"The gays can marry, but I can't pay workers $2 an hour? What times are these?" — Rand Paul http://t.co/EKqwFNNJZu pic.twitter.com/DM8mjYOIVJ
— Elizabeth S. Bruenig (@ebruenig) June 29, 2015
The libertarians I’ve known personally hold the view that marriage shouldn’t be a government function at all, but if it must be regulated it should be at the state or even the local level, because freedom. Unfortunately, in our imperfect world, there are so many legal rights & responsibilities tied up in the status of married-v-‘single’ (taxes, inheritance, support, child custody… ) that the best we can probably hope for is further removing the civic licensing of one’s ‘marriage state’ from the myriad religious iterations. Little Prince Rand, forced to step outside his ideological fiefdom to explain his GOP-primary-voter-friendly objections to Obergefell v. Hodges, once again steps on his own…. tongue. As reported by Amanda Marcotte at Slate, “Rand Paul Would Rather End Marriage Than Share It With Gay People“:
While most of the football team’s worth of Republicans running for president have reacted to the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage decision with straightforward rejections, Rand Paul decided to get cute about it. “Perhaps the time has come to examine whether or not governmental recognition of marriage is a good idea, for either party,” he argues in an editorial in Time. “So now, states such as Alabama are beginning to understand this as they begin to get out of the marriage licensing business altogether. Will others follow?”
Paul suggests that marriage shouldn’t be a standard-issue government contract but instead be treated like a business contract, written from scratch by couples for every new marriage…
Paul’s plan to privatize marriage rather than share it with gay people is reminiscent of how segregationists reacted to Brown v. Board of Education… As my colleague Jamelle Bouie explained recently, the decline of the public pool is also a symptom of this reactionary urge to privatize an institution rather than share it with people who conservatives consider undesirable. That the same logic is being whipped out by Paul is no big surprise. This is a man who famously opposed the Civil Rights Act that made the “privatize instead of share” goal harder to achieve.
But although this strategy has a lengthy conservative pedigree, it’s hard to imagine it really taking off as a way to shut gay people out of marriage. If the government really did stop issuing standard marriage contracts and couples were forced to write their own contracts, all that would do is make marriage a privilege of those who can afford lawyers. … The only thing Paul’s brilliant plan would do is ensure that most Americans, gay or straight, would never legally marry at all…
Don’t try to be cunning, Rand. Only your momma thinks you’re that cute, and she might be having her doubts by now.
Mike J
People don’t like writing business contracts from scratch. That’s why they have all sorts of generic contract forms you can buy.
Under Paul’s plan, the wedding planning shows are going to be much more boring. Nobody is going to spend $20,000 on a wedding when they spent that much on lawyers to draw up the contracts.
Bobby B.
“Everyone is crazy but thee and me and I’m not too sure about thee.”
Baud
If Paul is serious, I wonder how he would limit marriage to only two people.
David Koch
MSNBC takes a look at what the first paragraph of the history books will say about President Obama:
A big mistake, I think, is the paragraph doesn’t take into account him ending two bitter wars and preventing others, while establishing ties with Iran and Cuba after long time conflicts.
Ruckus
@Baud:
This too shall pass.
Mr. Pierce has a 5 min rule for him for a reason.
Mike J
@Mike J: And to reply to myself, a few hundred years of family law practice is the equivalent of those fill in the blank contracts. You know what you’re getting, it’s all been argued out in the courts before. A switch over to straight contracts means every single marriage (and divorce) is unique. In the case of spousal abandonment, does one spouse still have obligations to the other? Right now, you can get an answer to that question pretty quickly. In a contract that may or may not have taken every contingency into account, who knows?
Baud
@David Koch:
As much as I like that, I’m going to remain consistent in my disdain for all this premature talk about Obama’s legacy.
Frankensteinbeck
In other words, THEY are not bigots, oh no, they just want to give the bigots free reign to hurt minorities. That shows how disinterested they are, you see. Scratch a Libertarian and you find a cultural conservative.
Not a coincidence.
lamh36
Is this just a Southern phrase, kinda like “Bless Your Heart”? Or even a Black Southern phrase? I hear this all the time
“God Don’t Like Ugly”
The video link shows a dude filming as a line of cars with Confed flag drive down the highway and police block lanes. At the end there a wreck of about 2-3 cars and dude filming says “God Don’t Like Ugly”…lol
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Everyone knows that all contracts are drawn up between the party of the first part and the party of the second part. This also proves that SSM is impossible because one of the parties doesn’t have the second part. QED.
Gin & Tonic
@David Koch: I love BHO as much as the next Juicer, but how does one “preside over” a Supreme Court decision?
cokane
i never understood the logic behind thinking that marriage shouldn’t be a government function. if there was no government involvement in marriage, what exactly would it be? it really only has significance because of the benefits/rights/legal framework that the state recognizes.
jl
@Baud:
In glibertarian world, anything goes, as long as whoever ends up with the most cash quickest can call the shots. No problem.
Currently, by Real Clear Politics aggregate poll, Paul is 6 out of 10 and Trump 8 out of ten.
To be honest, not sure if I can stand to watch it even with those two. And I have stated that I want fifty (or maybe it was fifty-four, I forget) and will be broken-hearted otherwise.
But would be nice to have both Paul and Trump on stage for the big show. I think almost everyone, even inside the GOP primary base, would listen to Paul and ask ‘Did I hear that wrong or is this guy nuts?”
Let them innovative new ideas fly, Rand. I think Newt is more entertaining at this game, but I’ll take what I can get for entertainment in GOP primary.
2016 Republican Presidential Nomination
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/2016_republican_presidential_nomination-3823.html
ShadeTail
Day four since the Supreme Court Ruling.
lamh36
Hmmm what a good look for SC amirite!
Ku Klux Klan to protest removal of Confederate flag on July 18 at Statehouse
I’ll assume the Confed flag will be in abundance. Can’t wait to hear the “Southern Heritage” defenders on this one…
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
That comment was more coherent than a Scalia dissent.
jl
@Baud:
” As much as I like that, I’m going to remain consistent in my disdain for all this premature talk about Obama’s legacy. ”
I agree. Too much high stakes still cooking. This legacy stuff should start a year from now, at earliest. But it makes for easy to pump out infopinion product, so I guess it will come earlier and earlier.
