Quite. The argument about the question of whether gay marriages has gone on and one, and we have seen little discussion of the question of whether the state needs to recognise any marriages at all. I say no. My living arrangements are no business of the state. Given that the state does continue to recognise marriages, I do support gay marriage rights, but I would far prefer removal of marriage rights for heterosexuals. And of course there are issues of child custody and the like, but this strikes me as an entirely separate issue. Children certainly shouldn't be treated differently by the legal system depending on whether their parents are (or were) married or not.

I do not accept your contention that "The State has no place in matters of faith or love." I am the State and I have a great interest in how you live your life insofar as it affects me.

Children raised in a stable two-parent household tend to commit less crime, have less emotional or physical problems requiring my money to treat them, and they tend to become law-abiding co-citizens.

I have every bit of interest in ENCOURAGING, not forcing, people to act in a way which makes my life less of a hassle.

Here's how I do it:

I support tax policies which reward marriage and children.

I support laws which make it difficult - not impossible - to divorce.

I have a vested interest in joining with other individuals to form a system in which I am not burderened by YOUR poor personal decisions. I am the State and I do have a voice, but not a veto, in how you live your life and that includes marriage, childrearing and divorce.

Rather than saying I have no part in these issues, how about working with the rest of us to set the limits on how much of a place I can have.

David: You just made an argument for regulating everything.

After all, anything could concievably influence a person toward criminality.

How is blaming the criminal's "environment" for his actions any different than blaming, say, the gun?

Where does personal responsibility fit in to your worldview?

I had no idea the state's name was David. I suspect from the email address that David is based in the US, so I wonder - is it the federal government or one of the states - Wyoming perhaps?

David, if you seriously believe you are the state, I suggest a few experiments to confirm your belief.

(1) Walk into the Treasury Building with a big duffel bag and demand that it be filled with your cash. If you're the state, all that money must be yours, no?

(2) Announce that you, as the state, no longer care to enforce the laws against selling crack in schoolyards, and set up a crack stand in the local elementary.

I suspect your delusion that "lestat, c'est moi" will be quickly cured.

State licensing and other state benefits for the married are actually a very recent convention. We got along just fine without them for millenia, with rates of abortion, illegitimacy, etc. less than we have now, and I suspect we could get along just fine without them in the future.

David, if you want a system where you are not burdened by the poor personal decisions of others, there are many, many better ways to go at it than giving state benefits to married folks. You could start by getting rid of the redistributionist state that takes great chunks of your money to give to others.

Yes, I am from the U.S. and I truly believe in "We the people . . ." and that the government (state) is of the people, for the people and by the people.

I also subscribe to the notion that you all need to stay out of my life and I will do the same for you. However, what you do with your life at times does affect me. Therefore, we need to get together and hammer out a basic agreement about where your actions stop because they begin to impact my life.

In the 1960s in the U.S., people began to argue that divorce was a harmless personal decision. Okay, I can accept that. There wasn't much data to support a denial of that position. Since then we have seen that divorce and single parent families have negative social, not merely personal, effects.

In other words, because you made poor decisions I now must pay. That payment may come from increased law enforcement and prison sizes. Or it may come from welfare to support single mothers with multiple children. Or it may come because those children grew up, and lacking examples of a stable relationship, perpetuate the mistakes of their parents giving me even more juevenile delinquents taking out there sense of being unloved on me.

What are my potential responses:

1. I could kill all the criminals, petty thieves, graffiti artists and the like. That would be very libertarian - no state, no social order, eveyone doing whatever they wanted. I would hope that some people will agree this is a bad option. It's why we have the concept of the Social Compact, it keeps our lives from becoming nasty, brutish and short.

2. I can work with the rest of my fellow citizens to devise a system, imperfect as it might be, which will meet the need for your personal freedom while also protecting me from the consequences of your freedom.

Now, if in Great Britain, the elites have decided that they alone, and not eveyone, are the state then you have a much larger problem than love and faith. The first order of business, it seems to me, would be to reclaim ownership of the state from those who have taken it from you. Then use your ownership in the state to hammer out compromises on the hard issues of rights and responsibilities.

But I will never back away from my belief that I, and my fellow citizens, are the state and the office holders merely our agents.

I think the debate misses the distinction between the state and the law. I want the state to have as little to do with me as possible but I do want it to provide a legal framework in which rights are protected.

Too many people suffer various forms of injustice in marriage for it not to be part of such a framework.

There is no harm in the State providing a legal framework for marriage. People should be free to choose wether to enter into this framework, wether to use it or not.
What is harmful is the benefits, mostly monetary, and privileges, bestowed upon married people by the state. This is descriminatory. All these privileges should be bundled together under the heading: spouse priviliges, and a legal framework should be created for defining how each person can designate somebody for "spouse benefits".

Jacob,

The bias to which you object is the bias towards children's stability. We should ask ourselves if there is anything more important, including personal liberty - and, if there isn't, how best can we encourage it?

Libertarians do particularly badly with these questions, as they do particularly badly (Rothbard excepted) at dealing with group actions in a society of sovereign individuals.

The former difficulty allies libertarians with homosexual activists whose goal is not the sovereignty of the individual per se but liberation from public disapproval as expressed in law. That just isn't a good enough reason to do hurt to children by weakening marriage.

Take note that Mr David Blankenhorn of the seemingly perversely named Insitute for American Values said quite plainly, "The goal is equality between married and unmarried persons." In other words, his aim is the destruction of legal recognition of marriage between a man and woman. That is plain and simple cultural marxism and has nothing to do with freedom, be it personal-political or psychological-real.

Right, Mr Coulham ... you go.

David in 1) you are mistaking libertarianism with anarchy. It's a common mistake, but limited state power doesn't meen no state power, much less no social order.

I'll assume, for the moment, that broken or unstable families truely have led to all the social problems people claim they have led to. Even then paying people to stay together isn't likely to restore the benefits of marriage, as a couple that is staying together only for the money isn't likely to be a healthy or stable family in which to raise a kid.

If you want to reward the behavior of raising a kid, have some tax benefits go with the person or couple taking care of the kid. I don't think that's necessary or really a good idea, but it is at least more consistant and a better idea than rewarding all couples, even those who will not or cannot have kids.

Finally, the claim that increased divorce rates have *caused* the social problems that correlate with them is problematical. I think it much more likely that the higher divorce rates are correlated because they are another symptom of the deeper problems is society. And that the current concentration on reducing the divorce rates is like handing antinausea medication to someone bleading to death. As evidence for that claim I would point out that dispite the efforts to reward people staying married neither the divorce rate, nor the other social problems have stopped getting worse.

