America's awkward view of marriage

After reading Stephanie Coontz’s excellent article, “Taking Marriage Private” at the New York Times, I must confess she’s right on every count.

 

She indicates that marriage essentially began as a contract between the two families who come together due to the marriage. Later, religion got involved,** and then the state began to get involved. Perhaps I’m overly critical of the state’s role in marriage – I tend to see the state’s actions on things like marriage solely as potential for it to seize taxes and fees, but Coontz makes it seem that the state intended to provide marriage not for the satisfaction of the moralists (after all, they have their churches for this sort of thing), but to make things much simpler for the dispersion of one’s property and the like. I like this view, and I wish it were still true.

 

Upon reading her article, I also got thinking about the necessity of marriage. Is it really necessary? Granted, it may have its social advantages, but beyond that, there really is no purpose for it (that I can tell). Since the religious/ontological question cannot be logically or reasonably verified, one has to wonder. I confess that I am happily married, and plan on staying that way throughout my life. I think, for me, it is a great way to live. But is my view necessarily the right view for everyone? Of course not. This is where I diverge from the majority of today’s social conservatives. Most of them have no compunction about putting moralist beliefs or values on the ballot which would force everyone to conform to their ideals through law, even upon those who do not share their moral inclinations. The first thing that comes to mind is one point Coontz raises at the end of her article – the question of state-authorized marriage between homosexuals (there are others too, such as abortion rights). Since we know that most Christian churches would never permit such a union, and since the state has been reluctant to move that direction (marriage amendments prohibiting homosexual union are becoming an epidemic among the states), why everyone must be forced to view this institution the same way makes no sense. Isn’t the pursuit of happiness important anymore? What if my pursuit of happiness is not traditional? Coontz recommends returning to a more traditional view of marriage – an agreement between the couple (and, by extension, their families). I agree with her vehemently. Get the state out of our bedrooms and let us live the way we want.

 

Coontz goes on to point out that the state’s stance on marriage has grown into other aspects of our lives, like hospital visitation rights, the dispersement of one’s inheritance or social security benefits, etc. Since our culture is dynamic and our state is less inclined to change than we are, the state will undergo a form of natural selection upon its constituents, exposing the minority as a fringe. We see that now. The government has been attempting to “define marriage” for some time now (the first I heard of it was Proposition 22 in California in 2000). But I don’t think it should matter one way or the other to the state, much like it shouldn’t matter what my neighbor’s pursuit of happiness is. As long as neither infringes upon my own liberty and refrains from causing me and my property harm, it shouldn’t matter. Yet we have allowed the state to create for itself a gateway to many of its benefits only through the rite of marriage. Again, the state now has to deal with the “progressive” cultural fringe, and here we have friction. A return to more traditional views of marriage might just correct many of the problems for the minority who find themselves at the state’s mercy because their values are not traditional.

 

It seems that Coontz’s message would be, on the surface, welcoming to social conservatives, who typically pride themselves on their “traditional” stances. But what Coontz is advocating is almost a proto-traditional stance. She’s stretching way back when she calls for a return to “traditional” marriage views. All in all, I like her take on it, and I think it would satisfy the desires of the minority.

 

 

 

** I just noticed something fascinating – look at all the major events in life in which all or the majority of people experience – like birth, maturity, marriage, and death – and you’ll find religion will have a strong presence in each event. In the west, where Christianity is the dominant religious preference, the Church is present almost immediately after birth (baptism/christening). It is there for when kids or teenagers begin to experiment and therefore “need some guidance” (catechism, first communion), for marriage, at the time of death (last rites), and even after death (burial). These are times during which people generally tend to ask more probing and ontological questions about themselves, the world, and the universe. Religion provides answers for many of these people, but asks the participant to take their word for it on faith. For more on the epistemological validity of perceiving one’s world through faith, see Daniel C. Dennett’s book “Breaking the Spell: Religion as Natural Phenomenon.”

