No it's not. Atheists can and do get married all the time.

Haplo,

in two ways people do marry, and usually, over here, both are practiced, which means most people here marry twice.

There is the part in the church. It is about the religious meaning of marriage in Christian tradition. The state has nothing to say on that. It gets arranged separately from the other marriage:

which is the one where you meet at the registry office. This is the formally deciding criterion on whether your partnership gets legally recognised by formal bodies and the state regarding changed taxes, names, subsidies you get if you get children. the latter are where the interest of the state (representing the community you live in) lies. this separation is necessary, becasue in a secular state where religion and poltics are kept strictly different, religious formalities cannot be an argument for the state to alter it's administration.

You can do the one, or the other, or both, or none. To claim that marriage is only about relgion, is as flawed a statement like saying atheism is a religion, just without gods, or that when there is no god involved like in buddhism, it is no religion at all. For centuries, marriage in europe served as a contract of sharing the workload in a farmer family, for example, and distributing the different fields of responsibility according to the best needs and potentials of men and women and pregnant women.

What forms the special interest of the state in heterosexual relations creating children, I have explained above, and in the discussions about homosexuality we had two months ago or so. It is the same reason why families (that are legally recognised as such by marrying at the registry office) get special protection and support by the community/the state (tax reliefs, for example, at least that's how it should be by the laws, in practice things are almost the other way around these days, and having a family and children is the unrivalled top risk to become poor in our times).

The faith you represent may claim that ALL the world may have to obey your faith's view on what marriage exclusively should mean, yet it still is just a selfish, biased claim, and it is an extremely egocentric claim of this one religion, like many other religions' claims regarding this and that also are usually extremely egocentric and depending on that only their view of things, and theirs alone, should be seen as valid. These are secular states we live in, we should be thankful for religion being a voluntary choice for us, no mandatory command forced upon us, and whether you like ir or not: you too live in a state where the marriage at the registry office is a legal contract and where the a relgious ceremony on marriage, no matter what relgion it is, legally is something completely different from that.

And that is good that way. It gives us freedoms and civilisational value that separates us from many more barbaric cultures where religion and politics are not kept separate and people are a posession of religion by the mere fact of having been born - which makes them being subjugated to that religion as well, without ever having had the choice.

Your religion is your religion only, and that of people choosing that religion. It is not the standard by which to judge the life of people rejecting that religion, and it is not a basis on which the nation you live in has been founded. So please stop implying that it must be generalised so much until it is mandatory for all others as well, no matter their choice. In other words: your views are your views only, and neither must necessarily be that of others as well, nor must enjoy legal privileges over the others. In fact the first amendement to the US constitution explicitly prohibits that favouring of religion by the state, no matter what tradition.

P.S. One comment on your claim that it is not fair to let singles pay more taxes than couples and families. As I said, the state has an existential interest in that people have kids (a soceity creating no kids will die out within two generations and will stop functioning long time ahead of that end date), and these kids - as a source of future workforce as well as a source of tax income that maintains the community in the future - also deserve special protection in making certain obligations of the parents mandatory, because the kids are weakest and most defenceless part in it all. I am not sure about the American laws, but the German constitution puts families and children explicitly under special protection by the state. I am sure that there is something comparable in the American laws, most western nations have at least equivalents in their regular law codes to what the Germans even put into their constitution.

Now this: the Roman Empire in the final centuries of its existence was pleagued by comparing problems like the West today: amongst which were decreasing population levels. The christian emperor Augustus therefore made a law that made it mandatory for any Roman citizen between the age of 25 and 50 to have at least three children. people were left no choice, becasue else, all their possessions after their death would fall to the state, and they would not be allowed to give away any heritage to other members of their family, or just one or two children without a third ever being born. There was also a penalty tax for couples having no children in effect, for longer time. This law was released by Augustus, and it was valid law in the once Roman dominated parts of europe until the - 7th century (!), even beyond the fall of Rome.

