{"id":4131,"date":"2013-04-04T06:25:22","date_gmt":"2013-04-04T11:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=4131"},"modified":"2013-04-04T06:25:22","modified_gmt":"2013-04-04T11:25:22","slug":"the-old-ball-and-chain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=4131","title":{"rendered":"The old ball and chain"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kzoz.com\/jeff-and-jeremy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/ball-and-chain-cake-topper01-300x300.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fig. 1: Marriage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A playground loser may save his ego with the following: I didn&#8217;t want to win anyway.\u00c2\u00a0 Here&#8217;s\u00c2\u00a0Yale Professor\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/04\/02\/opinion\/brooks-freedom-loses-one.html\">David Brooks&#8217;<\/a> latest version.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>But last week saw a setback for the forces of maximum freedom. A representative of millions of gays and lesbians went to the Supreme Court and asked the court to help put limits on their own freedom of choice. They asked for marriage.<\/p>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\">Marriage is one of those institutions \u00e2\u20ac\u201d along with religion and military service \u00e2\u20ac\u201d <strong>that restricts freedom<\/strong>. Marriage is about making a commitment that binds you for decades to come. It narrows your options on how you will spend your time, money and attention.<\/p>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\">Whether they understood it or not, the gays and lesbians represented at the court committed themselves to a certain agenda. They committed themselves to an institution that involves surrendering autonomy. They committed themselves to the idea that these self-restrictions should be reinforced by the state. They committed themselves to the idea that lifestyle choices are not just private affairs but work better when they are embedded in law.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p itemprop=\"articleBody\">This is correct only in the most restrictive sense&#8211;the sense in which every choice to do some activity x\u00c2\u00a0involves doing x (and maybe\u00c2\u00a0for a time not y).\u00c2\u00a0 But in every other meaningful sense it&#8217;s appalling dumb: having the right to marry recognized involves adding choices to one&#8217;s life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A playground loser may save his ego with the following: I didn&#8217;t want to win anyway.\u00c2\u00a0 Here&#8217;s\u00c2\u00a0Yale Professor\u00c2\u00a0David Brooks&#8217; latest version. But last week saw a setback for the forces of maximum freedom. A representative of millions of gays and lesbians went to the Supreme Court and asked the court to help put limits on &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=4131\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The old ball and chain<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[136,1634,1635,178,1633],"class_list":["post-4131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brooks","tag-david-brooks","tag-david-brooks-yale-professor","tag-freedom","tag-gay-marriage","tag-incomprehensible-bullshit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4131"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4133,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4131\/revisions\/4133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}