Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Bacardi vs. the State, the State vs. Marriage


As this blog’s climactic “Month of Time Travel” (before turning to future business elsewhere) nears its end, I tip my hat to that century-spanning Bacardi ad that notes the family business surviving both Prohibition and exile from Cuba -- take that, statists of two nations!  

In other news that scrambles the usual right-vs.-left rigamarole (h/t Lap Gong Leong), an Oklahoma state legislator, likely as a prank but constructively nonetheless, has proposed that if the state can’t agree on whether marriage is male/female or (as the feds claim) either-gender/either-gender, Oklahoma should just stop legally recognizing the institution of marriage altogether. 

This is basically the correct libertarian conclusion -- let fully private contracts (not to mention informal but potentially quite hardcore-traditionalist religious ceremonies) replace the unnecessary state-approved-marriage body of law.  Then individuals can have whatever traditionalism or innovation in marriage contracts they like without the whole polity having to argue about the one best way. 

There’s rarely one best way.

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