Ron Paul on the Tonight Show

Ron Paul was on Jay Leno about two weeks ago. Somebody kindly put it up on youtube.com. Check it out:

I like how smoothly Paul incorporates Austrian economics, quotations from Ben Franklin and others. He seems far more academic than anything else the Republican party currently has to offer.

Illegal immigrants and driver licenses

Sometimes in politics certain issues surface which would make that dead horse rise from the grave and exclaim “Stop kicking me!” But I don’t care. I decided to kick the dead horse a few extra times myself because I think the presidential candidates are largely missing the point on this one.

 

Here’s the issue: It has been suggested (still not sure where this originated) that giving illegal immigrants a valid driver license will help correct some of the immigration problems in the US. The assumption is that these folks, by reporting to the DMV to obtain a driver license, would pay the fee and this in turn would generate more state revenues (I’m fine with this part of it). It is assumed that giving illegal immigrants a valid driver license makes the roads safer and helps integrate illegal immigrants into society. It’s also intended to be a maneuver of political compassion. However, what most of the discussion in the debates dwell on is the idea that this is a fundamental part of “immigration reform” and that one cannot have the latter without the former. Barak Obama had difficulty with this issue in last week’s Democratic debate – he could not understand why immigration reform and the giving of valid driver licenses to illegal immigrants have to come in a single package – I agree with him there. One can most certainly have immigration reform without giving illegal immigrants driver licenses.

 

There are other issues besides mutual exclusivity at hand. For one, illegal immigrants may feel like this is the state’s attempt at getting them to come in and get flagged, thereby risking deportation. On the other hand, many illegal immigrants might feel turned off due to illiteracy (not being able to pass the written exam), although this is certainly not a universal concern for many of them can read just fine.

 

The biggest issue here is the stink the media is making over this with the presidential candidates. I vehemently disagree with the questioning posed at the debates that this is an executive issue. Follow along with me: whip out your driver license right now and take a look at it. Is it a federal driver license or a state-issued license? Does the fee you pay to acquire a driver license go to the republic or to the state? The answer is the state. This is not something a president should be perturbed with. I agree with Obama – the issuance of driver licenses to illegal immigrants does not capture a candidate’s stance on immigration reform.

The neo-conservative definition of privacy

You know sometimes when people are sarcastic they make quotation marks in the air with their fingers? That’s basically what the Bush administration is doing with the word privacy. Yesterday, Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence, indicated that “privacy” means that the government and businesses will keep people’s information “private.” I know what you’re thinking: why is that something to complain about? This is dirty because what it means is that he believes the government (and businesses) still retains the right to gather private information about us, and that your “privacy” exists in the notion that the information they have on you will not be distributed. So you can no longer remain totally anonymous if you wish.

 

Essentially what this new definition of “privacy” does is shift the focus of attention away from the gathering of information and places the entire semantic domain of that word upon the dissemination of our private information. Implicitly what he is saying is that we can trust the government (and businesses) to gather and keep information about us because they won’t use that information unctuously. Then why have it? So they can talk about us amongst themselves? And just exactly what sort of conclusions and/or actions would they take with the information they’ve acquired? Would such information be dismissible in a court of law?

 

This means that your government does not trust you, but asks you to trust the government. As I have said before, civil liberties such as the right to privacy exist so that we can make changes to our government if necessary. The removal or re-definition of the right to privacy further removes us from those potential changes.

 

If the majority of Americans colluded against Uncle Sam and decided to take matters into our own hands, Uncle Sam would try to defend himself using tactics such as these. Again, our government has taken on a life of its own and it is now self-aware. It seeks to preserve itself and its auxiliary institutions even at the expense of its constituents – the ones who are supposed to keep it in check. This is not how it was meant to be. The government was meant to preserve the people, and what we have now is a behemoth that requires us to be enslaved to its every whim for its own proliferation with little or no opportunity to make real changes. Your right to privacy and the anonymity that it should entail guarantees your freedom to do and say as you so desire – even if it means combining against Uncle Sam to preserve your freedoms.

