patrick.net

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/chick-fil-as-vice-president-of-public-relations-dies-of-heart-attack/

Saving Chick fil a, straight marriage, and social security account balances one bucket of chicken at a time: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/chick-fil-as-vice-president-of-public-relations-dies-of-heart-attack/

"Chick-fil-A’s Vice President of Public Relations Don Perry died “suddenly” Friday morning, the company confirmed. Perry was based in the Atlanta area and worked in Chick-fil-A’s corporate communications department for 29 years.
Ross Cathy, who owns the Midland, Georgia Chick-fil-A and is related to the company’s CEO Dan Cathy, said Perry died of a heart attack, Columbus, Georgia’s News 3 reports. A company spokesman could not confirm Perry’s cause of death to ABC News."

Self cleaning lesbian toilets, great idea.

But since when did Chick-Fil-A become ordained priest capable or marrying people, or the place where you go for a wedding ceremony?
Oh that's right it's not and they don't, so what difference does it make what the CEO thinks. The place is closed on Sunday, anyone that has eaten there, can tell you they serve Jesus Sandwiches. What would you expect?

Now if you want sodomy, I think the King campaign from Burger King suggests that for a good time...

Its all about freedom. The "gay community" insists on receiving tolerance, but refuses to grant tolerance to others.

Double standard = FAIL

Honest Abe says

The "gay community" insists on receiving tolerance, but refuses to grant tolerance to others.

This is not about tolerance. Nobody needs to tolerate the intolerable.

It is about the right of same sex couples to legally partner in this country, a right that is under attack by the religious nutcakes as Cathy and the general Republican social conservative movement that got rolling under Reagan.

Whether corporations like CFA are legally able to limit their business relationships to those they morally comport with is an interesting question.

How many gay store managers and franchisees do they employ / do business with?

Unfortunately, being homosexual is not a protected right in this country yet, AFAIK, unlike in the more enlightened / less radical Christianist nations in Europe.

Double standard = FAIL

Room temperature IQ = FAIL

Delurking says

This is not about tolerance. Nobody needs to tolerate the intolerable.

True.
BUT, for 98% of humanity, deviant sexual behavior is intolerable.

How can a corporation be against gays?

I didn't know pieces of paper had the same rights as real people.

Maybe we should pierce the Corporate Veil.

Bap33 says

BUT, for 98% of humanity, deviant sexual behavior is intolerable.

90% of people are shocked and disgusted by the sex lives of 90% of people.

Bap33 says

BUT, for 98% of humanity, deviant sexual behavior is intolerable.

Incorrect, of course, since gayness isn't "deviant", LOL.

As for the less intellectually-dishonest point you were trying to make, the nicer places on this planet -- Scandinavia, Germany, France, blue-state USA -- love gay partnerships (in the majority).

The real shitholes -- we're talking KSA, Iran, Afghanistan, BFE Africa -- kill gays when they find them.

That's all that needs to be said about that.

Can you really conceptualize how utterly wrong you are about this?

I have my doubts.

Bap33 says

I say your assertion that "marriage" is a generic term for coupling

Damn, I can't even read the very first sentence of your response to the period before encountering a mistake. I have never asserted that marriage is a generic term for coupling. Where the hell did you get that?

I've stated that marriage is a religious institution and a social institution. I've also stated that marriage is a legal institution in the United States, but should not be because it is a religious and a social institution. The entire debate we and the rest of the country have been having is about the legal, secular institution of marriage and the secular laws regarding it including the filing of tax forms, the receiving of health insurance benefits and thousands of other benefits, and other legal rights conferred through marriage.

As for fucking -- I hate to break this to you, bap, well, actually I don't -- you can fuck without marriage. In fact, I assure you that no gay man is waiting for gay marriage to be legalize before engaging in man on man ass sex. I absolutely guarantee you that legalizing marriage will not increase gay sex. Marriage might decrease it like marriage has done to heterosexual sex.

Bap33 says

The word has meaning. It means what it means.

The meaning of the word marriage has change throughout history.

