We Americans are gradually learning to be more tolerant of other cultures - within our culture as we at last, in earnest, accept the notion of the melting-pot concept. We have touted ourselves for generations as they tolerant nation but never have we actually lived up to those claims. In this day of our history I believe that we can genuinely say that, while not fulfilled, our efforts at tolerance are true and sincere. It is the brilliance of the rule-of-law, even more than the ideals of Democracy, that has delivered us to a greater state of acceptance. The Law is our rock and foundation but it is also our controversy.
There is the absolute, objective and literal law, then there is the spirit of the law. Those two issues are grounds for constant debate and controversy but then you add to that, the idea of the foundation of the law, and you have a real set of problems. The foundation of the law is basically the moral reasoning for its codification. Many laws are non-objectionably aimed at moral control; it is illegal to murder; it is illegal to steal; it is illegal to rape; it is illegal to prostitute. While there is clear and just reasoning for many moral-laws as they ensure the survival of our civilization (it is illegal to murder), others, I believe, cross the line of protecting society to meddling in people's right to have their own personal set of morals - so long as they cause no injury to society at large.
Laws against prostitution cross the line. While I'm not one to solicit the services of a prostitute, a very reasonable case could be made for the social benefit of their existence. I will not make that case because it's besides the point - a diversion from the real issue. The real issue is whether we have a right to legislate personal morality. I think not. This is a freedom we are born with - to live as righteously or as wretchedly as we choose. The government's role is to ensure that regardless of our decision, the opportunity to walk either path is not obstructed and its role is also to ensure that my wretchedness doesn't pollute your righteousness or that your righteousness doesn't intrude upon my wretchedness. Though some may judge a life of prostitution to be a wretched choice of existence, it is none the less, a choice and it is a choice.
Imagine if we made a law against promiscuity. This is essentially what the laws against prostitution are. The only difference between being a promiscuous person and a prostitute is the fact that a prostitute gets paid for their promiscuity. I fail to see how the fact that a person is paid for sex acts with lots of people, all of a sudden makes this such a bad thing that a law is needed to prevent it. Are we saying that it's okay to be promiscuous up to the point that someone gives you money, at which point, it turns into something so horrendous that the government has to intercede? That is the silliest proposition I have ever heard.
We all know one thing about prostitution if we know nothing else about it and that is that it has been around since man has recorded history. Why do you think that is? Do you believe that those engaging in prostitution have been so oppressed, historically, that they have had no other choice but to resort to prostitution? Do you believe that there is an inherent evil within the human condition that will always express itself in ways such as vial acts of promiscuous sex? Perhaps you believe that certain people are natural born predators who have victimized people throughout history - imposing this perverse condition of compromised morality on the weak and susceptible. With the exception of a state of prostitution against personal will, the fact that this is an issue of personal moral concern can not be avoided.
Judgmental people really get under my skin. One sad fact about the psychology of people is that, when we choose to commit to something we have an almost insatiable desire to have others agree and commit with us. It is a result of our need for companionship, fellowship, communion; socializing with the equally yoked and like-minded. This need to have people agree with us - to not be alone in our convictions - to have our beliefs validated, lead to our attempts to convert others so that we have company and comfort in our ideals. Most people's morality is derived from their religious laws. Thus comes proselytism and judgment of others. We almost can't help ourselves. It is perhaps, the most important and difficult cultural evolutions of time - to truly accept other people and their personal morality without sensing a need to change/convert them. Who a person has sex with; how many people a person has sex with; how often a person has sex; these are all very personal decisions and only the participants in the act(s) incur any real consequences for participating.
I watched the episodes of the Tyra Banks show wherein she confronted women who were working as prostitutes for a legal brothel. I could not help but to be irritated by the thickness of the judgment in the air. It looked like she was telling grown women who or what was the appropriate person or manner to be penetrated. It appeared that Tyra was doing everything she could to dance around a prevent from revealing the reality that she was simply judging these people for choices that have nothing to do with her self. No one wants to be guilty of being judgmental but this fact has to be admitted to and resolved before those who care to stop prostitution will ever have the attentive ear of those on the other side of the table.
Personally, I don't care what people do in private, especially with the one thing that is truly their own; their bodies. When whores start having sex on the streets, for all to see, blocking traffic, that's when I'll care. Until then, stay out of people's bedroom why don't cha! Anywho, I'm vented.
