Gay marriage is a a slippery slope, yet not so steep

I see two broad arguments in favor of allowing gay marriage.  One is equality.  The other is individual choice and freedom to enter contracts.

The first is tied up in all manner of moral and ethical issues.  I don't see what I can contribute to the discussion, as I see it as a personal matter.  Someone either sees gay people as people who are gay and therefore people with the accompanying rights, or they do not.  A few might be in transition, asking questions and thinking about it, but only their own thoughts and experiences can change them.

The second one, the manner of liberty, is the slippery slope.  At its heart is the notion that individuals may enter into a contract without restriction, as long as it does not harm others.  I see two potential sources of harm to others.  One would be children raised by gay couples turning out worse than those raised by straight couples.  There is no evidence to support this and there is no similar standard in straight marriages, nor is marriage even based on child-rearing.  The second potential source of harm stems from employers and taxpayers shouldering the burden of extended marriage benefits, such as pensions, healthcare, and government entitlements.  However this 'harm' stems not from gay marriage but from marriage in general and how our laws treat it.  The same harm exists in straight marriage.  There is a third category, of moral outrage or decay or decency, but those are all of little legal weight and amount to little more than imposing one's perspective on others.

Getting back to the contract, the inevitable question arises: Why only two people?  The contract perspective seems to allow polygamy as well.  That's the slippery slope: from gay marriage to polygamy.  Then what?  Given that we've gotten here on a slope of contract rights, nothing else.  Animals cannot sign contracts.  Children cannot either.  The contract perspective on gay marriage is not a slippery slope to bestiality and pedophilia, only to polygamy.

That leads to the question: What's wrong with polygamy?  In the abstract, perhaps not much (I have raised one issue in the past), though particular cases can turn out badly.  I suspect that legal and social rejection of polygamy means that the few people who engage in it are inevitably going to be unusual in some way, for better or worse.  If people think that gay marriage is the slippery slope to polygamy, fine.  If that's the case, then figure out what's wrong with polygamy.  Defeat it in society and the courts.  If polygamy is the actual problem, then fight it, not committed monogamous couples.

You're stereotyping too, hippie

I have long hair and I am male.

While waiting for a ride after getting back to Chicago I was approached by someone with long hair.  He apologized for interrupting me, apparently noticing that I was very busy staring off into space.  He said that he was looking for some money for a ride or something and I looked like I was cool.  This was followed with a brief, yet not brief enough, complaint about all these yuppies with their suits and rushing off who can't give a person a second and who judge him just because of how he looks.

In his defense, he didn't look particularly dangerous or dirty.  On the other hand, he was complaining about people stereotyping him based on appearance in the same breath that he complained about the people in their suits who are in a rush.

I was a little bored, so I figured I'd entertain myself.  I pointed out the hypocrisy of his complaint.  I joked that I had no money because I couldn't afford my suit yet.  He suggested a store that sells cheap suits.  This guy didn't seem too swift.  He said how I seemed to think through what I was saying rather than just whatever comes to mind.  I refrained from pointing out the contrast between us.

Before he went away I lectured him more on psychology. I explained how many of those supposed yuppies are people looking for jobs, putting on the clothes and playing the part, because they need money like anyone else.  In other circumstances they'd be dressed down drinking with their buddies with all the time in the world.  People in a rush are less likely to help; they are, after all, in a rush.  It's not a measure of their kindness but of their situation.

It's a shame when people cannot see themselves mirrored in others.  Maybe the mirror is colored slightly or a little distorted, but the general reflection is still there.  I can see myself as one of those yuppies, rushing to an interview or meeting, my mind occupied by other problems, and I know that in those circumstances I'd be less likely to stop.  I try to give others that benefit as well, to recognize that not everyone who ignores me is a jerk.  Similarly, when I need to be the guy asking for a favor or directions, I try to consider how they'll see me.  How am I dressed?  How am I approaching them and talking to them?

It's like Gandhi said: "Be the guy asking for change that you want to see in the world.  And also, quit stereotyping people; just because you got stereotyped doesn't mean you're innocent."

Barack Obama is a person

The White House recently released a photo of Obama skeet shooting.  Along with it was a strange-sounding bit that it could only be used for news and not manipulated.  Clearly a blatant attack on free speech!  Or is it?

I don't see what legal weight the caption has.  Perhaps copywrite, in which case, the problem is the limits of copywrite and fair use, not that a tyrannical president is running a cult of personality.

On the other hand, he is a person.  I think people have rights on how their images are used.  Of course if he put, and enforced, that limit on every image of him then that would be a problem.  But surely a person is due some amount of deference, not as president, but as a person.  It is not merely his photo in terms of intellectual property, but his image.

Of course such an appeal to human decency and respect is nowhere in the Constitution.  Were we to follow the Constitution and nothing else we'd be left with little more than the lowest of human vulgarity and anarchy.  Murder isn't even banned and surely there is a precedent in that second amendment.  My point is that the Constitution is a floor.  Maybe a foundation as well.  We should stand on it and build up from there, not sit on the floor screaming at anyone who builds anything.  I don't think the Founding Fathers intended for us to sit on the floor.

We could all get up in arms, literally or figuratively.  We could make a fuss.  Or we could ask questions.  What does that caption actually mean?  Do they plan to enforce it?  Is it even there at Obama's request?  Is it boilerplate phrasing stamped on everything?  Who cares?

