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Admin
Well...yes. How else can the word of law be trusted?
If we now wish to incorporate a new meaning of a word, repeal/amend/replace the law.
Immense effort is expended in contract law to ensure people don't get away with semantically shifting the goalposts.
A law (indeed an entire Constitution) is written using language that has a meaning at the time it is penned. That is what is agreed to and lawfully passed/ratified...not some unknowable future redefinition of terms.
If Jefferson had instead written about "life, liberty and the pursuit of gaiety" would we now be seriously debating that he intended the US to be a homosexual nation? ;)
I'm glad to see that gays are recognized as having a right to get married...but that doesn't mean that I agree with the tortured Constitution-mangling that was used to get there. Personally, I'd be much happier if all levels of government stayed the F out of all of our personal lives.
Admin
I suppose by reference would be permissible. After all, we wouldn't want any more bills that generate stacks of paper taller than the average human.
Admin
Yes, you're missing the joke.
Admin
Yes, the unbridled judiciary is a bit of a concern. At least, on this particular power trip, they didn't really hurt anybody, other than the people who felt it necessary to use the power of law to vindicate their own lifestyle choices.
I do hope it does lead to repeal of all these "marriage lites". These laws were well-intentioned, but they undermined the social value of stable life-long coupling, in an effort to blunt the gross inequities. For the avoidance of doubt, sex with animals/minors/groups is not part of stable life-long coupling, so don't hold your breath on any of those.
That was another solution, but in society's eagerness to promote (or just codify) traditional coupling, they created a bunch of tendrils you'd have to cut:
Before we go abolishing the income tax, though, I wonder what makes us think that the "Internal Consumption Service" would be any less abusive than the IRS? Same jack-booted powers of enforcement; just different types of personal information needing to be snooped.
Admin
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Sphere
That is actually a thing you can do in Dwarf Fortress.
Admin
No, it doesn't. You systematically twist my meaning to suit your agenda. Present laws are inconsistent - the mess in the US, I find, is accompanied by an equally bad mess in the EU. My own feeling FWIW is that the developed world should arrive at a common standard so every teenager learns the same thing and someone going from Spain to Massachusetts doesn't find themselves locked up. I also feel that the offence of statutory rape is flawed, because of the issue with different degrees of physical maturity at different calendar ages. The penalty where teenagers are concerned should be something like attendance at compulsory sex and society education classes. Actual teenage rape should be classified as a violent crime and treated accordingly. But people should not be classed as sex offenders until they reach an age at which their hormones no longer dictate behaviour or they are intellectually capable of grasping what is expected of them by society.
Admin
Are you for or against a fixed barrier preventing sex under a certain age limit?
If not, then you have other barriers.
I'm not trying to make one choice or the other look "evil". That's in your own head. I'm simply saying that you understand that the issue is complex and you can't fix a barrier and say, these two people can't have sex because of an age difference.
And that's my point, this gray area is far easier to attack than people realize, and at the current rate of pressure for free sex for teens, it won't be long before people make headway into lowering the age of consent.
And given the current laws, this will allow an adult to have sex with a child.
That's not to say that the laws can't change in anticipation of lowering age of consent.
What's a good solution? I don't know. I'm under the social construct of no sex before marriage, which solves the problem for people willing to put that constraint on themselves. But that doesn't alleviate the fact that there are two underage kids have sex there, and an adult wanting to have sex with a kid over there.
A hard age line is the easiest solution, but will end up with over the top punishment for underage offenders. Society doesn't seem to care much whether kids have sex, so kids respond by having sex. IOW, it's hardly the kid's fault.
But if you find fault with penalties for statutory rape between minors, why do you punish an adult more severely? Either a kid is capable of understanding sex, or they aren't. And we don't penalize people for convincing people to make bad choices in other areas of society.
For example, I don't see there a law preventing constant TV marketing, because that does affect the brain. Nothing saying people can't advertise to the poor. They aren't restricting from advertising to people with high credit debt either.