I will ignore legacy stuff as much as I can and hope that what Obama administration currently has cooking will come out tasting great. Talks with Iran are still up in the air, for one thing.
David Koch
@Gin & Tonic: I agree the language is inexact. But it’s his attempt to boil down repealing DADT and moving DOJ from defending DOMA to opposing it and litigating its defeat in the courts, while appointing two members of SCOTUS who voted who legalized marriage.
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: Decent people from the area should get as many pictures as possible and circulate them as widely as possible.
Shakezula
You will all be shocked to know the total number of states to do this = 1 Alabama county that hasn’t issued any licenses since February declaring it won’t issues any licenses and one other Alabama county stating it will stop issuing licenses. (But there’s a 30 day period before compliance is required, so we’ll see.)
This man lies like his rug.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: I was shooting for less.
jl
@Omnes Omnibus:
‘ This also proves that SSM is impossible because one of the parties doesn’t have the second part. ‘
Third and subsequent parties in the marriage will have to wait in line for the prime parts? Is that what you mean? You could write that into a contract freestyling it, no two marriages alike, Think ‘new’ like Rand. Everything will be fine, as long as cash calls the shots in the end.
Anne Laurie
@lamh36: First place I heard the phrase “God don’t like ugly” was via a folklore collection of Appalachian storytellers from the WPA days. So, respectably vintage, and widespread in the South, I’m guessing.
David Koch
@jl: the rank and file in the blogosphere has complained for six years that Obama doesn’t market or tout his accomplishments and policies to galvanize opinion and build momentum to support and recruit voters for a progressive movement.
Then when it does happen, people complain.
Can’t win for losing.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: Think closer to the gutter.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s real hard to do.
jl
@David Koch: I have no problem touting Obama’s accomplishment and there is plenty to tout. You link to a good article touting all the great things Obama has done, and damning everyone trying to wreck them, and I will gladly read it.
Legacy articles, written, even if implicitly, in the past tense, when things like Iran negotiations still uncertain, bother me. But maybe that is just me.
Major Major Major Major
Philosophically, I kinda sorta agree maybe? That or some way of expanding the same or similar benefits to single people, poly people (I know that contract would be a nightmare and is unworkable), etc. But, you know, you form your political opinions with the world you have, not the world you want. OTOH the government has a compelling interest in couplehood, maybe?
But that’s all philosophical. Straight people get it, so gay people get it too.
Just spitballing. Y’all know I’m a pretty doctrinaire socialist.
Baud
@David Koch: I don’t mind Obama or Democrats talking about their accomplishments. I don’t like the media talking about Obama’s “legacy.” A legacy is something you talk about after someone has departed, and Obama still has a goods ways left to go.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Have you considered low crawling?
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t know what that is, but I’m intrigued.
lamh36
@ARichardson_SC
Avoid dt Columbia right now. KKK rally. Feels like a terrorist attack. Countless cars bearing down on Gervais flying the confederate flag.
This was at about 8pm SC time.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Start at 0:11. Even better with mud.
Baud
@lamh36: Man, those guys really hate high tariffs.
lamh36
@PLMuse
BREAKING: The #SouthCarolina legislature has enough votes to remove the #ConfederateFlag from State House grounds. #News4at6 #nbc4dc.
raven
kkk greensboro massacre 1979
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Neat. Question: Why wouldn’t the enemy simply lower their barbed wire by 6-8 inches?
Mike J
@Omnes Omnibus: How to draw up a contract
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Wonder if they still use live ammo on the infiltration course?
gf120581
Now I’m starting to understand why Rand’s recent strategy seems to be “keep quiet and don’t say anything.” Because everytime he opens his mouth, this happens.
I’m not surprised. I’ve never made any secret that I consider Rand Paul to be one of the stupidest politicians currently out there right now. I’ve seen mentally handicapped earthworms with a higher IQ than he has.
Anne Laurie
@cokane:
As I understand it, a business contract between individuals (not necessarily just two individuals, either). The philosophical-libertarian issue seems to be that all contracts should be hand-crafted & personalized, with an undercurrent of “having a generic form cheats us brilliant individualists out of so many business opportunities” — to sell their services as contract-drawers, or to “protect” lesser intellects from unwise contracts.
Of course in the real world, it would mean the sociopaths taking gross advantage of well-meaning ‘partners’ for everything from sexual access to financial support to cheating one person out of an inheritance or a business. There are working libertarian contract marriages, but when the hard times happen, many if not most of the ones I’ve known about ended up involving recourse to the brute norms of Big Gubmint (i.e., calling in the auditors to block one partner’s draining a startup’s coffers, or having a freethinker’s post-breakup wages garnished for child support even when the custodial parent “failed to uphold a joint philosophical agreement”). Maybe I just don’t hang with the proper libertarians.
Randy P
@Omnes Omnibus: How to negotiate a contract between the party of the first part and the party of the second part:
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: Not even in my time.
jl
@lamh36: Hope that is true. Thanks.
@Major Major Major Major: You’re doing better than Paul so far, I think.
Imagine though, fresh start contract for poly marriage. Will be plenty of junior partners in multiple partner marriage contract that are really housekeeper employment scams or just to get benefits.
“NO SEX, but will do 10 hours a week of housework for x percent of community property and put down for health insurance.”
At least a lot of spouses will be up front about no sex in writing from the get go.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: Maybe they did that just for Raven.
raven
@Baud: We had an exhibition by Chiêu Hồi’s or Kit Carson Scouts. They were VC defectors who came over, sometimes long enough to get healthy and then go back. Anyway they had this razor wire field with c-rat cans with rocks in them to make noise and staked down in about 2×2 squares. These cats could crawl through that shit with nothing on but a loincloth and never make a sound.
J R in WV
@Frankensteinbeck:
“Scratch a Libertarian and you find a
cultural conservativeNazi.”FTFY
Baud
@raven:
Impressive. I wish there were a video.
SatanicPanic
@lamh36: I saw that earlier. Classic! So good
Randy P
@Randy P: Dang, somebody beat me to it at #39
raven
@Baud: They did it for all of us in basic. This picture was in daylight but we did it at night. The round pits had explosive charges in them that they set off for an extra bonus so you had tracers going over your head and the you’d get a nice bump when they set the charges off.
