2012 U.S. Presidential Election

[Roy Karrde]

If that's not a bad sign for the GOP, I don't know what is.

Yeah if Santorum had a chance of wrapping up the nomination, or if abortion was a hot button issue this election. Fact is neither are.

Edit: Looking at the USA Today exit poll Abortion as the top topic garnered only ELEVEN percent of the vote, the Federal Deficit garnered 26% of the vote, and the Economy got 54%. Santorum's voters overwhelmingly came for the abortion, while Romney got the deficit and economy.

[firepokemon]

Damn Ohioans how dare they vote out Denis.

[Dark Sage]

I realize that Santorum will never be nominated. The people of this country want a President, not a would-be priest.

[Roy Karrde]

I realize that Santorum will never be nominated. The people of this country want a President, not a would-be priest.

If you realize that then why are you focusing on a issue that only his supporters seem to care about? And try to play it off as a problem for the GOP as a whole?

[Dark Sage]

Because Roy, all Republicans are pro life. Santorum is just the one that's most vocal about it.

[Roy Karrde]

Because Roy, all Republicans are pro life. Santorum is just the one that's most vocal about it.

A: Not all Republicans are pro life, that is a absurd and sweeping statement that you cannot hope to back up.

B: Even if all Republicans were pro life, that does not mean pro life issues are on the top of their agenda, as the USAToday exit poll shows.

[Dark Sage]

Today is International Women's Day, and House Republicans are marking the occasion by debating a bill that would make it more difficult for young women to seek abortions.

As if that weren't enough, Sen. Roy Blunt (who, in case you forgot, was the one behind the bill that would have overridden Obama's contraception bill) marked the day by asking his Twitter followers to join him in celebrating National Agriculture Day.

"Today is Natl Agriculture Day. Hope you'll join me to recognize the vital benefits agriculture plays in our everyday lives," he tweeted.

A couple of people responded that they would rather he observe International Women's Day.

His preferance does not surprise me at all. The way some members of the GOP are acting, it's like they'd prefer women to be treated the same as livestock.

Did I mention it's getting harder and harder to keep from using profanity when I hear about what these people are doing?

[Roy Karrde]

His preferance does not surprise me at all. The way some members of the GOP are acting, it's like they'd prefer women to be treated the same as livestock.

Is that why Keith Olbermann was forced to go on the air and give a apology to Michelle Malkin and S.E. Cupp, and Obama's Super PAC chief was stumbling over himself to try to explain why Maher and Limbaugh are different? But hey we're not supposed to focus on things as we engage in * Insert what ever group Democrats want to pander to at the moment *

But on more relevant news that actually deals with national problems. The Democrats voted down the Keystone Pipeline, meaning those 45 that voted against it will have to struggle to explain why they voted down thousands if not tens of thousands of more jobs and more oil into the U.S. in a few months.

[Dark Sage]

Maher is a comedian, Roy, and he admits it. Just like Andrew Dice Clay, someone who also used to say very controversial things. And I seem to remember you saying that Limbaugh was an "entertainer". I think they're all jerks, and furthermore, Obama has no control over what the Super PACS do.

Blunt, on the other hand, is a member of the Senate.

Furthermore, the pipeline would have created jobs all right... For people in Canada. It would have created a few temporary jobs here, but little else.

[Roy Karrde]

Maher is a comedian, Roy, and he admits it. Just like Andrew Dice Clay, someone who also used to say very controversial things. And I seem to remember you saying that Limbaugh was an "entertainer". I think they're all jerks, and furthermore, Obama has no control over what the Super PACS do.

A: Maher is a entertainer too

B: It looks hypocritical of the Democratic party to preach about respecting women and then go on a show that bashes them.

C: Obama is allowing White House and Government staff to participate in the Super PAC to help gather donations, if he wanted to send a message that Maher's money is not wanted. He could with hold any of them from participating in the Super PAC until it is given back.

Furthermore, the pipeline would have created jobs all right... For people in Canada. It would have created a few temporary jobs here, but little else.

Umm no, there will be jobs in the refineries as well as in the upkeep of the pipeline. The Canadian jobs will be created no matter what, it just matters who gets the oil, the U.S. or China. Besides last time I checked Obama was all about creating a few temporary jobs, we threw 800 billion down the drain in the hopes of creating temporary jobs, on the other hand this is entirely free.

[Dark Sage]

I see you're not even commenting on Blunt's complete disregard for International Women's Day. Apparently, women's rights rate below produce (and industry) to him.

Edit: By the way, apparently even some Republicans agree that the pipeline was a bad idea, because eleven of them crossed party lines and voted against it.

[Roy Karrde]

I see you're not even commenting on Blunt's complete disregard for International Women's Day. Apparently, women's right rate below produce (and industry) to him.

