# Incest laws are an example of "Big Government". **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 18, 2016, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incest-laws-are-an-example-of-big-government/766232 "2016-09-18T02:35:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 13
**Author:** ![Barack\_Obama](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dc4da7/32.png) [@Barack\_Obama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barack_Obama)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2016, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incest-laws-are-an-example-of-big-government/766232/13 "2016-09-18T06:00:24Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > It’s been touched upon, but unlike gay marriage, incest laws don’t come from a place of ‘eww gross’ they actually come from science. I’m going off the top of my head here, but IIRC, certain genetic diseases that can be recessive and not do anything for generation after generation after generation of family members and and not doing anything when one of those people has a child with someone that doesn’t have that trait will suddenly show up when two family members, both with the same recessive gene. Since it’s genetic, it runs in the bloodline and therefore more likely that two people in the same family are likely to carry it vs two random people. > > Just as a totally random example (and I have no idea if it’s the case here). Maybe half my family carries a recessive gene for cerebral palsy (I know one cousin has it). If two recessive genes can cause it, inbreeding is more likely to cause offspring with it. OTOH, if we mate with other ‘random’ people, the chance that one of our mates will also carry that gene are statistically less. > > If you want to look at it from a government perspective, if you live around me, you’re probably helping to pay for my cousin’s insurance if she’s on any kind of social welfare or her family gets any money from the goverment to help pay for her disability. And, for sure, your insurance is higher because of the extra payouts made to her. The less inbreeding, the more your taxes go down. > Couple of things of note that I think are important: > 1)In certain parts of the country incest is a bit more lax than it is in other parts. For example in RI the only rule is that you can’t get married. In MN, you can’t have sex with a first cousin or closer. > 2)Hypocrisy? I feel like people toss that word around without know what it means? What do you mean by it. Are you suggesting that the people or person that made and/or uphold that law are themselves involved in invest, because that would be hypocrisy. > 3)It doesn’t ‘hurt nobody’ at best, it costs the tax payers money, at worst it further spreads genes that are generally considered unwanted without people realizing it. > 4)The biggest one, if you want to have sex with your kid, go nuts, but ya know what…keep your mouth shut about it. Do you know why they were arrested for it? Do you know why thus was on the news? Because they made it public knowledge (they got married). If they had just boinked each other in the privacy of their own house and not said anything to anyone else, no one would have ever known. > The same goes for the pot/heroin/meth head that keeps to himself, has a steady job and pay his bills but ends up getting arrested because he mentions it to a neighbor who drops a dime or the person that does [something else bad that doesn’t hurt anyone] and posts pictures on facebook about it. > When it comes to crimes that don’t involve anyone else, if you keep your yapper shut and do it in private, you’ll probably stay out of trouble. 1. Yes, because they had an invested interest in upholding public appeal. Hillary clinton was against gay marriage her entire career, then suddenly shes for it. If we accept the assertion homosexuality is normal, then we must also assume we can accept other sexual preferences. In this case being incest, I could even argue pedophilia but that would be a different topic, still the same principle applies. In relation to your point, if we claim homosexuality is acceptable within closed doors, we must also claim incest is acceptable, and even pedophilia. You have a dare I say evil way of viewing this. Letting people stay isolated is never a good thing. It breeds further conflict. I’ll try to give an example: If a family commits incest, then their children (who are a result of incest) are subjected to it but see society rejects them it. This causes not only social conflict but conflicts of interests. It causes these people to become more indulgent… less attuned with society as a whole. Ultimately it is a form of social isolation. Maybe I’m just being naive here, but I believe people behave better when they don’t feel what they are doing is wrong. At least in retrospective they are. Nobody is truly a bad person. The things people do, the things we ridicule them for, the things they feel doesn’t out weigh the social stigma of it all, are all a fundamental part of being human beings. Anyone can make the claim you’re a terrible person for A B C, but the fact is you are a person. You are committing A B C. So long as ABC doesn’t negatively affect XYZ then there is nothing wrong with it. Sure put in a hundred other variables, but the fact remains it’s liberty. Something this country fundamentally was founded on. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incest-laws-are-an-example-of-big-government/766232)._