But that's not important. A word is just a bunch of letters arranged in a particular order that corresponds to one or more definitions in a dictionary. Words are not important. You could replace every word in any language with other combinations of letters, it would not make a material difference in the universe. Lexicon is not important.

What is important are legal rights. If your objection to gay marriage is you don't like the letters g-a-y preceding the letters m-a-r-r-i-a-g-e, then that's a pretty lame ass objection. And it's easy to remedy.

We'll simply search-and-replace all instances of the string "marriage" with the string "civil union" in all laws in our country whether federal, state, or local. Then the state won't recognize your marriage or anyone else's. The state would only recognize civil unions, which have nothing to do with marriages. On your tax form you would check one of the following: single, civil union, head of household. All benefits would be based on civil unions as well as rights such as hospital visitation.

Oh, and one more thing, there would be gay civil unions.

There, your objection is remedy quite simply. Instead of calling the legal institution "marriage", we'll call it civil unions. There will be no legal institution of marriage. The term would only apply to religious and social ceremonies. Then the gays and rational people could continue calling ceremonies involving gay couples exchanging vows marriage, and social conservatives could call those ceremonies whatever the fuck they want to. The debate over the word "marriage" would be reduced to arguing over whether or not golf is a sport. It would be an insignificant social issue with no real world effects rather than an important legal issue.

Of course, the important change of gays have equal standing to heterosexuals in the eyes of the law would be upheld. In this scenario, you are for gay marriage in all ways except the naming of the legal status. Big deal. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Bap33 says

Sexual deviants pulled "gay" out of their behinds and made it "mean" something it never ment.

I don't even know what you are trying to say here. If you're suggesting that gays coined the term "gay" as a marketing term, you are incorrect. The term gay was originally a derogative term used by people like you. See Online Etymology Dictionary.

In any case, the word itself is not important or relevant to this discussion. The question at hand is whether or not homosexuals and heterosexuals should have equal standing under law.

Bap33 says

Maybe the same needs to be done for the unnatural coupling that you suggest be recognized.

Whether or not gay marriage is recognized, homosexuals can and will have sex. And it is perfectly legal for them to do so. Any law preventing homosexuals from having sex is a human rights violation and would not be tolerated or enforceable in this country any more than a law prohibiting interracial sex. Thus the gay marriage debate is not about homosexual sex.

Furthermore, getting married does not mean the two people are having sex. Nor is it even a requirement. When gay marriage was legal in California, most of the weddings were old gay and lesbian couples who have been living together for decades and have long past the point where they wanted to fuck each other. They got married not for sex, but because they wanted to publicly acknowledge their relationships and obtain the same legal rights as heterosexual married couples. The 65-year-old lesbians getting married didn't go to town afterwards.

Also, homosexuality is natural. Stating that homosexuality is unnatural is a grotesquely ignorant statement that is trivially disproved. Things that happen in nature are natural by definition, and homosexual acts occur throughout nature. Do you really want me to start showing those videos here, because I can. Here's a little taste...

http://www.youtube.com/embed/ggl5ZGaJFFM
Audio's a bit off, but you get the point.

With homosexuality rampant in nature, it's not hard for scientists to document this behavior extensively. But if you want to continue arguing that homosexuality is unnatural, I can supply much, much more physical evidence to the contrary.

Of course, even if something is unnatural that doesn't mean it's bad or should be outlawed. Automobiles are clearly unnatural. Do you want to ban NASCAR?

And rape is natural. Does that make it a good thing? Police, court systems, and jails are unnatural. Does that mean our government should release all the rapists from jail and disband the police? Our laws promote quite a few unnatural things even at the expense of natural things.

Bap33 says

Your demands for special consideration for non-productive, unnatural coupling, could be very bad for the republic.

You have reality completely backwards. It is not I who is advocating special consideration for homosexuality. It is you and the opponents of gay marriage who are advocating special (negative) consideration of homosexuality. The pro-gay marriage argument is that no one should get special consideration and all people are equal under laws. That's the exact opposite of what you just said.

