Women In Society
There is a popular viewpoint in the manosphere that is often implied but rarely stated outright. Very few manosphere guys actually come out and say it. Vox Day is one of the few guys brave enough (or crazy enough) to state it on a regular basis, and I think Chateau Heartiste has said it a few times too. Most other manosphere guys talk around it and give it lip service, but most don’t actually say it.
It is a viewpoint I disagree with, regardless of the fact that it does have factual validity.
Sound strange? Well, yeah. It is. It’s a complex issue and I’ll do my best to describe it, as well as my stand on it.
The Viewpoint
This often-held but equally unstated viewpoint is this: “Women shouldn’t have all the same rights as men, because if they did, society would have problems, and we can prove it.”
Here are some examples of this viewpoint in action:
- The viewpoint states if women didn’t get married, have babies, and raise them, the human race would die out (or at least the white European-descended race would die out). Therefore, all women MUST have children. Women who choose to never have children are “worthless” (or “worthless as men”) and are being very selfish by “hurting society”.
- The viewpoint states that because women now have the right to vote, women usually vote in all kinds of harmful, nanny-state, socialistic policies. They always end up bankrupting countries and reducing citizen’s freedoms. Better to remove women’s right to vote…then we can maintain politically free and prosperous nations.
- The viewpoint states that women shouldn’t work, because of how supply and demand affects wages. All those extra millions of women in the workforce drive down wages for everyone. Better to have her stay home and not work, but continue to consume…then her husband will make way more money doing the exact same job, just like husbands did in the 1950s before women entered into the workforce in vast numbers.
There are many other examples of this viewpoint I could cite, but you get the point.
I disagree with this viewpoint…but not for the reasons you think.
The Viewpoint’s Facts
I don’t disagree with the viewpoint on its technical merits. The facts the manosphere guys state bolstering this viewpoint are indeed usually correct and I can’t fault them on their research. As I’ve said so many times to pro-monogamy people, facts are facts, and you can’t argue with facts no matter how repulsive, personally objectionable, or evil you view those facts to be.
Yes, if women suddenly stopped having babies, the human race would eventually die out. Yes, statistically women do tend to vote for more left-liberal, progressive, big-government garbage. Yes, history has indeed shown that in many countries when women start to vote in large numbers, taxes and government spending start to go up and personal freedoms start to go down. And yes, a valid economic argument can be made that if you increase the amount of labor in a workforce while keeping the number of consumers constant, real wages will drop (regardless of the gender of the workers).
I cannot argue with the facts even though I may not like them. My argument with this overall viewpoint is not with the facts. Rather, it’s with the ethics and morality of being an individual and the freedoms inherent within that condition.
The Individual vs. The Collective
I support the individual over the collective. Eventually, and sometimes it takes a long time, collectivism always results in evil. Ayn Rand was wrong about a few things, but she was 100% right on that one. I have said before, many times and in many ways, that I am an individual, free to live my life as I choose. The only exception to this rule is that I cannot physically violate someone else’s person or property.
You are also an individual. You own you, and assuming you’re 18 or over, no one else owns you. You are your own man. No one has the right to tell you what to do or not do. The only restriction to this is, again, if you choose to physically violate someone’s body or possessions. Assuming you’re not running around murdering people or stealing people’s stuff, no one has the right to pass any laws that restrict your behavior other than those basic ones like don’t murder, don’t steal, etc.
(We could now get into a huge political discussion about which specific laws would be appropriate or not under a libertarian vs. progressive or conservative system. I’m not having that discussion today because that’s not the point of this article, and such discussion would detract from the point I’m trying to make here. Any comments discussing this particular angle will be ignored.)
The rub in this system is that this right to self also applies to everyone else. No one has the right to tell you what to do, but you don’t have the right to tell anyone else what to do either. Oh, people hate that last part. As human beings, we love to do whatever the hell we want, but we also strongly desire to boss other people around.
Can’t do that. It violates the basic concept I’m describing.
