THE HISTORY OF THE MAWWAGE LICENSE

I have my friend's wedding to go to this weekend and everybody knows what that means...OPEN BAR! But before the festivities begin we must endure the nuptials brought to you by your local town government. As we all know it isn't a marriage without the perfect combination of love and state regulation. And just think less than a century ago it was only love...how unromantic.



For most of Western history, marriage was a private contract between two families. Sure sometimes some land or livestock would be worked into the deal, but the government never got involved. Churches would take the word of the couple if they claimed to have exchanged vows, and signatures and blood tests were not required. Even up until the mid-19th century, US state supreme courts routinely ruled that public cohabitation was sufficient evidence of a valid marriage.

But as we entered the 20th century, government began to be more intrusive into our personal lives. They knew what was best for Americans...and since government regulation is nothing but fair and just, they began to exert more control over who was allowed to marry. By the 1920s, 38 states prohibited whites from interracial marriage and twelve states would not issue a marriage license if one partner was a drunk, an addict, had a social disease, or was a "mental defect."

The marriage laws and license requirements of many states originated from the ideas of eugenics. Such ideas had the support of scientists like Linus Pauling, who advocated that people with genetic defects be denied marriage licenses. He even went so far as to recommend that people with sickle cell anemia have their foreheads stamped to identify their condition so that no one would mate with them, thus eradicating the disease. As it became clear that the science of eugenics was highly suspect, often racist, and completely insane, the laws and restrictions were relaxed.

But the damage had been done. Instead of repealing the marriage license law, the government changed the laws purpose and used it to distribute benefits to marriages they deemed worthy. (In our case, these were only marriages between one man and one woman.) Corporations and employers were now able to hide behind these laws and deny health insurance or pension benefits to employees' dependents. Courts and hospitals now required a marriage license before granting couples the privilege of inheriting from each other or receiving medical information, no matter how long the couple had been together. And worst of all, Social Security savings would now disappear into government pockets if there was not a legal surviving spouse to inherit them. Goldie Hawn better hope and pray the money from Sky High will be able to support her when Kurt Russell is gone.



By allowing the state to exercise control over marriage, it is implied that we do not have a right to marry...marriage is only a privilege. And as recently as 2009, the power to license was still being used in attempts to block interracial marriages. Somehow only the government repeatedly gets away with this kind of blatant discrimination, and is never questioned about the laws original intent. Corporations, on the other hand, have begun to allow non-married partners to receive benefits, with proof of a joint bank account and residency. The government is usually decades behind the private sector, still not even allowing openly gay people into the military.

But if consenting adults wish to call themselves married let them, but no one has the right, especially the government, to impose their views onto someone else. We need to promote individualism and freedom. We need to take away the government's power to divide us. But most importantly, we need to make sure that the government upholds and enforces private legal contracts. Contracts granting partners rights that are so easily denied by this law. Non-marital relationship contracts are not limited to two people, and because these contracts are private any number of people can be a party to them, no matter their race, religion or sexual preference.

By only expanding the definition of marriage under government regulation, we are only expanding a broken and unfair welfare system. Government benefits, especially those that involve money, only pits citizens against one another. Government cleverly uses this to keep us divided so we are left in an endless debate over natural rights at the tax payer's expense, instead of debating about sound monetary and foreign policy.

THE FUTURE OF AMERICA: RAT BURGERS

It should be no surprise to anyone that more government regulation has failed once again. Their latest scheme to keep fat people thin by requiring restaurants to post their calorie counts has failed. With thousands of tax dollars spent to put this into effect, new studies point out that this did not change consumers' waist lines at all. But even if it did, is this what we want to spend our money on, social engineering and behavioral changes? That is a little too 1984 for me.

Now I always thought that the government’s primary function was to prevent people from harming each other, whether by force or by fraud. But in the past century, we have been misled to believe that the government’s job is to stop us from making bad decisions, and to demonize anyone that tempts us with anything more than a celery stick. Why take personal responsibility when it is so much easier to point your fat finger?



But the truth is that if a restaurant doesn’t share nutritional information with you, you are not being harmed – you’re just not getting what you want. If you believe you can’t make healthy choices without that information, you are free to take your business elsewhere. The restaurants know this, so it’s in their interest to keep you happy. That’s why nutrition information is easily available online and in pamphlets – because enough customers demanded it, not because politicians did.

Meanwhile, these laws force restaurants to conduct a lot of expensive lab tests on their food to determine all the calorie counts, which in turn drives up prices. The end result, of course, is that not only are your taxes increased but you’ll pay more for your restaurant meals and fat people will still be just as fat.* This of course, like most regulations, hurt the lower and middle class pocketbooks much more than the upper class. But f*ck em, who cares about that 90% of the population...right? The politicians get to feel good about themselves, and that’s all that really matters.

But whether it’s menu labeling, soda taxes, or something as ridiculous as salt shaker bans, regulators seem dead-set on destroying our freedom as consumers. And if America continues down this road and does to the food industry what it did to the tobacco industry, you can find me down in the sewer with Sylvester Stallone and Denis Leary eating a nice juicy rat burger.



GO FIGURE:
You can look up nutrition information for hundreds of restaurants on this web site, which somebody took the time to create without any interference by politicians.

* I think it is important to note that calorie based diets work roughly 1% of the time and usually leads to weight gain. People can watch their calories all they want but what they should strive for is a well balanced nutritional diet. Let's face it, the bigger you are the more calories your body needs for fuel. And for fat people if they are insulin-resistant, meaning their bodies produce a higher level of insulin to keep their blood surgar down, their bodies end up storing calories as fat and not using them as fuel. Cutting back on calories for one meal at McDonald's will only lead you to crash and then binge later on that day...eating just as much if not more calories.