I don't know or care about Blunt, like I said, I have much bigger things to care about in this country than the petty level of what a Senator did or did not know while tweeting.

Edit: By the way, apparently even some Republicans agree that the pipeline was a bad idea, because eleven of them crossed party lines and voted against it.

Check again it was a Filibuster vote, 56 voted in favor of it, thus below the needed 60. So it was eleven DEMOCRATS that crossed party lines and voted for it. Baucus, Begich, Casey, Conrad, Hagan, Landrieu, Manchin, McCaskill, Pryor, Tester, and Webb.

I guess those eleven Democrats agree that the pipeline is a good idea.

[Dark Sage]

Withdrawn.

However, I don't see how a leaky pipeline that's going to increase our dependence on foreign oil (Canada is not the US) is going to lower gas prices. Canada wants the pipeline built to ship it to everyone, not just us.

Jerks like Gingrich say we should drill more, but he doesn't realize we're drilling more than ever. In fact, oil production in this country is at an all-time high.

The President isn't the one who is causing the gas prices to go up; the oil companies are, oil companies that, not surprisingly, support the GOP pretty much all the time.

The President's solution is to use alternative energy. And when he was confronted about your little theory recently about wanting gasoline prices higher, his response, to paraphrase, was, "Does it make sense in an election year for a sitting President to want gasoline prices to go higher? That would be ridiculous."

And you gotta admit, that does seem pretty logical.

[Roy Karrde]

Withdrawn.

However, I don't see how a leaky pipeline that's going to increase our dependence on foreign oil (Canada is not the US) is going to lower gas prices. Canada wants the pipeline built to ship it to everyone, not just us.

Because it adds oil to the market from a friendly source that isn't looking like it is going to go crazy.

Jerks like Gingrich say we should drill more, but he doesn't realize we're drilling more than ever. In fact, oil production in this country is at an all-time high.

The President isn't the one who is causing the gas prices to go up; the oil companies are, oil companies that, not surprisingly, support the GOP pretty much all the time.

We went over this before, Oil production is high on areas the President is unable to touch, on lands that he is able to touch oil production is low. In fact the only reason oil production is up on those privately held lands is through permits helped and put in place during the Bush Administration.

Here, I will save you the trouble of retreading this argument, read the second half of this page.

http://www.pokemasters.net/forums/sh...=22855&page=16

The President's solution is to use alternative energy. And when he was confronted about your little theory recently about wanting gasoline prices higher, his response, to paraphrase, was, "Does it make sense in an election year for a sitting President to want gasoline prices to go higher? That would be ridiculous."

And you gotta admit, that does seem pretty logical.

Seeing how he has been anti energy for the past 4 years, of course he wants Gas prices to be higher, he just wants them to go up slowly. We have had four years of gradual adjustment, basically meeting the criteria he was hoping for in 2008. He just doesn't like it right now because he cannot use it as a campaign issue to hammer Republicans like he was able to in 2008.

By the way we can go on alternative energy, but right now, at this moment, we run on oil.

[DarkestLight]

Baucus shouldn't count. Montana wants the pipeline :/

[Dark Sage]

Read a funny comic strip today. Ever hear of "Non Sequitor"?

I wouldn't call it technically a political cartoon, but today it had something of that vein:

http://www.arcamax.com/thefunnies/nonsequitur/

[Blademaster]

I had no idea you were in special ed.

It was an expression, and you sidestepped my question. Please answer it.

[Dark Sage]

Not to get this derailed trainwreck any further off-track than it already is, but is that a compliment pertaining to my becoming calmer and less vehement in Misc. the past several months, or an insult along the lines of "You know you're stupid when the special ed kids are making fun of you."?

Fine, Blade, to answer your question, I meant the second one.

And I also think your insults are juvenile and meaningless. After what you've done and said to me in the past, I do not believe you are worth my time.

[Blademaster]

Really now.

Let's just say I was having a bad day, and he wasn't the only person I said things to and now regret. From now on, I hope to discuss things on this forum like a civilized adult, and keep to facts, if I can.

That sure lasted, didn't it?

[Heald]

I have to admit Dark Sage, the high standards you expect of others you don't really seem to apply to yourself. As a mod, can I ask you, and everyone else who is shitting up the thread, to perhaps get a little perspective that you're arguing petty politics on a pokemon forum. It's hardly something to get mad over.

[Dark Sage]

Blade has been insulting me on TPM for years, and has never done anything to make amends. What he happened between us is not so easily mended.

[DarkestLight]

Is not petty politics! Is the Life of AMEWIKA!

[Roy Karrde]

Hey Dark Sage, its polling day, I am surprised you haven't posted them. Could it be that ABC, CBS, Rasmussen, and WaPo all have bad news to Obama. Specifically on Gas Prices and the Economy.