Lying seems to be the only thing the convincing party cannot do.
So that's where I fail to understand this idea logically.
So, I have to assume the only reason it is illegal, is an emotional irrational reason.
Unless, I say kids cannot consent to other kids.
Admin
Marriages between consenting adults don't exactly have a good record of being stable and life-long either, you know.
Admin
And you're basing that on what?
Well that seems to be pretty bad. But how did they arrive at that number?
But no mention of how the numbers were calculated. Based on the presentation, it appears that they simply asked when the women were first married and when that first marriage ended, then calculated from that information. Also interesting to note is that the All time dissolution rate mentioned by the report is 34.7%, not much higher than the 29.1% 10-year rate. Keep in mind though that these numbers are for all forms of dissolution: divorce, annulment, and separation. When looking at this it should also be remembered that separations are not always permanent.
As a final parting thought:
So what was that you were saying?
Admin
People like to stand on soapboxes and shout. It doesn't matter that the glass ceiling is both made up and illegal, or that divorce rates are declining. They're bad things and should be shouted about!
...Apparently.
*
Admin
I was saying that the relatively high likelihood of divorce is not and has never been a factor in whether or not people are allowed to get married.
"There's too high a chance this will not be a stable life-long coupling, so you're not allowed to get married", said no one ever (except to people who wanted to marry a nonstandard partner).
Admin
Then why didn't you just say that instead of spouting some bullshit? Plus, you still have to prove the "high likelihood" bit.
Admin
A comment about the failure rate of marriage in general being high is not "bullshit".
And no I don't have to prove the "high likelihood". It's common knowledge that the divorce rate is high and, as far as I know, nobody of any significance is saying that it's actually quite low and not at all concerning. The realistic divorce rate estimates are still around 20-25% of first marriages, which is high; second, third, and further marriages are even more likely to end in divorce, yet at no point do we prevent them from remarrying on the justification that their risk of future divorce is too high.
Admin
A few hundred years ago it was common knowledge that the world was flat and that you could fall off the edge of the world if you sailed far enough.
Being common knowledge doesn't make something true.
But how are those numbers obtained? No consistent method? Oh, well those are real reliable then. And how do you know they are realistic?
Admin
No, but it means the burden of proof lies on the person claiming it's wrong.
But really, you could use Google just as easily as I could.
Admin
Oh look, I already pointed out that there's no consistent, universally accepted method for determining the divorce rate. Guess your "20-25%" figures aren't all that reliable. Care to try again?
And I already point out the flaws in the 29% figure I found, so don't go trying to grab that.
Admin
It doesn't matter whether the rate is 20%, 25%, 29%, or something else in that neighbourhood. All of those numbers are high.
Admin
alright... riddle me this.
What number would you consider an acceptable rate?
Admin
Yes, because of bad, inconsistent data collection. That combined with the fact that they often lump in things like annulments and separations when collecting their data makes the statistics unreliable. The real numbers are likely to be lower than those figures. (Sorry, did I offend you with that deliberate misinterpretation of your statement? Don't worry, you'll get over it.)
My point is, the methods for determining the divorce rate are not consistent, so they get inconsistent results. Combine that with the fact that most sociologists agree that the divorce rate is falling, and for all we know the current divorce rate for first time marriages is something like 12%.
Good point. Before we continue, @anotherusername, please define "high", "normal", and "low" in the context of divorce rates.
Admin
indeed. we cannot hope to have a meaningful and polite discussion on this matter if we are not all on the same page.
or at least on the same page with respect to the terms used in the discussion, I expect we may have some disagreement in their interpretation.
Admin
The ideal divorce rate is zero.
Can we please return to my original statement, which was that divorce rate, however high or low it may be, has never, ever been a consideration when it comes to whether or not we should allow certain people to legally marry. Why therefore does it make sense to use that as an argument against nonstandard marriages?
