That is not what a trust fund is.
But not really that radically. Plus, it's not like polygamy is a new concept. It's more like we're redefining polygamy to be gender-neutral.
I dunno. My relationship fell apart.
Don't know what to think about the Burqa law in France.
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That is not what a trust fund is.
Polygamy not only does work, but has worked for most of human history. The fact that polygamists tend to be religious coincides more with embracing ancient traditions than any actual religious doctrine. Its a practice rooted in ancient society.
And take a look at the apes we're closest too. They're mostly polygamist. Its natural.
http://anthro.palomar.edu/behavior/behave_2.htm
Personally I think its all freaking ridiculous, but either we have equal rights for consenting adults in romantic relationships or we have none. No picking and choosing.
One could argue that two people in love can't be independently verified.
And yes, I am being ridiculous. Look at the rest of my arguments. I clearly stated where I stand on definition of marriage but I want to know where you guys draw the line. We used to treat another group of human beings as property because we believed them to be non-intelligent and not worthy of equal rights. It is not inconceivable that we will come to realize certain animals are truly cognoscente and deserve equal rights as human beings.
But I digress. Let's focus on human unions.
Tell me, where do you stand on incest? If it involves two consenting adults, would you be okay with marrying your siblings?
You are not seriously suggesting that because apes do it, so should we. Look at my reply to Kestra. Would you be okay with marrying an ape?
On the point of human unions. Think about it. What made polygamy work in history? Polygamy worked because women didn't have equal rights as man. I come from an Asian culture where in 3,900 out of the last 4,000 years, polygamy was the norm in society. It was norm because women had ZERO social status and a women was nothing unless she was a wife and a mother. Guess what happened when women gained equal rights as men? Nowadays, no Asian woman would willingly enter into a polygamous relationship with a man.
It is inconceivable because such a notion is ridiculous.
Animals do not have the mental capacity to understand the world, life, and emotion in the same way humans do. A dog will never be able to understand what marriage is, what it means, or understand the legalities of it and the contracts involved with becoming married.
You stated polygamy wasn't natural. I proved to you it is natural using real-world behavior of our closest cousins.
Now you're denying that and backpedaling to claim its all societal. Just admit you have a prejudice against polygamists. Easy enough really.
If it was simply societal, then surely you could have no objection to a free and equal society allowing it as it would be a choice.
I am not backpedaling. I claim it isn't natural because the condition under which polygamy is accepted as norm is not natural. It is not natural to treat the entire female population as secondary so that males can be dominant.
And I have already stated that I don't care about people who wish to live with multiple partners or sleep with their own blood relatives. I'm fine with however they choose to live. I just want to know why are they so keen on redefining marriage to include their choice of life style?
Seriously, I always thought of myself as a liberal, but obviously many here are way more liberal than I.
It doesn't need to be. However, they can both give consent to enter the legal contract known as marriage. Love and marriage, not the same thing.
Not trying to be a jerk, but I think you might have meant cognizant? And it's not inconceivable, but we do not operate on things that are possible. We work with the evidence we have. If that evidence ever changes and we find that we are able to communicate with dogs and they are able to demonstrate to us that they understand the concept of marriage, we can have this conversation again.
I'd be fine with people marrying their siblings, personally.
Oops, typo on my part. However, like I said, I wasn't really arguing for marrying animals. I was just using it as an example of the slippery slope argument that the Republicans used when arguing against same sex marriage.
Well, this is a case of agree to disagree. I am not THAT liberal.
Why?
I thought I provided enough reasons why I don't believe polygamy is a good idea. Basically I don't believe marriage can work if there were more than two individuals involved.
Like I said, my idea of marriage is when two people love each other and want to treat each other as the most important person in the world. Kind of hard to do that when there are 2+ people involved.
As for incest.... well, I honestly feel like I don't even have to explain why I'm against that. I can't imagine why having sex with your sibling would ever be a good idea. But if that is for you, then more power to you. I just hope if and when I have children that they will never have the urge to sleep with each other.
I'm not against incest per se, but closely sanguinous unions maybe ought to be only permitted with infertile people. There's a serious chance that their progeny will become burdens upon the state.
Of course, you take that reasoning to its logical conclusion, and you have a working eugenics program. So it's best to keep a very cool head about it.
Of course, you take that reasoning to its logical conclusion, and you have a working eugenics program. So it's best to keep a very cool head about it.
So because we don't want an eugenics program, we should allow siblings to marry? Or is this logic deduction only one way and not reversible?
Oh, and I love Gattaca. Great movie.
It's not a slippery slope argument it's a ridiculous extreme argument that almost needs its own Godwin-like meme.
Likening people marrying animals to same-sex marriage is in no way, no how, the same thing as animals do not have the ability to give consent and have no legal standing in that regard nor any concept of romantic love or what "marriage" is.
Two adult human beings? Do have the ability. Three human beings do, four human beings do. So there's no reason why that I can see at least two people, regardless of gender, should not be allowed to enter a marriage with one another.
Now, I've got no problems really with polygamous relationships but I can almost see the arguments against it as it could just be a potential tax-shelter for all parties involved, a way to get people green-cards by marriage and any number of loop-holes could be exploited.
And I don't have a problem with people entering a marriage to exploit its benefits (the courts and government should have no place to see if the two people actually love one another) but allowing multiple-partner marriages seems like we'd have to consider at least investigating that unless the people demonstrate they're part of the FLDS church and, thus, it's part of their religion/belief system.
Multiple marriages I could see being exploited far more than I could see same-sex marriages being exploited. But, still, I've no problem who want to be polygamous relationships.
