Wait...there are gay people in New York?

So New York becomes the latest state to pass a law allowing for same sex marriages. <Insert non-homophobic and hopefully endearing gay joke here. Maybe something about not wanting to be the clerk who registers all those china patterns.>

Let's state the obvious: gays have been the subject of discrimination for a very long time. Marriage is what we're focusing on lately, but they've traveled a long road that started with the right to simply be gay. That would be very tough. My ancestry is Irish (Bear with me a moment. Full disclosure: I've never felt disenfranchised a day in my life.), but whatever discrimination the Irish suffered when they immigrated to the U.S., they generally were not told to stop being Irish. Gays on the other hand, have been told to "cut it out" for quite a lot of time and there are programs to convince them they can and should. So this is a real victory and certainly moves them closer to equal treatment. 

That said, I would like to have seen this whole debate go in a different direction. I think this decision solidifies and legitimizes a system that no longer makes sense.

The government puts a lot of stock in marriage. Married couples have special legal rights. They can't be made to testify against one another. They get breaks on their taxes. That sort of thing. Government generally recognizes the age old tradition of marriage as "sacred" and deserving of some sort of acknowledgement. There's a whole lot of Christians who would like that to continue. They think it is important that government sanction and affirm their view of romantic cohabitation and its presumptive responsibilities.

Why? Well, lets not be disingenuous. I believe the reason is that they would like the government simply to enforce their view of morality. The most extreme probably support laws against being gay generally, which are still on the books in many places. They are happy then, to grant the government authority to regulate the most undeniably personal sorts of behaviors. 

Wow is that dangerous. It's also a recurring theme, right or left. Watch the talk shows and you'll hear the debate, whether the issue is gay marriage, hate speech, taxation, regulation, etc. They go back and forth over which evil to discourage and which behavior to encourage. Just once I'd like to see a host step in and say
     
"Well, at least we all agree that we're better off with the government officially sanctioning who we sleep with, what we think, and what we do with our money. Next, an hour on the latest search for a missing blond girl. Good night everybody."

I am not suggesting that marriage cannot be sacred, and that people are not free to solemnize their unions in any way they choose--exactly the opposite in fact. Its existence as a religious or societal institution makes perfect sense to me. And there are reasons a growing country might have found benefit in encouraging marriage, offspring etc. But we're not there now, and I see no reason why we should want our government to care whether we are married, single, or living in a commune. 

Aside: who will be the first gangster to get married to another gangster so they don't have to testify against each other in court? Too bad Law & Order is gone. 


I believe most of the matters that are legitimized by government sanctioned marriage could be just as easily settled by a contract. Things like property, shared guardianship of children, next of kinship--these could all be spelled out in simple, often boilerplate legal documents. It might encourage people to give them more thought, for that matter, and come up with unique arrangements all their own. 


Of course, the government is big business, and they make a lot of money off things like inheritance taxes that are built on established structures. That's the easiest candidate for elimination and simple contractual settlement. Why on earth should the government care, except that they want a piece of the action? But it's obvious what their interests are. 


Why should WE care? My marriage (to a woman, incidentally) is all about me and her, and the vows we've made to each other and our children. I don't need Uncle Sam to tell me what it means and what its worth. 


<sigh> See, I'm the guy whose home team won the series on a bad call. Sure I'm happy, but I'd prefer that last runner had really been safe, not benefited from the ump's bad eyesight. 


No one's interested in hearing that at the victory party though. Oh well. Pass me the hoers d'oeuvres, what are these, like little cream puffs?

In the spring, a young man's fancy turns to revolution

"Behind one door is a beautiful maiden. Behind the other a voracious tiger. You must choose." Woody Allen and Bob Hope, of wildly differing political stripes, would nonetheless agree that the correct answer is "I choose the one with the maiden!" Except of course it doesn't work that way. You can't see what's behind the doors; you have to choose blind, and worse, there is seldom anything as nice as a maiden. 

<sniiifff> Ah, smells like Arab Spring. 

Take Egypt for example: long-term dictator vs impassioned mob crying for justice. We can all be forgiven for siding with the guys who gather in the square without tanks and guns. And I did actually, though I am by no means sure it was the correct choice. Why not? 

Because--hang on, first things first, why do I care at all? After all, I can't claim any sovereignty in Egypt. I can't claim that my own rights are being trampled by an Egyptian dictator--though my taxes have gone to prop him up for 30 years or so, so that's a hook. But no, what really makes me interested is one of my postulates, that governing yourself is the highest good. And if I support it for myself, I have to support it for others. And I believe that, as the world gets both larger and smaller, that has to include Egyptians too. And for the same reason: enlightened self interest. I believe more people who believe in freedom makes the world a safer place, and one in which I am more likely to remain free. 



Alright, so why be reluctant to support the protestors? Well, if you'll note as of this writing, the military is still in charge. They've put a straw poll of presidential candidates up on Facebook, a savvy move no matter their ultimate intentions. So that's point number one. The impassioned mob has not actually replaced anyone yet, they've only DISplaced them. If they turn out not to have the strength to take and hold power, then nothing's been gained. Also, it's not at all clear they have the same definition of freedom as I do. If not, they wouldn't be the first. There are many for whom history has meant the right to bludgeon others as they've been bludgeoned (Puritans, I'm looking at you). 