Do you still want to complain about couples/families being priviliged in taxes a very little bit over singles?

Regardless of an athiest's belief, they DO exist within the framework of a religious culture.

For instance, most atheists take off of work on Christmas Day.

Let'S put it that way: we have no other choice. ;) There is no sense in going to your shift at the factory if the gates are closed.

Western countries got formed in their cultural shape and history by their heritage of past times, which includes the positve in Christ's teachings, but also the centuries of tyranny of the church, and also the overcoming of this church tyranny and the creation of the freedoms we have today against the explicit resistance of the church.

To claim that today's Wetsern societiey are "a framework of a relgious culture" is a bit too much though. Becasue we live in secular states with separation of state and church, poltics and religion. You are free to follow the religion of your choice. You are also free to reject it. Usually the states are prohibited to favour this religion over another or over an anti-relgious attitude. To my best knowledge neither Germany nor Britain nor France nor the US are founded on the basis of a religiously defined and formulated self-understanding. In case of Britain I am not totally sure, but I would be surprised to learn anything different.

The issue of religious holidays and whether or not to delete them, is open to debate for me. Cultural tradition and collective habit stand against the secular basic order of Western societies. but who wouldn't miss christmas - if for no other reason than sentimental reasons and childhood memories?

Ok - lets see if we can all get on the same page here...

People are trying to state what marriage is. Ok - lets deal with that question.

Marriage - regardless of secular government or religious input - is at its basis a PRIVATE agreement between 2 individuals.

Now, with that stated, marriage BEGAN as a religiously "blessed" institution. Thus its ROOTS - and its cultural influence, is religious. Marriage in its beginnings, was a RELIGIOUS practice. Government, at times claiming to be theoligically descended or driven, then began to involve itself into the practice in various ways. Today it claims it has a right to be involved through a series of legalities.

It doesn't matter which one - religious or governmental - you pick. Neither has a RIGHT to define or control a PRIVATE agreement between 2 people!
No one said that because marriage is a product of religious culture that athiests can't marry. Nice try twisting the point though. Nor am I stating that any religion have control over marriage. But for all those that want to scream "religion can't have a say in marriage" - why is it ok for the government to do so?

To Skybird - the government has an interest in taxes from future workers, so - for ITS OWN BENEFIT - and not your own - it is going to dictate and control marriage. THANK YOU! You proved my point. Government isn't in the marriage racket for you the governed - its there to get its slice of the pie and look after ITS OWN interests. THEREFORE - it has no RIGHT to be there. If you think it does, maybe there needs to be a government official assigned to every married couple to stand in the bedroom and monitor their intimacy, all in the interest of the government to maximize the number of new tax payers of the future that gets created! Where does the madness end??????????

Its almost like people are willing to just admit that government is some conscious entity that has the ability to control their lives in the obscene, intrusive ways, and when confronted with that obvious picture, shrug and go "its just looking out for itself". It sounds ... parasitic. Government - at least as envisioned by the US Founding Fathers, was designed to be an unobtrusive symbiont. Instead, it has truly become a huge, parasitic beast that is sucking the lifeblood from those it was intended to protect and serve.

As for the religious CEREMONY - it is exactly that - a CEREMONY. It is a celebration of the agreement before God and those who share the same belief system. In fact, I have had a number of theological discussions with others of the cloth in at what point does a "marriage before God" begin. If a person pledges their life and heart to another, does it require some gathering and ceremony to be "real'? If so, then using a protestant Xtian foundation, one could be said to not truly be saved by asking Jesus to forgive you until you had been baptised. After all - the baptism is nothing but a outward SIGN and CEREMONY of the internal pledge. I have yet to have any theologian, including 2 rather well known ones, argue once that point was made. In fact, one told me later that after intense study and prayer, he was reminded that his God cares about the commitments of the heart, and not in the "prayers offered in public".

