"So, how about polyandry?"

Hagar asks in the comments to "Jonathan Rauch doubles down on the supply-of-women argument for why polygamy is not like same-sex marriage." Briefly, the supply-of-women argument says that government may exclude polygamists from the fundamental freedom to marry because if some men marry more than one woman, there will be fewer women available to pair up with unmarried men thereby cure them of their dangerous destructiveness.

Hagar is suggesting that polyandry could solve the problem. Everyone's picturing polygyny, which Jonathan Rauch called "almost invariably the real-world pattern." Rauch also points to a map, showing the prevalence of polygamy in countries that where women are not equal. But, as I say in the earlier post, this is America, and the question is what will happen going forward. The supply-of-women argument asks us to worry about what will happen going forward.

So Hagar's question is apt. Why must we deny women the right to choose to be one of multiple wives in a polygynous marriage if the same interest — marrying up the unmarried men — could be served by empowering, encouraging, and even subsidizing — rampant polyandry? That ought to vacuum up the excess men that are screwing up the world (according to the supply-of-women argument!).

"The National Park Service placed cones along highway viewing areas outside Mount Rushmore this week, barring visitors from pulling over and taking pictures..."

Cones! The dreaded cones!

After I read that, this song verse played in my head:

If you drive a car, I'll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat.
If you get too cold I'll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet.

ADDED: Meade reads this post and asks: "Was it even a federal highway?" Yeah, was it the interstate? Why don't they close down the whole interstate highway system? Obviously, they're not doing everything they can, they're just choosing particular things, trying to be annoying in just the right way to sculpt public opinion. They're poking at us. With orange cones. And we are annoyed. But which way are we annoyed?

AND: If the giant head of the President has blocked your sight line to the giant heads of the Presidents, here's another sculpture for you:



ALSO: The government doesn't seem to know that a lot of those visitors to South Dakota ride motorcycles. A motorcycle can get right in there between the cones.

IN THE COMMENTS: TosaGuy said:

I lived in South Dakota for five years. Orange comes don't stop anyone from doing anything in the land where every sign on a rural road has a shotgun blast in it.

Mr Obama, tear down your Barrycades!

Hagar said:

This has to be State Highway 244 that goes by Mt. Rushmore. U.S. Route 16A is farther away, and, of course, neither has anything to do with the interstate system. However, South Dakota, like every other state, receives Federal money for their highway systems through the FHWA, and per Murphy's Golden Rule, whoever controls the gold gets to rule.

That's not true in Wisconsin! Scott Walker resisted the pressure to shut down state parks.

No Federal money comes without strings, but in this case I think the FHWA would have to side with the Park Service, and I think it is not like they have any actual jurisdiction; all they could do would be to threaten to be difficult and withhold future funding for this road (and other projects?), I think.

Yeah, that too happened in Wisconsin, after Scott Walker rejected the federal money for a "high speed" train. But let's remember that at some point, conditions on spending count as coercion and the federal government cannot force state government to do its work.

"Brains Of Dying Rats Yield Clues About Near-Death Experiences."

 "Just after the rats' hearts stopped, there was a burst of brain activity. Their brain suddenly seemed to go into overdrive, showing all the hallmarks not only of consciousness but a kind of hyperconsciousness."

"We found continued and heightened activity... Measurable conscious activity is much, much higher after the heart stops — within the first 30 seconds.... That really just, just really blew our mind. ... That really is consistent with what patients report"....

I thought this was already well known, but I guess euthanizing rats and getting this data is new. Still, were the scientists' minds actually blown? Isn't this what they expected? Wouldn't it have been more mind-blowing if there hadn't been a brain activity burst — because that's what would support the supernatural interpretation of the near-death experiences reported by human beings?

IN THE COMMENTS: Hagar asks: "Why is euthanizing used as a euphemism for killing?" Yeah, euthanasia is killing to spare the animal pain. These rats were killed just to watch them die, like Johnny Cash and that man in Reno, except Johnny Cash didn't have electrodes implanted in the man's brain, nor did he seriously collect and analyze data or shake our beliefs in the existence of heaven and hell.

As expected, I got some pushback for saying "I hope the Supreme Court blesses us with" a right to same-sex marriage.

