Atheist bus campaign

All I'm saying, Inv., is that you are arguing that according the Bill of rights of mankind (or whatever it's called), people should marry as they please:

1) May middle-aged men marry 7-year-old girls?
2) May a woman marry her bathtub?

If the answer is no, then is that not infringing on their freedom?

InvisibleUnicorns wrote: What do governments hope to achieve by institutionalizing marriage?  Depending on your answer to this question, it will change my response to your above point.

Why do I need to answer that question?  You made a claim that by disallowing people of the same sex from marrying, that governing body violates the International Bill of Rights.  I merely pointed out a false assumption in your argument (that additional rights are in fact equal rights, which they are not).

And trust me- I can answer your question.   (I had the same question before I got married almost six years ago, and studied the subject until I had a satisfying answer).  I just won't because I don't see it as having anything to do with what I mentioned.

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: I also like him, he uses logic, but sadly logic is not enough for legal documents, they need a formality.

When it come to the Georgia state legislature formality trumps logic all the time. 

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: I also like him

Thanks.

he uses logic, but sadly logic is not enough for legal documents, they need a formality.   You have to be explicit, otherwise the document is worth nothing, because every nation would be free to analyze the declaration in the way they want.

My argument is that the document does explicitly protect the right to liberty.  What would be a situation where a person's right to liberty is violated according to the document?

Ivan, slavery directly and clearly violates the right to liberty.  It's legality was proof of selective rather than logical interpretation of what the constitution says.

That's not how it works, a contract or a treaty work under the principle of "Pacta Sunt Servanda" (AGREEMENTS must be kept), so despite what yo think is fair or not, the limits are the written words.

All I'm arguing from are the written words, however.  Well, that and what logically follows from them.

One question,..Diid your teacher accepted that you knew the answer or marked your reply as wrong?

I didn't ask, because I accepted that, even though I had known the correct answer, I had gotten it wrong.  I would not expect the teacher to believe me in that situation.

I'm sure he marked it wrong, because the teacher can't guess what's on your mind, equally, you can't enforce something that the law doesn't mention, even if you say I meant X and not Y, if you write "I buy Y house and the other part agrees, you can't go to a court and say i thought X was Y, so give me X."

Right, but what I'm saying is that the writers of the treaty meant X (where X is the non-inclusion of homosexuals) but because they did not specify X, then we must assume Y (where Y is the inclusion of homosexuals in "everybody," since everybody naturally includes homosexuals unless specified otherwise).

I am referring to articles 1 & 3 here, not the article about marriage, just for clarity's sake.


Regarding plural marriages:

The countries that don't allow polygamy are violating the rights of people who want to marry more than one person at a time.

The countries that allow polygamy are violating the rights of women by giving them different liberties regarding marriages than men.

The only solution that wouldn't violate any rights is to allow polygamy for both men and women.

Hope that clears up my stance.


I have indeed mentioned that marriage is a government institution.  My entire argument is that certain definitions of marriage are incompatible with the rights laid out by the treaty.


Also, I am aware that you are defending the legal position only.  While I happen to agree with the position I am defending personally, I am also doing my best to simply argue using only what you've provided, as well as my understanding of what constitutes a right.

Of course, a huge problem with the treaty (maybe the biggest) is that it never defines what exactly a right actually is.

I believe that what I wrote shows where I believe unequal rights come into play:

Marriage can be a government institution because the government wants to promote the family unit.  In that case, maybe we can see why homosexual marriage is banned; after all, homosexuals cannot have children with each other.  However, infertile people are allowed to marry, even though they cannot have children.  And people who decide not to have children (regardless of their fertility) are also allowed to marry.  As such, infertile people and people who don't want children are given access to a service established for other ends, but homosexual people, despite having the same status as childbearers, are not allowed access to that service. As such, infertile people and people who don't want children are afforded a greater degree of liberty in their actions than homosexual people

Yeah, I'm digging myself into a hole here.  Until I know the actual reason(s), I can't really flesh out my position anymore.

Ivan, I feel like we're going to keep going in circles, so I'm not going to get into all your points.  The only one I really want to address is this one:

Wasn't incompatible in 1948, as slavery wasn't incompatible with freedom in 1500.

