Saturday, August 04, 2012

Of Orwell, Lakoff, and the Consumption of Chicken

In conversations about re-defining marriage, and indeed, about universal health care, this term "basic human right" keeps coming up. Of course, from a natural law perspective (which when it comes to government is pretty much my perspective), a "basic human right" cannot be something that requires action on another's part. Hence, if I have a basic human right to health care, then someone must be compelled to provide it for me. Ergo, not a right.

With this marriage re-definition thing, it's actually even more clear. A basic human right cannot require approval from a third party.

What is "Marriage", from a 30,000 foot view by an asexual alien from another planet where reproduction is done by mitosis?

Why does it matter outside of the two involved in it? Why isn't it just two people comitting to each other, and it doesn't matter to anyone else?

I mean, I love my brothers. I love my best friend Mark. We could choose to live together. We could even legally have sex (but, from my perspective, ... ew). We could write up a contract that says we're gonna share our stuff -- and if I die, he gets my stuff and vice versa. But most people wouldn't call that a marriage.

From a pan-cultural point of view, marriage is what a social group says it is -- and until recently, universally it has meant a relationship between persons of opposite sexes. Even in polyigamist cultures, the various spouses of the central spouse aren't considered spouses of each other. But we're getting a little off track here.

All of the people who feel "we" should recognize same-sex unions as "marriage" are, in fact, free to recognize same-sex unions as "marriage". Insurance companies and employers and hospitals are free to recongize such unions as familial unions and treat them however they wish.

At it's root, this drive to equate same-sex unions with marriage are not about tolerance at all. It's about approval. It's about legally requiring approval.

Let's ask a question. Why does any relationship require approval from the government? We do have a basic human right to free association, after all (which includes the right not to associate with people with whom we choose not to associate).

The answer you will get is ... legal rights.

But what legal rights go with marriage?

Mostly, protections from each other, and protections of children from abusive behavior from their parents. What it really does is recognize the importance of a stable home for children, and that children are not capable of independent living, and the obligation of parents to their children, and the obligation of spouces to each other. In other words, it actually puts legal burdens on the people involved.

I can't name you a legal "right" that you "get" by being married. Maybe there are some. But there are none that would not be solved by recognizing same-sex unions under some other legal term. And I've said on multiple occasions, if this was all they were really after, I believe we'd have such laws in every state by now.

But again, that's not what they're after.

They want the word. They want your approval. Not your tolerance. Your approval. This is what they really mean when they say "tolerance".

So they intentionally blur lines between the meanings of words so that they can say one thing and mean another and not be held responsible for what they really mean. They are so used to doing this that they actually equate "disapproval" with "hate" with a straight face.

If you can't distinguish between acceptance and disapproval, between disapproval and tolerance, between tolerance and recognition, between intolerance and hate ... and therfore, between disapproval and hate ...

you're not open-minded ... you're narrow-minded. And your mind has been deliberately narrowed by the likes of George Lakoff with their own brand of NewSpeak ... which was a language specifically designed to keep people from distinguishing between things -- to keep them thinking, frankly, "inside the box". A very specific box which the language was tailored to keep them in.

And with Mr. Lakoff in mind, I will hereby not refer to the re-definition of marriage as "gay marriage". It is the re-definition of marriage, plain and simple. That's what they want, and that's what I'm calling it.

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