Anyway, I like the idea of getting rid of government control over the marriage contract. It should be a primarily religious matter, and the few benifits that the government does need to handle could be dealt with in other ways. (inheritance comes to mind as something that needs to be dealt with by the government because it touches on what happens to property rights after death)

David - you are no more "the state" than a single shareholder is the corporation. You may have a stake in the state, and even some influence over it, but if you do not see that it is an institution separate and apart from you, with interests that are not identical to yours, then there is really very little grounds for rational discussion.

I could kill all the criminals, petty thieves, graffiti artists and the like. That would be very libertarian . . .

No, it wouldn't. This would be the initiation of force, or aggressive action, that is not in self-defense. Libertarians, by and large, are opposed to aggressive violence.

I can work with the rest of my fellow citizens to devise a system, imperfect as it might be, which will meet the need for your personal freedom while also protecting me from the consequences of your freedom.

You are missing the fact that liberty isn't just about my personal freedom, it is about yours as well as mine. Your formulation indicates that you do not realize that liberty consists, not of my freedom, but of the freedoms that we all share equally.

You also indicate that you need to be protected from my exercises of my freedom. This is far too broad, and in fact kicks the door wide open for every exercise of the nanny state. The state should only be protecting you from force or fraud, not from every single thing that I may choose to do.

How about the issues of property law that are so closely linked to marrage? How would I insure that my "life partner" automatically received my property on my death? How about the estate tax exclusion for all property transfered to my spouse? In Illinois I can only hold my house in tenancy by the entirety with my spouse.

These are issues that the state needs to regulate that are all affected by marital status. That is why the state needs to be involved in regulating marrage.

Guessedworker, "The bias to which you object is the bias towards children's stability. We should ask ourselves if there is anything more important, including personal liberty - and, if there isn't, how best can we encourage it?"

following that logic, i take it you're very much in favour of state financial assistance to children of poorer parents then, since poverty's the one thing most likely to screw a kid up. Wealthy single parents usually seem to manage ok; it's the ones living with no money in crappy places who seem to struggle.... hmmmmm....

On the other hand, perhaps you're just homophobic & highly conservative.

There does need to be "state involvement" in marriage, if you regard the enforcement of contracts as necessarily state matters, as most do, even many limited state libertarians. I agree with Michael that the state should get right out of deciding what should be in those contracts.

But, if two people make public, solemn and supposedly binding promises to each other, and one of them then proceeds to break some of those promises, then the wronged party to the contract should be able to enforce at least some kind of recompense for the wrong done. What sort of legal verdict there should be should depend on the contract that was originally made. As Rothbard says, it doesn't matter what we may variously think of a contract, the point is what the contractors themselves actually agreed to.

However, saying that "the state should get right out of marriage" might sound like saying "the state" should (also) cease entirely from enforcing contracts between, say, a property developer and a building contractor. Someone must enforce such contracts, if the complexities of modern society are to function with any smoothness. Much the same applies to marriage, I think. But that doesn't mean that the government should decide what marriage means, any more than it should manage the building industry.

One can see the need for State involvement in 'marriage' as disharmony will arise in the distribution of property enjoyed by more than one person. The State's role is to protect property rights. This role is greyer when there is joint ownership and/or use of property. When a problem presents itself consistently the State creates proactive measures and boilerplate approaches to admininster over the problem. Marriage in the legal sense is the default method, barring any other contract between the 'partners', of distributing property. Questions such as this were made simpler in days gone by as the property rights automatically vested in the Man and likely transferred to the first born son. It was the default process that the State would use its force to protect. That is the extent of State involvement in the personal affairs of individuals. If they affirmatively partner with each other and acquire property collectively, they should have an enforceable agreement between the two or the State will resort to their default method of allocation in an attempt to harmonize the partners. Any presumed social gain based on partnering, or desiring to use the favors of the State to motivate people to, or remain together, borders on theocratic. The children resulting from partnerships, and presumed negatives resulting from a termination of the partnership, are an unfortunate consequence of events, events that are not correctable by the State, and any attempt to will not likely result in a cure while creating new consequences for those who are ultimately disinterested parties in the first place.

Here's the original statement, "The State has no place in matters of faith or of love."

There is an assumption in that statement with which I disagree. The assumption is that the entity, the State, exists outside of us. This is also in line with R.C. Dean's statment "that it is an institution seperate and apart from you." I understand that I am not the totality of the state. However, I do not believe that the state is "seperate and apart" from me. I am a vital and integral part of the state. The policies of the state reflect me and my beliefs.

If you accept that we are the state, then in order to change the policy of the state, you must convince me and the rest of us that this policy is dangerous, harmful, unnecessary or whatever.

If, instead, you accept that the state exists as an entity "seperate and apart" then you are correct, we must fight the state. That is why I said that if some group or individual has taken control of the state, then that is a deeper problem and needs to be dealt with first.

Then the original post stated, "It is up to individuals to make their own decisions on such matters and self-regulate within the framework of their choice . . ." The problem I had with this is precisely the matter of anarchy. If we only want people to self-regulate, then what do I do when they don't self-regulate? What mechanism do we, notice I don't say the state, put in place to deal with a failure to self-regulate? That is why I made the exteme suggestion of killing criminals, etc. It was to undermine the argument that "self-regulation" is the best answer. It does not answer the question of what to do when someone doesn't "self-regulate." At that point, the rest of us need to step in and regulate. Do we do that through individual vigilantism? Or do we (not a seperate State) build a series of laws, hire law enforcement and give up our right of violence to the group as a whole?

I appreciate Michael's response. It seemed to me that he is willing to engage me in an argument about whether or not we should jointly encourage stable marriages. He is willing to make an argument about data and the limits to how much we can ever compel each other to do something.

This is a lot different than saying "The State has no place in matters of faith or of love. " It is a recognition that the state is nothing more than all of us together. And if you want the state out of matters of faith and love (i.e., marriage, divorce, children, inheritence and the like) lay your arguments out and convince ME. Don't whine about the STATE.

It is in society's interest for government to promote marriage and the creation of stable two-parent families.

"It is in society's interest for government to promote marriage and the creation of stable two-parent families. "

:) this rests upon the assumption that the government is capable of successfully promoting said behaviours, and that attempts to promote them won't have strange & unexpected side-effects.

It also rests upon the assumption that these things are good for 'society', but that's a whole 'nother kettle of worms.

I see that, once again, the modest suggestion that human beings might be left unmolested to order the intimate details of their own private lives has brought forth the usual claque of loud-mouthed know-nothings anxious to publicly revel in their prodigious ignorance and stupidity. Guessedworker, unable to resit the opportunity to flaunt his homophobia, typically decides to attack again his favourite straw man 'cultural marxism' which no one here appears to be defending and is certainly the opposite of anything suggested by Dale Amon.