Showing posts with label Intrusive Laws. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Intrusive Laws. Show all posts
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Gripe of the Day: Laws that protect Me from, Me
While I am aware that our political system is corrupt, politicians are purchased & lobbyists are our actual law-makers, it disturbs me to realize that those lofty and grandiose documents such as the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, have lost the fight against capitalism. Once you commit to living the doctrines of capitalism, it's as if you swallow a pill that displaces your ability to sense when you have eaten your fill. In other words, you become greedy - "enough" will never be enough. It is because of the insatiable appetite that our politicians can't turn down a dollar - they'll sell the halls of Congress for the right price. There are many laws that pass through the halls of Congress that have the taint of all kinds of 'isms on them but it is the laws against the people's right to be wrong that get under my skin the most.
We are supposed to have the right, in this country, to do wrong or be bad people, especially when the wrong that is done, directly affects the offender only. We have a law enforcement structure in this country that's supposed to issue the consequences to those who offend others. The legal system is now being used to prosecute people for harming their selves. That's ridiculous!
Here are a few things the government now governs that it shouldn't:
1 - Child Support
2 - Car Insurance
3 - Seat-belt/Helmet Laws
4 - Natural Resources
5 - Marriage
CHILD SUPPORT
Why is the government involving itself in the personal lives of people to such an extent that it's deciding how much money a child is worth? First off, it takes two people to make a child so if you want to penalize a father for having an unplanned child, where's the penalty for the mother who made the same decision? Are we saying that her penalty is that she's usually the person stuck with this undesired offspring? Are we saying that raising a child is a bad thing? But then, the system also ensures that the father is involved in the raising of the child so does that mean he's punished twice? For those of you who aren't familiar with financial concept of the child support system, allow me to explain. The system says that there are two parents and these two parents earn, collectively, whatever amount of money. Based on their formula, a particular percentage of that collective income would go towards the raising of the child. This figure supposedly accounts for average food, clothes, housing, etc., costs for the raising of a child who grows up in a household within a particular income bracket. The system then says, if the family breaks up, the child should continue to receive the same financial benefits it would have received if both parents were still together. Thus; the non-custodial parent has to pay their portion in the form of child support to the custodial parent. The justification for this system is that too many children are been born to people who don't want them and therefore, don't take care of them once they arrive so to protect society-at-large from having to pay the cost for these bastard children, the system was established to make the irresponsible pay for their own bastards.
Issue one with the system is it does nothing to discourage or eliminate what it perceives as a problem. In fact; the very existence of the system offers incentive for irresponsible women to get pregnant because it's a guaranteed pay-day. Child support is nothing but an attempt to replace welfare. This is made clear with issue two which is that the father or non-custodial parent is required to repay if full, any public assistance the mother might have received for the care of the child including food stamps. Now, if this was about equity, wouldn't both parents be held responsible for repaying an equal share. Then there is the criminalization of the father or non-custodial parent if that parent can't, for lack of a job, pay the child support. If you lose your job and get more than two or three months behind on paying child support, a warrant is issued for your arrest and you can be sentenced to jail time. Correct me if I'm wrong but, if you are married and you lose your job, doesn't the entire family suffer? I don't know of anyone who has to go on the lamb because they lost their job and now must fear the police kicking down the door because their kids can no longer eat steaks for dinner. If you pay child support, this is your unfortunate circumstance. This leads me to my final issue with the system which is that when the non-custodial parent is out of work and unable to pay support, they accrue a passed due amount. That's insane! If I lost my job and my family had to go from steaks to roman noodles, from the suburbs to the projects, there would be a problem if my child came up to me with a bill notifying my that I owe them for the steaks they didn't get to eat. Why the hell is their a bill accruing! When a family loses an income, the family has to change the standard of living they are accustomed to. Sometimes that means that there is only one income where there used to be two. Sometimes that means that there might not be an income at all. According to the system, if you lose your job, the child's standard of living shouldn't change simply because you're out of the house as opposed to in the house. The thing is, there is no just way to have a system that runs this aspect of people's lives. Get out of people's personal business!!!