My theory is that it is there, that Obama put it there personally.  On his last day in office he will repost that image, edited, with the big letters "YOU GOT TROLLED" typed over it.  The mouseover text will be "wtf is wrong with you?"

The Church cannot lose

Canon City, Colorado (CNN) -- Life begins at conception, according to the Catholic Church, but in a wrongful death suit in Colorado, a Catholic health care company has argued just the opposite. A fetus is not legally a person until it is born, the hospital's lawyers have claimed in its defense. -CNN

 At first glance this may appear hypocritical.  However we should note that this is a lawsuit and therefore dictated by law.  By law, the fetus was not a person.  Once you catch the distinction between legal and moral definitions, then the hypocrisy vanished.

In fact, I think that's what makes this so clever for the organization.  This case highlights the difference between the moral and legal definitions of a person and gives them a platform; it calls attention to the gap.

Overall, I believe it will be a propaganda victory for the Catholic Church.  If they win, then they save a lot of money.  Then they get to go out and preach about the saddening immorality of the laws and judges that try to define life, though they'd want to leave out that they were the ones arguing for the more restrictive definition.  The real win is if they lose.  They'd be out a bit of money, but that's a small price to pay for a legal precedent that puts life at 7 months, or more importantly, in the general realm of before birth.

Or they could settle, let the whole thing blow over, and everything ends up terribly uninteresting.

Magical criminals and anarchy

Step 1: Someone shoots a lot of people.
Step 2: Someone else calls for gun restrictions.
Step 3: Someone else says "criminals don't follow laws."
Repeat endlessly

Given the prevalence of the third step, I am getting scared.  Criminals don't follow laws.  Ever.  In fact, any attempt to restrict their activities only harms us more.  Apparently criminals are magical beings who do not merely attempt to defy laws with varying degrees of success, but are in fact entirely immune to them.

Given that criminals are magical law-immune beings and therefore laws only affect law-abiding citizens, then it is clear that there should be no laws.  Consider this: if we restrict guns, then only criminals will have guns, and all criminals will have guns, because that's what they do: break every law.

But why stop there?  I'm worried about theft.  If someone robs my apartment, how can I get my stuff back?  The police will take too long to investigate.  Instead, I should find the person I think did it and take it back.  When you criminalize taking things without permission, only criminals will take things without permission.

While we're at it, get rid of laws on bribery, since all they do is hold back us non-bribing citizens.  Apply the same logic to all forms of corruption, but of course they'd not be corruption if they were legal and considered acceptable.

Alternatively, it might be that Step 3 was stupid and in fact, criminals are not magical.  It is possible that there are links between the legal and illegal markets.  It is possible that discouraging straw purchasing will reduce the supply of illegal guns.  It is possible that fewer legal guns will reduce the potential for stolen illegal guns.  It is possible that "enforcing the existing laws" could help, and it is possible that "enforcing the existing laws" is a blatantly deceptive false argument when delivered by the same people who do everything they can to prevent the enforcement of existing laws.

Yet another problem caused by failing to define God's property rights

A North Carolina judge quoted Scripture that refers to the Lord’s 'vengeance' in sentencing three men to de facto life prison terms for a robbery [of a church service] that netted less than $3,000. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case Tuesday.
- CS Monitor

In all our nation's legal history and battles, we've somehow failed to explicitly define property rights for divine beings.  What is God's property?  We all have opinions, but there is no clear legal standard.  Some say everything.  Others say nothing.  I can see that some property has been given to God by private citizens, but it is managed by individuals, so there still needs to be some definition of powers.

It seems reasonable that the stolen property is God's.  What are the implications of that?  The judge thinks that theft from God mandates greater penalties than from others.  That's clearly not right.  Neither the Constitution nor any laws define deities as a special class of citizens, entitled to greater protection of their property or greater punishment for those who take it.

This judge gave an excessive sentence.  Worse, his justification, that God is entitled to special treatment, is entirely without legal backing.

Stray bullets are a thing

Safety devices sometimes cause people to act more recklessly.  For some people, this makes the safety device less safe overall.

I don't think this means we should ban motorcycle helmets.

But what about guns?  They're cited as everything from safety device to tyrant protection.  The latter is completely absurd (ask the Saudis about all their guns, but I suggest not questioning their local family of tyrants).  The former?  Maybe.  The statistics on crime all mixed.  Earlier I proposed running simulations on arming teachers as a way to get something more specific than generic crime.

But let's get back to the helmet.  If you drive your motorcycle recklessly because you think you're safe, am I harmed?  Well sure, I am harmed by the increase in recklessness if you cut me off and damage my bumper, but the fact that you get yourself killed is not a harm to me, ignoring psychic costs because those are potentially infinite and all-encompassing.

Now let's imagine that your recklessness is with a gun.  Shoot the bad guy?  Fine.  I'm not going to debate whether shooting someone who is stealing your wallet is okay (though if they're in your house, that's your house).  What about the misidentified person?  What about the strange thing that bullets don't hit a person and magically stop?  What about imperfect aim?

Notice how those all aren't your problem or the assailant's problem: they are the problem for everyone else.

Guns might help in a few specific situations.  They might cause harm in others.  These should be looked at altogether, rather than cherry-picking the one time when someone happened to be saved by one, or harmed by one.