Then we have David, a man, it would appear, who is victim to a quite astonishing narcissism. What else might explain his statement that:

"if you want the state out of matters of faith and love (i.e., marriage, divorce, children, inheritence and the like) lay your arguments out and convince ME."

Speaking as someone who certainly does want the state out of matters of faith and love I have never felt it an especially urgent priority that David be convinced in order to achieve this end. Fortunately for those of us who are posessed of libertarian sensibilities on such matters David's being convinced is of no concern whatever. David's ignorance on this and, evidently, so many other matters is of concern only to him and the remedy is in his own hands. He can choose to educate himself about the true nature of the state whenever he likes and should he manage this then haply he will be welcomed among those of us who already know better.

And if you want the state out of matters of faith and love (i.e., marriage, divorce, children, inheritence and the like) lay your arguments out and convince ME. Don't whine about the STATE.

Inviting myself into this debate, which system of faith and love is the correct one? How about Roman Catholicism? It's fairly well established and has a long track record, I wouldn't want a relatively new one like Mormonism or anything.

"Love" and "Faith" pertain to the individual not the collective. The State's only function is to provide force in the protection of property rights. When behaviors are manifested that directly threaten property and life the State will act to remove the threat (I can make some concession on sanitation and water purity as a public service, (and possibly roads and signage), based in the local community). Infusing the State with the ability to favor one individual over another, as long as there is a paralleling of faith, is why there is a desire for a separation between Church and State, so that one set of notions does not take control and dominate. Unfortunately, here in the US, socialist elements have taken over the raison d'etre of the State and has it manufacturing Good at a fairly brisk pace, based in their collectivist, quasi-theocratic notions. The harm is in the $6+ trillion public debt (and soon to expand appreciably as boomers continue out of production and into retirement as well as the drug entitlement). Using notions of love and faith as State policy has indebted the US incredibly. If that isn't enough of a cautionary tale against merging faith and love with the State I don't know if I have anything more convincing.

Another angle on the State's involvement in 'love' and 'faith', and the policies it creates, leading to rewarding some for their behaviors (i.e. marriage) has led to the desire to expand it to homosexuals, which is not itself a problem if one accepts the notion for heterosexuals. But what about those not attractive or enticing enough to have someone partner with them regardless of orientation? Should they be set aside for State benefits because they are physically or mentally unattractive? If artificial benefits of marriage or extended instead of repealed, the State will merely create a new subset of deprived individuals. The State should be a disinterested party, as it represents us, in the private affairs of individuals, especially in handing out favors, as an unpriveleged subset will inevitably emerge.

Michael wrote:

"you are mistaking libertarianism with anarchy. It's a common mistake, but limited state power doesn't meen no state power, much less no social order."

Michael, you are mistaking anarchy with disorder. It's a common mistake but no state power doesn't mean no social order, much less no order at all.

Cydonia

p.s. FYI, a respectable number of libertarians are also anarchists

I think we libertarians find the notion that we need to sit down and hammer out a compromise about when another's actions affect us individually as needlessly complicating things. If you accept the notion that a person bears responsibility for their actions, and therefore can be held accountable for them, then when someone does something that affects you, you know it.

Paul Coulam,

If the state is nothing more than all of us, then yes, you should try to convince me. Just like I am willing to try to convince you and everyone else that my ideas are right.

I am also willing to accept decisions which go against my beliefs and desires. I truly believe in a consensual government. So I vote for the candidates and referandums which match my positions. I tell my representatives what I want them to do. I also lay my arguments out in blogs like this. This is my part in SELF-government. It has nothing to do with narcissism. I am well aware of the limitations of my power, and I'm glad those limitations exist because they also work to restrain you.

Furthermore Paul, you state that you do not want the state involved in matters of faith and love. I can respect that, but you did nothing to convince me because you fail to respect me and the rest of us. You say I am narcissistic, yet I think you are important enough to engage you. You seem to think that your position is so right that you need only flip insults.

So let's get to the heart of the matter. Do we all as a whole have any right to meddle in anyone else's faith or love?

Here's a question in the matter of faith:

My faith teaches that I should kill or subdue all those who do not hold to my faith. Should we all let that person freely practice this faith?

Here's a question in the matter of love:

I love that two year old child and wish to express my love sexually. Should we all step back and not take an interest in that love relationship?

Let's mix faith and love:

My faith states that homosexuals can not express their love in a sexual manner, therefore I will do everything possible to prevent this abhorrance. Should we, using our agreed upon system better known as the state, have anything to say about this matter of faith and love?

These questions are all vital and necessary. How are we going to answer them? They all revolve around love and faith and the way we answer them has implications for all of us.

Notice how I keep repeating "us" and "we" not "the State." So, yes Paul, you should try to convince me and all of the rest of us. If you don't take a personal interest in convincing me, and instead retreat to your private domain, then you may find yourself oppressed by a minority which has highjacked the machinery of the state because the majority no longer believe they are the state and that they have the responsibility to engage each other on the issues.

If the state is there to regulate our love-lives, I don't see how we can have any freedom at all. People who are more moral and decent tend to produce nicer citizens of the future, but that doesn't mean the state should give us money because it thinks us kind-hearted. I thought the whole point of libertarianism was supposed to be that governments should butt out of our personal affairs and stop trying to regulate individuals for picking their own noses in private.

Marriage and good child-rearing correlate not for intrinsic reasons but because society has propped up heterosexual monogamy and attacked other lifestyles. In reality, child-rearing has nothing whatever to do with what parents do in bed: and I for one find the suggestion that it does highly offensive, not to mention perverse.

But of course, married people are not going to give up their special status without a fight, even if the fight means throwing out every libertarian principle in the book.

David has ignored, or at least not seen, the unintended consequences of his statement.

He uses the argument that the State must guarantee the children of others are brought up in such a way as to minimize any possible risk to him from their behavior. This is tantamount to saying that the marriage license is actually a State Procreation License, that children are state regulated objects to be brought up in such a way so as to minimize risk... or more accurately in a society in which such actions are controlled by some form of democracy, are raised in that way which a majority (or the loudest minority) deems correct.

Thus from David's supposition it follows that if it were shown "scientifically" that the best behaved children are raised in the manner of those in "Brave New World", he would be in agreement with it. This is of course an exagerration to make a point, but it is the terminal point of a philosophy which uses votes to control state regulation of childrearing.

He has of course also agreed that children should only go to State schools (parents might educate their children 'incorrectly'); that the state may take children away from parents whose beliefs fall outside that of the majority; and in general has bought the entire Statist social welfare state, lock stock and two smoking barrels.

It seems to me that the burden of proof should rest fairly and squarely with those who deem it necessary that the State and its minions are entitled to tell me how with whom I should chooe to make a binding relationship, be it romantic, commercial, or whatever.

