Yes. And why? Because people who enter into them not longer do not mean what they say. If they did, they'd be a damn sight more careful before making a vow until 'death do us part.'

And perhaps they never really did, it was just that social, legal and religious pressure prevented them from divorcing. There is an observer effect in the recent statistics. That is, if prior statistics were captured in an era when divorce made you a social pariah or even a criminal, small wonder that once that era passes that the divorce rate goes up.

Do not get married period.  Marriage is an institution.  To be institutionalized one must be deemed insane.  Damn I guess I am batshit crazy as I am married..

From a statistical point of view 70%(ish) marriages fail so...

At least get a pre-nup or your fuxored.

I've already told that marriage is NOT a contract

I have to go back and read that thread again because I missed this. If this is true, then this whole subject is far more complicated than I thought. Corporations and married partners are now something outside of contracts (are they derived from contracts?). This gets to the point where political science intersects with law. That's specialized knowledge.

But I do wish the Objectivist movement would iron out what is in the realm of general knowledge and what is outside it. Or what is "within the subject of philosophy". What does the Objectivist politics have to say about the subject of marriage? The answers I've heard over the years are all over the place.

I still remain confused about what the fuck marriage is in the eyes of legal theory.

It has nothing to do with who has greater knowledge. It is a nudge to OPEN YOUR EARS and listen to what I am saying. You appeared to have considered very little.

For instance, I've already told that marriage is NOT a contract, nor does the law consider it so -- for good reason! I've already explained why to you multiple times, and you are still repeating it here.

All I am saying is that when I explain something like that to you, you should LISTEN. That's it.

You're right, I have repeated myself in hopes that you would do a little more thinking. I mean, do you think your argument is something novel? One that I haven't heard from libertarians a thousand times before, and rejected because of the proper role of the state?

Linz, you came up with some general "principle" about the state not involving itself with private relationships to defend your position.

But this is obviously false.

Please tell me the difference, in principle, between the state defining a corporation, and requiring certain formalities to recognized as a corporation (i.e. for property to fall under those laws), and the state defining marriage and requiring certain formalities to be recognized as a marriage (i.e. for the property and child custody issues to fall under those laws).

I've already dispensed with this argument, you just don't realize it. And refuse to address the argument directly.

Here's another one for you: the law DOES distinguish between an 'employee' and, say, an 'independent contractor'.

Why, you ask?

The law deems them different for liability purposes. An independent contractor, although hired, is outside the purview of the corporation's direction and control; hence, said contractor cannot impart liability on the corporation whereas an employee can. Ergo, the reason for a legal distinction between the two.

This example brought up by you is exactly what I am talking about. You're grasping at things about the law that you think are obvious without knowing what the law actually is, and, more importantly, why it is that way.

Same thing on your idea about contracts magically resolving the concrete scenarios I gave you. You didn't answer the scenarios directly, you instead said something like you imagine "the usual provisos will apply".

What "usual provisos" answer those scenarios? Does that require some specific knowledge about contract law?

If you don't have it and can't answer the scenarios, then your argument sinks like a stone. You're hiding behind vague notions about contracts. Standard libertarians may not recognize it, but I do.

And I know it's fluff.

It's one of the reasons Objectivism is failing. Too many armchair philosophers straying into specific areas that they should not be offering opinions on because their knowledge simply is not good enough.

Michael - you wrote to me:

You never got the arguments, and your rebuttals were not good. Quite bad, actually, considering your arguments were wrought with rationalism and fell apart with some simple scenarios. I'm being charitable in calling them rebuttals, but anybody that is curious can go back and look at them. The "general principle" you formed collapsed with barely a nudge.

In any event, here's the wider point you are missing: not enough Objectivists have specialized knowledge in an area, and do not have much desire to gain it -- particularly before offering opinions on topics, like the law.

And when caught out, they respond with canards like "nanny-ism".

Facts and logic are more convincing. And this often times requires specialized knowledge in an area, like the law, that may require a more astute and precise application of the philosophical principles involved. If all you have is "nanny-ism", you ain't gonna win many people over.

When somebody has greater knowledge than you in an area, you'd do well to open your ears a little wider. Like [sic] I told you before, the stock, knee-jerk libertarian response on the topic is nothing earth-shattering. In fact, it's very wrong, if your goal is objective law.