Matt McIrvin
Hey, the state would get a lot of extra revenue from all those not-legally-married people who die intestate.
KG
I still have my libertarian leanings but have always been fairly liberal on social issues – pro-choice, pro-gay rights, mostly an open border supporter on immigration. I’ve also been as skeptical of state/local government as I have been the Feds – more so lately. I’ve shifted on the public vs private to the point that I don’t trust consolidated power anywhere. As for marriage, I’ve never been in the “get government out of it” camp because I’ve never been very religious and see marriage as much as a civil institution as a religious one.
But here’s what I don’t get… Contracts are really only enforceable because of government. Without government to create contract law, there is nothing but “honor” to get someone to abide by a contract. We’ve had to create a great deal of contract law over the years because a lot of people have no qualms fucking someone over on a contract. So, basically, even if you were to do this stupid marriage contract thing, instead of a license, you’d still have to incorporate existing family law as the “law of the contract” So the only thing that changes is the word license to contract. It doesn’t accomplish anything because marriage contracts would still require some government action to enforce
lamh36
Wait a minute…Tyne Daly was married to a Black man for 24 years!!! They got married when interracial marriage was still illegal.
I had no idea
Her husband was this dude George Standford Brown
See Broadway actress Tyne Daly’s emotional speech about the SCOTUS #marriageequality ruling
Anne Laurie
@gf120581:
To be fair, we can’t judge whether Rand is the moron he sounds like every time he opens his mouth, because he’s so used to getting applauded for everything he does that he hasn’t learned to tell his good ideas from the random chaff that occurs to every contrarian three-year-old / newly-minted freshman philosophy major.
I don’t think he’s a bright as he thinks he is, but I don’t think he’s as dumb as he sounds, either — just spoilt and lazy. He’s probably smarter than Scott Walker, and quite possibly Jeb, who had the advantage of growing up in a family where shooting his mouth off wasn’t rewarded. He’s nowhere near as smart as Chris Christie (who has the same sort of ego problem), or Ben Carson (who has the problem of having been rewarded for being extremely smart in other areas & assuming it was a global talent).
srv
Clearly you people have never heard of NOLO: http://www.nolo.com/
Answers to all your problems and you don’t need the Federal Government to officiate at your wedding or banjoectomy.
We libertarians opposed gov’t in marriage before teh gays ever wanted it. We realize you liberals don’t have to be consistent, but there are those of us who try not to be hypocrites.
Tommy
@Anne Laurie: I do not know who those people are. I don’t know a single divorce in my family. Everybody in my family has done 50 years. My mom and dad did it last week.
David Koch
@Baud: the corporate media is usually against us. Why on Sunday the NYT had a front page article saying these stunning victories for the progressive movement were in reality Great News for McCain! (I kid you not)
So you take what you can. In my opinion, when the corporate media is going to break down and tout liberalism using the vehicle of legacy you pick up the ball run with it to the end zone.
but we’re liberals, and therefore we’ll argue even over anything, even over how the corporate media concedes surrender.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: Those diacriticals are impressive.
raven
Double your fun, turn yourself in and your gun. We paid them extra if they had a piece.
Baud
@KG:
Same with property rights. Libertarians still love them.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic: Agreed.
SiubhanDuinne
@lamh36:
And yet he gave us Dick Cheney and Ted Nugent.
Regnad Kcin
@Omnes Omnibus: don’t let’s break up an old friendship over a thing like that…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Sy6oiJbEk
ETA: late, also, too
Baud
@David Koch:
No we don’t.
Matt McIrvin
@cokane: I think there are basically three groups of people saying this sort of thing:
1. Religionists who want to bogart the entire concept of marriage as an exclusively religious sacrament. Nobody without a church or equivalent gets to say they have a “marriage”. Often, they are under the mistaken impression that this would also keep gay marriage from happening.
2. Libertarians who believe for some arcane reason that property laws and contracts are the only legitimate functions of government, or close to it. Therefore marriage needs to be reduced to a set of vanilla contracts, rather than something with a different status.
3. Some liberals who are under the mistaken impression that capitulating on point 1 will mollify conservatives and make everyone quiet down.
Penus
@Anne Laurie: Lived my whole life in Virginia, about half in the mountains, and this is the first time I’ve heard that particular expression.
KG
@lamh36: depends on where they were married. California’s Supreme Court struck down ban on interracial marriage in the 1940s. Shockingly, the bans on interracial marriage were mostly in the south and border states.
Major Major Major Major
@jl: I believe we call them rentboys :P
I agree that say community property laws are important to protect poor people especially women. They’re valuable. They also take 30 pages to waive, which is annoying. I’m lucky, I can afford to be annoyed. Other people aren’t, that’s society.
That doesn’t mean I can’t find government regulation of intimate relationships kinda weird. Not to mention kinda religious. But we are (mostly) a pair-bonding species, so maybe we’d have monogamous marriage anyway without religion! We probably would! OK then.
The important thing is that we *do* have marriage so it has to be for everyone. The poly thing still bugs me though, I’d like them to be able to set up… something… IANAL but it sounds like it’s impossible to have a boilerplate.
SiubhanDuinne
@David Koch:
That right there is one of my own favorite — and among the most useful — Southern expressions evah. I use it all the time.
catclub
@Gin & Tonic:
the same way you preside over the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union.
You would think that a president would preside.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Maybe set up a marriage exchange where you can trade marital rights in an open marketplace.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: I’ve been to parties like that.
Tommy
@Baud: Every now and then I have to check myself. I tend to get a little Libertarian on property rights. I own a little land and I hate anybody telling me what I can or can’t do with said land.
The guy that lives next to me wanted to built on his land. A meeting was called in our town to talk about it. People that didn’t own land next to his, like I did, were against it.
I said if he wants to build a huge garage then so be it. I am the person that it affects, not you. It is his land let him build.
Funny thing the guy has never once come over and said thanks to me.
SiubhanDuinne
@lamh36:
I had no idea either. But I would expect nothing different from Mary Beth Lacey.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Excellent. Then you can testify to the fact that an efficient market can bring some much needed liquidity to the institution of marriage.
lamh36
@KG: She mentions that it was illegal in 17 states, in the video.