Brian's point is typically astute. While libertarians of the minarchist and anarcho-capitalist variety do disagree about whether states need to exist at all, it seems to me relevant to stress the role of a state in enforcing contracts. That most definitely would include contracts struck, say between gay men choosing to marry one another.

In addressing the issue of gay marriage, by the way, the key issue is not whether gays or other non-straights should be "allowed" to get married, but whether the State, in all its ways, should have any business telling INDIVIDUALS how and with whom they choose to associate. Period.

As a straight man, I defend absolutely the rights of gay and lesbian folk to make such arrangements, much as I, as a non-smoker, defend the rights of smokers to light up in premises where the owner of said permits it. It is really very simple - it is about freedom.

You got that, David?

George Peery:
"It is in society's interest for government to promote marriage and the creation of stable two-parent families."

Related to another topic: It is in the society's interest that people be trim and healthy, not fat or obese. It is in society's interest that they don't smoke or do drugs, or booze. It is in society's interest that they attend school, refrain from driving SUV's and refrain from having too many kids (maximum 2). It is in society's interest that they stay married to a person they don't love so as to avoid divorce.

Well, I think it is also in society's interest not to try to regulate those things by legislation and coercion.
Feel free to declare what's in society's interest, in your opinion. Feel free to promote those ideas the best you can. But don't try to impose that by law.

Utopian statement: I think the government should have no role in the whole marriage business. Marriage as a pledge between two people (in whatever form that takes) is their own business. It could be codified as a private contract with covenants and all that, but there is no need for it to be a specially-government-sanctioned institution.

Taking the utopian glasses off, it is clear that marriage is, and will remain, a special legal distinction if only because enough people are irresponsible and have to be compelled to do the right and moral thing by society (and apparently for now via government). You know what I am talking about: the whole child support/shared debts/other obligation stuff.

And there are also the rights and privileges bestowed on spouses such as medical care decisions, primacy in the distribution of property on death, etc. etc. etc. We could have all of these written up as contracts, but be realistic, the vast majority of people would never get around to it and leave it all to chance. And we as a society would ultimately ask the government to sort out the chaos that would ensue. There is a reason "common law" marriage is so....well.. common.

Marriage is about confirming rights of members of a very common unit - two people who consider each other partners. What about 3 or more? I have no problem with that if that is what adult people choose to do, but it is clear for the reasons above that the state will want there to be a single, primary spouse (a first among equals?)....

Government, sadly, will retain a role in the whole marriage business.

Pardon me, Alice I can't resist commenting on your statements:

"Marriage and good child-rearing correlate not for intrinsic reasons"

This is a theory which I have not seen demonstrated. It strikes me that subsequent study, could, in principle falsify it.

"...but because society has propped up heterosexual monogamy and attacked other lifestyles."

This is a theory which I have not seen demonstrated. It seems to me an amazing and unlikely thing to suppose. It strikes me that subsequent study could, in principle, falsify it.

"In reality, child-rearing has nothing whatever to do with what parents do in bed:"

This is a theory. One which I have not seen demonstrated. It strikes me that subsequent study, could, in principle, falsify it.

For instance, what parents do in bed and how they raise children could both be affected by something more basic within them.

"...and I for one find the suggestion that it does highly offensive, not to mention perverse."

I, for one find the suggestion no more and no less plausible than the reverse. At least until I have better evidence. And I recognise that my feelings about tolerance, equality, or consmopolitanism do not have any bearing on questions about the facts of reality.

Garth,

In a sense you've reinterated some of my points on the State's involvement in marriage, but simply from a legal standpoint. At issue mostly is the value judgements, of the individuals involved, and the benefit to the State of favoring partnerships in the first place. That is where the line needs to be drawn. The State having a default method to address the unaddressed (e.g. via contract) is needed in mediating property rights. But beyond that the State should be disinterested, and that includes creating pro-active regulations before the fact in an inexact attempt to prevent disharmony in splitting partners from occuring in the first place, or favoring those lucky enough to find a partner (and now that I have brought up the subject twice, yes, I am married, so I am not referring to myself).

Garth: I don't see any of those as particular problems. If you belong to a church, then your church has a default contract under which you are married. If you are married at a registry, then the registry has a default contract. If you go common law... well, what is common law except a body of slowly learned knowledge about how to do things fairly? Common law doesn't even require a State system to exist. So what if you have a base law that defines how joint properties and expenses shall be divided up when a relationship or business partnership breaks down which had no contracted terms before hand?

I don't see any of this as a problem. Very little is really unique to "marriage" per se once you take the religion out of it... and those who want the religion in it will be in an ecclessiastical court of their church or else fighting terms of the default church contract so there is no problem there either.

Dale Ammon,

Actually, I don't support any of those positions. My position here is that the topic is worthy of debate. My problem stems from the statement:

"Here is an idea all libertarians can agree with: removing marriage law and regulation from the State."

I am a libertarian and yet I believe that situations exist in which we as whole do have an interest in marriage, faith and love. How we should express that interest is another matter. Where are the limits of our collective interference into relationships?

My point was, I'll reiterate, that the state is not some impersonal object acting on its own. It is a collection of people. Either the state can be those people or they can be all of us. I prefer the all of us option.

And I will reiterate this point, I am interested in encouraging (NOTE THE WORD ENCOURAGING, NOT FORCING) stable marriages. I think the data supports my position that a society with a tendency towards stable marriages tends to have less crime, less mental illness, etc. Therefore, I support laws which ENCOURAGE stable marriages. I also do not want any of you interfering with my marriage so I want the FREEDOM, which I also extend to you, to dissolve that marriage.

Jonathan,

The State and it's minion are not the enemy. Human beings are the enemy. I may even be the enemy. But consider this, as a non-smoker would you like to have places where you don't need to breath it? I don't know of course, but while I am tired of the anti-smoking laws I also like that I am not afflicted, and I do mean afflicted, by the breathlessness I get when I am exposed to tabacco smoke.

The problem comes in balancing the rights of smokers and non-smokers. But I address this issue not to the "State and its minions" but to my fellow citizens.

Good luck on the rest of the discussion, I unfortunately must get back to work.

I still maintain as from the start - If they eliminate the tax-free fringe benefits, they can marry their mule for all I care.

You anarcho-liberterians are so bloody cute!

Greystoke,

Thank you for your view on my theories. You're right: they aren't scientifically proven. And they are theories. Like everyone else's.