Also, by your argument, a heterosexual couple in which one or both were infertile would not be legally allowed to marry. Are you really going to try to make that argument? What about the old widow and widower who meet over a game of bingo at the local church and then decide to get marry and spend their golden years together? They aren't marrying to have children and can't reproduce. Should their marriage be illegal? What about straight married couples who choose not to have children? Should they be forced by the state to get a divorce? I know many straight, married, childless by choice couples.

Furthermore, the republic has over 300 million people. We're not lacking in population. But if you are so concerned about under-population, there are 112 million Mexicans waiting at the border to alleviate your concerns. I'll tell them you said to come in.

But even if the United States were experiencing a population shortage crisis -- which quite frankly is a ridiculous idea as we, along with the rest of the world, are way overpopulated -- that would still be a completely ludicrous argument against gay marriage. It's not like a gay man is going to decide to marry a woman and father a child with her if only the state prevents him from marrying another man. Banning gay marriage isn't going to cause gays to turn straight or resort to heterosexual marriage and child bearing as the only alternative. What world do you live in that you think that is so?

Furthermore, it's perfectly possible through artificial insemination and surrogate motherhood for gays and lesbians to have their own children including with each other's DNA. Take a human egg cell, remove the egg's DNA, add DNA from both same-sex parents, plant egg in surrogate or, in the future, artificial womb, wait nine months, and take out. If you add any male's Y chromosome to the mix, lesbian parents can even have male children.

For all these reasons, your argument that somehow gay marriage would be bad for the republic doesn't hold water. Was interracial marriage bad for the republic?

Bap33 says

If you were to take all of those whom you represent and create your own republic, how might you plan to reproduce?

Well, they could do like I said above, but that's not the point.

Do you really base your worldview on the idea that a society has to be made of homogonous entities? Everyone has to think and act identically. Everyone in the nation has to be straight or everyone has to be gay? Homogonous societies are doomed to fail because they cannot compete with heterogeneous societies if only because only heterogeneous societies can accommodate specialization and all the economic benefits that arise from specialization.

The society the rest of us envision has heterosexual and homosexual people living side-by-side not giving a rat's ass about each other's sexuality except when they are interested in forming romantic relationships. Otherwise, it's none of your business. We envision a society where sexual orientation is not used to subjugate any people. We want a society of rights, not privileges. We want a society where all men are created equal and have equal protection of law. Why is that a hard concept for your side to grasp?

Bap33 says

The act of sex and marriage are not allowed with a person that is not of sound mind, or not of age.

Neither of which is an argument against gay marriage. Homosexuals are certainly of sound mind and legal age. Just because you consider homosexuality to be a mental disorder doesn't make it so. I consider social conservatism and religious beliefs to be a mental disorder and I can do a hell of a better job justifying that those things are disorders than you can that homosexuality is a disorder. Do you really want to open the door to me getting the government to take away the privilege to vote from anyone who attends church? Belief in a god that does not exist is by definition a delusion, and delusional people do not have the right to vote because they are mentally incapable of rational decision making. This argument is far stronger than your argument that homosexuality is a mental disorder.

Bap33 says

I submit that having sex with a person who is suffering from uncontrollable deviant desires, or from a birth defect that has rendered them a sexual deviant, is sexual abuse.

Just because a person chooses to have consensual sex with another person does not make that choice "uncontrollable" or "deviant". It is no more an uncontrollable desire when two men have sex than it is when a man and a woman have sex. Furthermore, it is a human right for men and women to choose their own consensual sexual partners. Moreover, it is not a birth defect to be homosexual or bisexual.

It would take a lot more than your submission that homosexuality is a mental disorder or birth defect to justify any consideration of this position by the state. It would take substantial concrete proof to justify the state outlawing a basic and highly valued human behavior.

Bap33 says

It is disgusting the way the mentally challenged and/or physically handicapped are being targeted by sexual deviants. Shameful. ANd you suggest the Gov sanction such abuse?? Why?

