Water Cooler Wednesday: Marriage and Government

Brian: Hey Andy, how is everything going?

Andy: Oh, you know, plugging along with these reports.

*both sip water*

Andy: Hey, did you read where Rand Paul talked about government getting out of marriage? What are your thoughts on government getting out of the marriage business? You're all for "small government" so you probably think it's a good move I bet.

Brian: The government "getting out of" the marriage business is a very libertarian viewpoint. There are, I suppose, some attractive things about that, but "getting the government out of" what are euphemistically called "social issues" is usually where libertarians and I part company. John Stossel, for example, has long been one of my favorite commentators, but he's too liberal on the social issues for me. I really feel like it's important for us as a society to say "This is OK, and this is not." Sadly, our society seems to think homosexual marriage is OK, when it is clearly unnatural. I know it's been said before, but it is a slippery slope. When you accept homosexual marriage, there is a clear path to acceptance of polygamy, beastiality, and even necrophilia. The other side will try to dismiss that as extreme, but think how extreme homosexual marriage seemed as little as a decade ago. It's coming; hide and watch.

Andy: Well, what do you think of marriage licenses and the like not coming around until the 1920s? I understand that marriage wasn't a government thing until that time.

Brian: I've never looked into it, but I'm sure that's true. Problem is, prior to the 1920s (and for a good while afterward), nobody considered homosexual "marriage" legitimate. Same with polygamy, which was actively condemned from the time of the Mormons. If we went back to that lax standard today, you could get five wacko witnesses to say they saw you marry a ham sandwich, and that would have to be legal. The cat is out of the bag, now. Unfortunately, I think Rush Limbaugh is right. This is a lost issue. It's just a matter of how long it takes. Once that happens, we begin the descent toward recognizing other deviant relationships as "marriage". Eventually, we end up where the Roman Empire did, with flagrant, open promiscuity of all kinds displayed everywhere.

Andy: I guess I'm on the fence with this issue. I see and understand both sides. On the one hand, I want the State out of the marriage business because, quite frankly, I don't like being married to my wife and the state right? The state has a part in my private life and my future children, etc. I don't like that. Since that didn't come around until the 1920's why do it today? Especially since men I admire, from what I've read about them anyway, didn't have marriage licenses! (Abe Lincoln and George Washington). I guess the character of our citizens was quite different back then. People focused more on their actions and such when "no one was looking" instead of, remarkably, around the 1920's and 30's people focused more on their public image and their public character, caring less about their private character. What you did when no one was looking or just when a few people were looking no longer mattered. So, the moral climate changed a lot. I see that as a decent blow to the "get the state out of the marriage business" position.

I also see the good points of the state being in the marriage business. This positions says society can't survive without the family unit. The state wants the society to survive and prosper so it can survive and prosper. They say the family unit is the blood of the country and without it, America will fall. So, the state has an interest in making strong families by rewarding strong, monogamous, traditional families that will raise children to raise children to raise children and keep America strong. I understand this position also says that since no-fault divorce came along, the state really had to promote the traditional family. Is it too much intervention on the personal lives of Americans? Well, it doesn't help. If more intervention was done away with, then this intervention would be minimal I guess. I think the state can still promote and reward strong traditional families without such intervention like child services and family court. 

Brian: Yes, I too am a bit on the fence about just how much state intervention there should be. There are lots of whack jobs out there who abuse spouses and children, and without legal (i.e. the state's) authority, there's very little intervention that can happen short of vigilante justice, which is a bad thing. Problem is, the state too often makes bad decisions or is ineffective in enforcing the laws aimed at protecting the vulnerable. Unfortunately, that's usually the case any time the state gets involved - they have a noble idea, but they are horribly ineffective in their execution. Hence, libertarianism. I get that, even when I don't agree with it.


The promotion of a strong family unit should be the goal of the state, but clearly it isn't. Welfare benefits that promote single-parent households, free distribution of condoms and sex education classes (both of which promote promiscuity "without consequences"), recognition of homosexual marriage and homosexual adoption, relaxation of indecency standards to allow relentless promotion of deviant and dangerous sexual behavior in the media, no-fault divorce, legalization of abortion on demand... all of these things - and no doubt many more - actively work against the formation of strong families. So government has not only made ineffective use of the mechanisms at its disposal to promote strong families; more and more, it has actively abused those mechanisms to weaken the family.

Andy: *looks at wall clock* Well, break is over.

Brian: Yep. Time to get back at it.

*both sip water then throw cups away*

Watercooler Wednesday: The Honeymoon is over or The Obama Admin Spied on Fox Reporter

It's here! And a day early at that. I wanted to go ahead and get it out. Starting next week, Watercooler Wednesday will actually be on Wednesday. Andy and Brian are two characters I've constructed out of personalities from my past and the present of people I've met in person and online. They will develop more as weeks go by. Also, these conversations have been edited from emails and messages I've had with real people. I've done my best to edit them to fit the characters of Andy and Brian. I will have profiles on Andy and Brian a little later when I actually decide what to do with them in this series. For now, just know they are two guys at work talking at the watercooler.

Andy: Brian, what up my man? *laughs* Did you read the "chilling" report on twitchy? I read about it on that right-wing nutjob blog Wintery Knight. Why are right-wingers so upset about it? Scanning emails is a form of safety. I'm not that angry with what happened, although, I have to admit I was a little surprised by it.