CAR INSURANCE
Anyone who doesn't know that the mandatory insurance laws were written by the insurance industry lobbyist and passed by the politicians they bought, just isn't paying attention. These laws were fairly easy to pass because they generated income for municipals through traffic citations. The fact of the matter is that this is another case of the government attempting to regulate, legislate and adjudicate morality. I remember the 1980's and before, it was a time before these mandatory insurance laws, life wasn't as hard, people could stretch a dollar further, the working poor (who ofter get falsely counted as middle-classed) as well as the middle class, were more content. Most people, who could afford it, purchased insurance all on their own without government meddling. Insurance was far more affordable. I remember buying my first car when I was a teenager working a minimum wage job and paying bills at home - I could afford car insurance. I remember clearly the time the law took affect because almost overnight I could no longer afford insurance. The reality is that most people can't afford the new cost of insurance. Tons of crappy temporary auto insurance companies sprung up over night to provide ways for people to maintain their right to drive. They achieve this by issuing bogus insurance cards that everybody knows are only purchased to meet the requirement but doesn't provide any real protection for anyone. In other words, can can't make mandates on people's money, if they don't have it, without breeding more corruption. If you're going to pass a law on the citizens, you should first have a reasonable expectation that the citizens have the means to abide by the law. When you have a country filled with urban ghettos and semi-middle-classed people living pay check to pay check, how is it reasonable that they can afford to abide by a law that tells where to spend their money? The only expectation I have is that people are forced to become more and more corrupt themselves in order that they survive.
The justification for the mandatory insurance laws was that the public has to pay the cost for people injured by uninsured drivers because the hospitals have to jack up the costs of care on everybody to cover the losses incurred from treating people without a means to pay. The mandatory insurance laws were supposed to insure that those costs were provided for and therefore, not transferred to the greater society. That is a bogus and over simplified argument. These laws have been in place for more than 20 years now - have health care costs been impacted at all by these laws? The answer is a resounding, no! That's because the whole premise was faulty. If they were truly interested in insuring that every motorist had insurance, they would have began by insuring that every motorist could actually afford insurance. Either they should have calculated the average cost of living in this country and juxtaposed that to the average income to arrive at a proper minimum wage or a proper price for insurance; or they should have provided an income level within the law that determines at what point the law kicks in. In other words, if you are one of the working poor, the law does not affect you but when/if this country provides you to opportunity to prosper and rise out of your plight, then you are held responsible for these additional costs. There are a million other approaches to mandating auto-insurance that are conceivably more fair but as we know, these laws weren't about public safety - they were a result of backroom deals.
SEAT-BELT/HELMET LAWS
Seat-belt and Helmet laws are an easy example of government intrusion on your freedom to move unrestricted. A seat belt law is as ridiculous as the suicide law. If I don't care to protect myself against the dangers in the world, I get what I get. That's the way it should be at least. The government seems to think that it is their business whether or not I protect myself against injury in a car accident. Their reasoning, once again, you guessed it: the cost of health care. Once again, this is a faulty argument and proof is in the pudding. The cost of health care has escalated in spite of these intrusive laws. What's the penalty for not wearing a seat-belt or helmet? They want money - of course! It always gets back to the dollar.
It bothers me that the government is able to pass so much crap on us using the same old wrong argument because enough people believe what they're saying is true, in spite of real evidence. It bothers me that so many people are so bothered by the idea of helping people less fortunate, that they'd rather surrender their freedoms. What happened to the breed of American that didn't depend on the government to fix everything they had a problem with? What happened to that breed of American that would have rolled up their sleeves and said, I'm not paying for other people's ignorance but point me in their direction so that I can help them to have what they need to live without being a burden on everybody else. Remember the "Little House on the Prairie" TV show? If a person's house was destroyed in a storm, the community came together and rebuilt it, they didn't depend on an insurance company to take care of it thereby jacking up the cost of everybody else' insurance. People didn't resort to those lengths until absolutely necessary. Contrary to what some people are brought up to believe about other people in our society, no one wants to be a burden on others. No one wants to not have everything they need to live happily. No one is content with misery. Again, another money-grab by politicians and corporations. At some point they are going to have to realize that the juice was drained from this fruit a long time ago. Their greed is so enormous that they've been settling for robbing you on paper - having no actual substance to back it. This recent economic collapse should have informed the politicians and the corporate leaders that they have eaten everything on the plate and are no longer eaten a meal, but the plate itself. In their blind lust for monetary gains, they realize nothing. They are pointing fingers everywhere but at the truth and the saddest thing about it all is that they might be truly convinced that they are right. Do you know that in the middle of this economic collapse, we had energy companies petitioning the government for rate hikes! That's just a total detachment from reality. The fields are barren, the field hands are starving and corporate America is demanding that the field hands provide more potatoes!