She mentions Loving striking down the laws in those states.
Check out the video, it really is heartwarming
SiubhanDuinne
@Tommy:
Congratulations to your mother and dad!
KG
@Baud: true. It’s always “interesting” to have a conversation with a hardcore libertarian about the nature/role of government. A lot of them have a Lockeian view of the natural world… That in the absence of government it would be sunshine, roses, and lollipops. I’ve always been more Hobbesian in my view of the state of nature – short cruel and bruttish.
Also, what you did there@Baud It has been seen and noted
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: Heh. Liquidity.
catclub
@Baud: Not everyone is a fan of watersports.
Keith P.
The federal government has an economic interest (at a minimum) in regulating marriage, as it can and does affect interstate commerce. It behooves the government to ensure that marriages (or civil unions, which I consider marriage to be a subset of, but if the govt would call them all that, fine, it’s semantics) are recognized uniformly throughout the union. Simple as that.
catclub
@Major Major Major Major: Cupidity. Also, lubricity.
BBA
@Baud: Some of the more extreme libertarians think we could abolish even those functions of government and submit everything to binding arbitration. But what if we can’t agree on an arbitrator? Then my arbitrator and your arbitrator will have to pick a third arbitrator. But what if the arbitrators can’t agree? Shut up, they explain.
BBA
@Keith P.: For decades cousin marriages have been legal in some states but not others. The feds have never deigned to get involved on that question.
KG
@Keith P.: it’s not even necessarily a commerce clause issue. The full faith and credit clause basically says that contracts/judgments/marriages/divorces in one state must be recognized in another. As well as equal protection under the 14th amendment – which gives the federal government the power to step in when a state violates equal protection/due process by a state. It’s what made DOMA fucked up from jump street
Anne Laurie
@Major Major Major Major:
As someone who’s been in & witnessed many other polyamorous relationships, back in the distant past, they tend to devolve into what Dan Savage calls “monogamish” pairs just because it’s hard for more than two human beings to stay in synch given the complications of employment, interests, and aging. And that’s even without the further complications of offspring!
Felonius Monk
I doubt that. After all she is married to old Uncle Liberty, is she not?
jibeaux
Digging a little deeper into that statement, it reflects a good ol’ fondness for the Lochner decision, which struck down maximum hours for bakers in I believe New York. Politicians who talk like this are hoping for those good old child labor, 16 hours in a furnace with asbestos dripping down on you or whatever, days, aka “formerly something people never said in polite company.” They are also expressing their disappointment with Roberts. Not my favorite jurist, but there does seem to be a pattern developing for him of deferring to legislators rather than playing policy maker and all things considered, that’s a pretty good result for a Bush Jr. judge.
Gvg
@lamh36: What, shoot at people who shoot back? hah. supposing the fool could even tell who was criminal. he was radicalized to think all blacks were criminal. some of the back ground stories indicate as a child and young man he had quite a few black friends. I have been expecting either that to turn out to be bunk or some more explanation to turn up.
Libertarians don’t actually know history and think money and contract enforcement not to mention roads just fall out of the sky. when people don’t have reasonable government, thugs steal, people then stay home and guard their money and assets and don’t buy and don’t invest which means everyone is much poorer and risk adverse. Too strong a property right and government can’t get right away for roads which means everyone stays put and so do goods. good way to starve. so dumb.
SatanicPanic
@Tommy: I am absolutely a libertarian on this issue. If you’re not building a fertilizer factory or a dry cleaner next to my house, I don’t give a fuck what you want to build because it’s your land. Maybe growing up in close proximity to Mexico has influenced me here, because Mexicans don’t seem to give a crap about their neighbor’s house at all.
There’s a naked woman house in Tijuana. That is freedom! (and probably would be opposed by Rand Paul)
Elie
@Tommy:
“Libertarian” is truly about “liberty” until you step onto someone’s sensitivity. Then its about “oppression” and has to be “battled”. — UNLESS you have community awareness and responsibilities that are broader than your own narrow interests.
With many libertarians, I suspect narcissism at the core and that leads to an inability to appreciate, much less honor, community or group needs and interests — not just for others, but a blindness to the realization that their liberty — depends on the willingness of others to fucking DEFEND IT.
Hence, we all stop at traffic lights, because the group realizes that if everyone just did what they wanted when they wanted, many would be at risk. So it is better to have some conventions around permission to pass through an intersection.
In the far east, like Vietnam, they employ an interesting ethic. No one pays attention to traffic lights, but everyone goes slow enough to flow around Granny or other pedestrians crossing, who themselves honor the “rules” by adopting a slow but consistent pace across the street — a pace that the motorcycles and cars can predict…
We need to live together in complex societies that acknowledge and adapt to many needs for interaction and safe space as well. The concept of libertarianism may fit best in the arctic or desert where there are few people to interfere with this theoretical and idealized individualism.
KG
@jibeaux: it really all goes back to Lochner and the industrial revolution.
And of course, if you can’t find a way to blame it on either of those, you can always blame the Romans
lamh36
“Marriage” in the eyes of the law/govt/state is a legally binding contract between 2 individuals…RELIGION should have nothing to do with it. You don’t believe in gay marriage on religious grounds well that is ur right in America. BUT if you are an employee of the state and therfore the govt…u follow the guideline of ur employer…the state. and you issue marriage licenses…PERIOD!!! No one is forcing churches to hold gay wedding ceremonies. Besides any gay person who is a member of a church and paying tithes at that church who wants to marry in a church that wont respect them is a fool!!!
jl
@Baud:
” Maybe set up a marriage exchange where you can trade marital rights in an open marketplace. ”
might be a good idea, as long as the exchanges are completely unregulated and the strong can interpret the contracts as they see fit in their own eyes. That would produce liberty and efficiency, my friend.
Tommy
@SiubhanDuinne: Here is 50 years ago last week.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/webranding/4000373319/in/datetaken/
She wasn’t allowed to wear white in her wedding. My dad’s parents were assholes. Learned only a few years ago she was married before my dad. The man hit and beat her. She walked out. Ran! She was always a “broken” person to my dad’s parents.
mike with a mic
I’m for it. My web of relationships can’t be sanctioned by the state and we already have so called liberals yet again jumping on the wrong side of civil rights when it comes to those of us in poly relationships.
