A Fascinating Read
The previous post mentions that interracial marriage and the constitutional amendments that were attempted to outlaw interracial marriage were employed well before the civil rights era. The states had long been outlawing interracial marriage, but there were attempts to outlaw these marriages on a national basis too.
Here is an interesting read that covers the whole topic of marriage in the US and how we have been creating and uncreating laws to control marriage since the founding of our country.
On page 630 there is a particularly interesting quote from the California Supreme Court in 1948 when it finally overturned its anti-miscegenation laws in Perez v. Lippold:
Since the essence of the right to marry is freedom to join in marriage with the person of one's choice, a segregation statute for marriage necessarily impairs the right to marry.
Their reasoning was based on the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This is the same amendment that the anti-interracial marriage folks hoped to undo with a new amendment outlawing such marriages.
posted by RedStateExile @ 11:52
30 comments
30 Comments:
A woman civilizes a man through marriage
I have to admit, it's hard to argue with that one - at least while my wife is looking over my shoulder.
Callie!! I think he's crushin on you.
There are more children in the world than there are loving couples to care for them. If same sex couples in a committed, loving relationship can pick up some of the slack, the do us all a favor.
Nope! Happily married. Nope! Happily married. I do think you're cute though.
Me or Callie? :)
I was hoping you and Callie might consider getting hitched so she could civilize you and then you two could reproduce and create a new species
then we could end this cultural civil war and create a sustainable health care delivery system, a sensible energy policy and address the 1/2 dozen or so other major problems the country faces.
By men, I didn't mean the human race in general. I meant males specifically.
Remember my initial premise for the reason the state gives special recognition to the marriage relationship.
1. A mother and a father married to each other have the best chance of raising socially integrated children.
2. A woman civilizes a man through marriage.
No other relationship provides these societal benefits. That is why heterosexual marriage deserves special recognition in the eyes of the law.
It's no different then the government giving you a tax credit if you buy a hybrid car. It doesn't mean they are discriminating against drivers of traditional gasoline automobiles. But they are encouraging specific behaviors that offer the most benefit to the larger society.
Funny, women serve to the benefit of the male species. Okay, I got it. You're not a homophobe, just a sexist pig. You just want women to bow down and serve YOUR needs whether we have a desire to or not. WHATEVER!! That's not even worth discussing anymore.
You continue to contradict yourself anyway. You say we're supposed to serve men, yet you bring in children (that's not MEN per se). Except for the fact that you don't want to be bothered with raising them, you want the woman to do the work.
Then you say women civilize you. I call BULLSHIT on that!!! If that was the case, then why do over 50% of your precious and God-ordained marriages end in divorce? When men start controlling their own bodies, that will be a civilized world! Don't dare lay the blame on women!
Dorsano-
Don't encourage him! I don't think he'd appreciate me taking advantage of him for his money, health care, and non-discriminatory social status while I had my lesbian lover on the side.
Then again, don't think it's never crossed the mind of my partner and I to play the system. We used to joke with a gay guy we know that we could do that (marriages of convenience), but we're too much of upstanding citizens to do that.
We could do the same thing with the welfare system and such. I don't necessarily have to take care of her. She could have kids and let the state take care of them. It's not like they acknowledge me anyway. We'd probably be better off financially than trying to do things the right way.
But no, we're just good decent people trying to take care of each other through the traditional means without being a burden on society and you have these freaks out there trying to screw with you.
SIGH...
I use "you" in the generic sense. It's kind of like not really meaning the human race in general but males specifically. I don't judge anymore than I AM judged.
Since when do I have to play nice when someone keeps telling me I don't serve any benefit to society to men to society to men to society to men...ad nauseum. And they don't know one from the other.
And you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.
An insult to my relationship IS an insult to ME. I take it VERY personally.
Twist it any way you want, but you still haven't gotten it through your thick head that you have been insulting me and my relationship for MANY posts now.
What problems are you having?
Ontario now sells as many vehicles in North America as all the U.S. manufacturers combined. It costs Canadian manufacturers $1,100 on average less to produce an automobile than it does us. Over $8,000 of that is due to health care costs and it's going up at an unsustainable rate.
The high deductible libertarian health care model that your're enrolled in doesn't scale - it didn't in 1930 and won't now. It works for you today because the revenues from Medicare, medicaid, managed care programs and self-insurance pools keep your costs affordable.