So speaking "religiously", not only can it NOT dictate the commitments of the heart, but its own ceremony is reduced to nothing more than a public celebration of that which has already occured - the "PRIVATE" agreement between the 2 people involved.

The fact that each religion has its own views on what is or is not a "blessed' marriage is what gives a church or congregation the RIGHT to refuse to marry one couple while choosing to marry another. They - as an independant group, can choose not to accept or recognize a bonding based on their personal religious views. However, there is no real "gain" in a religious wedding except the memories and the congregational acceptance. It holds no benefit other than the celebration itself. So, on questions of an atheist marrying, or a gay couple, etc - they can hold the same celebration with any group they choose, without it requiring a religious aspect. This is WHY religion has no control - because it cannot dictate to anyone who does not choose to be bound by its rules, what they can and cannot do. This is the reason why marriage is not controlled by religion, nor should it ever be. They have no monopoly on it - and that is as it should be.

The government however, having a vested interest supposedly in marriage, thus controls it with "licenses". If a church refuses to marry you because you don't believe like they do, you go to another church. What if the government decides for whatever reason that you shouldn't get married. What are you going to do - go to another government???? Sure, right now its not happening, and thankfully in this instance there is a backlash that will help that from occuring again, but 20 years from now, when DNA prediction and who knows what else may be around, they note that you may have the tendency or risk of creating a child with Down Syndrome, or MS - so in the "interest of society" they bar you from getting married and having children. Is that ok? After all - its in the best interest of "society" - aka government run society, to limit you. I use that as a blown out of proportion example - but history shows that when government gets an inch, it takes a mile.

This idea that government has a right to be a party in a private agreement between 2 people is the whole problem. Maybe you should need a license to go to the grocery store since your "buying" goods is a contract that stipulates that the ownership of said goods has changed hands based upon the payment of a certain amount. Do we need government officials stamping our reciepts next time we go get food from the corner store or when we decide to stop at Mickey D's the next time? Every time you use money, your completing a contractual transaction.

There are really 2 reasons why government is involved in marriage. One is that it tends to end up involved in the dissolution of those same agreements. Yet its involvement at the front end has done nothing, and contributes nothing, to the endings of those marriages that do not survive. So it has no business on the "front end" of marriages.

The idea that a marriage license makes the private agreement "legal" is hilarious. Apparently, someone has never filled out a marriage license. It is basically a listing of the 2 people involved. No details of the marriage other than that. You go in, provide a photo ID, fill out the one page form, sign it, and then you get a "legally authorized" person to sign off that your married. Guess who that is..... A Judge, a JoP, a Civil Magistrate, or a duly ordained Minister. Nothing involved about the "terms of the contract". So without terms, its impossibe for "the government" to decide if the contract was legal. :rotfl2:Also note, this claim that a marriage is not "legal" without a license, totally disregards the REALITY that "common law" marriages exist - despite no license, and no ceremony. One more arguement blown out of the water.

Boy, those one stop, drive through marriage spots in Vegas recognized by the government sure are checking that everything is kosher and fair and equitable in those marriage "contracts" too aren't they?

Want to know the real reason why the government "licenses" marriages? Its simple. By doing so, and by making society THINK that such oversight is required, it can dig into your wallet. Thats right - its all about the $$$$$$$. It always is with the government getting involved where it shouldn't. To fill out that license, and for them to go through the trouble of keeping it on file - they charge you a "nominal" fee.

And for those to state that the religious aspect has nothing to do with the legal status - how come any ordained Minister (definitely not a goverment appointed or elected postion) is authorized to sign the required LEGAL paperwork? Because even the government recognizes the meshing of the religious and social cultures.

Really? prove it.

Yes they do.
If it is a religious agreement between two people then it is defined by the religious authorities , if it is a civil agreement between two people it is defined by the civil authorities.
If the religious or civil aspects of the contract have any overlap then the definition and control of the agreement goes to both the civil and the religious authorities.