[Dark Sage]

My physician wants me to have weight loss surgery, Roy, and I got into an argument with him about it. It's been a miserable day, and I've had way too much on my mind to worry about politics.

This may be a good time to mention, the Affordable Health Care Act would be a big help if something ever happened to my dad and I couldn't count on his veteran's insurance.

[Roy Karrde]

My physician wants me to have weight loss surgery, Roy, and I got into an argument with him about it. It's been a miserable day, and I've had way too much on my mind to worry about politics.

I am so sorry to hear that man, are you okay? I know with myself when I stopped drinking Soda's three times a day my weight dropped.

This may be a good time to mention, the Affordable Health Care Act would be a big help if something ever happened to my dad and I couldn't count on his veteran's insurance.

I am sure it would, but I don't want our hearts to eat our brains when it comes to the dangers that the Affordable Health Care Act inflicts upon the American People.

[Dark Sage]

I've been on a diet since August, Roy. Back then, I weighed 350 pounds.

Since then, I've managed to bring it down to 283, but the doctor says that the ideal weight for someone my age and height is 160.

I'm very nervous about any kind of surgery, and I don't like the idea of weight loss medication, the other option he's giving me. I'm on enough pills as it is.

But thanks for your concern.

[Roy Karrde]

I've been on a diet since August, Roy. Back then, I weighed 350 pounds.

Since then, I've managed to bring it down to 283, but the doctor says that the ideal weight for someone my age and height is 160.

I'm very nervous about any kind of surgery, and I don't like the idea of weight loss medication, the other option he's giving me. I'm on enough pills as it is.

But thanks for your concern.

Hey I went through alot of fear with my wisdom teeth I have no idea what you are going through.

We may have alot of ideological differences but I do consider you talented and a great person with alot of spirit. Please keep me updated at how it goes.

Besides we have a mutual love for Yu Gi Oh 5Ds

[Dark Sage]

Lol. I'm kinda on Zexal now. But yeah...

[Magmar]

Dropping 70 pounds is an incredible achievement, regardless of your current weight :-) Keep it up!!!!

Anyways, can we all please agree that who we need in the white house come 2012 is someone thats progressive? I always gravitate towards the person whose goals involve. making things better and easier for the American people. Thus far, our president has been that person. When all Americans have equality under the law, then I might consider leaning further right. Until then, I want to live my one life as a happy one full of expression. This means the right to marry another man and have equal rights and protections under the law. We don't live in the stone age, people. Let's remember that and stop trying to conserve traditions aka maintain social inequality and privilege for white men. If it weren't for wage differentials, etc. Then the whole social justice thing wouldn't be an issue. Whoever tries to limit women's rights to choice will not get my vote. If you don't like equality, move somewhere else. America is meant to be equal and free.

Sorry for the typos. I'm typing on a tablet at a cafe, which can be a recipe for punctuation disasters.

[Roy Karrde]

Dropping 70 pounds is an incredible achievement, regardless of your current weight :-) Keep it up!!!!

Anyways, can we all please agree that who we need in the white house come 2012 is someone thats progressive? I always gravitate towards the person whose goals involve. making things better and easier for the American people. Thus far, our president has been that person. When all Americans have equality under the law, then I might consider leaning further right. Until then, I want to live my one life as a happy one full of expression. This means the right to marry another man and have equal rights and protections under the law. We don't live in the stone age, people. Let's remember that and stop trying to conserve traditions aka maintain social inequality and privilege for white men. If it weren't for wage differentials, etc. Then the whole social justice thing wouldn't be an issue. Whoever tries to limit women's rights to choice will not get my vote. If you don't like equality, move somewhere else. America is meant to be equal and free.

Sorry for the typos. I'm typing on a tablet at a cafe, which can be a recipe for punctuation disasters.

Personally I would rather have a President who wouldn't give a flying fuck about social issues. We have Iran about to explode, we have massive debt, and we have a economy that is stuck in a malaze with unemployment over 8 percent and high gas prices. Lets deal with problems that threaten the livelihood of the nation and all the American people, and then we can have a discussion on ancillary issues like Gay Marriage and Social Equality.

We really have bigger issues facing this country than who can marry what.

[kurai]

what if these notions were somehow connected

In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.

In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production. No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society.

Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation. In broad outline, the Asiatic, ancient, feudal and modern bourgeois modes of production may be designated as epochs marking progress in the economic development of society. The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production – antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism but of an antagonism that emanates from the individuals' social conditions of existence – but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism. The prehistory of human society accordingly closes with this social formation.

[Roy Karrde]

what if these notions were somehow connected

Because when it comes to the amount of political capital that is needed to be spent to implement the reforms, it practically pushes all other issues aside. As we saw with the Obamacare fight, a protracted battle on non important social/domestic issues that does not deal with the fundamental problems the country is facing. It can eat up every ounce of political capital a party and President can have and shove every other issue off to the side.