You're sort of like the hippies in the 60's who lived off mom and dad's money and thought they had built utopia.
The problem that I have is two fold
(1) I want my employees to go to the doctor when they get sick and come back to work healthy as soon as possible - for that to happen, they need affordable health care.
(2) When anyone in the country can't afford health care - that matters to me, even if it's not me or my kids.
As to energy, oil is a finite resource - costs have only one way to go. It's also a strategic resource that affects every business in the country.
But perhaps you're not interested in the world you leave to your children.
Don't encourage him!
Sorry Callie :)
Callie, we're in trouble now. Jeb Bush is Channeling Chang
“Chang is a mystical warrior. Chang is somebody who believes in conservative principles, believes in entrepreneurial capitalism, believes in moral values that underpin a free society.
“I rely on Chang with great regularity in my public life. He has been by my side and sometimes I let him down. But Chang, this mystical warrior, has never let me down.”
No problem, Dorsano! You know I'm picking. I'm glad you can talk all this health care crap. All I know is that I'm glad my partner has a FT job right now. Domestic partner benefits were costing me an extra $200 a month (and NO, the married people in my office DON'T pay that extra). If she loses her job or we decide to have a kid, it's nice to have (I'm glad it's there), but DAMN it puts us in a financial hole!
You're not sorry. If you really were, you would have just said it and left it at that. Instead, you've got a backhanded way of saying, "Hey, be unAmerican and tell me to stop expressing my opinion."
Look, I grew up in the South and I know slick backtalk coming from a mile away. I wanted SOOO bad to tell you to go away, but knew that being Mr. Rightwing you would wonder what kind of liberal am I to not let you speak your mind. What about free speech?
As I recall, I came back at you and you didn't like it one bit. You got on a little "how dare you..." tirade. Don't come onto my blog and openly insult me and my relationship and NOT expect me to come back at you.
If you are truly sorry, you will begin to show some respect. I'll let you decide what kind of man you will be.
I pay for my own health care and somehow that causes a burden for someone else? Whatever. If everyone did what I did, there wouldn't be a health care problem.
If everyone did what you did, hospitals and clinics would go broke.
First off - we all pay for the health care delivery system whether or not we have coverage - it's passed along in the cost of most things we buy.
I don't know about your situation but you buying a high deductible policy is most likely a smart personal choice given your current alternatives -
but it's not a model that we can all follow without destroying the system.
It costs on average $11,000 per family per year to keep the health care delivery system running - I'm not talking about the cost of a managed care policy -
I'm talking about the expense side of the balance sheet for the entire system.
If everyone did what you did, hospitals would go broke or the cost of your expenses would rise to $11,000/per year (baring no remediation of the ineffeciencies in the system).
The GM's of the world and the publically funded programs are keeping the lights on in your hospital, the clinics staffed, and they are funding the investment in MRI and CAT and other equipment.
I pay for my own health care and somehow that causes a burden for someone else?
The point of my post was to demonstrate that what we now is not sustainable - including your policy.
If everyone did what you did, and we used one "insurance company" and that company was the U.S. Government - we'd have Medicare for everyone,
and you would have a $0 deductible. $1 one coverage (meaning no co-pay), cheaper drugs, long term care,
and premiums likely no higher than what you have now.
And U.S. business would have a more competitive posture in the global market place.
But why should we start paying such high prices before we have to?
I didn't say we should
though your statements are not entirely true. Both TX and MN (interesting combination) are on track to produce 20% of their energy by 2010 - they wouldn't be doing that if it costed them more.
But a sensible energy policy has both a supply side and a demand side component.
The demand for energy will never be reduced (barring a catastrophe of some sort)
but the rate of growth can be slowed with comuter mass transit and conservations measures.
And there should be investements in R&D on strategic, long term sources like fusion.
I'm also not sure that oil or gas is cheaper than nuclear. I don't have a problem with nuclear power plants myself.
Gawd, you LOVE to find things that aren't there!!! Then again, that's the MO for the way you guys think anyway.
I didn't say you personally hated me. I said you insulted me. However, if you infer that insulting and disrespecting someone is consistent with hating them, then you've managed to put yourself on the same level as haters without me doing a thing.
Personally, I don't think many of the people who don't want me to be an equal citizen with them REALLY hate me. I just think they are ignorant and uninformed. They've been blindly led by others and never thought for themselves. I bet many have never met a gay person and REALLY had an honest conversation with them.
