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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (133155)	3/24/2001 12:13:06 AM
From: Johannes Pilch	Respond to of 769667

All I'm saying is that you won't be able to get a consensus on [your view] so prepare for it to keep you warm as society moves in a different direction. We thrive with water because it is us, and when we have gorged ourselves with water we then look to such things as whiskey. Then water becomes boring, but is really what we want and need at all times-- nothing can really take its place. We are, socially speaking, now bored with water, and think we are able to live off whiskey-- and society suffers from increasing drunkedness and other pathologies as a result. All I am saying is that as society moves in "a different direction," it will become further alienated from the very thing that will produce health. ...I agree that [civil marriage is increasingly a corruption of real marriage]. What would you like to do about that? I'm glad you asked. I would like to make civil marriage less corrupted and more like real marriage. I would like to legally hold men and women to their marriage contracts and give logical incentives toward the maintenance of stable marriages. I agree that there is a contractual underpinning to sex. Now what can we do with that notion? Well, you may not like this, but I think sex should be reserved for marriage. If we are too afraid to treat sex as a contract, then we should truly not treat sex (or even its results) as if it was a contract. A great relationship is a wondrous thing. I have had several, all precious, all producing life-long friends. Maybe mine weren't quite as special as yours, but the curve flattens after a certain number of years and I've had that experience more than once. I certainly cannot and do not judge your particular circumstances, and really am not interested in them in the least. I say as a general matter it has been my experience that a 'flattening curve,' is made steeper by increased sacrifice-- less concern for getting and more for giving. It is not just a pat solution-- it really works. Indeed it works wondrously. In my opinion there are far better ways to produce life-long friends than by serial monogamy. My wife is special, above all other women in the world. One way in which I have proven her specialness is by purposefully rejecting all women and then purposefully choosing my wife for the rest of my natural life. The thought of some other woman other than my wife having had sex with me and being able to comment on matters concerning me to which only my wife should be privy, simply offends my deepest moral sensibilities. I am no prude, and am actually terribly free. But I am convinced this serial monogamy stuff is for the birds-- and the dogs and the cats and pigs and other such creatures. I wouldn't trade with you and I know you wouldn't trade with me. Let's be happy for each other. We can do this as long as you do not continue to "rethink" matters that I think are just fine. I am not trying to be stubborn. Do you understand the point here? The rub occurs when people who hold views like yours make policies that disrespect tradition and human nature. It underscores and activates our differences. Our differences are so fundamental that they can never be reconciled. One of us will have to suffer a radical change in worldview to find true compatibility. I can be happy that you are happy as long as in your happiness you do nothing to infringe upon my freedom to conduct my life as I think proper. Yet to be honest, my view utterly forbids serious respect for your position, and it disallows belief that your idea of marriage is equal to mine. So as you aim to advance your view, I have no choice but to try and stop you should it at all threaten me. I certainly don't aim to force anyone to live a certain way. I merely describe what I think is the obviously human way to live, but am willing to allow folks to live inhumanly until they die. I only want not to lose a single freedom and not a single resource because of them. Of course they want not to be denied a single freedom or resource because of me. We often say such things as "live and let live," but I hardly think any of us really mean it. Fortunately, I think I have the better philosophical position and think that by reason my view is superior. From my perspective, when people aim to normalize views like yours, forcing for example a general acknowledgement of relationships that are objectively foreign to human nature, people like me can do nothing but struggle against it. This is where we are today. I think your view on marriage is simply counter to human nature, and so I cannot respect it. I don't know why you would label me a liberal. I'm definitely not a social conservative, which is pretty obvious, but I'm no liberal either. I'm just someone who thinks independently about things rather than just accepting what is handed me. Well I want you to believe me when I say I had not pegged you as a liberal. And I also don't see you as a threat. Nothing I have said was intentionally aimed at your personal circumstances, but only at your ideas. I meant to say that the same philosophies that separate you (whatever you are) and I, also separate liberals and me. Johannes, [marriage] may not be broken for you, and it may mirror YOUR very nature or human nature as you view it, but it doesn't fit all people of intelligence and good will. No one has ever submitted anything to demonstrate how it does not fit them. Human biology is essentially the same for all humans. It doesn't even seem to fit the majority of people. A voluntary scheme that works for only the few cannot prevail. An involuntary scheme is unsuitable for a free people. I certainly have not advocated any involuntary schemes. I have only advocated acknowledgement of the scheme in which nature has placed us. What your "majority" apparently aims to do is fool Mother Nature, this, merely because Mother Nature is a very demanding dictator. But we can't ever succeed here unless we find a way to radically alter our biological nature. Until then, we can't just divorce without horrid consequences, even where children are not involved. And we can't just abort other humans without some ghastly result. When your majority creates this sort of barbarity in order to fashion an end run around Mother Nature, it does nothing but fools itself. And the more it does this, the deeper will it slip into pain, suffering and barbarity until it cries "Uncle!" Nature will eventually have Her way.