To be or not to be....

I think its an important discussion, but I am afraid we won't have it.

The question is this:  "Why do we have a public policy that rewards married people?"

We offer tax advantages, legal positions, assumed joint ownership, and other advantages.  Why?

The law does not enshrine the marriage covenant, certainly.  There was a time when married people enjoyed protections as though they were "one", but no more.  A spouse cannot automatically receive information on spousal medical conditions.  I helped a friend work through settling her husbands estate, they were happily married, but where he had assumed she'd automatically have access she didn't, causing her grief to be aggravated by unreasonable bureaucratic efforts to save his estate from her claims,

Much of this is caused by the leaning away from the law encouraging marriage by making marriage easy to dissolve.  What 50 years ago was complex and difficult is now routine, divorce "just because" is an assumed right in most cases.

Children out of wedlock are almost a norm, and, in fact, are not even a reason to be married.  In fact, there is a level of public support that PENALIZES the marriage as welfare benefits are more for single women than married women regardless of employment status.  Nobody cares who has children with whom.  Nobody cares if the children can be supported, because the government will if the parents won't.  The government views the children as though they belong to the government, not the parents, the parents can raise the children as long as the government lets them.

There was a time when our public policy correctly encouraged marriage to be a desirable foundation for the population.  The archaic idea that a family with a mother and father devoted to each other in a covenant relationship was considered healthy, and assumed that 2 adults would share household roles that might create some income disadvantage and deserved some help because society benefited from this core family unit.

Not true anymore.  The law encourages both spouses to work, provides someone else to raise the children (increasingly more), and now does not identify marriage as an institution to encourage procreation.  There is scant recognition of joint rights as the government does not allow that spouses have joined their individuality in their spousal relationship, and, instead, the government insists that spouses are individuals regardless of their marriage vows and pledges.

The stupid argument over "marriage rights" should be the final blow to the institution of civil marriage.  Governments at all levels would get out of the marriage business, and not recognize marriage as anything, dissolving any automatic tax conditions, ownership rights, or name changes.  All of these can be obtained if individuals wish to make legal contracts.

If the government got out of the marriage discussion, people could marry under the circumstances they wish, and I wouldn't be forced to agree, discuss, or debate the validity of any marriage.  My marriage is one that is a covenant first and foremost to my wife before God, and is valid whether or not I have a tax benefit or civil recognition.  That's the way it should be, marriage is between people, not people and the government.  Why does the government have any input?

Let it snow.

So there was the dire prediction of a massive, record breaking snowstorm for the east coast, one that would cripple the region from Philadelphia to Maine,  New York shut down the subway, curfews were ordered, and the entire region ran out of milk, bread, cigarettes, and beer.  No doubt cancellations drove people out of work.

And....oops....Philadelphia got 2 inches of the foot they thought they'd have, New York got 9 of the promised 27 inches.  And the weather service apologized for the error and explained how hard it is to predict such things.

Understood.

The models used to compute such things depend on complex calculations, analysis of historic patterns, and extension of what happened before into the future.  Computer wizards, engineers, meteorologists, geniuses of all stripes pour their magic into computers to calculate the future and, voila, each comes up with a different story, none of which happen.

Earth systems are huge, complex, chaotic, and random.  What appears as cause and effect is often not, what appears to be linear usually isn't.

And so, if all of the science with tangible, known, fact-based, observed events in certain history produces vastly differing predictions, most of which are wrong even though they are all based on the same observations, how in the world do we think we can look backwards and make accurate assumptions of what happened in the earth system thousands, or millions or years before the observable past?

We throw away as "fable" the only written record of contemporary observers from the origins of the world we know (the Bible) in favor of the "smarter" science that presumes to know, understand, and calculate facts...the same science and basis as those who can't tell you what is going to happen within hours of an earth system event, whether a snowstorm, a volcanic eruption, earthquake, or seasonally average temperature.  We throw the truth away and throw money at those who claim they can prove it wrong.

We put our faith in that which continues to prove itself wrong rather than that which has an unchanging history of accuracy.

How smart are we really?

Red and Yellow, Black and White....

On a telephone survey the other day I was asked to give my "ethnic identity".  I said "American".  The lady said that is not a choice, I explained it is what I choose, and she went on to the next question dismissing me.  ( it'd be interesting to see what she wrote in her notes about what she thought about me...)

There is something made nowadays about the demise of the "white majority".  I might have these numbers slightly off, but I believe it is accepted that by around 2018 or so the US population under 25 will not have a white majority, and that by around 2030 or so the entire population will be that way.  It belies changing voter demographics and therefore new political winds.

So, why might this be?

I have thought about something that might make this less relevant, and might actually make this "fact" less valid.

Over the last 30-40 years we have undergone a shift in the attitude toward interracial marriage.  Before this shift it was unacceptable (in fact, in some places illegal) for white people to marry black people.  This extended somewhat to other "races", such as Oriental, and some to Hispanics as well.