For those that aren't outright haters of us, it's either ignorance or if they are educated about it (which I think you are) it's simply disrespect and devaluing other human beings. It's not the same as, but it's not far from hating another person. It's just enough to make you feel like they are not worthy of your status in society. It's one step from making that person inhuman and once they are inhuman they can be easily hated.
That's more of an explanation than you probably deserved, but that's my HONEST POSITION.
Now you know.
Of course, everything is a character attack against poor, pitiful you!!!
I didn't tell you your relationship didn't provide a benefit to society then try to act like that wasn't an insult and that you REALLY respect me and think I have value because I was created in God's image too.
Cut the crap, man!! You're full of it up to your eyeballs!
Yeah, I KNOW we're all created in God's image. It's called being freakin' equal and that's the part you guys just don't get!
Hold your beliefs on the subject all you want. It's just sad that you can't see you openly insulted me. And it's worse that you don't care.
Every time I go to the doctor, I pay for it.
Everytime you take a cab you pay for it. If you take a cab a couple of times, and you're the only customer - the cabbie can't payoff his cab and he or she goes out business. Is that plain enough for you.
Managed care plans charge a premium - $11,000 per year per family on average. That money isn't given back to the family if they don't use $11,000 worth of service.
The GM's of the world are riding in the same cab that you are - they've built your hospital.
People would have no incentive to keep costs down by eliminating non-necessary care and the costs would skyrocket.
No one takes their kids to dentist to have holes drilled in perfectly good teeth. No one has heart replacement surgergy unless they need a new heart. No one has chemothearpy unless the need it.
In fact, too many people in this country don't go to the doctor as often as they should - not for strep, not for broncitis - not even for kidney stones.
The notion that over consumption is what's driving health care costs up is simply not borne out by any studies. That's why managed care doesn't work.
Medicare isn't government care any more than your policy is insurance care. Actually, the managed care plans are more insurance care than health care as HMO doctors have to spend considerable time justifying their diagnostic procedures to the acounting department.
It seems you're not interested in the topic only in repeating rhetoric you've heard someone else say.
I won't waste any more of your time.
I won't waste any more of your time.
Dorsano-
You've given an excellent explanation. I have a better understanding of this matter. Thank you.
I don't think anyone's time is being wasted but our own with pretzeling with this guy over rightwing rhetoric and word games.
No one's advocating free medical care - you are confused or being purposely disagreable.
If everybody consumed medical care at the rate I do, there would be less need for doctors and hospitals.
You're catching on - slowly but surely - drop the "need" and you just repeated what I said in response to your first post.
I know very well there would be less doctors and hospitals. That is because there would be less need for them.
Less need for hospitals - How so? Are people going to start getting sick less often?
My whole point is that in a free market approach to medical care, there would be exactly enough hospitals and doctors to meet demand.
We have "free market" health care now (except for veterans) and I'm not suggesting that we change that.
Going to the doctor and not paying for it and having no deductable on your health care policy sounds an awful lot like free medical care to me.
Medicare is funded through payroll taxes with employers matching contributions. It's not free. Medicare is an insurance company. It negotiates prices with hospitals and doctors just like Walmart negotiates prices with its suppliers.
This situation you described is exactly what I oppose because it doesn't create any incentive to self-ration.
I don't know about you, but my idea of having fun is not spending time in the hospital. I don't need any incentive to "self-ration" and neither does anyone else.
All across America dads and moms are packing their kids in the car for a fun afternoon at the hospital.
"Hey kids, let's go to hospital today!!! Doesn't that sound like fun?"
Yea mommy!!! Can I push the buttons on the elevator myself this time?"
"Daddy, can you read Time magazine again to me? Please?"
As I indicated before, "overcomsuption" is a myth. What in fact happens, is that even people that have full coverage, don't go to the Doctor enough - whether is for a prostate exam, a colonoscopy or to be tested for strep.
Here's a simple math problem.
Let's say an MRI machine costs $10,000,000
Let's say 10,000 people use it.
What's the cost of that machine per patient?
Answer = $1000
Let's say 50,000 people use it.
What's the cost of that machine per patient?
Answer = $200
If the patients have to pay for that machine (which they do - one way or the other)
Which pool of patients gets the better deal?
but we are as a society very quick to look for a medical solution to problems that the body could cure itself with a little time.