NATURAL RESOURCES
There used to be a time in this country when we were all free to dream, explore and experiment. It was this freedom that advanced this country time and time again. Most major advancements in this country were made by regular people with either a dream or vision and unobstructed freedom to explore and experiment to realize that dream. In the world today and in the political and legal environment of today, many of the accomplishments of the past would not be possible because our political and legal systems have been hi-jacked by corporate capitalists. These corporate capitalists are uninspired people who's only skill is generated income without working for it. One of the many disgusting things that these people have paid off our politicians to do for them, is restrict access to natural resources - the same resources that their scientists used to find the means for making their latest product. This is a way for them to lock down markets. In other words, if they discover an alloy somewhere that can be used to build a better battery, they have the government to restrict access to those resources so that no one else can explore or experiment with them. The issues are obvious. The justification for such restrictions are always something relative to national security. In other words; the government is protecting you from yourself. The next Einstein, Ford or Emerson might not ever come to be because only those who are part of the establishment, have access to the resources needed to explore and experiment with new ideas. The corporate capitalists have gone so far as to insure that there are even restrictions on growing your own food. In most parts of this country, you need local government approval to plant a fruit tree. Why would such laws exist? They exist to protect the income generating abilities of our corporate food suppliers. If you're growing your own food, what do you need them for? Paying for water used to be my biggest gripe when it comes to the controls placed on natural resources until they built a machine to sell air! Get a low tire on your vehicle and pull up to the local gas station, you have to pay to fill your tire with air! You have to pay to use a vacuum cleaner to clean your car! Both of these devices are nothing more than glorified high school science projects - they're not more than simple rotors packaged to look like something else. They cost almost nothing! I can build one of these things with scrap electronic devices I have laying around the house. I tell you, their appetite is insatiable.
MARRIAGE
I really would like for someone to tell me why it is necessary for the government, local or federal, to recognize marriage of any sort. Marriage is a personal commitment and contract between two people and if they are religious, it is also a matter of their faith. What business is it of the government, if you are married or not? As far as taxes go, you don't have to declare that you have committed to spend the rest of your life with someone for the government to collect taxes. All the government needs to know is whether or not you live together, have assets in common, are caring for a child, etc. None of that information requires a marriage certificate to ascertain. I have heard no justification for marriage laws but it is obvious that they generate income for the state. The only time it becomes necessary to prove marriage, is when one of the parties to the marriage is incapacitated and the other needs to make decisions on their behalf and again, this doesn't require government intervention. All that is really needed is that when a person decides that someone else should have such authority under such circumstances, they sign something establishing that authority, whether they're married or not. In other words, if two people make a personal commitment to each other to be with each other forever, they should have a way to establish all of the rights and privileges that are currently only afforded to people with marriage certificates. Then again, you have to pay the government for marriage and divorce so again, it's back to the dollar. Anywho, I'm vented.
We are supposed to have the right, in this country, to do wrong or be bad people, especially when the wrong that is done, directly affects the offender only. We have a law enforcement structure in this country that's supposed to issue the consequences to those who offend others. The legal system is now being used to prosecute people for harming their selves. That's ridiculous!
Here are a few things the government now governs that it shouldn't:
1 - Child Support
2 - Car Insurance
3 - Seat-belt/Helmet Laws
4 - Natural Resources
5 - Marriage
CHILD SUPPORT
Why is the government involving itself in the personal lives of people to such an extent that it's deciding how much money a child is worth? First off, it takes two people to make a child so if you want to penalize a father for having an unplanned child, where's the penalty for the mother who made the same decision? Are we saying that her penalty is that she's usually the person stuck with this undesired offspring? Are we saying that raising a child is a bad thing? But then, the system also ensures that the father is involved in the raising of the child so does that mean he's punished twice? For those of you who aren't familiar with financial concept of the child support system, allow me to explain. The system says that there are two parents and these two parents earn, collectively, whatever amount of money. Based on their formula, a particular percentage of that collective income would go towards the raising of the child. This figure supposedly accounts for average food, clothes, housing, etc., costs for the raising of a child who grows up in a household within a particular income bracket. The system then says, if the family breaks up, the child should continue to receive the same financial benefits it would have received if both parents were still together. Thus; the non-custodial parent has to pay their portion in the form of child support to the custodial parent. The justification for this system is that too many children are been born to people who don't want them and therefore, don't take care of them once they arrive so to protect society-at-large from having to pay the cost for these bastard children, the system was established to make the irresponsible pay for their own bastards.