Admin
okay, but back to definitions, is 1% a high divorce rate or low? it's not by your definition ideal, but you haven't answered our question.
It may not be relevant to the original point but i am curious as to your standpoint here.
Not that it's actually relevant but i still don't get why the ultra religious have a problem with gay/nonstandard marriage arrangements.
I mean when you get married in a catholic church you are actually getting maried twice, once religiously and once legaly. It jsut so happens that the priest is also licensed to perform the legal ceremony and the legal ceremony simply consists of signing a piece of paper that is then notarized and filed.
I've oft wondered if it would be less troubling to them if we had two separate words for marriage. One for religious marriage, and one for civil marriage.
but then that's just me rambling.
Admin
Zero. For what God brought together, man should not part.
:trollface:
Admin
okay then. riddle me this.
Who is God?
What is God?
Admin
(Psst-- that's not at all true.)
Admin
Pragmatically speaking, 1% is low; probably too low to be a practical, reachable goal for the whole population as an average. I guess if 1 in 10 marriages ended in divorce then the rate is getting uncomfortably high; at that point virtually everyone would probably have one or more close friends and family members who are directly affected by it. If the figure is 1 in 5 or 1 in 4 that's rather astonishingly high.
Admin
along with marriage rates.
Pretty easy to avoid divorce.... just live together.
-10%
I need to know the reason. If someone is divorcing because their spouse was giving them a black-eye everyday, I don't have anything against that person wanting divorce.
But I'm going to find it hard to believe that, as LGBT get married, we don't see an equalizing of divorce rates between cis-gender heterosexuals and LGBT. Unless there was social reasons that increased the marriage rate between the two groups unproportionately. Because if marriage is less relevant to a certain subgroup, they're going to see less divorces, because the people getting married, really really want to get married.
civil union. There's no reason to have a specific legal classification for marriage. I honestly don't care of 10 people are living together and want equal rights to visit each other in the hospital or give out inheritance to each other. Wills and power of attorney should be enough for that.
He Is, for any given interpretation of God. God is a tautology. Because there is no frame of reference to describe him from within our limited scope. We are beings forcibly moved through time in a single direction. Any being that could be a god, would have to find that really limiting.
I read somewhere that, the flat-earther is a myth and we knew many centuries before that the earth was round. Flat-earth is the same thing as today, a jab at someone for their lack of agreement with your science.
But, I could have just as easily dreamed that after I ate a giant greasy taco and passed out.
Admin
Really?
I tried finding evidence supporting the bit about falling of the edge, but everything that came up was debunking that the flat-earth belief was common in 15th century Europe.
Admin
Considering divorce rates are taken as a percentage of people who are already married, the decline in marriage rates is irrelevant.
Admin
No way. That sounds like a classic father to daughter sort of line when he doesn't approve of his prospective son in law. Or mother to son, for that matter. Shit...parents say this sort of thing all the damn time!
Admin
Not necessarily.
Admin
Actually its "Applicant 1" and "Applicant 2" on the new Texas forms.
Admin
Okay, but those parents have zero actual control over their adult son or daughter, and I meant people arguing that there should be laws saying that they're not legally allowed. Within the context of talking about laws on who can marry whom, I thought it would be understood that that's what I meant, but maybe I wasn't clear enough.
Telling someone that they're not "allowed" to marry someone else doesn't really count if you have no legal ability to enforce that.
Admin
It seems there actually was no computer problem, it was "operator error" for lack of a better term. Regardless of what your view is on the SCOTUS decision, blaming the computer for the delays was a jackass move:
Petty bureaucrats / public servants wanting to drag their feet on obeying the law, until it became clear that they would be held legally accountable for their actions (or lack thereof).
Lang's office eventually issued the couple a marriage license "in handwriting on the existing license form, which proves that County Clerk Lang easily could have complied with the law without waiting ten days," the couple's attorneys said.
