If you're serious about fighting a war, you use all the tools at your disposal

And we could start by, I don't know, actually declaring war, as called for in the Constitution? And if I'm not mistaken, with that declaration comes all the governmental power needed.

I think there's an important distinction here; the wars we are fighting arise from our policies, mainly the policy of pre-emption. Inherent in the idea of a "policy" is that a policy is something you can doo all the time, it is the organising principle for your actions. War, on the other hand, is (or should be) an emergency.

And it all relates back to American's inability to discuss military policy except in terms of melodrama and film scenarios.

Is Chesterton your cat, Shooter? Cats are wonderful domestic companions, with proven psychological benefits. I'm so glad you have one, Shooter, and what a cool name for him (her?)

Okay, then, I can go for a ride, this place is in the best of hands. Bye all, and thanks for putting up with me for a while. After all, the boon of kings... something, tumpity tum, lightly given, yeah... or something. Bye.

Gosh, the comments around here are great when destructive influences are kept at bay. I enjoy reading them.

It's happening to others, to the "terrorists".

Unfortunately, Americans will not understand what a policy of state torture, which requires state torturers, and occupation, which requires an army of occupation really means until those people come home, and Americans see what it has done to them.

That may have some effect.

They will have, and create a host of problems. Nothing corrupts an Army like a long occupation.

I've got this whole thing so covered. I'm all over it. If my wife becomes a man, and gay marriage is not upheld, I have already made sure my health insurance covers sex change operations, and Tah-Da!; I switch, to the distaff, and unity and balance are restored!

You have to plan ahead!

Now same sex couples have the right to be as stupid as opposite sex couples and legally bind their affairs of the heart with a legal contract.

Do you really want to tell us that much about yourself just yet? We hardly know each other.

Agree with you, all the way. It's simply basic civil rights.

And, now I think of it, the State has a much more compelling interest in preventing heterosexual marriages which may, say, produce children likely (by the State's standards) to become dependent on the State.

And we arrive, by way of circumlocution, at eugenics again.

A person should no more be prevented from marrying than they should be prevented from taking out a HELOC.

I would like to know why there has been ZERO outcries about one man one woman and the sanctity of marriage regarding the polygamist LDS sect?

Just because one bunch of nuts are absolute gluttons for punishment doesn't mean we have to discuss them. Just thinking about their "honey-do" lists gives me the freakin' willies!

We most certainly do have a form of polygamy in America which is recognised and carries virtually no social stigma. It is serial monogamy. Guy gets married,has couple kids and when prosperity strikes, even a little, gets a girlfriend. Of course, this leads to a divorce, he ends up supporting two households. If he marries the girlfriend, he's liable to do it again, and end up paying out to three households. So there it is, supporting multiple women and their children, and probably sleeping, by now, with none of them. Polygamy-American style.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I conclude that the States best course is to abolish heterosexual marriage, and promote gay marriage full tilt. Us heteros do nothing but cost the state money. They have to spend a shitload preventing us from killing or injuring (too badly, anyway) our wives, and they have to track us down and put us on trial when we do. We litter the world with children we are neither ready to have or care for, but are always ready to abuse, or let others abuse. Our marraiges are like legal mayflies in their longevity, and through it all we crow about "family values" and then fight like crows over a discarded Big Mac when its time to split the mine.

I really don't see how any other combination than the traditional could be any worse.

Derbig, Do you know the penalty for bigamy?

bamage

Why no, Mr. Bamage, I don't know what is the penalty for bigamy?

(I'm expecting a punch line now, right?)

But, then I read the comments to the Salon article Glenn linked to, and am, frankly, ashamed of the liberal and Democratic commenters who are UPSET about this decision being handed down at such an "inconvenient" time.

We have become almost entirely a party of concern trolls, as a result of the primaries. Everybody has caught it to some extant. Let's hope it's temporary.

Baby, that is well-wrought, by my lights! A neat phrase, for sure.

That joke, like the penalty, is capitol! Or capital. I can't tell them apart,apparently.

Two wives. Just what I need, another woman who watches me sleep and wishes she had a piano wire to tighten about my neck.

"a hecklers veto" About says it all, if your talking the nineties and aughts (oughts)

And the heckler was a plant, too.

All this talk of marital law puts me in mind of Allan Sherman's

guttaral yodelings in his plaintive up-tempo ballad of busted-up romance:

My Zelda!

My Zelda!

My Zelda,

She took the money and ran with the tailor!

(repeat) (or don't, I can't force you)

That tailor he really hurt my pride,

He made the lapels an inch too wide!

My Zelda,

She took the money and ran with the tailor!

I don't know why it put me in mind of that, but it did. That is undisputable.

Maybe I should go for a while.