Dale writes:
*that the state may take children away from parents whose beliefs fall outside that of the majority*

It is being going on for years already- there are numerous examples of Children Services separating children from perfectly good an caring parents on some vicious neighbour' or teacher' complaint, and then these parents spend bunch of money and time getting their kids home again, not mentioning trauma that it causes children...
One case in particular came to mind- a recent Russian immigrant, a single mother, working for a little more then min wage, couldn't afford a babysitter and took her 8-yrs old daughter to work.(That was a summer job). Since her employer didn't like having a kid in a workplace, she left the girl at outside park playground. She could observe her from her window, and everybody were happy till some busybody reported "neglected child" to the police. This women was separated with the girl and charged with endangering the child, and having no money to find a decent lawyer, attempted suicide.
Only after Russian paper published an article about it and people donated money for the attorney, she won the case and kid was returned to her- no apologies and no recognition- that was police duty to supply security for a child in the public park, not responsibility of the women, who actually pays their salary with her taxes.
And many, many more examples... At least here in NYC

George Peery implies (I think) that those who want the state out of the marriage business are just the anarcholibertarian fringe, but actually it's surprising to me that there seems to be so much controversy on this one, and I'm a long way from anarchist.

As usual, it isn't an either/or question. One can accept, as I do, that there may be some role for the state (at least in the form of the law) in adjudicating disputes arising out of marriages, without wishing it to define and regulate marriage and similar relationships in the way it has only recently sought to do, and without permitting it to entrench privileges or penalties for certain sorts of personal relationship.

David writes:

"Should we, using our agreed upon system better known as the state, have anything to say about this matter of faith and love?"

I for one have not _agreed upon_ this system known as the state. An accurate description would be 'imposed' system.

Good catch, Paul.

Poor David displays all the memes of the statist - the belief that the state is him, or is the populace, or the voting populace, rather than an institution separate and apart from any person or group of people, the belief that there is a "social contract" in any meaningful sense that legitimizes the state, etc.

toolkein and Dale Amon,

I accept your points and that all this could be done by contract (default under some church-based system, or via common law) but ultimately the state, via the courts will mediate where new ground is covered and where disputes arise.

My post was actually in favour of getting the state out of the whold business but I where I think it fails, and where society will still want some form of state-sponsored marriage, is when one party fails to live up to his (and it is most often a he who fails) obligations, where no formal contract was entered into (common law here), and where there are extended family complications (everything from sibling claims to family property to problems that arise from bigamy).

I agree with both of your overall points, I just think that the special distinction of marriage as a special status is what the vast majority will always want and something that the courts will want to uphold.

It is also that should be extended to homosexual couples, obviously.

I finally heard a "conservative" objection to gay marriage that (while I don;t agree with) may be a sticking point here in the states: If gays are allowed full rights as married partners, then adoption agencies will (likely) be unable to show predjudice against them in placing children. I have no problem with this, but I can see why conservatives might have a hard time with it.....

David said: "The assumption is that the entity, the State, exists outside of us. This is also in line with R.C. Dean's statment "that it is an institution seperate and apart from you." I understand that I am not the totality of the state. However, I do not believe that the state is "seperate and apart" from me. I am a vital and integral part of the state. The policies of the state reflect me and my beliefs."

Does this imply that you don't believe that there are any private services? After all, if the state is all of us, "we, the people," then there can be no areas of private action and no distinction between free enterprise and state enterprise. BUPA would be the same as the NHS.

Also, if the state and its policies reflect your beliefs, then would that also not imply that you are in complete agreement with every law the state produces (in fact, if the state is everybody, then you must agree with everything everybody does, not simply that which is commonly referred to as the state)? I doubt that this is true, firstly, because legislation often contradicts itself, and secondly because I doubt you even know about some laws.

Though sometimes it may feel like it... The idea that "The State" is somehow an alien entity totally separate from the humanity is really only an ideological construct that seeks to make this thing called "The State" appear less human and therefore less acceptable to the ordinary person in the street. Its a con... to make hatred brew more easily...

"The State" is a very human process constructed by the historical workings of humans in order to manage the multidimensional system called society. We may not like it - but its up to each of
us to manage it so that it manages us with as light a touch as possible.

This post by Dale itself implies that "The State" is something distinctly inhuman and therefore void of any need to encompass emotion or ideal... "The State has no place in matters of faith or of love." ... ??? How strange! To imagine that the very control mechanisms by which we manage our society should somehow be separated and devoid of the aspects that make us what we are ourselves...human!!!

To me that seems dangerously naive... to imagine that we can just ignore the structure of our nature in order to follow an ideology of enforced equality
-the agenda of which seeks to change the very nature of society.... from bi-gender heterosexual family structure to an open form do as you please anarchy... going by human nature if it ever comes to fruition it will very quickly be reversed by the first aggressive pro-heterosexual structured society that comes along.

Who here, one wonders, does Joe imagine is advocating an ideology of 'enforced equality'? Joe seems also to be claiming some special insight into human nature. I doubt that he knows very much about human nature beyond his own incohate yearnings to order other peoples lives for them. Indeed, on the basis of this self-contradictory and confused interjection I doubt that even he knows what he is talking about.

Joe:

""The State" is a very human process constructed by the historical workings of humans in order to manage the multidimensional system called society."

Sometimes I just despair. Joe, I'm sorry but you haven't got a clue.

Paul, you ask: "Who here, one wonders, does Joe imagine is advocating an ideology of 'enforced equality'? ... The answer is simply those who advocate making homosexual marriage the equal of heterosexual marriage.

"Joe seems also to be claiming some special insight into human nature."
Oh absolutely Paul -being human we all, each and everyone of us (including your fine self) have our own unique version of special insight into human nature- its called... lifetime experience!

Cydonia... No need to despair or act sorry... but do feel free to provide any clues you think I'm missing. I do welcome informed comment. But I cannot see fault in the quote you took from me: Is "The State" not of human making? Did Martians create "The State" when I wasn't looking? Has it not been constructed over an Historical period of time? Does "The State" not try to manage society? Is society not comprised of more than one human dimension? Honestly which part of my comment have you actually found incorrect... Can you apprise of where my argument is unreasoned or are personal attacks the pinnicle of your commentary?

It never ceases to disgust me that "conservatives" fail to see the arrow-straight line from rapacious taxes to nitwits who want to do everything from regulating bedroom behavior to throwing penny-ante pot violators into prison for 10 years. And yes of course I am from the U.S.

Joe,

If there is a wrong end of the stick you manage to grasp it every time. No one here, least of all myself, is advocating any sort of equality and certainly no enforcement. If you want to view homosexual unions as equal to, less than or superior to heterosexual marriage then of course you may. All that is being advocated is that anyone, including homosexuals, be left free to form any contractual arrangements with respect to their personal relationships that they choose. Currently this is forbidden by the violence backed force of state law. The demand for imposed equality forms no part of the libertarian argument, in a free society any one member may choose to regard any number of putative entities or circumstances as equal or not, equality is a subjective judgement. You are confusing the libertarian position, which is one of freedom, with that of various socialist and social conservative viewpoints. In your bewilderment you are attacking a position that no libertarian, here or elsewhere, has ever advocated.
Attacking a position that no one here has argued is futile.

