There are many unrecognized implications of the June 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing
marriages between (among?) gay and lesbian (couples? groups?). I frame the
ruling in those terms not to disparage loving relationships of any kind, but to
raise a point lost in this ruling: essentially, the unintentional obliteration
of "marriage" as a legal concept. Which is to me a good thing.
Like so many issues in which government (i.e., politics) is
improperly involved -- education, agriculture, energy, housing, charity, etc.,
etc. -- the bitter, divisive social conflicts over "gay marriage"
arise precisely from the very fact of government involvement in defining
"marriage" in the first place. Why?
Because government -- that is, law -- is force and coercion.
Government "solutions" to problems are inherently coercive
impositions by some people (the politically dominant) on others (the politically
subordinate). Such solutions never result in social harmony, peace, love, etc.;
they only exacerbate social hostility, conflict, and division. They allow some
people to "win," but only because they force others to
"lose."
Force children to go to "public" (i.e.,
politically run) schools, and force taxpayers to pay for it? You will then pit
taxpayers against each other over the content of that "education"
(indoctrination), over schedules and hours, over homework, over grading
systems, over teacher qualifications, over social engineering schemes (busing
students all over the place to achieve racially integrated schools, etc.). over
options for dissenters (home schooling, tax credits, vouchers,
"magnet" schools, "charter" schools), over
"reforms" (Common Core), over testing, etc. Everything concerning
education becomes a political battleground...because of the conscription of
children into politicized education, and the conscription of taxpayers to pick up the tab.
Put government into the agriculture business, or energy
business, or auto business, or banking business, or ANY business, and what
happens? You use force (the IRS extracting money from all
taxpayers) to support crony businesses (e.g., politically connected ethanol
agribusinesses, "green" windmill and solar panel manufacturers, GM and
Chrysler, the big New York-based banks) over all their politiically unfavored competitors,
who must fund, through taxes, their politically favored rivals.
Put government into the charity business -- all the
programs of the welfare state -- and you undercut voluntary, private charity
alternatives by sapping them of trillions of dollars of potential funds, which are taxed away from potential contributors. Simultaneously, you create what are called "moral hazards" by
providing incentives for millions of people not to work or to solve their own
problems, but instead to dump their endless claims of ailments, needs, wants, desires,
whims ("Obamaphones"? Really?) onto their hard-working, taxpaying
neighbors. Everyone resents this "spread the wealth around" process: those forced to foot the boundless bills, and
those issuing endless demands of their "rights" -- i.e., their phony
claims of "entitlements" against "society" (which means: their neighbors). In the
redistributionist era -- as 19th century economist Frederic Bastiat famously put it --
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the
expense of everyone else."
All of this stems from trying to use government -- law, politics, force -- to solve essentially personal or social problems. Politics
invariably creates "win-lose" relationships, in which some people benefit but only at the expense of others. For every political beneficiary, there are victims. For every
political winner, there are losers.
Now, let's contrast this world of politics and the
"public sector" with the world of economics and the "private
sector."
Imagine a world in which education were entirely privatized
-- in which schools were like grocery stores, auto dealerships, bookstores, or
any other private companies. No parents would be forced to put their kids into
a school system they didn't like, with teachers they didn't trust, with
curricula they loathed -- or to pay taxes to support such private companies.
Just as you don't have to subsidize your local bookstore, grocery, or Ford
dealer, you wouldn't have to pay for somebody else's school. With all the money you
saved in school taxes, you could afford to send your kids instead to one of many
competing private schools, with teachers you preferred, teaching courses you
decided were most beneficial to your kids' futures. Or, you could homeschool them,
utilizing course material from a host of competing sources, including online
offerings. You would have no reason or motive to fight with politicized school boards and
teachers unions over content, schedules, social-engineering fads, or anything
else -- because you wouldn't be forced to be involved with any educational
company except the one you freely chose. Imagine: No more wars with your
neighbors and fellow taxpayers over textbooks, the teaching of Common Core or
evolution or liberal propaganda or conservative propaganda, over teacher
salaries and hours, over school taxes, over whether the building ought to have
a new gym. You get to pick an educational company for your kids from a host of
competitors, just as you pick your own car, your own grocery store, or your own TV
provider. Ultimately, just as with those other companies, marketplace
competition would determine which educational companies and options succeed. And unlike today's subsidized, bloated public-school monstrosities, those that succeeded would be those that offered the best educational value.
Imagine a world in which government were banned from any involvement
with business -- a separation of Economics and State, for the same reasons that
we have a separation of Church and State. Imagine businesses having to survive
on their own, demonstrating their value to willing, paying customers in a competitive marketplace -- and not
by forcibly extracting subsidies from taxpayers, via their crony relationships
with politicians and bureaucrats. Imagine how much money would remain in your
pocket if we shut down the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, and Housing &
Urban Development (just for starters), gave pink slips to their thousands of
meddling bureaucrats, and sent them off to seek productive jobs in the
private sector. Would you care if somebody started a windmill firm or a bank
or an auto company...if you weren't forced to subsidize or patronize it? Would you feel hostility and hatred and anger if your associations with them were not compulsory?