I don't mind Gay's marrying but if it is going to be taken up by Congress and not by each state, the most opportune time to do it would have been back in 1997 when the most important issue we had facing us was Y2K and what to do with the surplus.

[Dark Sage]

Well, Roy, it seems that the GOP field, Santorum in particular, are far more concerned with social issues.

All of them have signed that dumb pact swearing they will support a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and only the most naive politician (like possibly Bachmann) believes that it's possible.

And i agree with you. If they continue to focus on social issues instead of unemployment and the economy, President Obama may as well start writing his acceptance speech for next January.

[Roy Karrde]

Well, Roy, it seems that the GOP field, Santorum in particular, are far more concerned with social issues.

Yeah which is why I am really not a big fan of Santorum, I already sat through 8 years of Compassionate Conservatism under Bush. I am not ready for another 8 years ( Even if he doesn't win re-election ) while the GOP's best and brightest sits on the bench and gets older.

[kurai]

what you are saying is not an argument against the connection between "non important social issues" and "fundamental [economic] problems"

it is an argument against the 'solution' you have been given (in the formal sphere of representative politics), but taken no farther than that

so let's try again

The first class opposition that appears in history coincides with the development of the antagonism between man and woman in monogamous marriage, and the first class oppression coincides with that of the female sex by the male. Monogamous marriage was a great historical step forward; nevertheless, together with slavery and private wealth, it opens the period that has lasted until today in which every step forward is also relatively a step backward, in which prosperity and development for some is won through the misery and frustration of others. It is the cellular form of civilized society, in which the nature of the oppositions and contradictions fully active in that society can be already studied.

The old comparative freedom of sexual intercourse by no means disappeared with the victory of pairing marriage or even of monogamous marriage:

"The old conjugal system, now reduced to narrower limits by the gradual disappearance of the punaluan groups, still environed the advancing family, which it was to follow to the verge of civilization.... It finally disappeared in the new form of hetaerism, which still follows mankind in civilization as a dark shadow upon the family."

By “hetaerism” Morgan understands the practice, co-existent with monogamous marriage, of sexual intercourse between men and unmarried women outside marriage, which, as we know, flourishes in the most varied forms throughout the whole period of civilization and develops more and more into open prostitution. This hetaerism derives quite directly from group marriage, from the ceremonial surrender by which women purchased the right of chastity. Surrender for money was at first a religious act; it took place in the temple of the goddess of love, and the money originally went into the temple treasury. The temple slaves of Anaitis in Armenia and of Aphrodite in Corinth, like the sacred dancing-girls attached to the temples of India, the so-called bayaderes (the word is a corruption of the Portuguese word bailadeira, meaning female dancer), were the first prostitutes. Originally the duty of every woman, this surrender was later performed by these priestesses alone as representatives of all other women. Among other peoples, hetaerism derives from the sexual freedom allowed to girls before marriage – again, therefore, a relic of group marriage, but handed down in a different way. With the rise of the inequality of property – already at the upper stage of barbarism, therefore – wage-labor appears sporadically side by side with slave labor, and at the same time, as its necessary correlate, the professional prostitution of free women side by side with the forced surrender of the slave. Thus the heritage which group marriage has bequeathed to civilization is double-edged, just as everything civilization brings forth is double-edged, double-tongued, divided against itself, contradictory: here monogamy, there hetaerism, with its most extreme form, prostitution. For hetaerism is as much a social institution as any other; it continues the old sexual freedom – to the advantage of the men. Actually not merely tolerated, but gaily practiced, by the ruling classes particularly, it is condemned in words. But in reality this condemnation never falls on the men concerned, but only on the women; they are despised and outcast, in order that the unconditional supremacy of men over the female sex may be once more proclaimed as a fundamental law of society.

But a second contradiction thus develops within monogamous marriage itself. At the side of the husband who embellishes his existence with hetaerism stands the neglected wife. And one cannot have one side of this contradiction without the other, any more than a man has a whole apple in his hand after eating half. But that seems to have been the husbands’ notion, until their wives taught them better. With monogamous marriage, two constant social types, unknown hitherto, make their appearance on the scene – the wife’s attendant lover and the cuckold husband. The husbands had won the victory over the wives, but the vanquished magnanimously provided the crown. Together with monogamous marriage and hetaerism, adultery became an unavoidable social institution – denounced, severely penalized, but impossible to suppress. At best, the certain paternity of the children rested on moral conviction as before, and to solve the insoluble contradiction the Code Napoleon, Art- 312, decreed: “L’enfant confu pendant le marriage a pour pere le mari,” the father of a child conceived during marriage is the husband. Such is the final result of three thousand years of monogamous marriage.

