MRA blog suggests a cooling-off period would make statutory rape ok

“Would the parents have the option of calling the police?”

If a 40 year old so much as looked sideways at any of my kids I’d be calling the police AFTER I put him in the hospital.

Brandon: So the crux of the matter is I don’t view the benefits of marriage as actual benefits.

That’s not the crux of the matter. If that’s all it were pretty much everyone here would say fine, enjoy.

But you didn’t do that. You made claims of fact about how marriage works. You said that people who get married are being foolish. You said that being married makes one person dependent on the other, and entails burdens that smart people should avoid.

That’s the crux of the matter.

@pecunium: I never said people that get married are foolish. Commenters here inferred that. I made countless attempts to clarify my position that marriage as an institution and people within that institution are two different concepts. I repeated that position at least 5 times but it fell on deaf ears. I can try and clarify…I can’t actually make people listen.

Marriage CAN make one dependent. If both people work and maintain some semblance of individualism (their own car, their own bank account, etc…) then both parties can be equal. Once you have either party being financially dependent on the other, then independence can fall apart very quickly.

Personally I think the burdens outweigh the benefits (that I have check marked). So from my perspective marriage does seem like a risk that isn’t worth the reward. I also think that my perspective is becoming more popular.

Brandon: @pecunium: I never said people that get married are foolish. Commenters here inferred that. I made countless attempts to clarify my position that marriage as an institution and people within that institution are two different concepts.

Good Lord… here we go again. You say things you don’t seem to realise you are saying. Subtext exists (e.g. the way you took my bit of snark as a dick joke. It wasn’t, it was a play on words).

Katz summed up pretty well, Is it a reasonable statement to say “I respect you, but I think this thing you do/think is total crap?”

It’s clearly unreasonable to say “I respect you, but this thing you think/do is obviously total crap,” because that’s saying that can’t tell that something is obviously total crap, which is not respectful.

Which is what you did in all the below.

Personally, I am anti-marriage for anyone (straight, bi, gay, trans, etc…). I see it as a pointless institution that binds people together thus limiting their freedom.

Pointless. Are you saying that people who engage in a pointless exercise aren’t being foolish?

@Molly Ren: I think we just have two different world views. I just can’t see any long term benefits to being married that ONLY exist in the marriage framework. I don’t like the idea of me being dependent on my girlfriend to take care of my needs nor do I like the idea of me taking care of her financially.

The juxtaposition there is that getting married leads to one, or the other, being dependent. Not a conditional status on things which happen outside the marriage (it also implies that should one’s SO fall on hard times, then dumping them is reasonable.

Marriage is also the most limiting relationship around. What about swingers, polygamy, polyandry, polyamory, etc… .

Which insults people who don’t have that sort of relationship. Which is inane. As with any relationship, marriage is what the people who get married choose to make it. Any number of people here have pointed out the non-normative nature of their relationships. Moreover, when you later discuss, “committed” relationship, you extend the “limiting” idea to them.

. Marriage is nothing more than the government seeing you, your partner and children (if any) as a business. And to make love, emotions and intimacy into a business is asinine and absurd. Business is business and love is love…the two should not mingle. Just like church and state.

You just said that love and marriage are difficult to reconcile, because the state makes it a business.

@redlocker: I believe marriage, just like The Fed is rotten to the core. No amount of window dressings will change the fact that the foundation is crumbling as more and more time passes.

Marriage is rotten at the core, and getting worse as time passes.

Second, my viewpoint of marriage is not the same as everyone else’s (as we can clearly tell from this thread alone). I see it as a way to “break a horse in” while other men do not. It is fairly normal and socially acceptable to get married…is it not? My viewpoint is the different and a non-mainstream one. So I think it is perfectly ok to say that marriage is something that most people do…yet I think it is a bad move because of my whole domesticating piece.

I think it is a tool to reign in men,

Nothing insulting there, to either men, nor women. Marriage is just about the rotten business of breaking men’s spirit, like a wild horse being tamed to saddle or pack.

I guess now I see why so many of the commenters where defending it…you girls get a lot of perks.

Nothing insulting there, esp. not in relation to the comment about marriage being about breaking men’s wills.

Those are comments you made which were directly insulting to people who choose to get married. It doesn’t include the stereotyping insults about women not being interested in sex after the get married, or men who have to say, “yes, anything you say honey… Men who have broken spirits and are nothing but a paycheck to his family and an empty shell of a man.’

The thing is, you can’t say things like that and the handwave away the content with, “but I respect your choice.”

Because you have characterised the choice as stupid, foolish and self-destructive. It’s like saying, “No offense, but…”

At that point, one can be pretty sure that offense is about be given.

How many times are you gonna post that same thing, Societal Contract?

And signed in blood……

Yeah, the “Dear Woman” thing was bad enough in the first place.

Nah, I think we’re good. Thanks anyway.

@Hershele: No your right…I am just lying to you. It never really happened and I am just making shit up. Or thanks for shitting on my experiences. I have an experience that you don’t like or don’t agree with and you use any defense mechanism you can to stay in denial…in this case calling me liar and that my experience is “the stuff of legends”. Pfft!

@Pecunium:Ok…one more time. This time with an analogy. Do you have kids? Do you love your kids? If your kids make bad decisions do you still love them?

I am going to assume your answers are yes, yes and yes.

I love my father. Sometimes my father makes decisions that I don’t agree with. That does not mean my father loses my respect. My father is by far the one person in this world that I respect the most…and we disagree all the time. We also have opposing views…like he is pro-marriage and I am not. We disagree with that issue…but I still respect him. I trust him with my life.

Do you get it? Respecting people is not bound by ONE decision or disagreement. Also, I am ALWAYS in favor of people doing things (legally) that will make them happy. If someone thinks that getting married will make them happy…I WILL SUPPORT THEM. My dislike of the institution of marriage is not as important as someone’s happiness.

I might see marriage as rotten, confining and domestic…that doesn’t mean others will see it that way. And even if they did see marriage similar to me, they might still decide to get married because they want that kind of life…and if it makes them happy I SUPPORT THEM.

There are lots of foolish and pointless behaviors. I think bungee jumping is dangerous and foolish. But if someone wants to do it…so be it. I am not going to think any less of them for doing it. I might think “Man, that looks dangerous and I am not going to do that”. You make is sound like I am saying “You complete and utter moron…why would you do something so damn stupid”

At the moment, marriage can not be just removed from society. But I do support undermining it. Things like allowing singles and other non-married people to receive the benefits married couples have now. And when everyone has the rights, benefits and privileges of married people…marriage will be an empty gesture, completely ineffective and counterproductive.

@Magpie: And what exactly makes you draw such an incorrect conclusion?

@Magpie: I go to my friends and family for support when needed. You act as if I am saying everyone has their shit together all the time. No one does. We all trip in life.

So saying “everything you’ve said here so far” is a pretty vague.

@Magpie: Maybe it might help you to know that I was living homeless on the street a little over a year ago. I am also not upper class. In fact I am squarely in the working class.

I have never made more than 40K and I have worked with mostly non-profits.