Issue one with the system is it does nothing to discourage or eliminate what it perceives as a problem. In fact; the very existence of the system offers incentive for irresponsible women to get pregnant because it's a guaranteed pay-day. Child support is nothing but an attempt to replace welfare. This is made clear with issue two which is that the father or non-custodial parent is required to repay if full, any public assistance the mother might have received for the care of the child including food stamps. Now, if this was about equity, wouldn't both parents be held responsible for repaying an equal share. Then there is the criminalization of the father or non-custodial parent if that parent can't, for lack of a job, pay the child support. If you lose your job and get more than two or three months behind on paying child support, a warrant is issued for your arrest and you can be sentenced to jail time. Correct me if I'm wrong but, if you are married and you lose your job, doesn't the entire family suffer? I don't know of anyone who has to go on the lamb because they lost their job and now must fear the police kicking down the door because their kids can no longer eat steaks for dinner. If you pay child support, this is your unfortunate circumstance. This leads me to my final issue with the system which is that when the non-custodial parent is out of work and unable to pay support, they accrue a passed due amount. That's insane! If I lost my job and my family had to go from steaks to roman noodles, from the suburbs to the projects, there would be a problem if my child came up to me with a bill notifying my that I owe them for the steaks they didn't get to eat. Why the hell is their a bill accruing! When a family loses an income, the family has to change the standard of living they are accustomed to. Sometimes that means that there is only one income where there used to be two. Sometimes that means that there might not be an income at all. According to the system, if you lose your job, the child's standard of living shouldn't change simply because you're out of the house as opposed to in the house. The thing is, there is no just way to have a system that runs this aspect of people's lives. Get out of people's personal business!!!
CAR INSURANCE
Anyone who doesn't know that the mandatory insurance laws were written by the insurance industry lobbyist and passed by the politicians they bought, just isn't paying attention. These laws were fairly easy to pass because they generated income for municipals through traffic citations. The fact of the matter is that this is another case of the government attempting to regulate, legislate and adjudicate morality. I remember the 1980's and before, it was a time before these mandatory insurance laws, life wasn't as hard, people could stretch a dollar further, the working poor (who ofter get falsely counted as middle-classed) as well as the middle class, were more content. Most people, who could afford it, purchased insurance all on their own without government meddling. Insurance was far more affordable. I remember buying my first car when I was a teenager working a minimum wage job and paying bills at home - I could afford car insurance. I remember clearly the time the law took affect because almost overnight I could no longer afford insurance. The reality is that most people can't afford the new cost of insurance. Tons of crappy temporary auto insurance companies sprung up over night to provide ways for people to maintain their right to drive. They achieve this by issuing bogus insurance cards that everybody knows are only purchased to meet the requirement but doesn't provide any real protection for anyone. In other words, can can't make mandates on people's money, if they don't have it, without breeding more corruption. If you're going to pass a law on the citizens, you should first have a reasonable expectation that the citizens have the means to abide by the law. When you have a country filled with urban ghettos and semi-middle-classed people living pay check to pay check, how is it reasonable that they can afford to abide by a law that tells where to spend their money? The only expectation I have is that people are forced to become more and more corrupt themselves in order that they survive.
The justification for the mandatory insurance laws was that the public has to pay the cost for people injured by uninsured drivers because the hospitals have to jack up the costs of care on everybody to cover the losses incurred from treating people without a means to pay. The mandatory insurance laws were supposed to insure that those costs were provided for and therefore, not transferred to the greater society. That is a bogus and over simplified argument. These laws have been in place for more than 20 years now - have health care costs been impacted at all by these laws? The answer is a resounding, no! That's because the whole premise was faulty. If they were truly interested in insuring that every motorist had insurance, they would have began by insuring that every motorist could actually afford insurance. Either they should have calculated the average cost of living in this country and juxtaposed that to the average income to arrive at a proper minimum wage or a proper price for insurance; or they should have provided an income level within the law that determines at what point the law kicks in. In other words, if you are one of the working poor, the law does not affect you but when/if this country provides you to opportunity to prosper and rise out of your plight, then you are held responsible for these additional costs. There are a million other approaches to mandating auto-insurance that are conceivably more fair but as we know, these laws weren't about public safety - they were a result of backroom deals.
SEAT-BELT/HELMET LAWS
Seat-belt and Helmet laws are an easy example of government intrusion on your freedom to move unrestricted. A seat belt law is as ridiculous as the suicide law. If I don't care to protect myself against the dangers in the world, I get what I get. That's the way it should be at least. The government seems to think that it is their business whether or not I protect myself against injury in a car accident. Their reasoning, once again, you guessed it: the cost of health care. Once again, this is a faulty argument and proof is in the pudding. The cost of health care has escalated in spite of these intrusive laws. What's the penalty for not wearing a seat-belt or helmet? They want money - of course! It always gets back to the dollar.