...AND WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH BLACKMAIL?

People have been sleeping with their interns since the creation of the internship position. I actually wouldn't be surprised if internships were in fact created so that bosses could have someone new to sleep with every three to six months. So really when I heard that David Letterman has been giving his own special "Late Night Show" to a couple of his interns I was not really surprised. What I am more bothered by is that Joe Halderman is being charged with blackmail and could face up to 15 years in prison. Say What?

Now I understand that most people automatically conclude that blackmail should be an illegal action. But is there really anything wrong with it? Let's investigate:

Imagine if you are this guy:


and you catch this guy:


playing hide the kielbasa with this:


After taking one of these:

to your eyes, so you never have to see something like that again, you proposition Mr. Letterman and say that you are protected under your 1st Amendment Right to tell the public about his affair.

At this point you have done nothing immoral or illegal, you are simply stating your human rights protected under the Constitution.

Now let's say you request $2 million to keep your mouth shut and forgo your Constitutional right. It is now up to Dave to decide whether if it is worth having the public and his wife know about the affair or just pay you the money.

Blackmail is simply a voluntary exchange of goods. Everyone has the right to tell a secret as long as they have obtained that information legally. Sure they might be seen as a gossip or some creepy old white guy with bad facial hair but nothing is illegal about it. Now on the other hand Dave can go up to Joe and offer him money to not say anything and there is nothing illegal about it.

A CLEVER ANECDOTE:
You have a God given right to sleep and watch TV all day, and I would say most Americans are pretty damn good at it. But when you are offered a job you're employer says: "If you don't exercise your right to be the bum that you are, I will give you x amount of money per year." No harm no foul!

But if Joe initiates it, it becomes blackmail, but really it is only a voluntary exchange where both parties benefit. In this case it wasn't worth the $2mil to Dave so he "topsy turvy-ed that motha f@#ker" and told the world.


(Jump to 1:42 if you want this clip to make any sense)

Back to my point, if there ever really was one. In this scenario David Letterman never faced jail time or any loss to his personal freedoms and liberties. If he did, this of course, would be a forced exchange, and should be illegal. But what is ironic is that the government gets away with this every day, while Joe Halderman faces 15 years for exercising his Constitutional rights.

If the government is good at anything it would be coerced exchanges, where one party benefits and the other does not. Such examples are drafts and taxes, where people are forced into conceding to the government's terms and if they don't face jail time, and loss of their individual freedoms. But I could ramble about this for days, but instead I will leave you with this short lesson on governmental policy:

DON'T STEAL THE GOVERNMENT HATES COMPETITION.

SEAT HOGS

Watch out John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence and that other guy. There is a new vigilante in town...the Seat Hog.



Young people with strong backs and a good set of legs BEWARE! New York City is waging war on people who will not give up their seat to the elderly, pregnant and/or the disabled. Those who decline to give up a seat on request face up to a $50 fine and repeat offenders can face up to 10 days in jail.

Oh great! So now it's illegal to be an @sshole. That's what New York is known for and if they take that away from us, we might as well be one of those filthy Canadians. And if that's not enough they are wasting tax payers money putting up these ridiculous signs as warnings.


The posters also explain that “not all disabilities are visible.” The disabled include people who are legally blind, have congestive heart failure, are being given chemotherapy or have epilepsy. Even someone with a cane is eligible to ask for a priority seat. Similar posters appeared on subways and buses in 1999 and 2004, but didn't mention the legal ramifications.

This is as ridiculous as the Good Samaritan law Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer were arrested for...and we all know how that turned out.



And as a final thought I would love to see any elderly handicapped pregnant person ask the homeless man I saw last night, who was sleeping on the subway with filthy bare feet taking up three seats as he laid face down into the hand rail, for his seat. I think it would be a good fight.

THE SEPARATION OF SPAGHETTI AND STATE

In the beginning there was Kansas, a state that we all know has nothing going for it besides the Wizard of Oz and the occasional tumbleweed. Oh and let's not forget about their religious fanaticism. But in 2005, out of nothingness came the great noodly appendaged god...the Flying Spaghetti Monster.



Now Kansas is one of fifteen privileged states that falls inside the bible belt. So it may not surprise you that in 2005 there were still people fighting for the schools to teach creationism as science. But this was proving to be difficult since the Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that the church and state go together like water and oil. They just don't mix.

But instead of giving up, what the religious PR reps did was repackaged creationism and started selling it as intelligent design, the ASSERTION that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. (I always did find Darwin to be a little bit slow...and Mendel was practically inbred.)

With this new look to creationism the Kansas State Board of Education decided to require the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to biological evolution. I mean who can resist a book with a panda eating bamboo on the cover.



But with the threat of church and state being once again stirred together, Bobby Henderson, a concerned American citizen, rose from ambiguity to reveal to the world that there is another theory that will answer all of our life long questions. The answer was within a box of Ronzoni...it was the FSM.

Since the intelligent design movement used ambiguous references to an unspecified 'Intelligent Designer', this left open the possibility that any imaginable thing could fill that role. And fill that role the FSM did.

Followers of this new religion were Pastafarians. Their saints were pirates, their major holiday is called "Holiday," and their heaven consists of beer volcanoes and a stripper factory. (Hell is similar but the beer is stale and the strippers have STDs) Some might say they are poking fun at Christianity with their "Eight I'd Really Rather You Didn't"s instead of the Ten Commandments and concluding their prayers with "RAmen". But I think it is all just a big coincidence. Either way if I can find room on my calendar for Festivus than I can find room for Holiday.



But I digress I think it is best to let Bobby Henderson tell you what the Flying Spaghetti Monster is all about. In fact you should have read that link instead of wasting your time here. I apologize.