Thus, wherever the monogamous family remains true to its historical origin and clearly reveals the antagonism between the man and the woman expressed in the man’s exclusive supremacy, it exhibits in miniature the same oppositions and contradictions as those in which society has been moving, without power to resolve or overcome them, ever since it split into classes at the beginning of civilization. I am speaking here, of course, only of those cases of monogamous marriage where matrimonial life actually proceeds according to the original character of the whole institution, but where the wife rebels against the husband’s supremacy. Not all marriages turn out thus, as nobody knows better than the German philistine, who can no more assert his rule in the home than he can in the state, and whose wife, with every right, wears the trousers he is unworthy of. But, to make up for it, he considers himself far above his French companion in misfortune, to whom, oftener than to him, something much worse happens.

...

Nowadays there are two ways of concluding a bourgeois marriage. In Catholic countries the parents, as before, procure a suitable wife for their young bourgeois son, and the consequence is, of course, the fullest development of the contradiction inherent in monogamy: the husband abandons himself to hetaerism and the wife to adultery. Probably the only reason why the Catholic Church abolished divorce was because it had convinced itself that there is no more a cure for adultery than there is for death. In Protestant countries, on the other hand, the rule is that the son of a bourgeois family is allowed to choose a wife from his own class with more or less freedom; hence there may be a certain element of love in the marriage, as, indeed, in accordance with Protestant hypocrisy, is always assumed, for decency’s sake. Here the husband’s hetaerism is a more sleepy kind of business, and adultery by the wife is less the rule. But since, in every kind of marriage, people remain what they were before, and since the bourgeois of Protestant countries are mostly philistines, all that this Protestant monogamy achieves, taking the average of the best cases, is a conjugal partnership of leaden boredom, known as “domestic bliss”. The best mirror of these two methods of marrying is the novel - the French novel for the Catholic manner, the German for the Protestant. In both, the hero “gets” them: in the German, the young man gets the girl; in the French, the husband gets the horns. Which of them is worse off is sometimes questionable. This is why the French bourgeois is as much horrified by the dullness of the German novel as the German philistine is by the “immorality” of the French. However, now that “Berlin is a world capital,” the German novel is beginning with a little less timidity to use as part of its regular stock-in-trade the hetaerism and adultery long familiar to that town.

In both cases, however, the marriage is conditioned by the class position of the parties and is to that extent always a marriage of convenience. In both cases this marriage of convenience turns often enough into crassest prostitution - sometimes of both partners, but far more commonly of the woman, who only differs from the ordinary courtesan in that she does not let out her body on piece-work as a wage-worker, but sells it once and for all into slavery. And of all marriages of convenience Fourier’s words hold true: “As in grammar two negatives make an affirmative, so in matrimonial morality two prostitutions pass for a virtue.” [Charles Fourier, Theorie de l’Uniti Universelle. Paris, 1841-45, Vol. III, p. 120. – Ed.] Sex-love in the relationship with a woman becomes, and can only become, the real rule among the oppressed classes, which means today among the proletariat - whether this relation is officially sanctioned or not. But here all the foundations of typical monogamy are cleared away. Here there is no property, for the preservation and inheritance of which monogamy and male supremacy were established; hence there is no incentive to make this male supremacy effective. What is more, there are no means of making it so. Bourgeois law, which protects this supremacy, exists only for the possessing class and their dealings with the proletarians. The law costs money and, on account of the worker’s poverty, it has no validity for his relation to his wife. Here quite other personal and social conditions decide. And now that large-scale industry has taken the wife out of the home onto the labor market and into the factory, and made her often the bread-winner of the family, no basis for any kind of male supremacy is left in the proletarian household – except, perhaps, for something of the brutality towards women that has spread since the introduction of monogamy. The proletarian family is therefore no longer monogamous in the strict sense, even where there is passionate love and firmest loyalty on both sides, and maybe all the blessings of religious and civil authority. Here, therefore, the eternal attendants of monogamy, hetaerism and adultery, play only an almost vanishing part. The wife has in fact regained the right to dissolve the marriage, and if two people cannot get on with one another, they prefer to separate. In short, proletarian marriage is monogamous in the etymological sense of the word, but not at all in its historical sense.

Our jurists, of course, find that progress in legislation is leaving women with no further ground of complaint. Modern civilized systems of law increasingly acknowledge, first, that for a marriage to be legal, it must be a contract freely entered into by both partners, and, secondly, that also in the married state both partners must stand on a common footing of equal rights and duties. If both these demands are consistently carried out, say the jurists, women have all they can ask.

This typically legalist method of argument is exactly the same as that which the radical republican bourgeois uses to put the proletarian in his place. The labor contract is to be freely entered into by both partners. But it is considered to have been freely entered into as soon as the law makes both parties equal on paper. The power conferred on the one party by the difference of class position, the pressure thereby brought to bear on the other party – the real economic position of both – that is not the law’s business. Again, for the duration of the labor contract both parties are to have equal rights, in so far as one or the other does not expressly surrender them. That economic relations compel the worker to surrender even the last semblance of equal rights – here again, that is no concern of the law.