That's not true to any significant extent. Studies have shown the exact opposite - people delay going to the doctor until the situation becomes more costly to control.
Insurance companies don't pay for medical treatment their customers don't use just to keep hospitals and doctors afloat.
It sounds like you're unfamilar with Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO's).
We have three models of health care in the country - Medicare, Managed Care (HMO's) and high deductible insurance coverage. This is not counting the (voluntary or involuntary) uninsured.
But someone has to pay for the cost of the doctor filing the insurance papers. Someone has to pay the processor for the insurance company. And the insurance company has to make a profit. By the time it's all said and done, that $65 office visit will cost somewhere around $100. And we pay for it, either in reduced salary or lost opportunity.
or we pay for it in the cost of the goods we purchase -
that's exactly my point. We agree on that.
(the reduced salary is probably not true as the savings are likely to be either passed on the consumer or to shareholders)
The overhead you describe for managed care programs is pretty much right on - I've seen studies ranging from 20% to 40%. And you haven't itemized all the overhead.
The overhead for Medicare is 1% - 3%.
What you don't seem unwilling to factor into your argument is the law of large numbers and risk mitigation.
Here are 30,000 people in TN, GA, MI and other states who won't be buying healthcare and keeping our taxi cab running.
I'm still unclear on what kind of insurance if any you have. If you have to have a $40,000 operation at age 50 to have your prostate removed, are you going to pay for that out of pocket?
If you have insurance now, what do you think will happen to your insurance premiums after you've been diagnosed with prostrate cancer? Will they go up or down?
First of all, we do not have a truly free market system and haven't since the Nixon administration.
That's when managed care came into existence. Paul Ellwood convinced Nixon that "overuse" or "overconsumption" was the cause of rising health care costs in the 1960's and 1970's. Ellwood's lobbying resulted in the 1973 HMO act.
The inefficient model you describe is the managed care model.
My father-in-law gets his medical treatment through the VA system, and he hates it
The VA system is different than Medicare. That's another model actually - probably one that you would call "government care" though I don't know much about that one. But you're not the first person who's told me that.
Medicare coverage is just as bad. The government tells you what treatments will be covered and what won't, where you can go, and how much they will pay.
That's not entirely true.
Medicare coverage allows you to go anywhere you want - the do negotiate prices with providers though just like Walmart negotiates with its providers. I know of very few clinics and hospitals that refuse to negotiate with Medicare.
The government tells you what treatments will be covered and what won't,
That's true - not everything's covered - but most things are - but I agree, it would be nice if we didn't have to supplement Medicare with medigap insurance.
Since you asked, my premiums are different every quarter
It sounds to me like you have a self insurance pool. If the pool is large enough, that is the most cost effective form of health insurance.
Medicare is the largest self insurance pool in existence.
Even if politicians do nothing, self insurance pools like yours will eventually merge with others to create larger pools and more predictable expenses (the law of large numbers) - that's how the free market works
When the regional pools get large enough - they'll have the same efficiencies as Medicare.
You call that efficient
Efficiency refers to the cost of running the program - 1% - 3% in the case of Medicare. Contrast that to the cost of the managed care program that you described above which is anywhere from 20% to 35%.
run a deficit in excess of $6 trillion dollars over the next 75 years.
Medicare is a fee for service program - just like your self insurance pool.
In the case of Medicare Part A (the HI trust fund) it is funded by payroll taxes on earnings (1.45 percent which is matched by employers).
You fund your mini version of a medicare program with out of pocket expenses and your quarterly premiums which vary depending on the costs incurred by the pool.
As of 2005, the HI trust fund has a projected 75-year actuarial deficit equal to 3.09 percent of payroll compared with last year's estimate of 3.12 percent.
That calculation factors in the rising cost of health care -
If Medicare has to pay higher fees to hospitals for service, so will you. Your out of pocket expenses and premiums will increase just like Medicare. They are both fee for service programs.
Your personal version of Medicare is running the same actuarial deficit as the national program (higher actually because your risk pool's smaller)
You just haven't projected your future costs.
You still seem to be caught up with "overconsumption" - that is also called "moral-hazard" in insurance jargon.
You can read about the moral-hazard myth here. and it is a myth when applied to health care no matter how much you might want to believe otherwise.
We don't consume health care in the same way that we consume other consumer goods. Rich people have essentially unlimited acess to health care.
They don't spend their time in the doctor's office - they spend it on the golf course or some place else.
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