Imagine a world in which you got to keep vastly more of your
own money -- and thus have the means and choice to fund your own preferred charities and
social causes -- rather than being forced, by law, to subsidize (say) Planned
Parenthood abortions, AIDS research rather than (say) cancer or Alzheimer's
research, political agitation by ACORN, the politicking of environmental
activist groups, the healthcare of illegal aliens streaming across unguarded
borders, "voter enrollment" of those same illegals, mosquito
control in Africa, typhoon relief in Bangladesh, "public
broadcasting" and opera houses for upper-middle-class patrons who could easily afford to pay for their own entertainment, and on and on and on,
endlessly. Americans are the most generous people in the world. But they are
tired of being played for suckers, forced to fund the politically connected
champions of "good causes" who get favored treatment by their friends
in court. Does that mutual fleecing further social harmony, peace, love, and
mutual respect?
The governmental (political) realm, run by force and
coercion and taking, necessarily creates "win-lose" relationships. The economic
(private) realm, run by free choice and voluntary association and trade,
necessarily creates "win-win" relationships. Yet for many generations, people have been
conditioned to seek coercive, political "solutions" to every
social problem or personal need -- coercive, political "solutions" that only breed
mutual hostility, disharmony, and hatred.
The "gay marriage" controversy is but the latest example of how social disruption has been manufactured -- not solved -- by
governmental (political) involvement. The entire controversy stems from the fact
that government has been involved in defining what a "marriage" is.
But why? Why is that necessary? And what have been the consequences?
Government, as our Founders proclaimed in the Declaration of
Independence, exists to "secure these rights" to life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness. Period. Not to solve personal problems or social ills, but to protect individual rights. Not to take sides in disputes, but to be an impartial umpire.
Thus, there is a proper role for government
(law) in recognizing and enforcing private contracts, and also in protecting
individuals in relationships (spouses, children) from violations of their
rights by other parties. But recognition and enforcement of private contracts,
property arrangements, and the rights of spouses and children, do not require
government (i.e., politicians and the force of law) to confer some kind of
"legitimacy" on the ceremonial and symbolic aspects of a
"marriage."
For all the reasons stated above, marriage should be privatized. A "marriage" should be defined and celebrated
by the participants, according to whatever religious or philosophical values
they ascribe to that state of long-term commitment. Politics should play no
role in that determination whatsoever.
But ironically, the Supreme Court's ruling has -- unintentionally -- pointed us in that direction. Why?
But ironically, the Supreme Court's ruling has -- unintentionally -- pointed us in that direction. Why?
Because (to paraphrase the classic line from the film "The Incredibles") if
everything is a "marriage" under the law, then nothing is. The Court
ruling and reasoning today opens the door not just to same-sex
"marriages," but to polygamy, group marriages, and pretty much
anything else. Who can now say that such arrangements are not "marriages," and on what grounds?
Liberals, wedded to governmental (read: coercive)
"solutions" to all social problems, won't grasp any of this, sadly.
They refuse to realize that their "solutions," rooted in seizing and
wielding political power by themselves over others, cannot ever result in that
woozy, utopian, John Lennon "Imagine" world of peace-and-love.
Liberals, above all, are complete captives to the zero-sum, class-and-racial warfare, tribal worldview: a social worldview of winners vs. losers, of powerful vs. powerless, of perpetual gang warfare in which each gang seeks power and advantage over its rivals. Economic ignoramuses -- who think every economic relationship is about some people taking from others -- liberals can't even conceive of peaceful, voluntary, trading relationships. They thus can only interpret free market capitalism through the distorting lens of "taking," of "exploitation."
Liberals, above all, are complete captives to the zero-sum, class-and-racial warfare, tribal worldview: a social worldview of winners vs. losers, of powerful vs. powerless, of perpetual gang warfare in which each gang seeks power and advantage over its rivals. Economic ignoramuses -- who think every economic relationship is about some people taking from others -- liberals can't even conceive of peaceful, voluntary, trading relationships. They thus can only interpret free market capitalism through the distorting lens of "taking," of "exploitation."
Now, with this new Court decision, they will predictably try
to use their new "marital rights" as a bludgeon against private
individuals, businesses, and religious organizations that do not share their own elastic definition of
"marriage." Rather than take this as an opportunity to celebrate live-and-let-live social arrangements, in which everyone can associate voluntarily as they choose, they will instead eagerly try to
use the power of law to force and coerce any private, peaceful individuals who disagree with them to associate and deal with them -- to
bake their wedding cakes, cater their weddings, provide venues for their
ceremonies, even perform their ceremonies. Why?
Because the main thing that "liberals" are
"wedded" to is not some definition of marriage, but to their
zero-sum, tribalist, coercive, us-vs.-them worldview. No, they don't really want peace
and love and harmony: That's just their cover story.
They want power and control over others.
In short: Liberalism is sociopathy, masquerading as a political
doctrine.