You can try to convince people to do what you want. That’s perfectly fine. I can try to convince you that mowing my lawn is a really fun thing to do and you’ll really enjoy doing it. I can also try to convince you that mowing my lawn will make me really happy, and how that will make you feel really good.
You can also try to bribe people into doing what you want. I’ll give you twenty dollars if you mow my lawn. That works too.
But you can’t make people do what you want, because you don’t own them. I can’t make a law that says you must mow my lawn or you go to jail. I can’t make this law no matter how badly I think you should mow my lawn, nor how well I could argue that society requires mowed lawns.
Here’s where things get interesting. This concept applies to all human beings. It doesn’t matter what gender you are. Male or female, you own you, no one else owns you, and no one has rights “over” you. The only restriction is that you must be an adult, however the word “adult” is defined in your culture. (Children correctly do not have the rights of adults because they do not have the physical or mental capacity of an adult. And yes, we could have a big discussion about what exactly is an “adult”, but not today.)
Your Obligation To Society
So I’m an individual who has the right to do whatever I want as long as I don’t physically violate someone else, and so are you.
What if I chose to do something that doesn’t violate anyone else’s body or property, but is nonetheless “bad” for society?
For example, many would argue that getting married and having kids is good for society. What if I choose to never get married? What if I choose to never have kids? I’m being hypothetical here, since I have been married, do have kids, and it’s possible (though not likely) that I may have more someday.
What if I choose to sit on my ass, never get married, never have kids, never work, never build anything, never vote, almost never buy anything, and smoke meth all day? And do that for my entire life until I die?
That’s bad for society, many would say. I’m not contributing as I should, many would say.
Here’s the question: Do you have the right to do things that are harmful for society, provided you’re not physically violating anyone else?
My answer is an unequivocal YES. You have that right, and so do I.
As long as you’re not stabbing people or stealing their stuff, you have every right to do all kinds of things with your personal life that might not be good for “society”. You have no “obligations” to society. If you do something you want that is not good for society, that’s society’s problem, not yours.
Society Takes Care Of Itself
All this hand-wringing about society is very silly. I’ve seen it my whole life from left-wingers, right-wingers, and centrists alike.
Society will take care of itself. It always does. Human beings have been around for 120,000 years and human civilization has been for 7,000 years, and I notice that society is still here. Human beings have not died out due to plague, war, nuclear weapons, terrorists, global warming, evil governments, poverty, drugs, guns, lack of babies, or Honey Boo Boo. Regardless of all these things, society is still chugging right along, despite all the millions of people now and throughout history who have chosen to do things in their personal lives that were “not good” for society.
I will never be monogamous. Some conservatives out there will say this is somehow “bad” for society. I don’t think it is, but let’s say for a minute I agree with you. It’s still tough shit. My life is my life, I can do what I want, and if society has a problem with it, that’s society’s problem, not mine.
It’s the exact same thing with a woman who chooses to never get married, or never have kids, or vote for Democrats, or work 50 hours a week for the rest of her life. She’s a sovereign individual, and that’s her choice. It doesn’t matter if she has a vagina, she still owns herself 100% just like you do. You don’t have to like it. There are times women make choices I don’t like either. Tough shit.
As I said above, you can try to convince this woman that what she’s doing is bad for society. That’s totally fine. Some women may listen, some won’t. I try to convince people of all kinds of things all the time. Some people listen, some people don’t, some people get pissed and call me names, some people eventually come around, some never do. Their choice. It’s all part of this wonderful, imperfect, integrated system called “personal freedom”.
This is why I will never support a society that restricts women’s freedoms at the governmental level. (Again remember, that doesn’t mean women can commit violence or forcibly take things away from people). Society cannot force women to have babies (or not have them) or limit women’s right to work or vote or whatever because of what “society” needs or wants. Society can go fuck itself. In a contest between the individual and the collective, I’m going to support the individual 95% of the time, woman or man. (That remaining 5% is only when someone is committing violence, theft, or similar.)