Am I to understand this is all about who has more knowledge of the law than whom? It's not, for me. I'm not remotely interested in that sort of pissing contest. I acknowledge happily, admiringly, fully and unqualifiedly that you, Michael Moeller, have much more knowledge of the law than I, Lindsay Perigo. Let me say it again, for emphasis, and for you to dine out on freely, if it excites you to do so: I acknowledge happily, admiringly, fully and unqualifiedly that you, Michael Moeller, have much more knowledge of the law than I, Lindsay Perigo. That was never in dispute, I would have thought, and I'm delighted to benefit from your expertise in your field whenever you generously furnish the opportunity to do so, as genuinely as when I applauded your passing your bar exams. This is not one of those occasions, however. I hate to break it to you that intimate knowledge of the law does not in and of itself validate any argument to the effect that it's the state's role to define marriage or engage in any other nanny-ist excess. I have agreed with you all along that it's legitimate for the state to define what is and is not a contract; where I part company is when you say it's legitimate for the state to define what is and is not a marriage. Your answers to me didn't address my arguments or questions (such as, is it then, by your lights, the state's job to define "employment?") but rather, reiterated your previous points at greater length in an even greater number of posts. Evidently Doug, too, remains unpersuaded, contrary to what I thought I recalled him saying on the other thread. Must be an awful lot of this "rationalist" stuff going on.

PS: I want to underscore how much I admire Ed Hudgins for ripping into the bigots, even as I say the main thing here is to get the state out of relationships. These sorts of bigots used to run, not just Goblianity, but Objectivism too. Thank Galt they do so no longer.

The whole point of having written contracts is to clarify precisely what the terms are.

I'm not disagreeing with that. What I am saying is that the state must set terms for who can enter a contract (age, no duress, etc) and what constitutes a contract. There are volumes of law on this. In marriage I think the state would do this for all civil romantic contracts. What I am not certain about is if the state has the right to declare any of those contracts "marriage". That is where you need an objective law specialist which I am not.

A contract is not a contract when the state sets the terms.

I've had two problems recently with the state setting the terms.

Problem 1 was with my aunt's cross-lease property.
She has an asshole co-owner that illegally put up fence blocking her access to her front door.
Two clauses in her contract allowed her to give him 28 days notice to take down the fence and if he didn't comply then she could take possession of his half and sell it.
Unfortunately government had overridden her contract with legislation in 2002 and what was 2 paragraphs has now been replaced with 13 pages of legislation (this legislation overrides all of these contracts). The process would now take more than 4 months and require a lawyer to do the procedure correctly.

Problem 2 was with a contract buy a house for removal.
We had a written contract. The guy I made the contract with has been pretending that we had a verbal agreement about a deadline. There's no deadline in the written contract but apparently according to the "ground rules" a discussion forms part of your contract. Which meant the outcome of a dispute would rest not on the written contract but on the content of a year old conversation that I had with one of his employees.

The whole point of having written contracts is to clarify precisely what the terms are.

If government sets, and and is able to change, the "ground rules" then contracts can not be made clear.

"Even Moeller and Bandler think the state should define 'marriage.'"

You never got the arguments, and your rebuttals were not good. Quite bad, actually, considering your arguments were wrought with rationalism and fell apart with some simple scenarios. I'm being charitable in calling them rebuttals, but anybody that is curious can go back and look at them. The "general principle" you formed collapsed with barely a nudge.

In any event, here's the wider point you are missing: not enough Objectivists have specialized knowledge in an area, and do not have much desire to gain it -- particularly before offering opinions on topics, like the law.

And when caught out, they respond with canards like "nanny-ism".

Facts and logic are more convincing. And this often times requires specialized knowledge in an area, like the law, that may require a more astute and precise application of the philosophical principles involved. If all you have is "nanny-ism", you ain't gonna win many people over.

When somebody has greater knowledge than you in an area, you'd do well to open your ears a little wider. Like I told you before, the stock, knee-jerk libertarian response on the topic is nothing earth-shattering. In fact, it's very wrong, if your goal is objective law.

Even Moeller and Bandler think the state should define "marriage."

I can't speak for Michael, but I think that the state should set the terms for contract formation and that's it. I still don't know if the state should define "marriage". I still wonder if the state should just consider all such contracts civil unions and let the culture itself determine what is a marriage or not. If Christians want to call their unions "marriages" then so be it.

But this strikes me as a complicated part of legal theory. Again, I'm still waiting for the Objectivist treatise writers...

Interestingly, Rand Paul is trying to keep his social conservative and libertarian supporters by saying that the federal government should simply not deal with marriage in the tax code, a step to getting the government out of marriage issues entirely.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

... of bigots. But still misses the main point: get the state out of relationships. Even Moeller and Bandler think the state should define "marriage." Freedom-lovers can't win in the face of such nanny-ism, and the cowardice of those who ought to know better when confronted with it.