jlc

I will bow to your erudition. (In short, you left me totally behind in your comments...Would you explain?)

Jan

(Actually...I dated him...)

Shhhh.

Jan

I agree with your stance - it is a strong one. The Founding Fathers pretty certainly (from what I have read - tell me if I am wrong) meant 'white males' and/or 'white males of property'. I am pointing out that the Emancipation Proclamation was redundant, as are all the subsequent racial and gender based regulations: all you need to do is specify that "men" in the governing documents means "people".

Jan

That is a diverting thought, CG: The Declaration of Independence as a prototype of government.

I like that idea.

Jan

I do not care what Rand said...if what she said is factually incorrect. (I think she would agree with me on this.) Ayn Rand was working from the data that were available at the time she wrote; increasingly it has come to light that we are not the socialist 'tabla rasa' to be programmed by society into whatever form it desires: we are genetically endowed with pre-formed traits that have varying degrees of penetration into real life.

Either genetic determinism or tabla rasa can be alleged to be the end of free will...or the defining characteristic thereof. It is important to begin with what is real and go from there, not to discard a fact because it does not agree with one's philosophy.

Jan

Good comment, but not validated by my most recent data: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/children-follow-convicted-parents-into-crime-1321272.html

Granted, this is a study and should be followed up by experimental evidence, but it appears that the determining factor is, once again, genetics.

What I will agree with is that a good family life makes the child 'happier'.

Jan

I will too. One of the values of the Gulch is that it can serve as a touchstone to 'feel out' the functionally valid borderlands of the Randist philosophical landscape.

Jan

Ha. Great, dino.

Jan

Those people who are of religious inclination may want to share their relationship with their deity - they find the term "marriage" to be important. So they should continue to use it per their own tradition. Other people (not religious) may also want to use the term for tradition's sake - and they should not be encouraged to do so.

I think we will see an increase in the number of people who just plain do not care one way or the other about the word "marriage" though.

Jan

This question would have been more difficult to answer before the advent of genetic screening. Now, one can say, "the genetic parents are responsible". I know several young men who have had genetic screens to establish whether or not they were the father of a particular child. This really has nothing to do with marriage: none of the people involved in these relationships were married to anyone.

Jan

I would first suggest looking at how private insurers deal with polygamous marriages in, say, India or in Hong Kong. (I remember in Hong Kong there was a big luxury building that had a separate floor for each of the man's wives.)

The problem of how to solve insurance for plural marriages has probably already been dealt with by insurance companies.

Jan

This is why we need to return to the Republic model that limits the destructive ability of the majority rule. We now have 200 years more of experience at ways in which politics and business can 'game' the constitution and we have a lot of fences we could mend...but I am terrified of letting liberals get their hands on the Constitution to change it.

Jan

This is a crucial right that has been often overlooked: the right to shun.

Jan

I do not dispute this in principle, but I will comment that a friend of my described in detail how unfair scoring and quotas had let women break through into soccer teams.

I mention this for a discussion as to whether a pragmatic ruling can be used to implement change (we are all resistant to change).

Jan

They are quite liberal, but occasionally there is an objectivist/libertarian post in the replies. I have a pseudonym when I post on that site.

But. They are THE place to go for SciFi gossip and often have breaking science articles before anyone else does.

Jan, occasionally cautious

Yes. I think that all laws should have an "Expiration Date". This is one of the things that the Founding Fathers could not have thought of: they lived in a world that did not change as readily as ours does. The result of a lack of expiration of laws is that we are saddled with a lot of outdated or whimsical regulations that accrete like sediment on the rails of innovation.

Jan

Sensei parked in a handicapped spot for a while...just after his heart attack...but I think that was so that he could leave more of the regular parking places open for the rest of us. He is a 10th degree black belt: I took jujitsu from him when I was 15-18 and then started again a few years ago, after a lapse of ~40 years. (We did a lot of drop throws last night. Ugh. I am stiff this morning.)

Jan

HA! I just did the same thing with "PSA" on someone else's post: All I could think of was Prostate Specific Antigen...of course, they meant "Public Service Announcement"!

Jan

We just need the gov to Get Out of the Way so that folks like you guys can make good things happen.

Jan

Thanks, I will look into that.

Jan

I have never seen much logic in the bible, but I can agree that it is interesting. I find the archeology of that area to be fascinating.

Jan

Oh.

Jan

PSA...Prostate Specific Antigen?

Jan

You are right. Water rights are complicated and a good subject for debate: but the 'right' to have clean and ample water run out of a hole in your wall whenever you want it is something you pay for - or do not get.

Jan

If you do not get it right away it is terribly difficult to get rid of.

Jan