Just because you find homosexual sex disgusting doesn't make it so. That is your opinion and nothing more. I find faith as disgusting and despicable as you find homosexuality -- and I'm not exaggerating here -- but that does not mean the state should ban faith. Heck, I even find man on man ass sex icky, but I don't want to ban it. As for lesbian sex, I need to do much more research before coming to a conclusion on that. Any lesbians out there want to help me with my studies?

But more to the point, your accusation that homosexuals are abusing each other and behaving shamefully is not only ridiculous, but it is actually quite offensive to the loving same-sex couples out there. Imagine if you said that a white person having sex with a black person is shameful, disgusting, and abusive because all black persons are mentally challenged and/or physically handicapped and therefore incapable of consenting to sex. Image how much that would offend people. Guess what? You're comments are just as offensive and for the exact same reasons.

By recognizing gay marriage, government isn't sanctioning sexual abuse of the handicapped. However, by banning gay marriage, government is sanctioning the same kind of social injustice that existed during segregation. A ban on gay marriage is essentially the same kind of dehumanization that took place on the basis of race before the civil rights movement.

Dan8267 says

Marriage might decrease it like marriage has done to heterosexual sex.

lmao ... you are one funny dude.

I do not equate a birth defect or a perversion with the race issue. But, I may be alone in that. You see, the race issue is not really about true race or ethnic background, it's about outward appearance, lingo, and style of dress. Things that Billy-Bob could see at a glance. Totally not cool. On the other hand, there is no way for Billy-Bob to know which males want to sodomize/be sodomized by other males - unless said males say they do, act like they do, or dress like they do. Even then no court in the land could convict a male of sodomy based on any of that, while a negro can be proven to be negro fairly easily. Billy-Bob was an idiot about negros coupling with non-negros. And even worse when it came to Jews.

When you tell me how the courts plan to KNOW a person is actually a life-time member of the gay community, without any chance of changing that role, then I may be able to understand what all the trouble is about. Right now, it's all hear-say. The negros that were being mistreated can be known by the court, on site. Plus, there has never been a negro that stopped being negro out of shame, conviction, personal growth, hormone theropy, testosterone theropy, or just plain boredom. Not yet, anyway. Negro is not a birth defect.

I don't like this subject much. It's a bit disturbing.

Gay folks could buddy up with pairs from the other team, have agreed marriages of convienance, and enjoy all the tax benifits of marriage, and the butt sex. Right? Or no?

seriously, your last post had some very good humor. Thanks for being a good sport.

It is true that the male/male vision is not seen in the minds eye the same way the chick/chick vision is. That could be a whole discussion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage

Dan, your lengthy post is simply much todo about nothing. Real marriage has been around for countless generations, approximately 2,000 years. Then, magically around 1995, when radical gays came out of the closet, they want to "redefine" marriage, change the meaning of the word, force everyone to accept their definition, and show zero tolerance to anyone who disagrees with their "new" definition.

I think I'm going to redefine the word "voluntary" when it comes to taxes in 2013. From now on the new definition of the word voluntary will be mandatory.

We "voluntarily" pay taxes now which is new speek for manditory (the opposite of). My new definition of voluntary
is manditory, which in double new speek actually means volunatrily.

In other words, pre-2013 I voluntarily paid taxes because I was actually forced to. Now the word voluntary means manditory...the opposite of which is NON-manditory...so I won't be paying taxes in 2013 - get it?

Oh, I have another brilliant liberal idea, lets change the definition of an automobiles brake pedal to gas pedal. From now on, each car will have two gas pedals but no brake pedal. That makes perfect (liberal) sense, right?

Kinda reminds me of the bumper sticker I saw the other day: "Both my mommies support Obama" (two gas pedals, no brake pedal - anything wrong with that picture?).

Honest Abe says

Dan, your lengthy post is simply much todo about nothing.