And just to head off an objection I can hear coming, this has nothing to do with feminism. While I do agree with the basic concepts of the historical feminism of decades past, I think most modern-day feminists running around like maniacs screaming about things like “rape culture” are completely full of shit. Still doesn’t matter. It’s their choice. They’re free individuals and they can do or say whatever the hell they want as long as they don’t physically assault me or steal my stuff.
You’re free. I’m free. Men are free. Women are free. Whether you like it or not.
It’s imperfect, but that’s the way it should be.
Want over 35 hours of how-to podcasts on how to improve your woman life and financial life? Want to be able to coach with me twice a month? Want access to hours of technique-based video and audio? The SMIC Program is a monthly podcast and coaching program where you get access to massive amounts of exclusive, members-only Alpha 2.0 content as soon as you sign up, and you can cancel whenever you want. Click here for the details.
I agree with a lot of what you have to say. At the same time, though, you have to take into account that giving women the right to vote tends to chip away at some of the freedoms that are accorded to the individual and also results in the confiscation of personal property through higher taxes. It also wouldn’t be a problem if people wanted to live their lives however they wanted if we weren’t forced to pay their way through government entitlement programs. It really all comes down to picking the lesser of two evils here, and I don’t really think that this is an easy decision to make.
For arguments sake lets say the world is 50/50 men/women… Well if half are more likely to support a particular view then that view might be more valid that viewed by the other half. Meaning its a narcissistic view to say we need to save women from voting because their view is not our own. If this society is what we get when women vote who are men to say that its wrong. I agree with the facts (painfully) but only when Im looking thru my own eyes. To me its just as arbitrary as saying a race shouldnt vote because their view would harm a different races concept of the way society should be.
Im 100% on board with the sovereign idea… everyone is free or no one is.
Ive always said women are bitches… and men are assholes. Dumb narcissistic humans tend to be the problem not a particular gender or race.
I expected this objection. This objection is an issue of politics, not of gender differences.
If you live in a complete, 100% democracy, then yes, letting women vote will result in less freedoms for the individual over time. Because of this (and many other reasons), I support constitutional republics rather than complete democracies. In a republic, you can’t vote for other people’s stuff no matter what gender you are, because there’s a constitution in place preventing the government from doing this, regardless of the results of votes.
If you later get lazy, stupid, and wimpy, and start ignoring your own constitution (which is what happened in the US), that’s a failure of will and politics, not an issue of gender difference.
A society of individuals is a bit of an oxymoron, BD. Where does it end? If nobody has the right to imprison me for not contributing to society, then why am I still paying taxes? Is it okay to steal street signs and electricity? If someone invades my country, I don’t want to fight, so the government shouldn’t be able to force me to fight?
You’re actually describing the problems with democracy here. Not every collectivist state has turned to corruption, but every collectivist state with bad leadership has turned out terrible and collapsed. Every society has to have some element of collectivism in it, so that it has group cohesion – a society of individuals would be a tribal one at best.
“What’s good for the hive is good for the bee.” – Marcus Aurelius, one of the worlds greatest statesmen.
A collectivist state with bad leadership is worse than a democratic, individualist state with no leadership. But good leaders, in any system, will be more positive, I note that China, a place you’ve admired for awhile now, is pretty strongly collectivist. However they seem to have good financial and system leadership in place.
Counterpoint:
Self defense is good ethics. Acting in the interests of your posterity is better ethics: what is more viscerally right than providing for your children’s future? Your nation’s and your culture’s future?
No man or woman is an island. The tragedy of the commons is real. People can’t afford to be as free as libertarians wish.
At least, you can certainly make a sane argument. “Freedom” isn’t an argument at all.
@Lachie, people can decide what’s in their best interests themselves or be convinced. With just a little bit of trust and a common goal, whole communities of people band together and do things. No coercion necessary. Most individuals in a peaceful country would see the benefit in leaving street signs intact and defending from invasion.
