No it isn’t. There is no such pipeline. There may one day be such a pipeline, but the value of the pipeline over its entire lifetime would be a tiny fraction of the amount of money we spent in Afghanistan. How are we supposed to build a pipeline across Afghanistan when we can’t control the country? And it’s only going to get worse once we pull out our troops.
Ever stop and ask why NO society in human history has EVER allowed men to marry each other, even in the centuries before insurance companies existed?
Come now, the ancient Greeks had NO moral objections to sodomy, and they had NO big insurance corporations. So, why didn’t THEY allow gay marriage? It’s NOT because Aetna and State Farm ordered them not to. It’s because, until VERY recently, almost EVERY society has agreed that marriage is between a man and a woman, by definition.
Here’s another question for you- is it only the people you DISAGREE with who “must be” motivated by money? Or are the people on YOUR side ALSO motivated by monetary considerations?
Hmmm? You insist that the Catholic Church MUST be opposing abortion out of financial self-interest (a silly assumption, but I’ll humor you and play along). So… are the Episcopalians who SUPPORT abortion rights admirable idealists, or are they driven by economic interests of their own?
In short, are you an equal opportunity cynic, or do you just figure everyone on YOUR side is a saint acting from the purest motives, while everyone on the OTHER side must be a money-grubbing pig?
We have a man running for President whose grandfather was part of a society that didn’t believe marriage was “between a man and a woman by definition”. We have societies in the middle east that practice polygamy as well. You can’t just make shit up.
Even polygamy has always been between a man and women.
You can’t pretend that your petty quibble undermines my point in the least.
There have been MANY societies in which one man married one woman.
There have been MANY societies in which one rich man married numerous women.
Marriage between two men, on the other hand, hasn’t existed, even in non-Christian societies where sodomy was winked at. Even in societies ruled by gay monarchs like alexander or Trajan.
Why not? You can’t blame insurance companies or Christian zealots.
I quibble with the “definition” part, which I find specious.
I imagine it has to do with the purpose of the various types of marriage that have existed, which has a lot to do with property ownership and the status of women.
You can see that as women have become emancipated there are more women who do not get married
A lot of it is about money, but even the financially interested part is not holistic in it’s economic aims toward the whole of the nation. As long as powerful players benefit and are not hurting other powerful players enough to counterbalance the demand for certain government actions they will push for them and often they will be enacted. Wars are much for the benefit of weapons manufacturers, oil companies and other natural resource control and exploitation including favorable trading opportunities and transportation routes. There is also fear in the wealthy stationed in western countries and the US in particular that should other cultures gain leverage in the world wide economic system that the mechanisms they have in place that have favored them for so long would be threatened. Basically that neo-liberal globalization systems would be replaced at last regionally with other systems that exclude western companies or diminish their leverage. Wars also keep people nationalistic and too angry and scared of/at the world to be objective in analyzing events and players. They also allow us to destroy any system that arises that would serve as a ‘good example’ to other people in the world of working alternatives that empower communities more than they have been historically vs established wealth.
Again though much of the moneyed interests in the US will cut off their nose to spite their face. If outsourcing lowers retention of capital in domestic communities that’s ok because it also lowers the politcal capital of domestic workers which free up large businesses to do whatever they want and siphon the value of labor into their private estates. Parking meters may be a giant boondoggle of cost/annoyance vs revenue and hugely regressive as taxes but that’s ok because to the rich guy it’s a tax that is regressive and so is loved like any tax cut he gets. It also deflects attention from private wealth and exploitation of the nation by getting people angry at local courts and meter maids.
Education may be terrible and costing us a great deal as a ‘brain drain’ on the nation but again that’s ok because it lowers the political strength of the majority and causes them to act in ways that are more exploitable by various consumer companies. It’s also a massive industry that allows tax money to be funneled to various politically connected companies that service contracts for schools. A textbook doesn’t to be rewritten every year or cost 100$ a copy, but it pays someone very handsomely without even having to answer to their consumers (unless you consider the various corrupt education boards consumers).
Social issues are not given political energy so much for the money specifically related to each issue they’re given energy as a distraction from issues of economics and political representation (or lack thereof).
So yes, it is all about the money, or more correctly: It is all about power.