Marriage was around long before christianity...

Hate when christians go around thinking that marriage is a christian thing or invention...

Why do you always assume that when I talk about individualism or limiting the state that I'm talking about complete isolation on any scale?
You misunderstand me. I do not claim, nor do I want to be, an island. All I'm saying is that the state need not be present in most people's personal affairs. I interact with dozens of people every day without the state being involved, and through my financial transactions I interact indirectly with thousands of people without needing the state.

No kidding. I'm happy to pay taxes for necessary government services, but not for unneeded or wasteful ones. I'm not a grizzled mountain-man or some extremist survivalist, Sky. I believe we have established before that we both know the state is needed, we just differ on how much of it is needed.

I don't want any of the tax incentives that come with being married or having children. I want taxes to not be so heavy as to discourage people from marrying and having children in the first place. Furthermore, I don't want the state to be involved in marriage at all. There is no reason for it. The only time the state should come into play is when enforcing a contractual default. I don't need the state to tell me who I may or may not marry, nor does anyone.

I spent 8 years in the service and am still in the inactive reserves, ready for when my nation needs me. I've spent my entire adult life (and a good deal of my childhood) participating in a number of charitable endeavors. I know what duty is, and what it is not.

And I have never advocated any of those things. When I talk about the U.S. withdrawing from treaties or foreign nations, or even when I talk about getting the state out of people's lives, I am not advocating total isolationism in any sense; Far from it, I believe people interact better and in a more constructive fashion when state interference is minimal.

I don't know if I simply haven't been clear, or if you're using a straw-man argument when you talk like this, but you should know by now that my position does not, and has never, been about isolating anyone or anything from anything or anyone. I'm a freaking capitalist, Sky! People interacting through mutually beneficial exchange is my bread and butter.

If you continue to misrepresent my arguments by suggesting that I'm a pure isolationist or that I have no sense of communal welfare, I'm going to go back to calling you a socialist:O::DL

Who did?

The government in a democratic state order is expected and demanded to act on behalf of the community that elected it into power.The will of that community is defined oin the basis of majority vote, not lobbyism. Thats the very idea behind democracy, different to tyranny, where the will of the people may or may not be condiered, but is no necessary determinant of the governmental decision. You are right in so far as today governments tend to not fulfill the demand of the people electing them, but act in explicit violation of people's will if it serves the powerinterests of the parties forming the government. That'S - and the enormous influence of lobbies - is the reason why I reject to agree that we are living in truly democratic states in the West, and call our nations in the present de-facto tyrannies/dictatorships. Party- and lobby-oligarchies, that is.

But that is not the idea that positively is the basis of the democratic conception.

So, your criticsm needs to find its real target, and that is not the democratic basic order your nation is founded upon, but is the abuse and the deformation of the intention behind the ideas in the founding documents of the american nation. Neither Germany nor America ever were meant to be ruled by party tyrannies and business lobbies. The ammo chosen for your salvo is correct, but it is misaimed at the wrong. But in principle it is exactly the same criticism I use to make, regarding the difference between the US as it is now and the US as it historically was meant to be. the idea I like very much. the realisation today I must oppose and reject. You are criticising, indirectly, the difference between the original idea, and the actual realisation in modern times as well, like I do. And I also do criticise this difference with regard to ALL other Western nations, including Germany.

I agree. But like I have not a remdy to that vdifferent that violent overthrow, you have not found a remedy, too, because what you describe as answers here and before, not only also in parts in violating the intention of the founding fathers as I understood them, but where you point at no central power at all and claim that everyboy should be left to his own freedoms only, you infact descrobe a pure form of anarchy where everybody is fighting for his own. But democracy - and the US constitutuoin is meant to reflect democratic basic conceptions no matter whether you call the US a demociracy or a republic or both - means to prevent right that, and establish a communal sense for structure that is called a society where members belong together to form one people in one nation. A sense of unity that is fostered and protected and whose structural needs are being taken care of by ean elected central government with the authority to release orders in fulfillment of the voter's will that help to maintain those elements of the communal structure that are necessary to keep it alive and to produce benefits for the individual strong enough that the individual considers the investements it has to contribute to the higher cause as valuable enough to make them.