In regard to marriage, the law, even the most advanced, is fully satisfied as soon as the partners have formally recorded that they are entering into the marriage of their own free consent. What goes on in real life behind the juridical scenes, how this free consent comes about – that is not the business of the law and the jurist. And yet the most elementary comparative jurisprudence should show the jurist what this free consent really amounts to. In the countries where an obligatory share of the paternal inheritance is secured to the children by law and they cannot therefore be disinherited – in Germany, in the countries with French law and elsewhere – the children are obliged to obtain their parents’ consent to their marriage. In the countries with English law, where parental consent to a marriage is not legally required, the parents on their side have full freedom in the testamentary disposal of their property and can disinherit their children at their pleasure. It is obvious that, in spite and precisely because of this fact, freedom of marriage among the classes with something to inherit is in reality not a whit greater in England and America than it is in France and Germany.


As regards the legal equality of husband and wife in marriage, the position is no better. The legal inequality of the two partners, bequeathed to us from earlier social conditions, is not the cause but the effect of the economic oppression of the woman. In the old communistic household, which comprised many couples and their children, the task entrusted to the women of managing the household was as much a public and socially necessary industry as the procuring of food by the men. With the patriarchal family, and still more with the single monogamous family, a change came. Household management lost its public character. It no longer concerned society. It became a private service; the wife became the head servant, excluded from all participation in social production. Not until the coming of modern large-scale industry was the road to social production opened to her again – and then only to the proletarian wife. But it was opened in such a manner that, if she carries out her duties in the private service of her family, she remains excluded from public production and unable to earn; and if she wants to take part in public production and earn independently, she cannot carry out family duties. And the wife’s position in the factory is the position of women in all branches of business, right up to medicine and the law. The modern individual family is founded on the open or concealed domestic slavery of the wife, and modern society is a mass composed of these individual families as its molecules.

In the great majority of cases today, at least in the possessing classes, the husband is obliged to earn a living and support his family, and that in itself gives him a position of supremacy, without any need for special legal titles and privileges. Within the family he is the bourgeois and the wife represents the proletariat. In the industrial world, the specific character of the economic oppression burdening the proletariat is visible in all its sharpness only when all special legal privileges of the capitalist class have been abolished and complete legal equality of both classes established. The democratic republic does not do away with the opposition of the two classes; on the contrary, it provides the clear field on which the fight can be fought out. And in the same way, the peculiar character of the supremacy of the husband over the wife in the modern family, the necessity of creating real social equality between them, and the way to do it, will only be seen in the clear light of day when both possess legally complete equality of rights. Then it will be plain that the first condition for the liberation of the wife is to bring the whole female sex back into public industry, and that this in turn demands the abolition of the monogamous family as the economic unit of society.

...

But what will quite certainly disappear from monogamy are all the features stamped upon it through its origin in property relations; these are, in the first place, supremacy of the man, and, secondly, indissolubility. The supremacy of the man in marriage is the simple consequence of his economic supremacy, and with the abolition of the latter will disappear of itself. The indissolubility of marriage is partly a consequence of the economic situation in which monogamy arose, partly tradition from the period when the connection between this economic situation and monogamy was not yet fully understood and was carried to extremes under a religious form. Today it is already broken through at a thousand points. If only the marriage based on love is moral, then also only the marriage in which love continues. But the intense emotion of individual sex-love varies very much in duration from one individual to another, especially among men, and if affection definitely comes to an end or is supplanted by a new passionate love, separation is a benefit for both partners as well as for society – only people will then be spared having to wade through the useless mire of a divorce case.

What we can now conjecture about the way in which sexual relations will be ordered after the impending overthrow of capitalist production is mainly of a negative character, limited for the most part to what will disappear. But what will there be new? That will be answered when a new generation has grown up: a generation of men who never in their lives have known what it is to buy a woman’s surrender with money or any other social instrument of power; a generation of women who have never known what it is to give themselves to a man from any other considerations than real love, or to refuse to give themselves to their lover from fear of the economic consequences.

...

The state is therefore by no means a power imposed on society from without; just as little is it “the reality of the moral idea,” “the image and the reality of reason,” as Hegel maintains. Rather, it is a product of society at a particular stage of development; it is the admission that this society has involved itself in insoluble self-contradiction and is cleft into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to exorcise. But in order that these antagonisms, classes with conflicting economic interests, shall not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, a power, apparently standing above society, has become necessary to moderate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of “order”; and this power, arisen out of society, but placing itself above it and increasingly alienating itself from it, is the state.