I would also caution you against relying on 'lifetime experience', as an epistemological method it is a very poor way to critically appraise your hypotheses.

none,

I share your ceaseless disgust.

The state is indeed a human institution, operated by humans, toward human ends. So is my local Burger King. Neither has any business interjecting itself into my personal relationships.

No single institution has any right to claim that it represents society as a whole, nor does it have the right to impose its will upon any other institution. The state has certain definite duties and a limited sphere of influence. It's not a universal answer to every question.

Paul Coulam--perhaps they imagine that these "services" are free.

Ok Joe, I'll try:

1. No State ever arose this way. The social contract (if that is what you have in mind) is a fiction. Historically, States arose through a process of conquest.

2. "Management" implies top-down command and control. Do you really think that "society" (which means the complex network of voluntary interactions between people) requires command and control by the State to function?

3. Such a mindset is typical of authoritarians (from corporate fascists to socialists via NuLabour)

4. It is precisely such a notion that is rejected by libertarians. No libertarian (whether anarchist, minarchist or classical liberal) believes that society either requires or even benefits from command and control by a State. History is replete with examples of the catastrophic consequences of command and control by States.

5. At most, some libertarians justify the State as being necessary or desirable to guarantee property and contract rights and perhaps to provide certain narrowly defined public goods which (it is alleged) would otherwise be under-provided by society.

6. The only think that is true about your statement, is that it is a reasonably accurate description of what modern States actually do. Where we disagree is whether they should do so.

If you are interested in learning more about your egregious errors, you might want to make a start with Hayek's The Road to Serfdom in which he elegantly demolishes the thesis you put forward here.

Cydonia

Paul, you state: "All that is being advocated is that anyone, including homosexuals, be left free to form any contractual arrangements with respect to their personal relationships that they choose.

If your statement was correct then there would be no need to seek legal and political action to change the status of marriage. This is not the case... what is being advocated is that Marriage as is currently understood give up its legal and public standing in favour of an "equality" as determined by homosexual rights advocates. That is a different ballgame which seeks to equate like with unalike.

No, it is far more than just gay marriages. It means letting the Mormons practice their religion and live under their church's marriage laws; it means letting a hippy commune in the Arizona desert have a communal wedding; it means letting a group in New York City pull Robert Heinlein's concept of a line marriage out of the SF literature and put it into practice, all without paying for someone else's ideas of what marriage is, even if those are a supermajority.

As far as marriage is concerned, one contract is as good as another so long as the lawyers did their job properly. As to the results... if Christian monogamy is indeed the best of possible ways of doing things, then it will continue to outcompete other models without the need for government subsidy.

Cydonia,

Re. 1. All it takes is 2 or more people to form the basis for a society. The larger the group of people gets, the more complex the interactions between them , therefore both spoken and unspoken rules develop to control the dynamics of the group as a whole. Decisions on these dynamics are required so some ONE has to make the final decision. Once this happens...you have a leader for the group - you have developed a hierarchy. That means you have developed a part of the group to act separately within the group as a control mechanism. A (proto) "State" has been created. Of course there can be fighting and conquest and all forms of human interaction in its further creation. But "The State" begins developing at the smallest of Group levels. There is always more than one type or level of "the state" within groups depending on the size and complexity of the people involved.

Re.2. Yes Management does imply top down control because that is how hierarchy works. I know of no societies that have ever existed without a form of leadership and therefore some form of hierarchy. The alternative to this is anarchy... which in real terms subordinates to minor forms of hierarchy whenever group interactions occur.

Re.3. You assume that I have chosen an ideology and that I'm building an argument within its confines. This is not the case. I derive my arguments by observation from life. I specifically avoid the use of ideological constructs. If you disagree with my observations because you can see a flaw in them... fair enough point out what you think is the flaw... but if you disagree with me because of your own ideology -then you are not dealing with the real world -you are creating a construct of someone elses imagination and trying to force me to live by its devices. That is authoritarian.

Re.4+5 ... The rejection of hierarchical control assumes that anarchy suffices for society dynamics- but decisions cannot be taken fairly by anarchy other than the toss of a coin or suchlike random event. Even in the most free society- when a decision has to be made - a hierarchy (ergo -a state) forms. Individual Humanity gains many benefits from the surrender of responsibility: for example - stability and security... once a hierarchy that supplies those requirements has formed the population is generally welcoming to its continued existance and expansion. It makes them happy because it frees them from greater responsibilities that they cannot easily perform as an individual.

Re.6. Whether States should excercise such control is not an issue because the reason for their existance IS to excercise control by making decisions that affect society. What is important in this is and is often forgotten - is that for every top down dynamic of hierarchy there has to be a supporting bottom up dynamic. The States control depends on the individuals in society obeying the States commands. As much as the State manages us - we in turn Manage the state. We have to get that right for the state to function the way we want it to. The best equation for good results is one of MINIMAL CONSTRICTIVE MANAGEMENT in both directions... which necessitates good leadership... the absense of which is where most problems arise.

This marriage question - is a humanity/social question... the very essence of what the state is about. It's all about the structure of the hierarchical management of the social system of which the state is the main control mechanism. To do as Dale(and the news article) suggests.. to separate the state as an inhumanity from the humanity of social interaction and as such is disingenuous because the state itself is a management function of social interraction.

Re. Brian's earlier comment that marriage should be managed through the medium of contract, both Islam and Judaism have historically taken something like this approach.

It strikes me that there are enormous advantages in such an approach, particularly in relation to what happens on divorce. By having a set of customary default rules which can be modified by agreement, both partners can know in advance what the consequences of divorce will be and can agree to alter them at any time.

Compare this to the appalling situation we now have in which the management of assets and the custody of children on divorce is a matter for discretionary diktat by State functionaries whose prime interest is in enlarging their own bureaucratic power or spreading their own version of social engineering.

The movement of European immigrants and their descendents into the American west is a classic case in the development of the state.

Initially individuals moved west. These included trappers, hunters and those who wanted to escape from organized society. Apart from low density American Indian population, they had absolute freedom unconstricted by the presence of other people. This was anarchy at its purest. As more people arrived and began to congregate, anarchy continued to exist - for a short time.

The growth of the state began when, for some reason, people began to think that it was in their interest to band togethor in various arrangements. These took many forms, but all consisted of some voluntary subordination of the individual's rights to the group as a whole. At the same time, the individuals demanded that the group as a whole act in a way beneficial to the individuals. Because disagreements naturally arose regarding which values the group should espouse, the people created mechanisms to resolve their disagreements. And there you have a state.