And what could be mor eimprotant and convicning if protecting th weakest members of the society, children, and to subsidize those social core cells of every society - families - without whom any national order and any future for the national community are completely unthinkable?

You just cannot only claim and demand from the goivernment and the nation. Ypou also have to invest something into it. that means taxes, but it also means to accept that your personal freedom has limits as long as you are not the only man alive on planet earth. Your freedoms end where you start limiting the freedom of others for the sake of increasing your own beyond theirs.

One thing to add here is that in cultures and traditions being polytheistic or atheistic people also know the idea of marrying in a relgious context. Which makes your stameent above not valid for all religion per se, but a description of especially a hristian, church-depending context. not more and not less I mean.

Well, all this does not reduce the validity of my argument, that it is about a well-defined interest of the government - ideally being the legitimiate representation of the community you happen to live in - to secure the communities longterm interst in that the dead people get replaced by new ones. that's the very material, unidealistic idea behind special subsidies for families. You are free to refuse to accept the legitmiation of the goivernment to give oyu a licence which says you may now benefit from tdifferent taxes and forms of support if oyu raise children. But if you do not will to commit yourself to this communal vital interest, you also have no right to benefit from their subsidies.

So, if you do not ant to marry in a registry office, nobody forces you. Why don't you just let it be? And if you want to marry in a religious cermony, you can do it, and if you don'T want, you can let it be as well. What is the problem? You want the benfits of beign accepted as married - but you don't want to make the commitments in return, eh? You want the cake, but you don't want to pay?

As a matter of fact you pay VAT, don't you. the money gets spend to pay the teachers in the school where you send them, and it gets spend for the roads you drive on, and to build that immense aircraft carrier you are so proud of.

do not use any communal assets, neither directly nor indirectly. Then we can talk about you being freed from any obligations you hzave towards the state youmlive in. You will find it impossoble to do so, since you come into contact of tax-payed benefits wherever you go and whatever you do, but if oyu would be successfull and others wpuld be successful in doing like you do - the communal integrity and the structure of your nation would seize to exist. You would be a band of loners instead od being a people, being a nation. the communal identity that made you more than just a wild gang of random contacts, would be gone.

Which makes you easy prey, picked one at a time, and helpless to face the cgallenges of the future that one family, one indoividual alone in no way is capable to effect.

No, it just points at a legal context that includes changes in taxes you have to pay and monetarian benefits you may sign in for, as well as rights oyu are being given in terms of your partner dying, or being so ill that he cannot decide on his own anymore, Also, materiual poessions in case of death of one partner are affected. So, "legal" here is no moral characterisation, but a strictly juristical formality. at least that is the context here. try to

Yes indeed. it'snot different if oyu register a driving license, or a new car (at least in germany). But taxes are a necessity. Else you can forget the concept of a nation and a state. The system has to be financed. And yes, it can be abused. but so far the only alternative I get from you or James or others when they criticise the abuse of the orignal design is: anarchy, total lack of any regulation, survival of the strongest in a jungle where no regulation whatever should take place and the weaker ones just get left behind.

Two things. First, long time ago I had a girl we were very close from the first minute on, and planned for a shared life. You might be surprised but we both had no intention to marry, neither religiously nor formally. We too, like you, thought that neither any church nor the state should have a word in what we planned for a shared life together.