It bothers me that the government is able to pass so much crap on us using the same old wrong argument because enough people believe what they're saying is true, in spite of real evidence. It bothers me that so many people are so bothered by the idea of helping people less fortunate, that they'd rather surrender their freedoms. What happened to the breed of American that didn't depend on the government to fix everything they had a problem with? What happened to that breed of American that would have rolled up their sleeves and said, I'm not paying for other people's ignorance but point me in their direction so that I can help them to have what they need to live without being a burden on everybody else. Remember the "Little House on the Prairie" TV show? If a person's house was destroyed in a storm, the community came together and rebuilt it, they didn't depend on an insurance company to take care of it thereby jacking up the cost of everybody else' insurance. People didn't resort to those lengths until absolutely necessary. Contrary to what some people are brought up to believe about other people in our society, no one wants to be a burden on others. No one wants to not have everything they need to live happily. No one is content with misery. Again, another money-grab by politicians and corporations. At some point they are going to have to realize that the juice was drained from this fruit a long time ago. Their greed is so enormous that they've been settling for robbing you on paper - having no actual substance to back it. This recent economic collapse should have informed the politicians and the corporate leaders that they have eaten everything on the plate and are no longer eaten a meal, but the plate itself. In their blind lust for monetary gains, they realize nothing. They are pointing fingers everywhere but at the truth and the saddest thing about it all is that they might be truly convinced that they are right. Do you know that in the middle of this economic collapse, we had energy companies petitioning the government for rate hikes! That's just a total detachment from reality. The fields are barren, the field hands are starving and corporate America is demanding that the field hands provide more potatoes!
NATURAL RESOURCES
There used to be a time in this country when we were all free to dream, explore and experiment. It was this freedom that advanced this country time and time again. Most major advancements in this country were made by regular people with either a dream or vision and unobstructed freedom to explore and experiment to realize that dream. In the world today and in the political and legal environment of today, many of the accomplishments of the past would not be possible because our political and legal systems have been hi-jacked by corporate capitalists. These corporate capitalists are uninspired people who's only skill is generated income without working for it. One of the many disgusting things that these people have paid off our politicians to do for them, is restrict access to natural resources - the same resources that their scientists used to find the means for making their latest product. This is a way for them to lock down markets. In other words, if they discover an alloy somewhere that can be used to build a better battery, they have the government to restrict access to those resources so that no one else can explore or experiment with them. The issues are obvious. The justification for such restrictions are always something relative to national security. In other words; the government is protecting you from yourself. The next Einstein, Ford or Emerson might not ever come to be because only those who are part of the establishment, have access to the resources needed to explore and experiment with new ideas. The corporate capitalists have gone so far as to insure that there are even restrictions on growing your own food. In most parts of this country, you need local government approval to plant a fruit tree. Why would such laws exist? They exist to protect the income generating abilities of our corporate food suppliers. If you're growing your own food, what do you need them for? Paying for water used to be my biggest gripe when it comes to the controls placed on natural resources until they built a machine to sell air! Get a low tire on your vehicle and pull up to the local gas station, you have to pay to fill your tire with air! You have to pay to use a vacuum cleaner to clean your car! Both of these devices are nothing more than glorified high school science projects - they're not more than simple rotors packaged to look like something else. They cost almost nothing! I can build one of these things with scrap electronic devices I have laying around the house. I tell you, their appetite is insatiable.
MARRIAGE
I really would like for someone to tell me why it is necessary for the government, local or federal, to recognize marriage of any sort. Marriage is a personal commitment and contract between two people and if they are religious, it is also a matter of their faith. What business is it of the government, if you are married or not? As far as taxes go, you don't have to declare that you have committed to spend the rest of your life with someone for the government to collect taxes. All the government needs to know is whether or not you live together, have assets in common, are caring for a child, etc. None of that information requires a marriage certificate to ascertain. I have heard no justification for marriage laws but it is obvious that they generate income for the state. The only time it becomes necessary to prove marriage, is when one of the parties to the marriage is incapacitated and the other needs to make decisions on their behalf and again, this doesn't require government intervention. All that is really needed is that when a person decides that someone else should have such authority under such circumstances, they sign something establishing that authority, whether they're married or not. In other words, if two people make a personal commitment to each other to be with each other forever, they should have a way to establish all of the rights and privileges that are currently only afforded to people with marriage certificates. Then again, you have to pay the government for marriage and divorce so again, it's back to the dollar. Anywho, I'm vented.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