Either anybody can marry whoever they want, with no restrictions at all outside of all being adults who consent, or burn the entire institution to the ground.
Mike J
(trying a third time. FYWP)
@Elie:
FYWP eated my comment about this. Koch funded glibertarian “think” tank has a paper on their web site claiming traffic would flow better with no lights, no signs, just every one doing the right thing.
I wish I was kidding.
Villago Delenda Est
Libertarians are, by their very nature, fuckheads who understand NOTHING. Jon Snow is a SUPER GENIUS compared to a libertarian.
You’d think that assholes so fucking concerned with property rights would get the necessity of government, but no, these fuckheads do not.
Major Major Major Major
@Anne Laurie: Hell, I’m in one. I agree.
Gin & Tonic
NYT has an interesting and pretty in-depth story about the search for the escaped cons, in which they interview a bunch of the locals – county sheriffs, local legislators, things like that. Turns out that Andrew Cuomo is kind of a dick. Shocking, I know.
Brachiator
Maybe this is wily, libertarian strategy. Some of them really have a hangup about marriage, and wanting it to be a voluntary contract.
Then again, they could just be morons out of touch with reality.
mike with a mic
@lamh36: 2 individuals is the discriminatory issue here. Change it, or burn it.
Ajabu
@srv:
I’m sorry, but you now owe me a royalty payment for referencing my song “Banjoectomy”.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike J: Works in Holland.
There’s actually ample evidence that more signs == more accidents. I recommend the book “Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)” for more on the topic. Fascinating read.
catclub
I am mostly appalled that the AG’s of the recalcitrant states are not being asked by the news media “How this is different from their response to Brown vs Board of education?”, and how that worked out.
It may well be that they will say that massive resistance was great, using state funds to lose federal cases is a great use of those funds!, but it would be important to get them on the record saying it.
Ruckus
@Mike J:
They never seem to understand that some rarely do the right thing and some often do no better than attempt. One only has to look at say, the koch brothers to see that or pretty much any libertarian for that matter.
Tommy
@Mike J: I have a car that can go 145 MPH. I 99% of the time drive the speed limit. I joke and this is true, the other day I got passed by nuns on the highway. You know I follow the laws. Gosh I want to not so but laws.
Incitatus for Senate
@Tommy: “Don’t tell me what I can build on my land” is a common Libertarian complaint. Amusingly, these tend to be local regulations, which Libertarians traditionally have a huge boner for.
catclub
@mike with a mic: How is two discriminatory? every adult has the right to be one of those two. Now, 4 days ago…
also everyone is forbidden from being one of three or more. Now if only straights were allowed plural marriage that would be different.
SiubhanDuinne
@catclub:
@catclub:
— Tom Lehrer, who else?
mike with a mic
@catclub: every adult has the right to marry someone of their own race, every adult has the right to marry someone of the opposite sex.
Opposition to poly relationships is going to be the next issue as bad as the racists and homophobes of the past. A lot of us were waiting for this before we demanding our rights. And now is the time to act, and we will not stand by silent if others, like Sanders, place economic issues over our civil rights.
Major Major Major Major
@mike with a mic: I’ll be sticking with employment and housing discrimination and trans rights, but my heart is with you.
Steeplejack
@David Koch:
I can’t believe this meme has sprouted up, or gained traction, since the Supreme Court ruling last week. This is the third or fourth time I’ve seen this. We do not have universal health care. Yes, the ACA is a huge step forward, but we’ve still got a long way to go. Right now we have semi-universal health insurance.
Krugman: “[. . .] the HRMS data, which are consistent with multiple other sources, show uninsurance among that group [people aged 18 to 64] at about 10 percent, and just 7.5 percent in Medicaid expansion states.”
When we still have 7–10 percent of the population uninsured, we do not have universal health care. And that’s ignoring the large variances in access to care, costs and processing among the welter of plans that cover Americans who do have insurance.
My concern about this becoming a truism is that further progress will be blunted by the idea: “Universal health care? Oh, we’ve already got that.”
Note: This is not a criticism of Obama or the ACA. Nor is it a purity pony “Wah! We could have gotten single-payer if we hadn’t been sold out.” Getting Obamacare was a big Biden deal, but Obamacare is a long way from “universal health care.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Tommy:
That is a sweet picture. Yes, you have mentioned that your mom was married previously and you only found that out a few years ago (at a funeral, if I remember correctly, WTF?), but I don’t think I realized that your father’s family were dickish about it. I’m glad she and your dad have seen fit to stay together, happily, I hope, for half a century and counting. That’s great!
jibeaux
@mike with a mic: Nah, it’s not. People are free to live how they want, but the government is not going to wade willy-nilly into state sanctioning a world of estates with 2+ spouses, Terri Schiavo with 2+ spouses, divorce and child custody with 2+ spouses. Maybe in the year 3500 or so.
Jparente
@Omnes Omnibus: But…. what about the sanity clause?
mike with a mic
@Major Major Major Major:
Way to be on the wrong side of history. Dixiecrat 2.0 ;)
Tommy
@SiubhanDuinne: Good memory. I learned my mother had been married before at her father’s funeral. That was kind of fucked up. I ran to find my brother and asked if he knew. He didn’t. I went to my dad next and he said this is something we don’t talk about. Never. Ever. My mom is close to my best friend and I still have never talked to her about it.
Kay
I love everything about this story:
There may be more “foes” at his launch than supporters.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/20150630_For_Christie_s_announcement__a_reluctant_host.html
SiubhanDuinne
@Tommy:
I hate to say it, Tommy, but there is grand opera lurking within that family story.
Mike J
@Major Major Major Major:
I’ve only spent any extended periods in Amsterdam and Eindhoven, but they had plenty of signs and traffic lights.
TriassicSands
Rand Paul isn’t intelligent enough to explain or defend libertarianism. (But then, no one is.)
Every time he opens his mouth he reveals a tiny brain and a smaller mind. He thinks things like human and civil rights are things to be joked about — his white privilege stinks up the place.
jl
@Kay: Christie will say that they are just ‘acting out’ because they love him so, they can’t bear to see him leave Jersey for the big time.