Second, I think democracy, if it should stay transparent, only works in communities that do not exceed a given, relatively small size. If the democratic order should govern communal structures of bigger size, it becomes corrupted and abusive and non-transparent. I therefore figured it to be a form of government on regional level, in a discussions with James. But the need to acchieve a governing beyond the local level does not just disappear, and stays even more prominent if considering thios desaster called globalization and the challenges of climnate change. Isolatinism is not only no option, but also is suicidal for any of the major industrial nations today, including the US which is heavily dependant on globalised flow of goods and ressources and could not survive anymore without it. That is the big illusion of all calling for America becoming isolationist again.

I am not familiar with Ameican habits, but in Germany the stuff signed at the registration office and the papers signed for the church are two different things. In all your interaction with the state regarding taxes and social aid, the papers signed in the registry office are the ones that count. You can get access to changed taxes and social aid for children without having marrie in a church, therefore. On the other hand, if oyu married in a church only, but not signed the papers during the ceremony in the registration office, you find locked doors whehn asking about lower taxes or aid for child raising. as I said, it is kept strictly secular. If your partner falls into a coma and the doctor asks you to decide on his/her behalf (married partners are asked first), you need to be legally married to execute that right, or your oartner must have filled a declaration of patient's will where he names you to act as the deciding person, and it must be witnessed by one or two additional persons. A paper proving your church marriage alone - is not sufficient.

What was this thread about? I think I forgot. :06:

I did not refer to everyday social contacts, but answered to past claims of yours regarding market forces and market regulation, central governments and the ammount of powers you accept them to have, or better: deny to them. The results of these demands I see as isolationism or/and anarchy, depending on the special context of the remarks that triggered my answer.


Yes, thats were we differ. And it seems to me we could hardly differ any more on that tiny little detail. But we probably agree that the reality today - not caring for how system were meant to be - is such that taxes are too much anyway. But for you even that would be too much what I consider to be legitimate and necessary in an ideal world and a perfectly functioning system.

Okay, then don't take them, or give back what they pay to you, give it to a good cause. Nevertheless I repeatedly described a legitimiate and necessary interest of the state/the community to assist in making sure that the population creates enough children so that the survival of the community is secured. That is a very elemental reason.

Well, the demands of what the state should do are excessive. It's spending is due to a.) needs, b.) corruption in the widest meaning and c.) excessive materialistic demands of voters, which also includes a form of corruption again. If you want to lower the taxes that are needed, reduce tax abuse by the big lobbies, and general tax consummation by the people. Both will love you. Take care you don't end up hanging in a tree.

To some degree I agree on excessive tax demands by the state. It happened to have been nicely summarised here this very day:

http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschla...-Umfallen.html

Sorry, German.

stepping back from this thread a bit, and to come to an end of much writing, I kust say I more and more cannot aovid the conclusion anymore that we probbaly have passed the point of "fail safe", and probably are set for a rendezvous with chaos. whereveer i look, finances, economic corruption, extremists marching, ressources conservation, climate change, global population explosion - it all sends me the message of that the time of chnaging things for the better has long sinc epassed, and it all reports me a status that regional civilisations before have experienced too - and they went down the drain.

If at least it would be new mistakes by which we commit slow collective suicide, then we would not know and maybe also could not know. But instead we repeat just old mistakes often made before, and repeat them again and again and again, no matter the growing alarms that flash up. I think that stuopdiity is anchored in characteristics of our genes that deal with survival in ancient times. Our evolution did not free us of them or did not alter them while these ancient times changed. We are still run by that same old software. And maybe that is the reason why we cannot evade our total fall. It's hardwired in us.

Rilder - I never once claimed marriage was a xtian thing. It is one of many formalities ADOPTED by Christianity, but I don't know anyone who is aware of history that would claim it was an invention of Christianity. Marriage was NOT invented by Christianity. It did however take on RELIGIOUS significance early on in the known history of man. I trust you will see the difference between xtianity and religion.