Slavery is by definition incompatible with freedom.  Society may be able to collectively overlook this, but that is simply a case of society covering their ears and yelling "2+2=5."  Sure, they may all think that, but that doesn't make it true.  You cannot reconcile slavery with freedom without making an illogical jump, just as you cannot get 5 from 2 and 2, no matter how hard you try.


I think our main point of contention is that I believe that the right to liberty encompasses all liberty, even those not explicitly stated, whereas you are saying that, legally, it only encompasses those that are explicitly stated.  I will trust your legal judgment on that.

BaldFriede wrote: Liberty is by nature limited. I think you would agree that it stops as soon as the well-being of others is concerned liberties stop.

Yes, I would agree that your right to liberty ends where another person's rights begin.  That is a logical consequence of everyone having equal rights.

But this is a very tricky subject.

Tell me about it.  I've spent tons of time thinking about it lately and I'm still only scratching the surface of all the issues that arise.

Just a simple example: A man leaves his wife for another one. You might say "why not? it is a free world", but the feelings of the woman are definitely hurt. And take into account that when they got married they signed a kind of treaty. Did he not "covenant to love, honor and cherish her in all circumstances and, forsaking all others, to be faithful to her as long as you both shall live"? So does he have the liberty to do so or not?

Well if you sign a contract, it is morally binding (so long as you agreed to it), so no, he could not just up and leave unless his wife violated the contract in some manner.

As for the feelings of the woman being hurt, all that means is that the man is quite likely a jerk (assuming the woman is "innocent" and did not do anything specific to deserve being left).  And people most certainly do have the liberty to be a jerk unless they have signed a contract in which they agree not to act in jerk-ish manners.

BaldJean wrote: as Friede already mentioned: it is tricky. who decides whether another person's rights of liberty are infringed? one could for example argue that paying low wages infringes the liberty of the people they are payed to. it certainly reduces their options, wouldn't you agree? and it does not help much to tell these people they are "free" to work somewhere else because unfortunately they are not free at all in that regard. if they were they would not have taken the job in the first place. and then an economical expert comes along and tells us that "free enterprise must be protected". what I am saying is that total liberty is impossible. the best we can do is comparing, evaluating and finally judging which of these liberties are more important. but there will never be a clear-cut answer

I would say that's not an infringement of liberty since there's no force invoked.

Consider a parallel situation:

You have 52 people, 26 male (male A to male Z), 26 female (female A to female Z).

Male A and Female A are the most desirable, then Male and Female B, and so on until you have Male and Female Z, who are the least desirable.

Every single Male, from A to Z, would most prefer to marry Female A.  Likewise, every single Female, from A to Z, would most prefer to marry Male A.

As such, Male A and Female A will end up marrying each other.  Thus, Males B-Z will each try to marry Female B, and of course the same applies to the genders reversed, so you get that Male B and Female B each marry, and so on down the line, so you get the following marriages:

MA-FA
MB-FB
MC-FC
etc
etc
MY-FY
MZ-FZ

By the time you get to Male Z and Female Z, they do not have the option of marrying unless they marry each other.  However, it would be ludicrous to suggest that they had their liberty infringed when Male A married Female A (and Male B married Female B, etc).

The right to liberty guarantees you the right to pursue all options available to you*, but it does not guarantee you any specific set of options, and it does not guarantee that you will achieve whatever option you pursue, and there are legitimate ways that options can be removed.  If we're both playing a lottery, and I win, you cannot win, but that does not mean that your right to liberty is reduced.

*"all options available to you" does not include any options that you can only pursue by violating someone else's rights (such as stealing, killing, etc)

Under your example, if the employer is violating the rights of the employee by not paying a living wage, then the employer is also violating the rights of EVERYONE who he is not paying a living wage (and who does not have another means of working for a living wage), which includes people not working for him at all.  Paying somebody X amount to do job Y is legitimate, so long as you are not forcing person X to do that job for that wage.  A violation of rights is requires the initiation of force, and that doesn't happen in the employer situation.

I agree that society needs some way to accommodate the needs of the "casualties" of free enterprise, but the solution is not to restrict the liberty of enterprisers.  Even if that's the most efficient solution, it's not the most moral one.*

*It could be the most moral one, but only if you reject the existence of a right to liberty, which comes with its own set of problems.

Where in my post is anyone not acting of their own, unforced will (I don't want to use the term free will, but that's another debate)?