As for marriage, Amanda Marcotte at TPM writes about a Douthat column on marriage. I think Marcotte’s diagnosis of exactly how reactionaries think same sex marriage will ruin it for straghts is correct.
The Real Reason Why Conservatives Like Ross Douthat Oppose The Gay Marriage Ruling
” The longing for traditional gender roles and female submission has to be communicated covertly, because blunt statements in favor of it are treated, in mainstream America, like fringe right wing craziness.”….
” It’s the same old threat… Submit to men or die lonely cat ladies.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/gay-marriage-scotus-ross-douthat-oppression-vs-love
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@mike with a mic:
As soon as you figure out how to split child custody between three or more people, then you’ll be on the road to poly equality. The notion that the biological relationship must always take precedence has already broken down, so you’re not going to be able to deny one person from a poly relationship access to any kids born to other members based solely on genetic relationships. So what’s your solution?
Major Major Major Major
@Mike J: There’s this one famous roundabout that has absolutely no signage or lights or anything and has never had an accident. In the South, I believe.
mike with a mic
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
That’s not actually the major problem. Case in point, I have no reason to involve myself with a life partners children. And who impregnates who is handled on the side. The problem is that a huge portion of us are barred from hospital visits with ill partners, that’s where the fight is really going to start. And as we’ve seen with gay marriage, other legal contracts don’t cut it.
Procreation isn’t a part of marriage, that’s been established. Ploy rights now, and until then nothing gets done.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne (tablet): You would essentially have to strip out everything but multiple tax filing (not too hard to create), hospital visitation, you’d probably have to do away with power of attorney, and inheritance would have to be negotiated on a case-by-case basis. And then it’s not marriage, legally speaking, quite far from it. So you either need to get rid of everything but that from marriage or create a separate system for poly folks.
I’m not opposed to that, in fact I’m in favor of it, but marriage as currently construed can’t really work between more than two people. It just doesn’t map right. I’m not denigrating your relationship, mike, anything but… but the current legal structure of marriage just won’t *work* for poly relationships.
Tommy
@SiubhanDuinne: Oh I just need to say this. My dad’s parents beat my mom down everyday. She was never good enough for their son. They beat her down daily. Mom never had a bad thing to say about them. Never a bad thing. She could have but didn’t.
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: Basically, this.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@mike with a mic:
Unless you’re in exclusively gay relationships or everyone involved has been sterilized, children happen. You can’t base case law on hoping that women who go I to poly relationships will all be sterile. You will need to make provisions for the care and custody of children that are similar to the provisions that currently exist in couple marriage.
And, sure, let’s go with hospitalization. Let’s say that you’re in a poly marriage with two partners, and one of them goes into a coma. You and the remaining partner disagree about medical treatment. Who decides?
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: I would guess that there is some floor number with respect to signs where going beneath it spikes the accident rate.
SiubhanDuinne
@Tommy:
That is really fucked up, and I’m really sorry. What does it say about their opinion of their son, to criticize his love like that? And your mom may not have said anything, but I’m sure she thought a few things. Hope her silence to them was the better part of valor, and not letting them intimidate her.
Major Major Major Major
To be clear I’m not trying to say there’s anything wrong with poly relationships, I’m sure Mnem isn’t either.
Splitting Image
@mike with a mic:
Translation: either I get what I want, or nobody gets anything.
@Villago Delenda Est:
Quoted without comment.
joel hanes
@David Koch:
If the nation’s Democratic voters were capable of message discipline, they’d be Republicans.
Omnes Omnibus
@mike with a mic:
Dare I say trolling?
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: I think that’s the case, but there’s also a number where there are so many that it’s worse than having none at all.
Tommy
@SiubhanDuinne: This is a pic of my my mom on their first date (she is kind of hot isn’t she):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/webranding/3312075058/in/datetaken/
In a 56 Ford Thunderbird.
Years later dad would track down that exact car, in Texas, and buy it. Give it to mom. She likes to tool around town with the top down and a scarf flowing. Mom is tooling around in a jet red 56′ Thunderbird.
Steeplejack
@SatanicPanic:
Then you are not, in fact, absolutely a libertarian.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Major Major Major Major:
Nothing wrong at all. It’s not my bag, but consenting adults can set their lives up the way they want. There’s that whole tricky issue of the 1,110+ rights and responsibilities currently tied into couple marriage, though:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_and_responsibilities_of_marriages_in_the_United_States
However, I think all of us, gay and straight and otherwise, mono and poly, can join hands and agree that family members who try to ban specific people from hospital rooms because they disapprove of the way the sick person was living their life are dicks.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Not to mention property rights.
Also: How does the law deal with it if one person chooses to leave the group? Does it dissolve the group or does the group carry on?
The law can deal with pair bonding situations because its been doing it for years. A group or three or more in a non-patriarchal relationship, not a lot of precedent.
jl
@Mnemosyne (tablet): IIRC member of BJ legal squad said in comments, that under current legal system, if you had four people you would have to cobble together a poly marriage from six bilateral contracts, or there would be honcho who contracted to each of three partners, so then three contracts, with the honcho spelling out rights and duties of each of the three contractees. So, either way big equity problems from the get go.
If you had five people, the ten bilateral contracts, or one honcho (or honcha…?) with five contracts with five contractees.
If poly marriage arrangements get popular, seems to be developing limited civil union contracts for specific situation would be more realistic way to go.
Anyway, a whole host of issues that have nothing to do with two person same sex marriages, so I don’t see much connection between the two issues.
jl
@Omnes Omnibus: That is easier to handle using the second contractual model I mentioned above. Each spouose contracts with a head spouse. Reactionaries will love that, re-establishes a big boss who runs it all and is more equal than the others. That is regress that they can believe in.
Maybe they will like that model better than same sex marriage.and we can throw them a bone by getting started on that kind of poly marriage right away.
Could start developing the legal framework using state lodger laws as a basis, I think they have something in common with the idea (but, IANAL!)
also note: this is snark.