As for taxes, I think a society like the one BD suggests would have just enough taxes for basic necessities like police and firefighters. Businesses would run the other things like welfare programs, roads, and water supply.
Because you use roads, and benefit from a shared military defense, and a few other local services. (The problem is the vast majority of your taxes go to waste and corruption, but that’s another discussion.)
No. You should not commit theft against anyone. Your local government is an organization (“business”) just like your local grocery store.
That’s correct. They shouldn’t. And you’re now “free” to suffer the consequences of doing nothing if your country is invaded. (A society made up of people so selfish and lazy that they are not willing to engage in basic self defense gets what it deserves.)
Completely agree.
Completely agree. This has nothing to do with collectivism or gender differences. In a free society I can ensure a bright future for my kids without interfering with your personal rights.
Not my problem, and not your problem, unless you voluntarily choose to make it your problem. In a free society, you are free to pack your stuff and move to any other country if your country becomes a shitty place to live.
People can’t afford to be as free as anarchists wish (zero government), yes. As free as libertarians wish (very small government), yes they can, especially in smaller countries. But now we’re getting off-topic.
Correct. I’m libertarian, not anarchist. Government is a very good and necessary thing the individual needs…as long as it remains small and local.
I understand where you’re coming from and agree that people should be free to make their own choices, but I think there needs to be some social and cultural cohesion or society will descend into degeneracy and you end up like Sodom and Gomorrah and look how that turned out! Not everyone will fit into sociatal norms, but those people have probably always done what they wished anyway. It’s not like the government can put a policeman in every house.
The Manosphereans are really paleoCons when it comes to politics. And as conservatives I find that their economics is usually wrong. When they say that women entering the work force lowered wages, that is only half right. Yes, nominal wages were lowered but real wages, ie purchasing power, was increased. That’s because lowered wages reduced costs which ultimately increases capital formation – and that is the real wealth of nations. There are similar arguments to made when it comes to the Manoshperean views on immigration. They’re neo-mercantalists basically. And they want protectionism. And they are foolish enough to not realize that there have been free market economists that have been debunking protectionist arguments for over two centuries (Frederick Bastiat was doing it in the 1850s – read his petition against the sun as an example).
I recognize that in our leftist and egalitarian society there is a legitimate war being waged against men and whites. But the Manosphereans and the “neo-reactionaries” want to replace a leftist tyranny with a conservative or reactionary one (even if they wouldn’t phrase it that way).
In the end, I like the mainstream PUAs better than the Manoshpere ones. You get better game knowledge without the misogyny and racism that you do do from the ‘sphere. I read the manospherean guys for entertainment but I would never live my life according to their philosophy.
Jack, whom would you consider as the best mainstream PUAs?
Jack, whom would you consider as the best mainstream PUAs?
Probably RSD, Love Systems and similar outfits. None of those are Manosphere types or peddle the “women are the enemy” philosophy. And none of them are calling for a return to 19th century sexual norms which more than a few ManoSphereans do. Even Roissy himself has sympathies with a traditionalist religious sexual ethics. All the while he is advising men to be total sluts, i.e. “see you poolside”.
You’ll learn more from the free videos put out by RSD than from all the Roosh Vs out there.
@BD,
“In a free society I can ensure a bright future for my kids without interfering with your personal rights.”
Not if people are running that free society into the ground for short term kicks. Not if they vote to stop being free, and to limit your right of exit (i’m in the usa). Right of exit means nothing any more if you’re not rich anyway. Where do you plan to go that’s free? Not much left.
And why do your free people have a sacred right to ruin my living conditions for kicks – their self-perceived interests – but I have no right to limit their kicks in pursuit of my own interests?
No. It’s all just power and self-interest. Your self-interest is no more sacred than mine. I think you use “freedom” as a thought-terminating cliche. The only “moral” argument to be made is about what compromise benefits us all the most, on average. But you can buy votes with the voters’ own money instead, so don’t bother.
