(Deleted comment) From: substitute

2011-03-01 08:25 am (UTC)

YUMMY KNIFE, FORK, SALT, PEPPER, AND UNSTOPPABLE RAGE OF THE PROLETARIAN AND/OR NERDS: READY! From: mcpino

2011-03-01 02:45 pm (UTC)

Just askin'... not looking for a loophole. What about some of us poorer folk who wish/need to marry to acquire our spouse's medical insurance coverage/benefits, but one of us had a failed first marriage?



Edited at 2011-03-01 02:45 pm (UTC) From: travisd

2011-03-01 03:04 pm (UTC)

Re: Just askin'... not looking for a loophole. Sounds like a good argument to fix access to healthcare, not use marriage as a band-aid (no pun intended). From: substitute

2011-03-02 06:38 am (UTC)

Re: Just askin'... not looking for a loophole. You're screwed. Sorry. Can't make an omelet without breaking eggs/lives. From: (Anonymous)

2011-03-01 07:49 pm (UTC)

Your proposal suggests introducing discrimination in the form of additional taxes against people who want to get married more than once. Not everybody feels that having multiple marriages is necessarily and inherently "wrong" though, or even that multiple marriages is something that really needs to be discouraged. Personally, I don't see how permitting serial divorces and remarriages negatively affects society enough to care so much about discouraging it.



The ethical ramifications of your suggestion aside, the biggest problem with it is that this form of taxation doesn't discourage people from getting divorced. It only discourages people from getting remarried, so all it would do is result in the country having a lot more persistently single people instead of married people working harder to avoid divorce. Requiring that subsequent divorces be increasingly heavily taxed would be a more effective way to discourage serial divorces without discouraging marriage.



Keep in mind that marriage is already purely a state matter, and the only aspect of DOMA that Obama has abandoned support on is section 3, which forbids just the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. This does not affect section 2, though. The constitution explicitly requires states to recognize marriages that were licensed in other states, though. Only the eligibility requirements for applying for a marriage license in that state and the rights that are afforded to married people can vary by state law. Section 2 of DOMA is what gives states the ability to deny the same rights to people in same-sex marriages, and even though it also seems blatantly unconstitutional, Obama is not refusing to defend that because there there are still legal arguments that can be made to justify trying to prevent its annulment. That doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be annulled from law, just that there are legal arguments that can still be made to support it. The administration just doesn't see any point in continuing to spend money on trying to prevent the judicial branch from ruling section 3 as unconstitutional. From: substitute

2011-03-02 06:37 am (UTC)

If I'd meant any of this seriously, this would be the starting point of a great conversation. Since the sole intent was Swiftian satire, I'll just egotistically chalk one up to my mad skills. From: jactitation

2011-03-01 09:00 pm (UTC)

I like, but it should be a proportion of individual assets rather than a fixed amount. Donald Trump could marry 16 times with no noticable effect, while this would prevent poor folks from using marriage as a way to deal with health insurance, debt, or children's inheritance.



(Do you notice that I'm totally taking you seriously? I am. But I still think that we should provincialize marriage and make it an artifact of the supernatural religion brokers, and have separable contracts for all other aspects.) From: darkuncle

2011-03-02 06:29 am (UTC)

underneath that crust of cynical humor lies a surprisingly insightful mind. I could not be more different from many of your friends and followers, but I think you have a very interesting idea here.



of course, all attempts - no matter how clever - to substitute legislation for personal responsibility (which is what the divorce rate, and virtually all other societal ills, really boils down to) are going to fail to solve the problem in the end, but I think yours has a better shot than most. From: substitute

2011-03-02 06:35 am (UTC)

You may think you're different from the rest of them, but we're all nerds! NERDS! NERRDDSSSSSSSS



The core of a good "modest proposal" is to have just enough truth and practicality in it to get the payload through. :) From: darkuncle

2011-03-02 06:59 am (UTC)

well, it kind of goes without saying that we're all big nerds around here. :) From: taskboy3000

2011-03-03 01:31 am (UTC)

Dr. Goebbels, this is by far your most cogent policy paper.