Brian: The only surprising thing here is that this got out. Anyone who hasn't seen - nearly from the day he took office - that Eric Holder is the very definition of government corruption is blind as a bat. The dude is evil, and I don't use that term lightly. Cover-ups everywhere, and they all lead back to him. He, of course, not only doesn't remember anything - a la Hillary in the Whitewater investigation - but he actively lashes out at anyone who dares question him. This is a guy who is committed to fundamentally restructuring our government in very radical ways and using all means, legal and illegal, to get it done. In some ways, I think he's more of a villain than Obama.

All that said, Obama knew what he was getting with Holder. He got exactly what he wanted and has backed Holder to the hilt. If the fecal matter ever contacts the air circulation device - and it looks like maybe it has - Holder becomes a martyr to protect Obama. Actually, I think Holder would relish that role, politically dying for the cause of statism. Some of Obama's picks - like Hillary - were concessions to the political establishment, but Holder and Emanuel were clearly the picks of the young, Alinski-trained revolutionary Obama. The one I can't decide on is Sebelius. She didn't strike me as that radical, more of your average, run-of-the-mill liberal, when she was nominated. Not a lot of radicals can get elected governor of a pretty conservative state like Kansas, but HHS has been one of the more aggressive agencies in promoting statism in this administration. Is she just a willing tool or does she actively seek to radically increase the size and scope of government? I can't decide.

I think it's interesting to examine this Rosen story in light of what else was going on around that time... the "war on Fox News". People forget that the administration was trying to de-legitimize FNC as a news organization at that time. Was that to weaken or remove Rosen's press protections? Was it simply another tactic to silence a critical voice? Was there another motive that isn't yet clear? The fact that all the other news orgs would play along was sure to help. Not only is Fox the only conservative news network out there, they also tend to spank the others in the ratings. All that allowed the war on Fox to continue with almost no protest in the MSM. Only now, when the parallels between Obama and Nixon, the press's favorite Republican whipping boy (and with good reason), are too obvious to ignore, does all this get the play it deserves.

I only worry that the issues involved are too arcane to resonate with the public at large. "We were just trying to keep you safe" is something people understand and buy into. "We need the right to publish classified information in order to keep the government honest" is a harder case to make to the average Joe.

Andy: You know I think this issue might be too arcane for the very reason you mentioned. I like safety. A lot. If the government can be there and protect me then I'm all for it, especially if it looks like a bad guy is the recipient of justice. Some say I do not realize the huge amount of freedom Americans lose for "protection" like that. For example my friend Julia particularly likes to point out that I like government safety, that I talk highly of the FDA, foodstamps, and Homeland Security (police state stuff) but then I also hate when some of my freedoms are taken away, e.g. taxes being too high or religious freedoms. She tries to explain to me that is the result of having a large federal government and police state. She also tries to explain those programs are how "it" (government) gets so large. It's hard for me to see that and after she points it out, sometimes (depending on my mood) I'll relent and say, "Well, I do like the safety those programs bring." I really like the idea of our budget getting balanced, getting out of debt, and I am a big fan of political and religious freedom, but I also really like safety at a higher level. As some wise guy once said, "Safety first!" 

Brian: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

I think a lot of folks have the mindset that, if you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't fear government monitoring of your activities. I myself have subscribed to that notion in the past, and I'm still a little conflicted on the idea of a "right to privacy". It isn't explicitly in the Constitution - it's derived from the Fourth Amendment, I think - and the courts have convoluted this implied right to defend everything from abortion to same-sex marriage. On the other hand, it gets a little dicier with the press, since their job is to report the facts, however they came by them.

As to your friend's point about how "it" gets so large, it's because bureaucracy naturally seeks to perpetuate and expand itself. Consider the Census, for example. The Census was mandated to take a count of how many people live in a particular place to determine congressional apportionment. That's it. Have you seen a Census form? Should be about the size of a pack of gum or a business card at most: "How many folks, counting you, live at your house? OK, thanks. U.S. Census Bureau" Instead, it asks a lot of personal questions about income, race, your job, etc. And that's the "short form". I've not seen a "long form". Now they send people to your house to interview you about all this personal stuff. It costs a fortune! (Remember when Obama was touting the job growth that resulted from hiring a bunch of temporary census workers?) And then they do all these estimates and stuff in between years. Why? They have one job. Find out how many people live in a place every 10 years! But no, they had to expand to do all this other "useful" stuff. Like we don't have polling agencies and whatnot for that. And don't give me that crap about getting unbiased data. We've seen just how "unbiased" the federal government is in the last couple of weeks, haven't we?

What about the National Weather Service? Like we don't have the Weather Channel and umpteen local stations with Doppler radars! But no, now we've got the NWS inventing global warming to perpetuate its own existence, make a case for more funding, etc. The postal service? The only reason UPS and FedEx don't do the same job cheaper is because the federal government outlawed them from competing with the USPS and its bloated union contracts!

Listen, on some things, I think Ron Paul is a straight up nutjob, but give him or someone like Tom Coburn about a week to hack out the stupid crap that the federal government either isn't explicitly authorized to do or shouldn't be doing, and the national deficit is gonna sink like the friggin' Titanic.

Andy: Humph.You righties are so dumb.

*Andy takes a long drink then goes back to his office*

Brian: Sigh. That is some good water.

*Brian whistles back to his office*