In which case they are violating everything I just said in the above article and I would be just as opposed to them as you are. You and I are in complete agreement.
@ Jack:
Thanks!! The litany of PUA, MRA, Manosphere sites etc. is too fucking much sometimes…
Having caught wind of the Roosh pool of writers, I immediately suspected an underlying “Might Is Right” vibe of spite; very small and bitter and very un-libertarian.
On the other hand I very much enjoy BD’s blog and am glad I stumbled on it…always solid, always practical!
What if I want to steal electricity and not pay taxes and not enjoy shared defense? What if I don’t want to contribute to society, because I am amoral or ignorant, and sit there doing meth all day – and what if there are many others like me?
The answer is that YOU will also have to suffer the consequences of MY inaction in literally any event that affects us both, whether it’s a natural disaster or an invasion.
I’m not trying to argue for a bigger government here, but merely to show that you and your neighbour are in the same boat. So it pays dividends to have your neighbour be well educated, healthy, strong and of a similar mindset to yourself.
A focus on freedom is anathema to that; if every person in a society has too much freedom, laziness and lowest common denominator morality will eventually overtake any sort of learning that takes effort, resulting in a sick and stupid society.
I don’t understand how you can espouse freedom and liberty, yet plan to leave America for Asia. Well, actually, I do see how you could have more freedom over there than in the USA. Freedom from ignorance and bad governance. Ironically, I’m pretty sure the Asian nations have worked pretty hard to create a better society to make the freedom you want to enjoy.
Do you see the distance you have to reach in order to make your point? Talking about disasters and invasions? Of course no man is an island. My point is that society always ends up taking care of itself, and for anyone to restrict someone else’s rights (women’s rights or whatever) is a bad thing.
You’re stating wild theory while I look at history. In the freest societies in recent history (the US prior to 1913 and Hong Kong prior to 1990), your scenario didn’t happen. Quite the opposite happened.
Yes. It’s very difficult for some people to understand this, but a self-employed, non-political, white American citizen living in corrupt communist China (for example; I may live in HK or Singapore instead) will experience more freedom and less government interference on a personal level than living in America or Europe. Yes, that sounds insane, but it’s the truth. (That’s how bad things have become in the western world.)
I use the big events like invasions and disasters to make a point, which still stands as you scale down the event to a terrorist attack or a food shortage. A system is only as strong as it is resilient. A well educated and intelligent society is more resilient than one without a society-wide push for education and health and so on. Most people (especially the lower half of the bell curve) have to be forced to put effort into education.
Your idea of a free society is a little skewed. Both HK and the US in the past had strong functioning governments with a focus on education and health and all that jazz. If you want a free society with true Libertarian values, look at Africa today and in the past. Government is so small it frequently fails, few uncorrupt police, and little spent on social services. You are free to raise an army, take land and do whatever you like and become a warlord. That’s at the far end of the freedom scale.
You say that society ends up taking care of itself, but how will it do that without good leadership, people willing to contribute, and a sense of community? Perhaps instead of less government, you could advocate for better government.
@Lachie We’re way off topic now, since I said in the article I’m not going to discuss politics here, so this will be my last comment on this aspect.
No they didn’t. There was no welfare or government healthcare in the US prior to 1913. In HK prior to 1990 there was some, but no where to the degree of the typical big-goverment country.
A free society can do all of these things, usually does, and should. My point is that it shouldn’t be forced to do these things at a point of a gun from people in power freaking out about “what’s good for society”.
There seems to be a confusion between non-contribution and mooching here. If you don’t want to work, I don’t think BD is suggesting you need be forced to or punished for it, you just don’t get handouts. Stealing electricity would be theft, meaning a crime. Thus, that would be punishable. Doing meth all day? Fine, as long as you are using a legitimate means to acquire it, be that buying or making. If someone wants to not contribute, and survive, then they would have to either live as an island, producing their own means, or already have the capital to live off of, meaning, they are retired (even if it is just with money from parents which they, or their ancestors got from working). In other words, there is no way to leech from society without stealing, which would be punishable by the suggested limited government.