It is obvious by your posts that you're a complete jerk, homophobe, racist, white trash simpleton with zero intellect. The only reason why you are whining and playing the victim card is because you and your views are irrelevant, incoherent, and are simply no longer held by the majority, if they ever truly were. You are no longer able to make these rants without being called out on them. Yes, I suppose it gives you some negative energy getting all jacked up on your imagined victimization. I suppose you must feel like the white man did when apartheid was ending in South Africa in the 80s/90s. A spoiled brat who is simply running scared because laws making others 'less than' were ending, exposing who was/is truly less than.

In the end, you are simply a bad person. It must truly be difficult to be you. What is sadder is that no one even cares.

Honest Abe says

Dan, your lengthy post is simply much todo about nothing.

Then it should be trivially easy for you to go point-by-point responding to my post showing why it is "much todo about nothing". Simply asserting that is not an argument but rather a blank box labeled, "insert argument here".

Honest Abe says

Real marriage has been around for countless generations, approximately 2,000 years.

If by real marriage you mean trading a goat for a woman, then yes.

Honest Abe says

Then, magically around 1995, when radical gays came out of the closet, they want to "redefine" marriage, change the meaning of the word, force everyone to accept their definition, and show zero tolerance to anyone who disagrees with their "new" definition.

Gays don't care about the word marriage. They care about equal rights under law. If you don't want relationships between gays to be called marriage than remove that word and the word spouse from all legislation and business agreements including life and health insurance policies.

Then you can have the word marriage. Just keep that word out of the law and contracts. Gays just want, and should have, equality in all laws and contracts.

Do you have any objections to gays being equal under law just like blacks and women are? Or is your objection just to the wording of the discussion?

Honest Abe says

We "voluntarily" pay taxes now which is new speek for manditory (the opposite of). My new definition of voluntary
is manditory, which in double new speek actually means volunatrily.

The federal income tax is illegal. It wasn't passed according to the Constitution. This was ignored with some retroactive statehood bullshit. The law says that the taxes are voluntary but the government willfully and knowingly violates the law and pretends that they don't even after they lose a court case that establishes no one has to pay income taxes or be forced to fill out a tax form that says they agree to something they don't.

Furthermore, the Consitution clearly states that all tax laws must originate in the House of Representation and must be passed by Congress. Yet tax laws are written by the IRS, part of the executive branch of the government.

But all the bullshit and illegality of the federal tax system has nothing to do with the issue of gay marriage.

Furthermore, the issue of gay marriage isn't about nomenclature. The state shouldn't make laws to force one vocabulary vs another on the people. The issue of gay marriage is about the real laws and equal protection under law.

Why should Buster pay $5,000 more in taxes a year just because he chooses to live with a man instead of a woman?

Buster says

Actually, civil unions did not eliminate the harmful effects of discrimination. Actually, I am legally married, but paid over $5,000 more in taxes this year because my marriage is not recognized by the federal government.

Now one could argue that single people are discriminated against by our tax law and that also violates equal protection. I'd agree with that. But that's still no excuse for discriminating against gays.

Finally, a better example of doublethink/newspeak is, as I said above, the USA PATRIOT Act, which is the most unpatriotic act ever passed and the Defense of Marriage Act, which actually attacks marriage.

Alan Turing...?

I wonder if your also including many who started Semis, Storage, and Much of the Software which run the above... Turing had little to nothing regarding our birth of the tech products you list above.

I can certainly say.. NADA... try looking up William Shockley.. Without him! not much can be said our tech industry.

Horrible Couple Really Wants Wedding To Reflect Their Personalities

Dan8267 says

In any case, here's a nice picture to end this post with. It's of Richard Loving and his wife Mildred, the interracial couple behind the 1967 Supreme Court case of Loving vs Virginia. They are the reason why anti-miscegenation laws had to be struck down as un-Constitutional.

'Till Death do us part....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_in_the_United_States

Marital instability among interracial and same-race couples

A 2008 study by Jenifer L. Bratter and Rosalind B. King conducted on behalf of the Education Resources Information Center examined whether crossing racial boundaries increased the risk of divorce.[9] Using the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (Cycle VI), the likelihood of divorce for interracial couples to that of same-race couples was compared.