That was a provocative way to say that it will be a blessing if the upcoming Supreme Court cases resolve this issue that is dogging and distorting the political discourse in our country.

Even to say "it will be a blessing" would have been provocative, since it seems to give God credit for whatever good happens. But that usage of "blessing" has constitutional text to support it:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. 

Liberty is a set of blessings, our Founders told us. The human task is to secure the blessings. If the Supreme Court says it has found a liberty — let's say a right to same-sex marriage — we may say that it is securing a liberty that is already there. When someone says "bless you," that doesn't mean that the blessing emanates from the speaker. It's short for "God bless you." It's asking God to deliver a blessing. In the Constitution, what we see is that the Framers believed that God had blessed us with liberty.

So to say "I hope the Supreme Court blesses us" is to identify the Court as the source of the blessing, to put the Court in the place of God, and to prompt and tease those who think the Court improperly makes up rights. That was deliberate and devilish temptation. Thanks for succumbing!

Below the fold are the comments that inspired this post:

Did you hear about President JFK and the 19-year-old? They took lots of baths where they played with rubber duckies.

Mimi Alford tells her tale, and she didn't call it rape, even though some of her friends prompted her with that word. She says that even at the point when the President overwhelmed her and took her virginity on Jackie's bed, she felt "the thrill of being desired." After that first encounter he was "attentive.. gentlemanly ... [and sometimes] seductive." Their "sexual relationship was varied and fun, and we spent an inordinate amount of time taking baths together, turning his elegant bathroom into our own mini-spa."

The only discordant note was the yellow rubber ducks, which a friend had sent him. Every time the President saw those ducks, he’d become irresistibly playful.

We named them after his family members, made up stories about them, and often set them racing from one end of the tub to other. It was part of his charm that he was a serious, sophisticated man with extraordinary responsibilities, yet willing to be completely silly.

Sounds like they had a fine time together. She was sleeping over all night when Jackie was out of town:

I was so pleased with myself at being chosen by the President that I didn’t feel self-conscious at all about wearing the same clothes at work two days in a row.

If my office mates noticed, I didn’t care. I felt invulnerable, as if I were cloaked with the President’s power.

What a trip. A power trip. Too bad for those other women (and men) who were not chosen. Did Alford wait until these inconvenient women passed away to preen about her powerful chosen-one status?

It shames me to admit that I don’t recall feeling any guilt. In my 19-year-old mind, I wasn’t invading the Kennedys’ marriage; I was merely occupying the President’s time when his wife was away. If he wasn’t troubled, why should I be? It was hardly by chance that in the 18 months I knew him, I never once met his wife.

Isn't it funny that the "19-year-old mind" came up with exactly the same set of trite justifications that almost every lover of a married man/woman comes up with if they don't want to admit they know it's wrong?

As the summer wore on, I was pulled deeper into his personal orbit. But despite the increasing level of familiarity between us, I never rose above being the obedient partner in our relationship.

Even in our most intimate moments, I called him Mr President. To do otherwise would have seemed inappropriate.

Inappropriate... and way less sexy. And speaking of obedience, there's the dirtiest story, the one where she gives a blow job to Dave Powers, the President’s special assistant after JFK whispers to her "Mr Powers looks a little tense — would you take care of it?"

I don’t think the President thought I’d do it, but I’m ashamed to say that I did.... Perhaps I was carried away by a spirit of playfulness.

Later, she realized it was sordid, and JFK apologized, but nevertheless tried it again, asking her to "take care of my baby brother" — that is, Teddy.

Over at The New Republic, Timothy Noah, absorbing the blow-job incident, calls JFK a "monster."

What do you think?
	Noah's right, he was a monster to do those things.
	It's complex, and JFK isn't around to tell us what domination and submission games they played.
	She was an adult, she consented, and she was callous toward Jackie (and her coworkers).
pollcode.com free polls

ADDED: "The rubber swan is mine" is a punchline from Vaughn Meader's "The First Family" album — a big hit comedy record at the time — in a segment in which Meader as JFK explains whose bath toys are whose. (Thanks to Hagar in the comments for the tip.) (I note that "schwanz" is slang for penis, so I wonder if Meader was in on the joke of JFK with his toys in the bath.)