Admin
You're absolutely correct to be concerned about another tax agency becoming just as corrupt as the IRS.
I would argue that we can contain such potential corruption by limiting the ability of such a new agency to 'weaponize' tax law by making it so simple that there is no room for corruption.
Why not have a sales tax (the 'Fair Tax' proposal) that would hamper their ability to levy greater taxes on certain groups? Are we supposed to carry 'tax identification cards' with us so we can be taxed more at point-of-sale?
Hell...I don't know the answers...I just know that we're living in a rather savage predatory taxation ecosystem right now...
Admin
Yeah, although unless they're willing to elope, not paying for the wedding could have an effect. I've heard that some people actually value their parents' opinions. Never confirmed it myself, though.
Admin
Very insular civilizations in that time period. Not exactly "common knowledge". Almost all of the world knew flat Earth wasn't a s thing a thousand years ago
Admin
Aren't we all always on the same infinite page since Discourse?
Admin
https://what.thedailywtf.com/t/the-official-double-trouble-bacon-bubblegum-green-spam-purple-peanutbutter-jelly-and-blue-ballz-app-thread/1000?page=831
Admin
Please let me know where that redirects you to. BTW should have picked the more recent page 2877.
Admin
In a new tab, post 16603 With left click, post 1
Hooray for Discoursistency
Admin
:wtf:
Anyway this bug notwithstanding, my point was neither of left, right, middle clicks will go to a specified page, it will dump you at a particular position of the infinite page.
Admin
Which part?
I'll admit, I found some state level stats that listed divorce rates as "number of divorces per 1000 population". But that data is worthless because it doesn't have any relation to the number of people who were already married. It can be linked to the number of people who got married during that time period, but that's the kind of shitty statistics that were used to get the 50% divorce rate in the 1980s. But if your looking at divorce rates that way, then of course it matters if marriage rates are dropping. But it's a dumb ass way of looking at divorce rates.
Admin
http://www.amazon.com/Reality-Peter-Kingsley/dp/1890350095/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1436455139&sr=8-1&keywords=kingsley+reality
This is a philosophy book, but it has an account by an ancient Greek philosopher of taking a journey up to the Arctic Circle in order to measure the angle of the sun at noon at different locations along the way.
That assumes the populations of people who get married and people who cohabit instead are similar. There may be something about the people who choose cohabitation over marriage that also makes them more divorce-prone.
Admin
The pattern I've noticed, from countless stories, is that they cohabit to avoid divorce, because they have a family history of divorce.
And statistics says that a family history of divorce increases your odds for divorce.
So choosing not to marry is emotional protection from the inevitable, in the minds of many.
Admin
If the divorce rate and the marriage rate are statistically independent then it doesn't matter. But it's possible that the sort of person predisposed to divorce is getting married less, meaning that the decline in divorce rates might be dependent on the marriage rate.
I don't know enough about the details of this topic, so I couldn't say for certain, but I wouldn't assume it.
Admin
Wouldn't have worked on me. My wife and I paid for our wedding. Of course, her parents liked me at the time (her dad still does). My mom didn't like her, but then I was avoiding my parents because my dad is a douche. Things are better now that my mom divorced him.
It was common knowledge in those societies. "Common knowledge" is generally used to reflect what is well known within a given society. What is common knowledge in the US now may be rare knowledge or even heresy elsewhere. When using the term "common knowledge", you don't generally expect it to apply globally, even today.
Not quite sure what you are trying to say here. Are you saying that people who are divorce prone are cohabitating instead of getting married, which is why the marriage and divorce rates are dropping? Interesting postulate. Good luck trying to test it.
Admin
Or that with unmarried cohabitation being seen as less stigmatising, people in less secure relationships aren't being pressured into a marriage that's less likely to work out.
Admin
I'm saying you have to rule that out before you can be sure the decline in marriage rates is irrelevant.
Admin
Not if all you're interested in is the numbers.