Tommy
@SiubhanDuinne: My grandparents were terrible to my mom. I didn’t get it until later in my life, but just horrible. My mother turned the other cheek a few thousand times. If on the weekend she goes and dances a happy dance on their graves I would not find her at fault. They were that mean to her.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Omnes Omnibus:
People sometimes say, “Well, Middle Eastern countries have poly relationships!” But they manage them with male dominance — women have limited rights and only polygamy (one man, multiple women) exists.
With a few of the online jackasses I sometimes see (present company excluded), it seems like the male dominance part is a feature, not a bug.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: A number of lawyers could make a very good living out of putting together and taking apart a couple of poly relationships a year. (also snark, but the complications when gets beyond a two person relationship are such that one can see why the state has no interest in sanctioning such relationships).
gelfling545
@SiubhanDuinne: well he’s also quite a practical joker apparently.
SiubhanDuinne
@gelfling545:
This explains why I only go to church on April 1.
SiubhanDuinne
@Tommy:
She is lovely. I couldn’t say about “hot,” but she is a beautiful woman.
This is possibly one of the most romantic things I have ever read. I’m so glad your father didn’t take after his parents.
Look, your folks are almost there. They have everything going for them. Please turn them into Democrats while you still can :-)
Tommy
@SiubhanDuinne: Call me stupid but what is April 1?
jl
@Omnes Omnibus: Not sure I agree. Lodger laws have been around for over a hundred years and we have a lot of experience with them. As long as you forget about any kind of equity in a partner relationship, don’t worry about exploitation and bonded labor, slavery and human trafficking aspects, and tell the losers in the civil poly marriage contracts to go pound sand, if they didn’t like it, too bad for them they shouldn’t have signed, then…. what’s not to like?
Maybe it is the best we can do to get back to olde tymey marriage that the reactionaries are so worried about losing.
Do it for Douthat!
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: Could I buy some pot from you?
Tommy
@SiubhanDuinne: Thanks. I’ve turned my mom Democrat. Dad is a work in progress.I am trying hard.
SiubhanDuinne
@Tommy:
Well done (mom) and good luck (dad).
SiubhanDuinne
@Tommy:
April Fool’s Day, traditionally a time for practical jokes.
KG
@Omnes Omnibus:
they could draw from partnership law on how it works. the problem with that is you’d likely have to create a legal fiction of a poly-marriage, and as we’ve recently learned with corporations (and I’m assuming LLC’s), legal fictions have a means of becoming real people. basically, you create a poly-marriage estate that is in some form a partnership. but then you run into questions like: how do you determine spousal medical decisions? not all of those can be thought of ahead of time and contemplated by a living will. it’s an interesting thought experiment, and perhaps someday it will be legal, but there is a whole lot of law that will have to be created before a poly-marriage contract could move out of the realm of illegal contract.
Omnes Omnibus
@KG: Yep, it doesn’t just mean taking changing husband and wife to spouse and spouse in all the statutes. From a technical point of view, same sex marriage is simple. Anything else gets complicated very fast.
Punchy
@Tommy: Im guessing he’s referring to April Fool’s Day
lamh36
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: My guess is most will do exactly that.
KG
@Omnes Omnibus: here’s another one, I just thought of… let’s say you have four people in a marriage, two men A and B, two women C and D. C has a child by A, D has a child by B. What is the legal relationship between the two children? Are they siblings?
ETA: this would make for one hell of a family law exam question.
Omnes Omnibus
@KG: That as well. Every time you think about it you can see why the state says “we will sanction two party unions with a set of legal obligations and and rights, but if you get into more than that – work it out on your own.” No moral judgment, just backing away from the work.
Carolinus
@David Koch:
His administration also took part in arguing the case:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/04/29/don_verrilli_solicitor_general_was_the_real_hero_of_scotus_gay_marriage.html
Kennedy’s opinion ultimately included a lot of the same rhetoric as the Solicitor General’s argument.
divF
I’m surprised this hasn’t been quoted sooner…
Omnes Omnibus
@divF: Without a citation, I miss your point. Why should I know this quotation?
divF
@Omnes Omnibus:
Sorry, screwed up the link, and it is too late to fix. The quote is from Heinlein’s “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”, a favorite of libertarians, in which poly marriages of various sorts play a prominent role. But even he acknowledges that divorces become immensely complicated.
Aleta
@Steeplejack:
Thank you for continuing to point this out. Very real possibility that progress will end here.
Omnes Omnibus
@divF: Aha. Thanks. I was completely lost before – even though I read the book years ago. I was young enough then that his arm and the interchangeable tools were more noticeable than the sexual politics.
Omnes Omnibus
@Aleta: Not if we keep pushing.
David Koch
@Steeplejack: yes, but Krugman said on Friday:
He says in practice, the floor to reach actual full coverage is 5%.
As K-Thug says in states where its fully implemented the uninsured rate is down to 7.5% after 1 year. It’s very close and only a matter of red states waiting for Obama to leave office and for implementation to fill in the cracks to fill the practical floor.
Major Major Major Major
@David Koch: so it’s like full employment then?
I mean we all know single payer would be better, just asking.
divF
@Omnes Omnibus:
I was probably not much older than you when I first read it. My fascination was with the sentient computer planning a revolution. In retrospect, the libertarian paradise aspect of it is irritating. But that’s always the case, isn’t it ?
cokane
@Matt McIrvin: ya i feel like i met alot of #3 back in the day, when it was less popular. But I think these folks often failed to think through all the necessary legal baggage that goes along with marriage, ditto for libertarians (your #2).
Omnes Omnibus
@David Koch: The ACA was a monstrous accomplishment. It established the concept of healthcare as a right. It did not provide healthcare for all. It provided the inevitability of healthcare for all. We just need to do the grunt work.
The real achievement is enough, no need to exaggerate.
Major Major Major Major
Oh, off topic but I got a sweet gig today to build a neural network to detect spoof/infiltration attempts on a few spectra that we’ll debut at Defcon next month. Hopefully it works lol. It’s the security conference where everybody tries to hack each other.
Omnes Omnibus
@divF: I haven’t reread it, so none of that sticks out to me personally.
El Caganer
@Kay: Well, it has been almost 80 years since the last time a giant gas bag exploded in New Jersey.
divF
@Major Major Major Major:
What does this mean / refer to ?