Comparisons across marriage cohorts revealed that, overall, interracial couples have higher rates of divorce, particularly for those that married during the late 1980s.[9]

The authors found that gender plays a significant role in interracial divorce dynamics:

According to the adjusted models predicting divorce as of the 10th year of marriage, interracial marriages that are the most vulnerable involve White females and non-White males (with the exception of White females/Hispanic White males) relative to White/White couples.[9]

White wife/Black husband marriages are twice as likely to divorce by the 10th year of marriage compared to White/White couples, while White wife/Asian husband marriages are 59% more likely to end in divorce compared to White/White unions.[9]

Conversely, White men/non-White women couples show either very little or no differences in divorce rates.[9]

Asian wife/White husband marriages show only 4% greater likelihood of divorce by the 10th year of marriage than White/White couples.[9]

In the case of Black wife/White husband marriages, divorce by the 10th year of marriage is 44% less likely than among White/White unions.[9]

Intermarriages that did not cross a racial barrier, which was the case for White/Hispanic White couples, showed statistically similar likelihoods of divorcing as White/White marriages

thomaswong.1986 says

'Till Death do us part....

Your point?

Buster says

Horrible Couple Really Wants Wedding To Reflect Their Personalities

Darn, I thought that Dr. Horrible was getting married.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/apEZpYnN_1g

NPH is awesome!

Dan8267 says

Your point?

huh! did you lose your reading comprehension.

No, it's just that there needs to be something to comprehend. One cannot make a bridge out of empty space.

Buster says

It is obvious by your posts that you're a complete jerk, homophobe, racist, white trash simpleton with zero intellect.

tisc tisc tisc, not allowed, homie.

Dan8267 says

One cannot make a bridge out of empty space.

BLIND!

thomaswong.1986 says

Dan8267 says

One cannot make a bridge out of empty space.

BLIND!

Thomas, no reading between lines here, I think that you are going to need to come out and state directly what conclusion you expect people to come to after reading your cut-and-paste from Wikipedia.

White women and black men appear more independent then white men and black women.
Plain as day, unless you are blinder-bound....

leoj707 says

thomaswong.1986 says

Dan8267 says

One cannot make a bridge out of empty space.

BLIND!

Thomas, no reading between lines here, I think that you are going to need to come out and state directly what conclusion you expect people to come to after reading your cut-and-paste from Wikipedia.

xrpb11a says

White women and black men appear more independent then white men and black women.

OK, so your take-a-way is couples that have a white woman and a black man are more independent? I am not sure, is independence a good thing here?

Of course you are defining independence as a higher divorce rate.

Thomas do you agree that this is the non-blinder point to your post?

Anyway, so what. What does that point have to do with gay marriage, anti-miscegenation laws and "'Till Death do us part..."?

No, "independence" is defined in the dictionary.
I said "it APPEARS", ie "Seems"

leoj707 says

Of course you are defining independence as a higher divorce rate

Wow, this thread sure took an incomprehensible turn. Wtf ?

The truth (and it's not surprising):

It's no coincidence that the people against gay marriage are the exact same people who were against
- abolition
- the right of blacks to vote
- the right of women to vote
- interracial marriages
- evolution theory
and for
- slavery
- segregation
- lynching
- creationism
- the Patriot Act
- the NDAA

Delurking says

Bap33 says

BUT, for 98% of humanity, deviant sexual behavior is intolerable.

Incorrect, of course, since gayness isn't "deviant", LOL.

As for the less intellectually-dishonest point you were trying to make, the nicer places on this planet -- Scandinavia, Germany, France, blue-state USA -- love gay partnerships (in the majority).

The real shitholes -- we're talking KSA, Iran, Afghanistan, BFE Africa -- kill gays when they find them.

That's all that needs to be said about that.

Can you really conceptualize how utterly wrong you are about this?

I have my doubts.

There are 160+ Electoral votes in US states where a large portion of the population strongly disagrees with what you say above.