In contrast to the old gentile organization, the state is distinguished firstly by the grouping of its members on a territorial basis. The old gentile bodies, formed and held together by ties of blood, had, as we have seen, become inadequate largely because they presupposed that the gentile members were bound to one particular locality, whereas this had long ago ceased to be the case. The territory was still there, but the people had become mobile. The territorial division was therefore taken as the starting point and the system introduced by which citizens exercised their public rights and duties where they took up residence, without regard to gens or tribe. This organization of the citizens of the state according to domicile is common to all states. To us, therefore, this organization seems natural; but, as we have seen, hard and protracted struggles were necessary before it was able in Athens and Rome to displace the old organization founded on kinship.

The second distinguishing characteristic is the institution of a public force which is no longer immediately identical with the people’s own organization of themselves as an armed power. This special public force is needed because a self-acting armed organization of the people has become impossible since their cleavage into classes. The slaves also belong to the population: as against the 365,000 slaves, the 90,000 Athenian citizens constitute only a privileged class. The people’s army of the Athenian democracy confronted the slaves as an aristocratic public force, and kept them in check; but to keep the citizens in check as well, a police-force was needed, as described above. This public force exists in every state; it consists not merely of armed men, but also of material appendages, prisons and coercive institutions of all kinds, of which gentile society knew nothing. It may be very insignificant, practically negligible, in societies with still undeveloped class antagonisms and living in remote areas, as at times and in places in the United States of America. But it becomes stronger in proportion as the class antagonisms within the state become sharper and as adjoining states grow larger and more populous. It is enough to look at Europe today, where class struggle and rivalry in conquest have brought the public power to a pitch that it threatens to devour the whole of society and even the state itself.

In order to maintain this public power, contributions from the state citizens are necessary – taxes. These were completely unknown to gentile society. We know more than enough about them today. With advancing civilization, even taxes are not sufficient; the state draws drafts on the future, contracts loans, state debts. Our old Europe can tell a tale about these, too.

In possession of the public power and the right of taxation, the officials now present themselves as organs of society standing above society. The free, willing respect accorded to the organs of the gentile constitution is not enough for them, even if they could have it. Representatives of a power which estranges them from society, they have to be given prestige by means of special decrees, which invest them with a peculiar sanctity and inviolability. The lowest police officer of the civilized state has more “authority” than all the organs of gentile society put together; but the mightiest prince and the greatest statesman or general of civilization might envy the humblest of the gentile chiefs the unforced and unquestioned respect accorded to him. For the one stands in the midst of society; the other is forced to pose as something outside and above it.

As the state arose from the need to keep class antagonisms in check, but also arose in the thick of the fight between the classes, it is normally the state of the most powerful, economically ruling class, which by its means becomes also the politically ruling class, and so acquires new means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed class. The ancient state was, above all, the state of the slave-owners for holding down the slaves, just as the feudal state was the organ of the nobility for holding down the peasant serfs and bondsmen, and the modern representative state is the instrument for exploiting wage-labor by capital.

...

Since civilization is founded on the exploitation of one class by another class, its whole development proceeds in a constant contradiction. Every step forward in production is at the same time a step backwards in the position of the oppressed class, that is, of the great majority. Whatever benefits some necessarily injures the others; every fresh emancipation of one class is necessarily a new oppression for another class. The most striking proof of this is provided by the introduction of machinery, the effects of which are now known to the whole world. And if among the barbarians, as we saw, the distinction between rights and duties could hardly be drawn, civilization makes the difference and antagonism between them clear even to the dullest intelligence by giving one class practically all the rights and the other class practically all the duties.

But that should not be: what is good for the ruling class must also be good for the whole of society, with which the ruling-class identifies itself. Therefore the more civilization advances, the more it is compelled to cover the evils it necessarily creates with the cloak of love and charity, to palliate them or to deny them–in short, to introduce a conventional hypocrisy which was unknown to earlier forms of society and even to the first stages of civilization, and which culminates in the pronouncement: the exploitation of the oppressed class is carried on by the exploiting class simply and solely in the interests of the exploited class itself; and if the exploited class cannot see it and even grows rebellious, that is the basest ingratitude to its benefactors, the exploiters.

[Dark Sage]

And if he wins the nomination? It's not impossible if there's a contested Convention. Would you put your support behind him?

[Roy Karrde]

what you are saying is not an argument against the connection between "non important social issues" and "fundamental [economic] problems"

it is an argument against the 'solution' you have been given (in the formal sphere of representative politics), but taken no farther than that

so let's try again

My argument is that to push non important social issues the President has to expend Political Capital that can be better spent elsewhere which was the crux of my argument. Right now we have more important issues facing the country that needs to be addressed. If you cannot understand it then there is nothing more to say, and I would suggest you get out of any political discussion.