For those anarchists who read this, I am sorry. This actually happened. Nobody forced these associations on anyone. It was too easy to leave a town or settlement and move away. Most people though wanted to be part of an organized groups.

For those of you who no longer want to live as part of a group, it would be best to find a place which allows that. That explains why some people move to Idaho or Montana or Alaska to live in a cabin far away from any other human. For the rest of us, we live within the constriction of the group and its rules.

Richard Garner,

You made an excellent point. What is the difference between what you call the state and what you call private services? Let's look at various forms of the state:

1. As a single person, I owned a house. My edict reigned supreme. I was a state within myself.

2. I joined a church. That church had rules, systems for resolving disputes and means to enforce group decisions. The membership of the church did not use violence to enforce their group decisions on dissenting members, but there are religious organzations which do use violence. While you may call this organization a private service, it acts just like a state.

3. Then I got married. I no longer could live a life of anarchy within my house. The presence of another person constrained by actions and we developed ways to resolve disagreements.

4. We moved into a planned community. Although a private service, the planned community has rules and regulations with fines, fees and dues.

The church, my marriage and the planned community are all non-governmental versions of states. Each has a membership and that membership has determined jointly the rules governing membership. The rules also dictate how we act in certain situations and provides for punishments - although that may be nothing more than a cold shoulder or a night on the couch.

So, in my opinion, there is little fundamental difference between the government and other social organizations with rules and punishments.

With that said, my biggest problem with the anarchists is that anarchy has never existed except in the most underpopulated areas of the world. Social organizations have always developed because most people want them. You may not, but I do. Therefore, I want that social organization which you call the state and I support the continued existence of mechanisms to resolve disagreements between individuals. So I, not the state, am your enemy. Sorry to say.

Finally, nobody has yet proposed an answer to my three question regarding faith and love. I suspect because everyone realizes these are realistic issues that may require something more than a simplisitc anarchist solution. After all, I am sure you would some mechanism to exist where we all gather togethor to protect you from someone practicing your faith. Maybe we could call that law enforcement or the militia or the military. And should we abandon the defenseless because of a dogmatic adherence to anarchic concept of everyone for themselves?

To me, the death of Anna Lindh is the perfect end result of an anarchist mind set. The incident was the private interaction of a man and a woman. No one intervened and the death of Anna Lindh, while sad, is inherently good because nobody sought to impose their values on the event.

If that is anarchy, then I want none of it.

Joe:

"The best equation for good results is one of MINIMAL CONSTRICTIVE MANAGEMENT in both directions... which necessitates good leadership... the absense of which is where most problems arise."

This is a particularly pervasive myth. If only the "right people" would become politicians and bureaucrats then all would be well.

You remind me of the Marxists who claim that all would have been well in Soviet Russia if it hadn't been for bad old Joe Stalin.

What you fail to understand, Joe, is that the right people DO become politicians and bureaucrats - people who desire to exercise power over the lives of (and at the expense of) others whilst shovelling benefits to the interest groups that support them.

Such people are well suited to politics and government because that is what modern politics and government are about.

David wrote:

"Social organizations have always developed because most people want them. You may not, but I do. Therefore, I want that social organization which you call the state"

It is both astonishing and deeply alarming that presumably intelligent people like this chap, cannot see the difference between, on the one hand, the myriad of voluntary and customary arrangements that characterise human society and, on the other hand, coercive interference in those arrangements by the State.

I just don't know where to begin with people like this. Any suggestions, anybody?

As I think about it, Anna Lindh's death is instructive in several ways. Most bystanders later said that it was too bad the state didn't do anything to protect Ms. Lindh. To those bystanders, the state truly was a distinct entity existing outside of themselves. This ironically created a very localized libertarian/anarchic environment in which a man could pursue a woman through a crowded department store and butcher her before indifferent bystanders.

When you as an individual feel, as I do, that the state is nothing more than all of us, then it leads me to towards a sense of responsibility to you. I can not stand by and watch someone butcher you. To do so would break the social compact some posters here deny exists. If I act in nothing more than extreme self-interest how can I ever expect you to come to my defense?

Cydonia, "What you fail to understand, Joe, is that the right people DO become politicians and bureaucrats - people who desire to exercise power over the lives of (and at the expense of) others whilst shovelling benefits to the interest groups that support them."

Just because someone excercises authority over others does not make them the "right" person for the job. Any monkey can be given a button to push that comes up with "yes" or "no" decisions.

Neither is Ambition alone a form of divine right. Any fool or Genius can be cut down or raised up by good fortune or bad fate... or more importantly - by the choices they make!

Cydonia - you rail against authority but then turn around and say that the best people to be given authority are those who are determined to misuse it for their own ends? Hmmm - that's a rather nihilistic thought!

The type of people we get to serve in government is very much determined by the ethics on which we ourselves operate as a group. It's not that the "right" people get the job... its that a certain type of person will be more likely to get it because we as a society (by our history and actions) advertise and promote government authority as being for a certain type of person.

Cydonia,

Sorry, I posted before reading yours first. Here's my response.

If you truly believe that the state of which you are a member has become so unresponsive to the needs of you and your fellow citizens, then change it. I can do no more than provide the following quote:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Cydonia, you have the right, the power and the duty to ensure that some minority does not highjack the machinery of the state to oppress you. You have an unalienable right - nobody gave it to you - to work for the modification or replacement of the current structure regulating your interaction with your fellow citizens. And if you think it is necessary and your case is strong, you will convince people and you will prevail. Call me naive, but I truly believe that.

Joe writes: marriage is about "the structure of the management of the heirarchical system".........

In other words, the State - however you want to define it - is entitled to ban consenting adults from forming life-long contracts with one another, if said individuals are of a type he disapproves. The authortarian nature of his views is nicely revealed.

David, who is clearly hankering after a similar desire to poke his nose in to folks' lives, writes that there is little distinction between governments and other organisations with rules and punishments. Rubbish. For an obvious starting point, governments have a MONOPOLY of physical force, or at least aspire to do so. There is all the difference in the world between a polycentric legal order, such as may have existed in early European history and in utopian ideas, and the one-size-fits-all legal order we largely have and which David and others defend.

It is a common mistake - even shared by generally pro-liberty folk - to assume that rules can only exist in a monopoly state. And yet the English common law, for example, is a classic Hayekian example of spontaneous order that did not require such a monopoly, and which has arguably been damaged by the growth of state power over the past 100 years or so.

Marriage, like all such arrangements, require rules, but rules do NOT necessarily require a State. Bruce Benson's book The Enterprise of Law is a great introduction to the idea of how laws evolved before modern states came into existence. Well worth a study.

