Would I feel differently about 14 year old girls getting married? No, I'd still disapprove.Originally Posted by gimmethesimplelife
On the broader point, about laws being uniform throughout the 50 states, how do you accomplish that? Do you nullify state legislatures and exert federal control throughout the states?
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein
Is this why you are against government involvement in things in general - the fact that it can lead to complications and complexity? (if you want to talk about the tax code, I'll have to agree with too complex and too many complications there).....Rob
No, you mis-understand my belief's. I am not against "government involvement in things in general". There is a proper place for the various levels of government, especially local and state governments, but I do believe the federal government has gotten too ambitious in its desire to involve itself into things it was not intended to do.
I also fear what appears to be an accelerated rush into a pure democracy where a tiny majority can use its influence to oppress the minority, especially now that the federal government has grown large enough and invasive enough to enforce, and even facilitate, that oppression.
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein
So Brown v. Board of Ed and the Rosa Parks decision and the SCOTUS upholding intervening in the Terry Schiavo case -- is that federal overreach or ... ??
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington
It is true that this is not a new idea.
Part of the reason why the Supreme Court hears on these issues is because of this conflict. If it turns out that it is a US issue, not just a state issue, then they will hear the case and make a decision of some sort. If it turns out to not be a US issue, but simply just a state issue, it is sent back to the states' supreme (or superior) court.
For example, it's perfectly fine for Prop 8 to be argued against the CA constitution. But, it conflicts with DOMA and there are those who say that Prop 8 completely messes with the whole interstate thing. Other states want to decide whether or not gay marriage should be legal, not have CA make the law (though VT did it first), and then everyone else must abide because of the US citizenry issue. That's how these things came about.
And so, now it's perfectly right for the supreme court to decide whether or not -- or how -- this functions at a federal level.
I think, too, I read a case about marriage age (14 yr olds, legal consent, etc). Turns out the state can decide when, but once the marriage is valid, it's valid across states, even if the kid couldn't have granted consent in another state. It's shocking how young some states allow marriage (12 or 13, I think?). So, if a 20 yr old marries a 13 yr old -- all consents granted and license granted -- then the other states recognize it. Well, so long as it's heterosexual at this point anyway.
It's an interesting thing, really. And the same issue/argument did come to pass around race issues as well. I haven't looked for the case law, I'm just passing through while taking breaks from immigration paperwork.
SteveinMN good point. My brother lives in Louisiana and the people living there still say we did not need the Feds to force us to integrate our schools. We would have done it eventually. Sure! My brother is from Southern California were schools were never segregated. We went to schools in the Venice area which when we were growing up was a lower middle class area. He hates Louisiana but his wife is from there so they retired there.
My understanding, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, is that the Federal constitution's due process clause, results in every state honoring every other state's marriage laws, even if not legal in that state. So, for instance, if it's legal for a 14 year old to get married in one state that marriage is accepted as a legal marriage in every other state. The prime supreme court case that decided this was Loving v. Virginia, which determined that the Loving's marriage, which happened in DC (and was legal there) was legal in Virginia, despite Virginia's anti-miscegination law. The supreme's decision invalidated a wide variety of anti-miscegination laws around the country and at this point it's commonly accepted that if one is legally married in one state that marriage will be accepted elsewhere, even if it couldn't have happened in the other state.
DOMA was created out of fear that Hawaii was about to legalize gay marriage and many other states at that time were horrified at the thought of having to recognize gay marriages. if it gets overturned it'll likely be a short amount of time (at least in supreme court timeframes...) before it's decided by the supremes that a gay marriage in one state has to be honored by every other state.
The only questions at this point are whether the current supremes will honor the constitution or their personal religious morals, and, if they do strike down DOMA at some point, whether they honor their court's precedents regarding the due process clause as it relates to marriage and the various state laws.
Without discounting anyone's religious or moral imperatives, I always thought the real force behind opposition to same sex marriage (including DOMA) was based on monetary issues.
"Back when I was a young boy all my aunts and uncles would poke me in the ribs at weddings saying your next! Your next! They stopped doing all that crap when I started doing it to them... at funerals!"
From Dollars and Sense.org:
The United States' Social Security system is the most efficiently run insurance program in the world, with overhead of only 0.7% of annual benefits; for every $100 paid into the system, $99.30 is paid out in benefits to retirees.
From Health Affairs.org:
Medicare Has Lower Administrative Costs Than Private Plans.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, administrative costs in Medicare are only about 2 percent of operating expenditures. Defenders of the insurance industry estimate administrative costs as 17 percent of revenue.
Insurance industry-funded studies exclude private plans’ marketing costs and profits from their calculation of administrative costs. Even so, Medicare’s overhead is dramatically lower.
Medicare administrative cost figures include the collection of Medicare taxes, fraud and abuse controls, and building costs.
Medicare would be an even better bargain if it could negotiate drug prices like the VA can.
I'm all for streamlining and consolidating government programs--judiciously--but I don't agree that all federal programs are wasteful or poorly run.
They're not. That's just one of those things people say automatically, and everyone nods in agreement cause, well, everyone says it!
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