If they can't actually take power, then my support of them is inconsequential. If they can't hold power, then it's purely symbolic. If they don't actually share my view of self government, then my support for them is counterproductive and even dangerous. So what's to do? Which door do you choose? I put my ear to the door and listened for growling. Then I picked the other door. It could be a snake, a scorpion, whatever. Better the devil I don't know, I guess. 


Of course I'm talking like this choice, a blind hope in the lesser of two evils or even one evil and a not particularly evil, but not all that nice, is unique to foreign policy. But you could substitute Democrats and Republicans and the arguments are much the same. While I have ideals, I am not an idealist. I vote based on my perceived chances of improving my lot over time. "None of the above" seems unlikely to do that. So I pick the candidate I identify with the least evils, or perhaps the least pressing evils, hoping he will undo the work of the last one and be himself undone by the next. 


I'm not throwing away my vote. I'm making a calculated decision to do the best I can. To keep opening doors, year after year, hoping against hope to find a maiden behind one eventually.

I should actually be running everything

True, I lack a formal education. And I've never been farther away than Acapulco on a school trip, but I can get somebody for the foreign affairs stuff. My point is that I'm a nice guy with lots of common sense. So I would make good choices about lots of things--like what kids ought to learn in school, much better than their parents, in many cases.

Of course, there is a catch. I'm not exactly in a position to impose my will on others. I do not have the charisma to gather an army based on my words, and my physical presence is somewhat less than imposing. I own no tanks. So, in all likelihood, I am going to live in a society where all decisions are not made by me. It's a shame. But given the long odds on getting and holding supreme power personally, I have decided it is wisest for me to embrace a theory of government that limits the power anyone can wield over anyone else. 


So the highest good is that everyone make their own choices, so long as they do not impact others against their will. The highest good is that everyone be allowed to act according to their will, even when I am convinced I know better for them. Even if that impacts their children.


I say this to eliminate the "won't someone think of the children" defense for virtually any huge intrusion into the minutiae of people's lives. It doesn't matter whether it sounds sensible or not. Think about it for a moment; there are people whose lives seem to cry out for regulation in practically every detail. Some people are not, at least seen from the angle of my own vantage point, very good at living. Of course the people I can see can generally see me and may feel exactly the same way. 

So what you're hearing is a hard preference from me for not regulating, which necessarily means not paying.

Maybe its not clear how those go together, but they generally do. The reason is simple: when you buy as a group, you have to agree as a group. Anyone who likes anchovies on their pizza knows how well this works out for the minority. If you're lucky, you wind up eating cheese, because it's the least common denominator. More likely, you wind up eating pepperoni because it's what the rest of us schmucks enjoy. But you see the options here: something that no one wants much vs. something that everyone but you wants. 


Back to the school example: I've had my kids in public school in a couple of very different places. I was in a liberal community first and grew very tired of hearing the issue of the day presented as if it had been decided and the left held the only responsible position. Later I moved, and the dogma changed with the scenery. I was soon faced with teachers who found endless opportunities to quiz students on their religious beliefs and winked every time evolution was taught (as in, "we all know this is hogwash, but I have to teach it").


Gonna go out on a limb here and say I am not the only one annoyed with being limited to these two choices. Part of that is the nature of our current political scheme which is all either/or. Both left and right are ready to hand powers to the state that I think are absurd, but more on that another day.


Why are we stuck with this choice? In this particular case, its because we've mandated that every child must have an education and that it must be "free". Free in this case is a just a euphemism meaning not paid for directly, but out of our tax dollars, like the whole country is a kind of home owner's association with really hefty dues and we get school and roads instead of a pool and landscaping in the medians. 


The difference here is that you are legally obligated to swim. You can send your kids elsewhere, but you have to send them, and that "free" education?--yeah, it isn't, and you are still paying for it, whether you use it or not. So, unless you have the strongest convictions or deepest pockets, you wind up using the "free" one, cause you've already payed for it. 


Ok, so everyone has an education. But it's not a great one. And depending on your point of view, a pretty bad one. I submit though, that it can't be any other way if you're going to fund education through the sole vehicle of public schools. Because I'm not going to agree with everyone on every item. So the best I can hope for is to settle on a bland course that will offend few and likely bore all. In the end, we all feel like we're eating someone else's pepperoni when we want anchovies. 

The alternative, of course is to buy your own. That means not chipping in with the group that wants pepperoni. It also means finding others who like anchovies (because who can afford a whole pizza?), a task which might have been hard once but now, not so much. A Google search reveals over 4.6 million hits on the phrase "I like anchovies."

There's a lot of practical discussion in here that I'll have to come back to in another post, since I've strayed from my central point: I believe in the right of others to make their own choices and determine their own fate, even to their detriment. It is the only reasonable position of someone who wishes to retain their own freedom to choose. 