All BD didn’t say is this – If someone is too lazy to work for at least their own survival then they can just fucking starve to death. All of which I am inclined to agree with.
The only point where I differ is the matter of women entering the workforce. More workers does not inherently damage the economy. Assuming they are doing actual useful work (and who would employ them otherwise?), then they are adding to the production capacity of the country, which increases supply while keeping demand constant. Thus, costs would decrease with wages. Assuming that they are being employed in jobs they actually do better, on an individual or group basis, then it would actually help the economy as employers select from a pool of more efficient workers, replacing the least productive men and leaving the least productive women unemployed.
The idea that women driving down wages damages the economy only holds true if they are being paid to sit on their ass.
I also had the same thought when I read that argument in Vox Day. I can see how the wages will go down by a high number of women entering the workforce, but I don’t see how it damages the economy. At a family level, it means middle class families now have to sources of income instead of one, which provide a net gain as long as the wages don’t fall bellow half of their original level*. At a macroeconomical level, it stands to reason that more people working (more labor) is better for the economy. It does not makes sense to argue otherwise.
*Off course, one also needs to take into account that a woman working 40+ a week is less likely to have children and/or take care of them properly, so you need to take these costs into account.
BD, let’s say that i am the one that wants the strong central government, that will generally do what i agree with, and be led by the principles i hold. These principles would include EFFECTIVE defense, and EFFECTIVE infrastructure, and EFFECTIVE functioning systems of todays civilization.
Now if half of the houses in a town don’t want to contribute to comunal defense, we than decline them the service of defense. And that would be your logic.
That means that we that do contribute would have much less resources for our defense, and it means very much that that system of the defense will not be as strong as it should be, and well you know the possible – or probable outcome of that.
Now you see, my kids, my wife that i like, my possesions, and the country, as well as my pride are in grave jeopardy of ceassing to be, so to revert such an unwanted situation, i would be more than willing to sacrifice YOUR freedom of doing, since i value my kids and possesion more than your freedom. Heck i even might sacrifice your life(and mine) for these things, not only your freedom.
You own yourself 100% only if you’re able to ensure your indenpandance against everyone and everything around you. And buddy you can never own yourself 100%. You always get hungry don’t you? And you don’t grow food? Well too bad cause that makes you very dependant. You can’t defeat a Chinese army singlehandedly? Too bad… You can’t stop a tornado, well you can’t even make it rain can you? You’re very much weather dependent already… And these are only those most obvious.
Now if you would be stronger than me, and made me powerless in making you do anything, than your will of freedom would be enforced. And if so, i would stick around only if things are going fine, and in the meantime triing to became stronger than you, seeing that your way is leading nowhere, but to misery and ultimately death – or slavery.
Being free is great, but not quite realistic, and everything i care for depends on what i do.
You’ve just described a perfect utopian government the likes of which no human being has ever seen in all of history.
People have been striving for your example of strong, perfectly fair and congruent government for thousands of years, and yet it’s still never happened.
Aren’t you the least bit curious as to why that is?
Close, but not exactly. I do agree with government at a local level. If a small town or neighborhood wants to use government to enforce certain laws only on the people within that town/neighborhood, that’s completely fine, because that’s not “society”. That’s just a small grouping of people. If a citizen in that town/neighborhood hated those laws, he could move to a different town/neighborhood that more accurately reflected his value system.
The problem arises when government is not local…when one wealthy bureaucrat from 2000 miles away says “Everyone, all 100 million people in this vast land, must do THIS! Or go to prison!”
Also it’s quite not true that societies always take care for themselves.
Roman empire did collapse didn’t it?
Old China did too – few times.
