Thursday, May 10, 2012

Ad Astra On The Installment Plan

So, if asteroid mining heats up, if the various private space companies get off the ground and into orbit -- there are fortunes to be made up there! Asteroids made of finest ore, huge slabs of sweet water-ice and whole planets made of burnables, with a dabba scarce helium to sweeten the pot!

But it'll cost like the dickens to get there. What to do, what to do...? You bootstrap it! You start up the Perpetual Emigration Fund with seed money from the firstcomers (who get out by hard work, inheritance and/or clever swindles, in the manner of all Early Adopters); the PEF pays the way out for qualified applicants, who then make their own fortune and pay it back with interest; this funds the next and so on.

It's a clever scheme and it has worked before. But there you do want avoid attracting Federal ire: see, the group that worked it best were LDS...and when Uncle Sam decided that polygamy was verboten,[1] Congress disincorporated the church and grabbed the money via the Edmunds-Tucker Act.

And here you thought Congressional overreach was a new thing? So, go to the stars, but sneak out -- and keep an eye open for creeping Congresses. There's things they hate worse than over-marrying,[2] things like free enterprise and individual initiative. I 'spect they're gonna be mighty uncomfortable, by and by.
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1. Based on a supercharged version of the usual "Those people are outbreeding us!" fears, AFAIK. OMG, and they work hard, too, and tend to be clean and decent. Can't have that.

2. Geesh, seriously, what is it with TPTB? If 2 people wanna get married and they ain't heterosexual, that's bad; but if 2 + n people wanna get married, even if all the bedroom interaction is heterosexual, that's bad, too. It's not sufficient just to be straight, noooo, you have to be exactly straight enough and no more. This is precisely why we otta get the .gov out of the wedlock biz other than as plain contracts between consenting adults -- and let the churches each make their own arrangements as regards holy matrimony.

5 comments:

Stranger said...

From reading early accounts from LDS members, it appears many wives demanded help around the farm, and got it in the form of extra wives. Considering the staggering amount of back breaking work involved in "womens work" in that period, I cannot say I blame them. And to be fair, the men's work was no lighter and often far more dangerous.

Of course, that brings on the real drawback. Multiple mothers in law.

Stranger

Earl said...

I have been watching the marriage evolution and waiting for acceptance of multiple partner marriages, marriages between close family members and other exotic pairings. But in the end in my blog post today, I came to the conclusion that will satisfy no one, get the government out of it. Not surprised that you said it better.

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Any true evolution of the concept of marriage cannot take place until the state is cordially invited to butt out.

Marriages should be registered for genealogical/genetic reasons only, not for some vague regulatory and taxing purpose.

But then I'm one of the people who thinks the Republican party would be a lot better off if it rid its platform of its marriage and abortion planks and stopped trying to legislate social issues.

John A said...

"This is precisely why we otta get the .gov out of the wedlock biz other than as plain contracts between consenting adults -- and let the churches each make their own arrangements as regards holy matrimony."

Yes. Return to the original idea, which was to collect in the easiest (and most inexpensive - ask a lawyer how much an equivalent will would cost) way possible notice, and thus recognition, of a new [domestic, supposedly non-business] partnership.

In my State, even "2 person heterosexual Marriage" is only recognized for some six religions/sects. Buddhist? Muslim? Eastern Orthodox? Go ahead and marry within your religion, but to have it recognised by the State you will have to also be joined by a State ceremony.

Anonymous said...

Here here! Freedom begins when we tell Mrs. Grundy to go fly a kite! JohninMd(help!). stealin' quotes from Robert Anson Heinlien.... :-D