NOTE: These early posts sound a lot more certain than I intend the blog to be ultimately. That's largely because I'm laying out my postulates, the basis for the questions I'm asking myself these days. And just to make it clear that I really have some, here are some questions I'm asking myself today:


I enjoy the company of bright people. How much of that society is a product of public education? How would the things I enjoy have been achieved without it? Would eliminating education requirements and funding result in vast swaths of uneducated children? Is it better to be uniformly mediocre than to suffer vast differences based on things like income? 

Personal freedom is the highest good, but it's not the only one. Where do other imperatives stack up? 

There, that should undo it all nicely.

Something I Say a Lot

Governments rule with the threat of force and violence. I don't mean that to sound melodramatic. I mean just what I said. We grant our governments (more on the granting elsewhere) the power to enforce laws against our citizens. Such enforcement is built on the ability to do harm to us. If you doubt that, consider the course of a set of traffic violations. You are fined for parking or speeding or having a taillight out. Should you ignore the fines, your car will ultimately be taken from you. Should you resist strenuously enough, you could be jailed. Should you flee incarceration, attack those who seek to bring you under control, or be perceived as a threat, you may well be killed. That's only the most exaggerated example, because generally speaking, the government is so disproportionately strong that it doesn't need to kill you. It can pin you down and wait for you to cry uncle. 

My point is not that government shouldn't enforce laws or that its use of violence is necessarily corrupt. I am simply acknowledging that it is the threat of violence that gives government its power to accomplish even the most mundane of its tasks--from collecting taxes to collecting garbage to collecting dust on its oil reserves.  

So, I think we should be very careful about which tasks we decide will be carried out on that basis. If you don't think it matters, ask yourself whether the following two invitations are equivalent:
    "Would you like to have lunch with me?"
and
    "Have lunch with me or I will break your legs."

These strike me as very different interactions. I think we ought to save the threat of violence for some extremely special circumstances or mandates. So what should the government do, about a problem, a crisis, a plan for the future? We think about such things all the time, in a form something like "I think the government should provide free health care," or, "I think the government should pay teachers more." These are not uncommon or unreasonable sentiments. I do, however, think they sound a bit more ominous when rephrased accordingly: "I think that all citizens should be required, under the threat of violence, to provide free healthcare to their fellow citizens." 

Hmm.Well, maybe. 


"I think that all citizens should be required, under the threat of violence, to give more of their income to school teachers."


My point is not that there is a right or wrong answer to those questions, but that phrasing certainly changes the mood in the room. And I maintain that it's the right mood in which to answer these questions. Is the problem being addressed so severe, so dire, and so universally understood and agreed upon that it requires the forced consent of all citizens to address it?


Quick examples: 


Should everyone be forced to pay for an army?  I think yeah, probably.
Should everyone be forced to join the army?  Well, no, not most of the time. I think. 
Should everyone be forced to pay for encouraging others to join the army? And my head hurts. 

So no law currently forces you to join the army. But you do have to pay for it and you even have to pay to convince other people to join it, recruitment posters, whatever. But, especially in this day and age, all the activities of government are accompanied by PR and even advertising to convince you it really is a good idea. 


Solid answers? No, not at all but questions worth asking I think. Though doing so is completely optional, no threat of any kind implied by the author.

So Many Questions...

Why blogging?

I’ve written lots of things in my life, though I’ve never been published, beyond being paid for some brochures, coloring books, and a technical manual once upon a time. I’ve scratched out poems for fun and my own edification and have a tweens science fiction novel that I ought to do something with. But blogging seems like a bite of work I can handle right now, in and amongst my other obligations.

Writing is also a great mechanism for me to work things out. It is the way I communicate best, or, at least, most convincingly, so it’s always been a great tool to help me decide what I think. 

Why this subject?

I’ve become concerned in recent years that I am in danger of contradicting myself. I am also concerned that a tendency to speak of the ideal prevents me from actually answering the questions of the day effectively. I see virtually no one I admire in current American political discourse. Actually, wait, that’s too broad. There are many voices for which I have some respect, but they are not actually in politics.

So what’s the plan?

Well, in apparent contradiction of the previous paragraph, I’m going to start by documenting what I think is ideal. For myself, and anyone who wants in on the conversation, I have to outline my premises or postulates, and go through the process of turning them into a theorem. It’s the only way I know to organize a reasonable evaluation of whatever comes after—to build a set of rules against which to judge a particular course of action. That said, I’m just going to have to see what works as a start in.

Sources?

Early on, I’m going to try and avoid a lot of heavy quotes or references. That may lead me to duplicate the work of others or to look dumb treading on well covered ground. But the purpose of all this is to get to my own set of principles, so, I’d rather try to document and develop them organically. That said, I may get into some question of history, for example, that I need to research, and I’m not going to avoid that either. But this is a thought experiment as much as anything.

I’m probably going to use a question and answer format quite a bit here as I get started. I also intend to have some questions off to the side for extra credit, the sort of thing that leads me to start the blog to begin with.