participatory democracy or republic, a tension between the notion of “in/not of”, a commitment to other things, and resident alien held against that of rendering unto Caesar. That there is some wide latitude of responses which all remain valid.
• At the same time, in Orthodox liturgy we profess just prior to participation in Eucharist that
  

  I believe and confess, Lord, that You are truly the Christ, the Son of the living God, who came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first. I also believe that this is truly Your pure Body and that this is truly Your precious Blood. Therefore, I pray to You, have mercy upon me, and forgive my transgressions, voluntary and involuntary, in word and deed, known and unknown. And make me worthy without condemnation to partake of Your pure Mysteries for the forgiveness of sins and for life eternal. Amen.

  Note the emphasized part. We are first and foremost to work on our sins not those of our neighbor but our self. God gave man free-will. It is not necessarily our place to deny our neighbor his free will in turn.

• Your genocide example is telling. Some view abortion as genocide, especially as it is so prevalent in the Black community. Is that a plea to bomb or damage/close abortion centers I wonder? Or work politically to make them illegal? Again in this sense, I get no impression from the first centuries of Roman/Christian conflict and history that abortion was fought in any way but by example or for that matter the outworking of Roman political engines, including genocidal acts.

It’s only taken about 40 years, but it looks like we’ve progressed from the entertaining Pirates of the Caribbean animatronics, to the ability to rent female robots, ostensibly for product demonstration. From Kokoro, the company responsible,

Absolutely looks like a real human! The “Actroid” humanoid, developed with a cutting-edge technology attract you with its human look-alike appearance and astonishing high expression ability.

Freaky. Can anyone say… Westworld?

# # #I wasn’t aware of this, but the late architect Phillip Johnson evidently had quite the fascist tendencies in the 1930s. Ed Driscoll has made a ten-minute video highlighting Johnson’s escapades, and the apparent manner such activities were later swept under the rug. Driscoll reports that Johnson, upon being allowed to accompany the Nazis into Poland, in 1939, wrote to a friend,

We saw Warsaw burn and Modlin being bombed. It was a stirring spectacle.

A short list of Johnson’s buildings includes:

• The Glass House
• The Seagram Building
• The AT&T Building (now the Sony Building)

Oh, another one of his buildings is… The Crystal Cathedral, in southern California.

# # #It seems that the University of Texas at San Antonio decided to create a code of honor for its students, in order to encourage them not to cheat or plagiarize. Unfortunately, a significant portion of the code was copied from the honor code at BYU. Said Daniel Wueste, director of the Rutland Center for Ethics at Clemson University in South Carolina,

Young people today have a different understanding of what in the way of ideas and words is property that can be taken without authorization…

That, and the obscenely easy task it is to now cut and paste large blocks of text.

A gift from God.

³ Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
children a reward from him.

⁴ Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one’s youth.

⁵ Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.

Well, unless they’re not planned or wanted. Then they’re a punishment, right Senator?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNbaig-D5pk[/youtube]

[tags]children,Barack Obama,Psalms,abortion,sex education[/tags]

Joe Carter brings up a number of points, some of which I might return to, but this torture issue made me think of a question. Mr Carter writes:

Four — I can’t make excuses for us on this one anymore: Christians have to take a firm stand against torture. Yes, there is a debate about what exactly is meant by that term. Let’s have that debate. Let’s define the term in a way that consistent with our belief in human dignity. And then let’s hold every politician in the country to that standard. Our silence on this issue has become embarrassing.

Is the problem with torture about contravening will or is it about causing pain? That is if we had techniques to extract information that caused an individual to “talk” but were both pleasant (or not unpleasant) but forced one against one’s will to relay information. A suggestion of what that might be could be a drug cocktail, which might induce some euphoria as well as loosen the tongue. Other possibilities might be other “advanced” techniques which might become available as we learn more about how the brain works.

Oh and to make things clear, I’m against torture too and agree fully on that point.

Abortion

Christian doctrine and tradition from the earliest writings, e.g., the Didache and Barnabas all speak against abortion. However, even as Christian teaching and tradition all speak strongly against abortion … it’s not as clear that the consequence should be that we should seek to make abortion illegal or for that matter invalidate Roe vs Wade (although I think that should be done for other political reasons completely unrelated to whether it’s “good law” or not).
In this not-so-little book, Saint Silouan, the Athonite,there is a section in which monastic order is described. It is told that St. Silouan and others leaders in the monastic community might have occasion to give a command to another monk. If that command was not obeyed, there was no censure, no rebuke or correction. Making abortion illegal, when we’ve “made it clear” that it’s immoral (and on that most but not all of the abortion proponents actually agree, e.g., the “safe, legal, rare” crowd implicitly agree that it is wrong by adding “rare” to the list) might be all we should rightly do. If I recall rightly, I think the monastic logic goes something like this:

• God will judge us for our actions and deeds at the eschaton.
• God gave us all free will.
• Any action is judged once.
• Thus if I command you to do a thing, and you do it (out of righteous obedience) … only one of us will be judged and that will be the one who commanded. That is, I will be judged not you.
• And if you do not follow that command, you will be judged and furthermore (and more importantly),
• Finally, because God gave us free will how can I do different and I should therefore allow you to do what you wish without censure or restriction.