Nor do I have a problem with incestuous relationships so long as it's not with a sibling or a parent. The potential for birth-defects are greater in that close of a genetic relationship and the product of that coupling could be a potential strain on the f'd-up medical system we have in this country. (First-degree relationship marriages could also be exploited for tax/insurance reasons.) But marrying cousins or more 'removed' family members, whatever. With that much separation the chances for birth defects is a bit lower and, in fact, marrying a fist-cousin wasn't too uncommon in the 1800s as most of the people you knew were most likely those who were in your family.
All of that aside, fuck whoever you want. I don't care. If both of you want to do it, whatever. Both you and your mom want to live out a little Oedipus fantasy, have at it. Whatever. Doesn't affect me or my life.
Hell even if you do have a child it's not going to be that much a strain on my taxes if Medicaid has to help you so, whatever.
Let consenting adults do whatever they want so long as it's not directly impact other people's lives.
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It's probably worth noting that an incestuous coupling by itself doesn't produce a genetically defective child. It just increases the chances that genetic defects or problems that are in all of us will assert themselves. If I have a child with my sister us being both being a product of the same parents there's a greater chance we're both carrying recessive genes, inactivate by being paired with it's dominant opposite, will link and become activated. The chances of this gene finding its mate in the general population is much lower.
So it's not like your genes "know" that they're with your sibling's genes it's just that the chances of the genes getting mated in a negative way are greater with a sibling than they are with someone else. The more 'removed' the person is from your genetic providers the lesser the chances. Your first-cousin is the product of a parent's sibling. Their genes may be "different enough" to eliminate the chance of that pairing happening. A Second Cousin or a removed cousin lessens this chance even more.
Now let's be honest about that, all income group families do everything they can to avoid paying taxes.
Yes. Everyone basically tries to pay the smallest amount of taxes possible. Except the super rich has the resources to actually lobby and directly influence politicians wile the rest of the populace is either too busy or too apathetic to vote.
trekker, please read through all of my posts. You will find that you and I agree on severla points, especially the part of multiple-party unions becoming tax havens to be exploited. And no, I never compared same sex marriage to marrying animals. I simply carried on argument since people started saying polygamy and incest should also be legal.
I think it is a disservice to same sex marriage supporters to associate their cause with polygamy and incest. I have several gay friends who are actively trying to get legislation passed to legalize same sex marriage in my state. They hate it when ditractors argue "if we allow this to be passed as law, next year we will be asked to legalize polygamy and incest." Most gay couples I know are much more loyal and dedicated to their one partner than hetrosexual couples.
trekker, please read through all of my posts. You will find that you and I agree on severla points, especially the part of multiple-party unions becoming tax havens to be exploited. And no, I never compared same sex marriage to marrying animals. I simply carried on argument since people started saying polygamy and incest should also be legal.
I think it is a disservice to same sex marriage supporters to associate their cause with polygamy and incest. I have several gay friends who are actively trying to get legislation passed to legalize same sex marriage in my state. They hate it when ditractors argue "if we allow this to be passed as law, next year we will be asked to legalize polygamy and incest." Most gay couples I know are much more loyal and dedicated to their one partner than hetrosexual couples.
Because a dog isn't human. Comparing humans to dogs is just a sickening tactic of the anti-gay contingent.
Your feelings on polygamy and incest are irrelevant. The State has no business restricting marriage contracts where there is no harm done to any party.
I think the direction this thread has taken is exactly why cultural relativism is bad when taken to extremes. The niqab and burkha should be banned and yes, society DOES get to tell you what to do. You don't like it? There's the fucking border, goodbye.
No. I'm just saying I can see good arguments against permitting closely consanguinous relationships. Those same arguments apply, however, to infringing the personal freedoms of people with serious hereditary diseases.
Take, for example, a man with a genetically-determined low sperm count. Assume it's due to the deletion of the DAZ1 spermatogenesis genes on the Y chromosome (which it often is). He can have laboratory kids, but any male child he produces is going to have exactly the same problem, because the Y chromosome reproduces essentially via cloning down the male line.
So, he's screwed up his kid's life and knows it; not in a terribly awful way, but at the very least he's ensured repeat business to the fertility clinic.
Should we permit that when we try to forestall two healthy cousins with no or few deleterious traits from having a child which is likely to be completely healthy, simply because there are a great many other cousin couples who would produce less-than-optimal children?
I've got no easy answers on that count. I'm sympathetic to the idea that incest laws should at least be made less retarded (e.g., here the incest laws also encompasses stepchildren and stepsiblings.
), or even seriously overhauled. But I'm not sympathetic to the idea that we should permit people to create defective children on purpose.That's the thing about eugenics: we all practice it in our personal lives. Sometimes, perhaps often, we make mistakes. Occasionally, we make mistakes on purpose. And in the last case, that's where the state has historically stepped in. The problem with the state is that it likes to systematize things, instead of individualize them, and it's difficult/expensive to say which incestuous coupling is going to be a problem, and which are not. The other problem with the state is that when it makes a mistake--for example, the mistake embodied in miscegenation laws--the consequences are widespread and often catastrophic.
Oh, absolutely. Andrew Niccol is one of my favorite writers and directors. However, despite his skill, he's the master of inventing highly questionable social situations and claiming they represent real dangers. At least The Truman Show was an allegory. :P
Sean Aaron said:
I think when "you don't like it" it's just called the democratic process. If you had a nonconformist idea and Britain were to tell you "there's the border," would you intend to drown?
Also, it's really weird to be called a cultural relativist.
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