It's not the United States of California and Massachusetts!

xrpb11a says

No, "independence" is defined in the dictionary.

Oh, so independent as in:

in·de·pend·ent
adjective
1. not influenced or controlled by others in matters of opinion, conduct, etc.; thinking or acting for oneself: an independent thinker.
2. not subject to another's authority or jurisdiction; autonomous; free: an independent businessman.
3. not influenced by the thought or action of others: independent research.
4. not dependent; not depending or contingent upon something else for existence, operation, etc.
5. not relying on another or others for aid or support.

I am still not sure how the dictionary definition of independence has anything to do with a higher divorce rate.

Marcus - OMG...we agree again!

leoj707 says

Thomas, no reading between lines here, I think that you are going to need to come out and state directly what conclusion you expect people to come to after reading your cut-and-paste from Wikipedia.

Whatever nonsense conclusion Thomas was trying to draw from the largest source of misinformation and blatant disinformation is clearly not relevant to the issue of gay marriage.

Once again, Wikipedia proves that its only useful function is as a filter. If someone quotes Wikipedia, he's post is probably not worth reading.

In most cases to marry is to enter into an arrangement where everything is 'shared'. Dependencies develop...ie..your bed gets made, meals are prepared, cleanup happens magically..etc..
Suddenly, you have someone who must be updated as to your whereabouts ..
Bills appear out of nowhere....etc etc etc blah blah blah....

bottom line, you lose some independence that you had in the unmarried state. Some people may not be able to handle this longterm...

Either that or you are just fucking around and got caught...

leoj707 says

xrpb11a says

No, "independence" is defined in the dictionary.

Oh, so independent as in:

in·de·pend·ent

adjective

1. not influenced or controlled by others in matters of opinion, conduct, etc.; thinking or acting for oneself: an independent thinker.

2. not subject to another's authority or jurisdiction; autonomous; free: an independent businessman.

3. not influenced by the thought or action of others: independent research.

4. not dependent; not depending or contingent upon something else for existence, operation, etc.

5. not relying on another or others for aid or support.

I am still not sure how the dictionary definition of independence has anything to do with a higher divorce rate.

If you have a marriage, you didn't build that. Someone else performed that ceremony -- oh wait, wrong thread...

Actually, the OB theme "you didn't build that" is so ambiguous, you can make it relevant in in any thread...

Dan8267 says

If you have a marriage, you didn't build that. Someone else performed that ceremony -- oh wait, wrong thread...

APOCALYPSEFUCK is Shostakovich says

If California and the NE had any sense, they'd leave the USA! USA! and join the Commonwealth as an independent nation. The rest of it could become a theme park.

I agree. I would suggest the new country include the following states: CA, OR, WA, NY, CT, ME, NH, RI, VT, DL, MD, IL & HI. Others could apply. Not sure what the name should be. I would suggest a Parliamentary Democracy with a President or Premier elected by the voters as well. The remaining United States then could pay their own way as Federal Dollars are pouring out of the above Blue states to Red states that are so fond of bitching about liberal states and the US government all the while taking all their cash. The states in the new country all export more money to the red states with the exception of HI and ME. In the new country, HI would no longer be such a drag on the outflow either, as a good deal of this money is to support unneeded military bases.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/11/states-federal-taxes-spending-charts-maps

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/us/even-critics-of-safety-net-increasingly-depend-on-it.html?_r=2&pagewanted=2

This is one I agree with in principle, though I don't actually favor breaking up the country. I'd rather see us equalize the tax disproportion as well as the electoral college skewing. Your vote for President in CA equals only about 1/8 that of someone in Wyoming, which is something abjectly against the intent of the US Constitution. It's only allowed because everyone knows that setting all votes strictly equal by proportion would make it so CA + NY decide every election.

Too bad. If that's where the people are, then that's where the votes are.

I also predict if we quit subsidizing the flyover states with coastal/metro taxes there would be a sudden wave of "socialism" sweeping over those voters as they found themselves living in 2nd world conditions.