How did Rome collapsed? Parts of the country simply decided that they want to be left alone from society, and paid minimal taxes, and avoided them wherever and whenever they could. These were rural estates, whole villages, and urban population too, nobody wanted to go to army no more – everybody wanted to be left alone. government had to come up with different solutions to it’s problems, so they enlisted barbarians to do all that romans refused.
Barbarians being of different mind than libertine, smart Romans, started to chip away the land of the Roman Empire- they were subjects of the empire, but were never manipulated by it, instead they responded to their warlords.
The process that finished up the Rome was fragmentation of the society. Much like it is happening in west. Rome did desintegrate, because of the fragmentation of the society.
And it’s never about the theory of the society in itself, that you claim to always take care of itself, it’s about situation that i’m in at present time. I really don’t care about society much because of society itself, i care about my life space. I want it to be calm, stable, and productive, sustainable and up to my standards of living.
You said society will never vanish, so we don’t have to care about it.
The problem is in fact that when it comes through a crisis shit that it prevents from happening start to happen. In that situation i doesn’t serve it’s purpose, and i don’t care will it survive, or not, will it come in different shape or the same, it doesn’t matter.
Did you ever asked yourself why does it always restores itself?
Well it’s because people get tired of crisis and uncertainity, and that’s when they start to support strong and restrictive authority, i.e. the restoration of the society.
Check Afghanistan before Taliban, and the reasons of their ascendence to power. You can also check unique Somalian example(1991 – 2006) and rise of Islamic Courts Union in.(no not politicizing here, just pointing the historical phenomenons)
Note that most extreme examples have been cited here. Western states have their own record of such tendencies. People are always swinging between freedom and order, too much of each is bad.
“You’ve just described a perfect utopian government the likes of which no human being has ever seen in all of history.”
What?
I didn’t said impeccable. I said sufficient. every second world country has it.
Local pacts that would have encompassed only smaller communities.
These are “societies” just on a smaller scale. That’s actually how states were formed all around the world. Either somebody conquered these smaller comunities and created kingdom, or these smaller comunities united and became kingdoms, which transformed into modern states of today.
But still, we do have such a situation in Africa today. States do exist, but they don’t meddle too much into the affairs of smaller setlements.
Product of that is lawlessnes, and backwardness…
There is no way back. The world is globalizing. Why is EU still together? Because there is no way to be competative with China, Russia, USA alike without mutual cooperation on that scale. Otherwise, EU wouldn’t be anything else but a nice try.
Now it’s clear to everyone, that it’s pure shit when somebody from Washington, or Brussels dictates you shit that you resent. But every other alternative is just too bad.
Maybe fight for greater influence inside these structures, or support some reforms…
well commenting is getting dragged on, i think it would be wise to stop now…
BD,
What would you say to the ‘Sphereans and the conservatives that argue that it was no-fault divorce that has caused such harm to American sexual (marital) dynamics? What I getting at is what would be the libertarian marriage form? Just consensual marriage contracts with the government enforcing the contracts and providing defaults where the contract is uncertain? When the conservatives argue against no-fault divorce what I hear is them arguing against divorce as such.
You’re correct. Conservatives hate no-fault divorce because they (deep down) believe divorce shouldn’t be allowed at all. You get married and dammit, you stay married, because the Bible says so. Or something.
I mention the libertarian view of marriage here when I discussed gay marriage: http://www.blackdragon-blog.com/2011/06/30/gay-marriage/
But yes, it’s exactly what you said, a consensual contract between two people that can say whatever the hell they want, and the government enforces it in the case of civil noncompliance. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for the government to be involved in marriage in a free society. It’s none of their damn business.
Thanks for the link. And I agree. No fault is not the problem. There are 1001 examples of government interference that are destroying the fabric of American Society. When the ManoSphere bitches about no-fault they are just revealing their desire for a trad society. And this from a bunch of pick up artists. I wouldn’t care if they were SoCons blogging on the subject. But these guys are pussy hounds!! The hypocrisy gets me.