[John] Heck I can see why Arlo, I remember it was like pulling hen's teeth to get you to aknowledge the simply self-evident love of a dog. And you never did, that I can remember.
[Arlo] No, I said "love" is now, in our post-social world, much more than the biological responses it grew out of. Your experience of "love", with a rich tapestry of Air Supply and St. Vincent Milay to draw from, is a much deeper, much richer, historical process than what your dog "feels". I think I also said that we, humans, tend to anthropomorphize everything we see, so we see our beloved pets expressing for us the same depth of love we have for them. This is not an all or nothing argument, John, its a matter of volume and depth. [John] So it doesn't make sense that the state should deny my right to enter into some life-long partnership with anybody I want. My cousin, my sister, my dad, my dog. If I want to form a contractual civic union I should be able to do so. [Arlo] As I said, if you are agreeing with me, any consenting adult should be able to determine the nature of their unions. Your "dog" can not give consent, much as you might try to read consent into its actions, and so "bestial unions" I would think a moral argument, based on "consent", could be brought to bear (pun intended). [John] But procreation is another thing. Breeding children with my sister or ma would be a mistake that society rightfully condemns and outlaws. So it's the procreation part that is a problem. [Arlo] And I think you could you make a strong argument that unions that would result in medical deformation and other effects of inbreeding, especially after concurrent generations, should be immoral in the eyes of the state. But it also opens up sufficient nuances that must be addressed (by law). What about people whose age puts them at serious risk for Downs births? What about siblings that voluntarily get "neutered"? As I said, I think that this, medical ramifications of inbreeding, is a strong place to start an argument on this, and although it has its own particularities that must be addressed, it nonetheless puts you in the realm of reason. [John] Society used to regulate breeding through marriage. That's been out the window since the late 70's I guess, and people argue about weddings and label. The important part gets completely ignored. [Arlo] Yeah, I can see that for most of history, unions like this were primarily concerned with making and preserving a bloodline. Patriarchal views on "marriage" tend to stem from keeping women "honest", so a man doesn't find himself in the unfortunate position of raising the sapling of another man's seed. And you are right that part of the conflict here is that we, as a culture, are moving past these old views. Many people get married who never intend to have a child, who do so for love, or tax breaks, or "because it what's you do", or a host of reasons not associated with kids, bloodline, keeping your woman faithful, etc. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