So the question is this: In a Christian ethical view, keeping in mind God’s judgement and free will, besides explaining that abortion is wrong and immoral what other action is righteous in God’s eyes? It is likely the answer is … none.

Now I realized that lack of censure does not apply to child-rearing and that a government’s laws and institutions form a crucial part of the tripartite effort to keep us civil (state, church, and academe, being the three). My point is that it seems that Christian teaching would indicate that we shouldn’t make abortion illegal.
Hypocrisy

Mr Spizer is the latest public official in the new. Hypocrite is a common charge. Now there may be many reasons to condemn Mr Spitzer, but hypocrisy is a tricky charge to make if one lacks mind reading skills or omniscience. It seems that there is only one circumstance one can press the charge of hypocrisy correctly. That is the case in which one does, as Congress often does, passes laws which apply to others but not oneself. If Mr Spitzer had gone after “johns” in the sex trade industry but had pushed for or added a loophole excluding gentlemen named “Spitzer” that would be hypocritical. However just because I say a thing is wrong and do it, that in itself does not make me a hypocrite. As St. Paul famously remarked the “spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” I can think a thing wrong, do it and still think that it is wrong. The only way I’d be a hypocrite is if I say it is wrong (by lying), do it myself, and for myself yet believe when I do it it is not wrong. The only way someone else can know I’ve that is if they can read into my heart and know truly if I believe a thing is wrong and fell to temptation or am dishonest.

Prostitution

It is a common conceit of the libertarian (and “liberal”) crowd, that prostitution as a “victimless” crime should be legalized. There is however, this (quoting another column):

I changed my mind [on legalization] after looking at the experiences of other countries. The Netherlands formally adopted the legalization model in 2000, and there were modest public health benefits for the licensed prostitutes. But legalization nurtured a large sex industry and criminal gangs that trafficked underage girls, and so trafficking, violence and child prostitution flourished rather than dying out.

and the associated discussion. Mr Cowen’s remark, “I see the costs and benefits of legalization as murky.” I think is spot on. I think both sides of that debate would be better served if they first admitted “murky” as a correct assessment on the costs and benefits.

Scott Ott, writer at the fantastically funny Scrappleface, also has a more serious blog at the Townhall website.  Today’s entry is a sobering look at the situation with Eliot Spitzer and the prostitute.  The money quote: "The difference between me and Eliot Spitzer is largely this: I have never been elected governor of New York."

Please read the whole thing before you, Republican or Democrat, pass judgement.

[tags]Eliot Spitzer,Scott Ott,politics[/tags]

In, what locals refer to as the “southland”, otherwise known as southern California, we have our fair share of commuter traffic. Actually, I think we have more than our fair share. It’s said, and more often hoped, that the commute on Friday mornings is lighter than the other work days, hence the term “Friday-morning-light”. As is often the case, though, reality bites back harder than you’d like.

Here are some Friday-morning-light tidbits for your perusal:

• Please Convince Me offers some free resources (HT: STR) including a three-part video on the existence of God.
• From Crunchy Con, The Bride’s a slut. They call it progress. A link to a NYT article titled, The Bride Wore Very Little.
• Humans wearing blinders – well-to-do couples discovering that children are not decor.
• From MereComments, a story of a youth-pastor advocating, of all things, that age-specific ministry (e.g., youth groups) should be dropped, in favor of worshiping being done together as a family.

In the few left leaning blogs I manage to read a continual theme comes up, that the right is “fear mongering” or as Mr Greenwald writes:

Thus, white evangelical Ministers are free to advocate American wars based on Biblical mandates, rant hatefully against Islam, and argue that natural disasters occur because God hates gay people. They are still fit for good company, an important and cherished part of our mainstream American political system. [emphasis mine]

My remarks on the bold text above … below the fold. Read the rest of this entry

Jason Kuznicki writes on marriage here. He notes:

The thesis: Marriage is in many ways a defense against the state. Marriage is many different things, but in a whole set of ways, it is an approach toward a more limited and more tractable form of government. Marriage — “state-sanctioned” marriage — is a defense of the home against the bureaucracy.

Marriage does a lot of things. Here are just a few of them: It helps to decide child custody and presumed parental obligations. It resolves nearly all questions about inheritance. It does the same with property and financial decision making. It settles who gets to make medical decisions. It determines who may have standing to sue for wrongful death. Whether rightly or wrongly, it helps to determine — and who may not — receive retirement benefits, even if those benefits come from a private company.

In each of these cases, I think it’s preferable to have a “default” state: It’s just better to have an understanding about how, barring alternate arrangements, everything is going to play out: When one spouse dies, the other gets the house, the kids, the right to sue. No fuss, no questions asked. Not even any probate in a lot of jurisdictions, as I understand it. When one spouse is incapacitated, you look to the other one for the life-and-death medical decisions. And so forth. In a time of crisis, you do not want a bunch of lawyers trying to argue their way through your private life. You just want to get on with the business at hand.

He continues to point out that this default state leaves those who don’t follow the default in some difficulty, a point on which there can be no reasonable disagreement (that is one on which no reasonable people, I think, can disagree). There are two other facets to this discussion which are salient, after which I’ll attempt to wrap up to a conclusion. And, much of this was reasoned and conceived during the fever dreams of the last two days for which I apologize in advance. Read the rest of this entry