A Fistful Of ... Talc?

Oklahoma is considering getting out of the marriage business entirely. It sounds crazy, but we live in a crazy world. You can vote, but your votes don't count when judges can rule, as they did with California's Proposition 8, that your properly enacted constitutional amendment is unconstitutional. The solution is to remove the topic from discussion entirely. Let's see the judges force gay marriage on people that don't want it when marriage itself has been wiped off the law books.

I love it and I hate it at the same time. It's a terrific response to a government that has turned into a jealous religion and wants to kill off competitors*, but it's tragic that we even have to consider it.

Having said that, let's try a thought experiment. I would argue that America is becoming socially libertarian and fiscally fascist. It's an interesting combination where the bonds between people are disintegrating at the same time the government is attempting to exercise greater and greater control. It's an evolution from government force attempting to pick up a rock - a society with strong internal organization - to government force attempting to pick up a fistful of talc - a society where there is almost no internal organization.

What will happen as this keeps evolving? How can you maintain a civil society when the only organizing feature is an ever-growing list of government laws and regulations that go against the very societal forces the government has been incubating?

The analogy really hit me when I started reading about Millenials fussing about ObamaCare. They'd voted for Obama, but didn't want any part of paying for his signature achievement. When it came down to doing what was required, the government was just one more set of rules they wanted to reject. From the fascists' point of view, I wonder when it will dawn on them that in the process of weakening rival organizations and bonds in the name of libertinism, they've wiped out the bonds they needed to manage the population. That is, by telling everyone that nothing was morally expected of them, they've created a population who rebels at the idea that anything at all is expected of them.

Which, by the way, is how you end up with a $17T debt. You could vote for more and more compassion, but never be expected to pay for it.

Another data point in support of this analogy is the gun violence in communities where traditional marriage has been wiped out. The response has been to pass more and more laws, but when the people don't follow the laws already on the books (don't tell me what to do, man!), what good are 20 more laws?

Finally, how about the ginormous new financial laws like Dodd-Frank? Again, the government is trying to regulate morality in one area after having crushed it elsewhere. We released the monster thinking we knew where it would go. Oops.

When the government is the only reliable, binding force in society, what do you get?

Quick, pick up this talc. All of it at once!

* - If you disagree with this, I invite you to consider the government's attack on Little Sisters of the Poor. Just try and tell yourself that the whole thing wasn't anticipated from the very beginning by HHS. Taking LSP to court was one of the deliberately intended consequences of the regulations. The government didn't have to win the case, either, all they needed to do was bleed the Church to death. The government has infinite resources and the Church does not.