 

I regret that this is yet another move by a nervous administration that is afraid of its own constituency. They fear us, and try to divert our fears from them to ethereal issues like the “war on terror” or the “war on drugs.” So let’s move to make ourselves more anonymous and free.

Why Michael Mukasey should not be appointed

He may not be a proponent of “torture,” and he may even say that he feels “advanced interrogation techniques are repugnant,” but our legislative body should not appoint Michael Mukasey as the next attorney general because he refuses to answer the question of the legality of advanced interrogation techniques (hereafter, “torture”), viz. water-boarding. He may think it is repugnant, but he will not answer the question of whether the thinks it is illegal. He has even alluded to the idea that he does not know what is involved with water-boarding (a flat-out lie, in my opinion).

 

Water-boarding consists of tying a victim down to a table or the floor, hooding the victim, and then pouring water from a hose or bucket onto the victim’s head during interrogation. It may seem harmless enough at first, but victims of water-boarding have described an intense sensation of drowning. Since the victim is hooded, he has no way of bracing himself for the next blast of water, and generally inhales or ingests excess water into the lungs, causing pulmonary distress (and sometimes pneumonia). The psychological side-effects are invasive and extensive.

 

Why is this an issue? The former attorney general, Alberto Gonzalez, resigned over his manipulation of the interpretation of the Constitution and his endorsement of torture, especially water-boarding, for the extraction of information from supposed “enemy combatants” in CIA detainment centers (most notably Guantanamo Bay, Cuba). A White House memo has surfaced in which Bush, Rice, and Gonzalez all endorsed water-boarding as a method of information extraction on suspected terrorists. Gonzalez was confronted by Congress, namely Arlen Specter (R-Pen), and questioned about the administration’s use of torture. Gonzalez ultimately failed to give the committee satisfying responses to the questioned he faced, and he resigned while the legislative branch sought to remove him from office. (In a way, he was Bush/Cheney’s fall guy).

 

This is an issue because it’s the only issue on which the media and Congress is concentrating. Since Mukasey’s stance on torture is so vague (after all, he wants to please a now Democrat-controlled congress as well as win favor of his potential future boss who endorses torture), he may just receive the nomination over this one issue. Congress cannot accurately perceive how he views it, yet he has not stepped forward to indicate his endorsement of it, so they may just let the nomination slide. The case smacks of the Clarence Thomas nomination in 1990, where sexual harassment was the only issue with which Thomas was confronted. He won because the evidence against him was inconclusive and vague. Regardless, I believe Congress and the media should not be so concerned about Mukasey’s stance on water-boarding as they are on the overall issue at stake: the neo-conservative view of the Constitution, the rule of law, and executive authority.

 

What they ought to do is bring in Mukasey and ask him questions about executive authority and power. Ask him questions about upholding the Constitution in war and peace, etc. They need to ask him more sweeping ideological questions rather than focus on this one issue. Granted, as a Libertarian, I also abhor torture in any context, but the real problem is that Congress believes they can capture his entire ideological mindset regarding the Constitution and human rights with one simple issue – an issue that rests upon one’s own subjective semantic interpretation of the word “torture,” no less. What Congress ought to do is call him in for another round of questioning, but instead of focusing on his ideas of torture, they need to catch him unprepared and off-guard – ask him about his interpretation of the Bill of Rights, about neo-conservative interpretations of the Constitution, and ask him if he believes in the Nixonian (now Bushian) notion that the executive branch is immune to the rule of law. If they really want to see him squirm, and they really want to know if he will perpetuate the problems the Bush administration has introduced, they will do this.

 

If they do not question him about his larger ideological stance on the rule of law, I am afraid we will be backsliding into just another version of Alberto Gonzalez but with a new name and face.