Cydonia - in your attack on Davids post please explain the difference you determine between:

"customary arrangements that characterise human society ... and... " coercive interference (snip) by the state

After all: State interference is customary - and customary arrangements are de facto rules (sub-legal social rules of state)

Johnathon... "rules do not require a state"

Any rules governing the interaction between individuals that requires a determining judgement... is evidence of a "State" ... as a "state" is the determining body that sits in judgement and manages the outcome.

David:

"You have an unalienable right - nobody gave it to you - to work for the modification or replacement of the current structure regulating your interaction with your fellow citizens. And if you think it is necessary and your case is strong, you will convince people and you will prevail. Call me naive, but I truly believe that."

So do I, but (and I do not mean to be rude) your post illustrates the magnitude of the task facing libertarians. When intelligent people can no longer even discern that there is a difference between Government and Society, then things are pretty grim.

Cydonia, "When intelligent people can no longer even discern that there is a difference between Government and Society, then things are pretty grim."

That is like saying- Intelligent people can no longer discern the there is a difference between the brain and the body.

The brain governs the body but is part and parcel of it at the same time. Likewise- The State governs society but is part and parcel of it at the same time.

Yes, the Lindh example is a good one. It shows exactly what happens when a people foolishly give up responsibility over their own lives to the State. The become sheep, expecting someone else to take care of them.

In a libertarian society the guy would either have been accosted while running or if he'd gotten so far as to start bringing the knife down on Ms Lindh... he'd have had more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese before his bloody corpse hit the floor.

Joe:

"State interference is customary - and customary arrangements are de facto rules (sub-legal social rules of state)"

I have no idea what "State interference is customary" means. Custom (as in customary law) has nothing to do with the State. It comprises a body of rules that the members of a given society tacitly recognise as governing their relations with each other. You are typical of those who only see law in terms of what is decreed by a legislature.

"Any rules governing the interaction between individuals that requires a determining judgement... is evidence of a "State" ... as a "state" is the determining body that sits in judgement and manages the outcome."

Same mistake. Is the Jewish Beth Din a State? A football referee a State? An arbitrator a State? There is nothing inherent in the process of adjudication which requires a State.

Do read Benson (as JP recommends). Or try Friedman's The Machinery of Freedom. You may not agree with them, but will certainly be stimulated to think outside the box.

p.s. Dale, sorry for straying off-topic but needs must ....

Also, I note that none of the Statists have commented on what was done to the Mormons. They had their own society and their own rules... and an East Coast majority sent a military force to force them at gunpoint to change to match the religion of the majority. The people of Utah were perfectly happy with the way things were. It's really a shame the idea and tactics of guerilla warfare weren't widely known at the time.

At the end of the day, the best defense of a minority viewpoint against a coercive majority is good armament.

David:

"The brain governs the body but is part and parcel of it at the same time. Likewise- The State governs society but is part and parcel of it at the same time."

If you want to trade medical metaphors, I'd rate the State as more akin to a tapeworm than a brain.

David

I have to take issue with your comment

As I think about it, Anna Lindh's death is instructive in several ways. Most bystanders later said that it was too bad the state didn't do anything to protect Ms. Lindh. To those bystanders, the state truly was a distinct entity existing outside of themselves. This ironically created a very localized libertarian/anarchic environment in which a man could pursue a woman through a crowded department store and butcher her before indifferent bystanders.

Anyone who says that it is too bad that the state did nothing to protect Ms. Lindh is clearly not an individualist / Libertarian.

It seems more likely that the murderer was a product of Sweden's socialist system which has damaged peoples sense of responsibility for their actions. The same dehumanising effect could be seen in the inaction of the bystanders.

I imagine that the result would have been very different in an individualist society, where the citizens felt it was their duty not the states to intervene.

Cydonia, Anthing that is done as part of Custom(normal practice)... family customs, tribal customs, legal customs, government customs..etc,... they are all "customary"... something that is done as part of normal practice. The laws of society are just as customary as the rules of football... or singing of "happy birthday" at birthday parties.. or shaking hands when meeting someone. Thats all customary. Customs and laws only have the power over society that society itself allows them to have. The exist by will of society's actions.

Yes the Jewish Beth Din is state in action

A football Referee is a judge of "the state" of process of football regulation.

An Arbiter or Arbitrater is a judge of the state of process whatever arbitration they are determining.

"State" - any State is the "body" of judgement and management for any process that requires a determation to be made.

A Parent and child is the simplest form of state. The Parent provides judgement and management for the child. This removes the responsibility from the child of having to make decisions they do not have the experience or knowledge etc to deal with.

In this marriage question... for a minority section of society to demand that the majority of society ignore the difference between a bi-gender marriage and a mono-gender marriage is like demanding that all children are recognised as adults from the day they are born. Yes children are humans and yes they can think for themselves but no they are not adults and society through the state enacts legislation to accommodate the special nature of children. Likewise with marriage. A bi-gender marriage contains a natural dynamic that a mono-gender marriage can never have. The society we live in is built on the framework of bi-gender relationships so the fact that society recognises the special relationship between bi-gender marriage and society is neither wrong nor victimising of homosexuals. All it is doing is giving legal support to the framework on which society is built.

The news item on which Dale posted about... states of the activists themselves: ""Why should society hold up one particular family form and say we protect and support this family form but not others. That would be their main argument."

They freely admit that they are seeking to change the idea of family.... the system on which society has grown up based on the fact that we are a bi-gender species.

By changing the meaning of the word marriage they are attempting to lessen the heterosexual nature of society. This ignores the basic fact that humans are a bi-gender species that conjoin for natural as well as ideological reasons.

This is an ideological change for ambitious reasons alone. It is not about freedoms or equalities - it is solely about trying to advance the ideology of "political homosexuality" within the majority heterosexual framework of society.

Cydonia, sorry - I left out something important...

It is no more unreasonable for the heterosexual majority to fight these demands that try to change the marriage idea of heterosexuality to make everyone equal than it is for homosexual minority to contest any demand from the heterosexual majority that they change and become heterosexual thereby making everything equal!

Joe, "It is no more unreasonable for the heterosexual majority to fight these demands that try to change the marriage idea of heterosexuality to make everyone equal than it is for homosexual minority to contest any demand from the heterosexual majority that they change and become heterosexual thereby making everything equal! "

what patent nonsense! Most homosexuals aren't (despite the paranoid bleatings of right-wing conservatives) trying to 'convert' any heteros to their 'cause', which would be the logical opposite of your suggestion above. They're not trying to break down 'straight' marriages, or change anyone else's private behaviour or commitments, & if hetero marriage is 'natural' etc., then it'll prevail as a majority practice anyway. One can expand the idea of the family without destroying the original idea.