Steeplejack
@David Koch:
You are missing (or ignoring) the distinction between health insurance and health care. If we had universal health care, there would be no such thing as lack of coverage, or “95 percent insured is close enough for practical purposes.” You would be covered—“insured,” if you will—automatically, by virtue of citizenship, presumably, or whatever criteria were established. There would be 100 percent coverage.
Major Major Major Major
@divF: radio, wifi, Bluetooth, etc
Aleta
@Omnes Omnibus: As Obama emphasized.
Redshift
@Steeplejack:
Not to disagree with your basic point, but I’m pretty sure (probably h/t Krugman), a significant chunk of the uninsured in Medicaid expansion states is because non-citizens (in particular, the undocumented) are excluded. So getting that number down to zero and achieving true universal coverage would require covering all residents of the country, not just citizens. I recognize that you mentioned that as a possibility, but if you’re going to be a stickler about whether we have universal health care, restricting it to citizens really isn’t an option.
Gvg
As I recall “a moon is a harsh mistress” was set in a penal colony run by a corporation for the governments of earth. corperation had no interest in providing government to the prisoners nor their “free” offspring. You had to buy air and water. Mob rule essentially ran life and it was in many ways a thought exercise in the problem of unrestrained capitalism and unrestrained libertarianism. things had gone on long enough that society had recreated many of the functions of government and the revolution was the last step in formally becoming a government by kicking out the corporation which was a slave master in all but name.
Heinland always had to push the thought experiments limits in social relationships though. the group marriages I can’t see really working but in the story they were sort of corporate in that they continued on even if the original partners died and it was a sort of protection for children in an environment where air had to be bought so young orphans die. it also sort of created a larger group than 2 for defense against the chaos of no official government.
I think he was too optimistic about decent people controlling lynch mobs and wanting to please the scarce women rather than thugs brutalizing every one else but he did have some points about uncontrolled corporations and I think it’s significant that it was a prison corp. People don’t like criminals and don’t look out for their rights like we should.
We have slipped into privatizing some prison functions and it has led to abuses especially about juvienal justice.
Steeplejack
@Redshift:
You seem to be ramming two separate points into one sentence: whether we have universal health care or not, and who “universal” health care should cover.
On the first point, I’m not being a stickler or making some merely pedantic point. The current ACA scheme requiring health insurance is simply not universal health care, no matter how much sawdust is sawed about what percentage of people are insured or who is counted or not counted in the statistics. Krugman’s piece refers to “Americans”; the HRMS piece he linked to refers mostly to “adults.” That article does say (in a footnote): “In this analysis, we also control for citizenship status [. . .].” Make of that what you will. The shorter is that whatever number you arrive at is not 100 percent. And what is being measured is insurance coverage, not access to actual health care.
As for restricting universal health care to citizens, I specifically added “or whatever criteria were established.” If that ends up being “all residents,” so be it.
Aimai
@Anne Laurie: But marriage is a business contract slready. Thats what is extra stupid about rand paul’s argument. Its a business contract that has a set formula already, which involves more than two parties (spouse, spouse, children, federal government, pensions,enforcement). It severs some ties (with previous spouses and with parents–see,e.g.,terri schiavo’s parents).
So its already a contract, involves a complex array of other parties, and people can voluntarily enter it or not as they choose. Its not “not a contract” because it isnt an abusive free for all with the more powerful person setting the terms. That, of course, is for pre nups. Also its right there in the name: the contract of marriage. The jews have a literal contract:the Ketubah.
Sherparick
The thing to remember about libertarianism is that is establishing the absolute freedom of the .1% to rule us all and place the rest of us in slavery or near slavery conditions (guess who does the cooking, cleaning , etc. in Galt’s Gluch. It ain’t John and his friends.) So in Rand’s mind that only the rich can marry, and that contracts work for the group that has most power (rich, white, men), is a feature, not a bug.
Joel
@mike with a mic: Can you point me to the Matthew Shepard case in polygamy? I’m drawing a blank.
low-tech cyclist
As Charles P. Pierce would say, “4:59, 5:00, 5:01…”
In how many ways is this remark stupid?
First, it’s apples-and-oranges, confusing the right to enter into a contract with the discretion to set the terms of the contract. Gays are no longer denied the right to enter into a marriage contract due to their status. The equivalent right in the employment area would be the right to not be denied employment due to their status.
Second, the marriage contract, unlike the labor contract, is one-size-fits-all. There is far more freedom of contract in the area of employment, where (above the minimum wage floor) wages and salaries, vacation and sick leave and health insurance and pension benefits can be set differently for each employee, if the employer is willing to go to that much trouble.
Third, the employer rarely is willing to write separate contracts with each employee, so most of us experience this as freedom for the employer but not for the worker.
SFAW
@Baud:
Professor Irwin Corey is more coherent than a Scalia dissent.
In fact, also more coherent than Scalia when he’s in the majority, too.
SFAW
@mike with a mic:
Burn it? What a candy-ass. If you were REALLY serious about blowing it up, you’d propose nuking every possible location where (two) persons could get married, and then send hit squads out to kill EVERYONE in a monogamous (or perhaps mono-amorous?) relationship. Yeah, it might take a few days, because that’s probably upwards of 100 million hits, but if you’re TRULY committed, you’ll do it. Anything less, and you’re just flappin’ your lips.
Jeffro
@Frankensteinbeck:
Otherwise known as “I’m taking my ball and going home so THERE”
Libertarianism: often understood as IGMFU, best understood as rule by a 5-year-old’s tantrums
Jon Marcus
But marriage isn’t a contract. A contract is binding only on the signatories. If Joe Blow and I sign a contract, it’s not binding on the DA, the local hospital, the State Department, etc. But my marriage license imposes restrictions & requirements on all those bodies. (The DA can’t compel my wife to testify against me. The hospital has to let her in to see me. State has to let her know if I die overseas. Etc.)
bcinaz
Hmmmm…so when arguing the MI case to ban gay marriage, the plantiffs attorney did make the case that Same-Sex Marriage would increase the number of children born out of wedlock. Hoooocudanode he’d be right for a completely wrong reason.
Rand Paul is a walking talking Oxy-moran. Libertarian Christian? Puleeez!