Carnival of the Capitalists is up at Danial Moore’s place. Plenty of good reading here for those interested in in issues related to business and economics.
Hat tip to Catallarchy for the reminder.
Update (3/2): Post date corrected, it is no longer April Fools day. Thanks, Tom.
Micah, at Catallarchy, has figured out how the US can avoid bankruptcy.
Ok, I almost titled this: Today’s Chuckle but the problem is real and the solution speaks volumes about why we have the problem in the first place.
Head over to Mike harris’ place and read Very Scary Shit About John Ashcroft from the February 2004 Vanity Fair.
Via Teresa Nielsen Hayden who also quotes a jiucy bit of the article and worries that Harris may have quoted too much (read ‘all’) of the original article.
Kevin Drum argues:
PRIVATIZE MARRIAGE?….Libertarians frequently suggest that the state should get out of the marriage business entirely. Just make it a private contractual affair.
This sounds good, but it’s impossible: the state is heavily involved whether we like it or not, and in ways that simply can’t be privatized. Atrios explains.
Atrios doesn’t explain anything at all. He does provide a couple interesting links: 1) 1997 GAO report (PDF) on 1049 federal laws in which marriage is a factor (not a listing of ‘all the rights and benefits of civil marriage’ as Atrios states) and 2) a shorter list from NOLO. He then puts a few of the latter in bold and says they ‘would be difficult or impossible to establish by private contract.’ Some examples:
Claiming the marital communications privilege, which means a court can�t force you to disclose the contents of confidential communications between you and your spouse during your marriage.
Receiving crime victims’ recovery benefits if your spouse is the victim of a crime.
Obtaining domestic violence protection orders.
Obtaining immigration and residency benefits for noncitizen spouse.
Visiting rights in jails and other places where visitors are restricted to immediate family.
In a society where marriage is a private contract issue there is no reason why any the above items would not be easily dealt with. Your valid contract should give you these benefits just as it does today.
No, Kevin, it is not at all impossible. And, cleaning up the current mess will give federal and state legislatures something useful to do for a year or two.
bush got at least one thing right today when he discussed the currently hot marriage issues:
“People need to be involved in this decision,” Bush said. “Marriage ought to be defined by the people not by the courts. And I’m watching it carefully.”
Tim Dunlop provides an appropriate response:
Three thousand marriages by Friday? Sounds to me like the people are already “involved in this decision.” Oh, right. Wrong people.
Issues such as marriage when these issues involve consenting adults do not belong in the realm of congress, the judiciary (except as required to adjudicate contract disputes), state legislatures, county or city governments. And to the extent any of these governmental entities establish programs that use marrieage status as a discriminating factor those programs should be expunged or restructured.