And if he wins the nomination? It's not impossible if there's a contested Convention. Would you put your support behind him?

I probably wouldn't vote for either, unless something drastic happens ( Like the financial collapse in 2008 )

[kurai]

hmm, you seem to still misunderstand

the essential point being made above is that social and political equality (or hierarchy) are contingent on (and reciprocal to) the economic content of a given society
(it's a pretty standard premise for political economy)

so anyway there are no "non important issues" with regard to equality and justice and the progressive development towards the true actualization of humanity
(why would you even suggest this?)

consequent to the base-superstructure relationship, no president (or legislature) is able to solve the ultimate problem of privilege through the use of "political capital" (for that is a privileged status in itself). such a notion is just ridiculous, childish, and ultimately non-political - merely reactionary garbage, reliant on continuing the trend of service to one's appointed lords with the expectation of salvation from above. progress, on the other hand, must be wed to radical and revolutionary praxis.
(why conduct political discussion if you do not know the barest essence of politics?)

[Roy Karrde]

hmm, you seem to still misunderstand

the essential point being made above is that social and political equality (or hierarchy) are contingent on (and reciprocal to) the economic content of a given society
(it's a pretty standard premise for political economy)

so anyway there are no "non important issues" with regard to equality and justice and the progressive development towards the true actualization of humanity
(why would you even suggest this?)

consequent to the base-superstructure relationship, no president (or legislature) is able to solve the ultimate problem of privilege through the use of "political capital" (for that is a privileged status in itself). such a notion is just ridiculous, childish, and ultimately non-political - merely reactionary garbage, reliant on continuing the trend of service to one's appointed lords with the expectation of salvation from above. progress, on the other hand, must be wed to radical and revolutionary praxis.
(why conduct political discussion if you do not know the barest essence of politics?)

It seems you have a rather childish if not utterly naive view of politics which is shocking if not sad since the Obamacare battle was a perfect example of what happens when you attempt a unnecessary political issue fight in the middle of a rotten economy. I have no doubt that adding in Gay Marriage could help the economy if not a tiny increase in state economies through additional marriages in taxes.

What you neglect is how we get there. A President would need to push through Congress reform to grant Gay Marriage, that in and of itself would suck up all the oxygen in the room when it comes to other more needed issues such as economic reform, regulation reform, taxes, and numerous other things needed to help our economy strive ( Something that if you ask the American public is FAR more important than Gay Marriage, thus label a non important issue to the voters ). Again I point back to Obamacare and how we as a nation spent a year fixated on that instead of working on the economy.

If you cannot grasp these terms, then there is nothing I can do to help you.

[kurai]

it would appear that you are doubly illiterate:

on the one hand, you think that a defense of a particular bourgeois method is being made where no such words to that effect are present
(in fact, only the opposite can be found!)

at the same time, you are so uninformed with regard to politics that you are unable to recognize the universal project in front of you
(one in which the economic base is truly recognized for its vital position!)

In capitalist society, providing it develops under the most favourable conditions, we have a more or less complete democracy in the democratic republic. But this democracy is always hemmed in by the narrow limits set by capitalist exploitation, and consequently always remains, in effect, a democracy for the minority, only for the propertied classes, only for the rich. Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave-owners. Owing to the conditions of capitalist exploitation, the modern wage slaves are so crushed by want and poverty that "they cannot be bothered with democracy", "cannot be bothered with politics"; in the ordinary, peaceful course of events, the majority of the population is debarred from participation in public and political life.

The correctness of this statement is perhaps most clearly confirmed by Germany, because constitutional legality steadily endured there for a remarkably long time--nearly half a century (1871-1914)--and during this period the Social-Democrats were able to achieve far more than in other countries in the way of "utilizing legality", and organized a larger proportion of the workers into a political party than anywhere else in the world.

What is this largest proportion of politically conscious and active wage slaves that has so far been recorded in capitalist society? One million members of the Social-Democratic Party - out of 15,000,000 wage-workers! Three million organized in trade unions--out of 15,000,000!

Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich--that is the democracy of capitalist society. If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy, we see everywhere, in the “petty”--supposedly petty--details of the suffrage (residential qualifications, exclusion of women, etc.), in the technique of the representative institutions, in the actual obstacles to the right of assembly (public buildings are not for “paupers”!), in the purely capitalist organization of the daily press, etc., etc.,--we see restriction after restriction upon democracy. These restrictions, exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor seem slight, especially in the eyes of one who has never known want himself and has never been inclose contact with the oppressed classes in their mass life (and nine out of 10, if not 99 out of 100, bourgeois publicists and politicians come under this category); but in their sum total these restrictions exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy.

Marx grasped this essence of capitalist democracy splendidly when, in analyzing the experience of the Commune, he said that the oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament!

hic Rhodus, hic salta?