Skybird, we agree more than we disagree. Not sure what "VAT" is, so I can't answer the question you posed. However, the problem I have with your argument is that you stand on the side of "its ok for government to stick its nose in places because it does some good." My view is that the government should be involved in those things where it provides a tangible, directly related benefit to the citizenry through its involvment. For example, the government taxes overseas trade - aka tariffs. It then uses those funds to secure better overseas deals with other countries markets for home produced goods. That is a directly related tax and benefit. But it does nothing for society by charging 50 bucks or whatever it is to give you a form and make you fill it out. There is no benefit for the citizenry, only benefit for the government.

The issue is the role of government. Your more concerned about other things the government does that it has to pay for. Well, we differ there, because my view is that there are few things that the government can do half as good as a private citizen or entity can.

The US Federal government, in my view, has the following roles:

#1 Provide for the common defense - both maintaining a defensive military force sufficient for any need, as well as supporting the citizenry in times of unrest to maintain the civil peace. This means assist when necessary, but not control, local matters such as law enforcement.

#2 Represent the States and the American People via its interaction with other countries. Yes - that thing called diplomacy. (Bet some didn't think I knew that word!) :rotfl2:

#3 Objectively resolve disputes between the States.

#4 Get the hell out of the way on anything else!

This is the CONSTITUTIONAL role of the US Federal Government. We even have discussions like this because it long ago left its intended purpose.

Now this brings into the discussion the role of State government, then local government, etc. But the point is that there comes a time when you must decide if you are ok with the government being in every facet of your existence - or if you see areas where they simply don't belong.

A nation/community/constitution/government has not only the right but the duty for self-preservation, sometimes, as in case of the German constitution for sure, it even gets explicitly fixed in writing. And this thread started just about marriage, and later included the state's special protection and subsidizing for it or not). Both together means I originally only adressed the child-raising and the formal-vs-religious marriage thing. We also touched the issue on secular order in western nations over some claims on the religious role or marriage that you threw in.

There are some differences on these things in Germany and America, but I would expect that by general orientation, it is not that very different in both countries. Both nations are secular. Both states are (formally democratic) republics, with a federal structure. And both nations differ between formal and religious marriage, which effects the legal consequences reslting from both. Both nations grant certain privileges (probably in different forms and to different degrees) to formally married couples and couples with children, because it is in the communal interest to do so.

So, however, the general direction of my argumentation stands, and does so since the debates about homo marriages two or three months ago. Back then I said what I said here again, just for different reasons.

It already was a lot of typing, and i start to mix up things you said and that James said, since both of you produced longer replies as well, and I already have typed several long replies too. I cannot say much more about it, only repeat what I said. So I leave it to this. I already strayed off in my last reply to James, I think.

Interesting
Very interesting.
Why is it that those who like to rail about the sanctity of the constitution and its meaning tend to rewrite the constitution they claim they love so much?

Fundamentally this is where we differ Sky. You combine the following:

nation/community/constitution/government

and I see very distinct differences between each of these. Does a community have a right to self-preservation? Of course. Does a nation? Again, yes.

Both of these ARE people themselves. People have a right to self-preservation.

A constitution is not a living thing. Its words, a document (or group of them). It does not breath, eat, or think. It has no right to self-preservation. It exists ONLY at the will of the people.

The same SHOULD be said for government. Its role is to serve the people, not to live, breath and think for itself. The point I have been trying to make, is that to often, governments around the world (including and being made a pointed example of - the US government) have always tended to grow beyond the will of the people, and instead take on the concern of their own self-preservation.

This is abundantly apparent in the topics in the US today. The country is divided on health care, and how to accomplish it. The US has been divided on the war on terror for a long time. Yet the government pursues whatever the party in power, not what the people want.

Ultimately, some see the government as something that MUST look out for itself. I disagree, and instead look at it this way. If a government truly serves the people, then that people will insure the stability and safety of that government. It is when a government concerns itself more with its own power than it does for those it governs, that it truly puts itself in danger, and no longer enjoys the PROTECTION of that people.