Nowadays there is no limitation, and though there might be some lingering attitudes against it, the vast majority of Americans see no limits to the marriage between races or people groups.

Interesting, though, is a continuation of the past practice that was parallel to the prohibition of interracial marriage.  I don't know where it began, but it was certainly true that during segregation times, the determination of what "color" a person claims is set by a norm that if, for example, a black and white couple have a baby, the baby is automatically black.  If you see a black and white couple, I'd be surprised if you could find a single instance where the baby is identified as white. Today, there is a determination that if a person is 1/16th Native American (your great-great grandfather was Native American), then you are Native American.

What is most interesting to me about this fact, is that these "norms" were put in place to sustain segregation, yet in today's integrated "color blind" society, we accept them as the standard to measure our racial identity.

It seems to me that the erasure of the limits on interracial marriage are significant in the shrinkage of the "white majority".  It seems it is not equally valid to argue that the growth of the formerly minority populations should significantly affect this fact.  The real fact is that the identity of racial groups per se is becoming less distinct, because a child of a black and white couple is actually neither black or white, they choose their identity rather than have one by unavoidable fact.  Their "black" genes will have no greater impact on their offspring's genetics than their "white" genes.

A better step in this evolution of equality-for-all would be to have no recognition for color, or race.  Our American Melting Pot took a real step forward in the erasure of interracial marriage limits, so why don't we implement the result by having a new "ethnic identity" choice to check "American"?

Seems logical to restart at the beginning, so it is today.

Started with a familiar reading from Genesis and Luke, both starts, both filled with God's grace.  Learned of a friend's return home after heart surgery, a new beginning for him.

Maybe this new beginning will see me catch up with posts I've been meaning to make.

Hopefully I won't read this next year this time and wonder where the time went.

It is sad the the blog has become so "done".  I suppose, though, the realtime drama of Facebook is much more likely to feed our need for response.  I myself just like to rant and often don't really look for a reply...which is good because I usually don't get one.

I did recently notice that our friendly neighborhood casino is planning to build an "entertainment venue" to attract people to big name shows as a lure into their money vacuum.  It is interesting, when I railed about the vote to allow table games in the first place I suggested that when they (the casino) began losing traction because of competition, they would likely resurrect an effort to have a "entertainment district" that was denied by our city planners.  What silly planners...don't they understand the importance of maintaining the money flow into the casino owners' pit?  Wonder what comes when the other casinos build in kind...is this a downward or upward spiral?

Wait....wait.....

It'll be interesting to see how fast the explosions at the Boston Marathon are spun into the need for gun control.....,

Feelings are not the goal

I was reading this morning in the book of Judges.

It was a sad time when Israel was fighting with itself - between tribes they were killing each other and stealing each other's women to have multiple wives and added concubines.  Reading it and God's reaction to it makes it hard to comprehend how a people whose history is so connected with God could become so overwhelmed with falling for temptation that they disconnected it from what God wants and "reasoned" it out for themselves.  One particular piece was about some enemies attacking and insisting on taking a man that was a guest so they could sexually abuse him, and the "honorable" solution was to instead give the men a virgin daughter and a concubine so as to not dishonor their guest.  Needless to say, these men killed the girl in the process, initiating a horrible attack and revenge.

Further in my reading I moved to 2nd Corinthians, where Paul talked about the way, as he said "the dark god of this world" had infected the thinking of the Corinthian people, making them more likely to choose things that did not please God over those that did.  His (Paul's) focus in this writing was on how the people had become accustomed to pleasing themselves and expecting God to be about pleasure rather than the service He expects.

Recently Bill O'Reilly of Fox News made some comments about the whole marriage issue, that the traditional marriage side has "lost" the argument because the "Bible Thumpers" argued on the basis of the Bible, which Bill says has no place in the public debate.  He has crept across a line I am afraid our whole society drifts toward, just like the people of Israel did long ago and the people of Corinth did somewhat later.  Somewhere we, as a society, concluded that what God has said and how it affects lives is not relevant in public policy.  In the rush to eliminate any vestige of conflict between church and state, we are making God as an issue not relevant and leaving, instead, our "feelings" and what "pleases" us to judge right and wrong, determining social policy based on what makes us happy, what some believe is "fair",  instead of what history, tradition, and God established as norms over thousands of years.

I was sorry to hear Bill argue that we cannot have any mention of God or the Bible in public debate.  I believe it is a cop out, and, as Paul says, a cave in to "the dark God of this world".  If we eliminate God from our discussions and instead depend on our human intellect, that "dark god" knows we will eventually lean away from faith and pleasing God and defeat God's efforts on our own, saving that dark god the trouble.  And Bill O'Rielly has fallen into the trap.  His "logic" leaves no place to go, because we can't judge the right and wrong of a sacred institution without the point of view given by God, therefore defeating it because we believe desires rule over what is truly right and wrong.

Its a shame to see us drift toward so certain a fate.