Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
The U.S. military's quest to weaponize culture | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
For those anthropologists who don't judge the vitality of our discipline solely in terms of revenue streams, the Pentagon's new interest in culture is worrying. So far the Pentagon has announced two major initiatives to mobilize anthropological knowledge for war. The first is the Human Terrain Team system, to which Gates allocated $40 million in September 2007. The Pentagon plans 26 Human Terrain Teams--one for each combat brigade in Iraq and Afghanistan. The five-person teams include three military personnel. Each team also includes an anthropologist--or another social scientist--who will wear a military uniform and receive weapons training. Described as doing "armed social work" by David Kilcullen, an Australian expert in counterinsurgency who advises Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq, the teams elicit information from villagers for Pentagon databases and provide cultural orientation to U.S. military leaders.
The U.S. military's quest to weaponize culture Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
The U.S. military's quest to weaponize culture Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Intellect and Emotions
Intellect and Emotions
by Simonne Liberty
EMOTIONAL EDUCATION
Our education system has built a mental image of what education is suppose to entail. Reading, writing and arithmetic has expanded to high tech skills. Academic intelligence has become a major concern in our modern society. Education in our system is viewed as the most important goal for success. Without education a person is lead to believe that all they can face is failure.
This type of view and attitude by the educational leaders of our country puts a band-aid on problems that need to be addressed in order for education to work. There are few two parent, stable and secure families in our society. Most families are plagued by dysfunctional relationships. Alcohol, drug abuse, physical and sexual abuse. Moral break-downs, child neglect and abuse. Single parent homes, and latch key kids. Fear of fatal disease (aids), poverty, homelessness, and hunger. When all these dysfunctional problems affect the majority of children in our society today, how can their educational skills be considered a FIRST PRIORITY in seeking goals for the future?
EMOTIONAL EDUCATION needs to be taught in schools along with academic education, for children to heal as they learn. Children who have to deal with heavy emotional problems at home, can not turn off the emotions when they walk through the front door of the school. High grade point averages and high IQ's are not going to benefit children who are inflicted with deep emotional problems, that are not dealt with.
Domestic violence, sexual and physical abuse, and a high crime rate will continue to escalate among bright and intelligent students who show potential to excel in academic skills, if they are left to fend with emotional struggles that they don't know how to handle. Children will react and respond to the actions that are done to them at home. They may be able to put aside the emotional stress during the school hours, and they may even get by without detection.
A high school diploma or college degree will not heal the hidden wounds that can't heal without treatment. Earning a decent salary for academic achievement may appear to be a sign of success. But when the fears of the past are deeply rooted, they can easily erupt or resurface unexpectedly, or in expected ways. Serial killers often are intelligent human beings who have been twisted emotionally into dangerous monsters. Often the root of problems go way back into a past where emotional problems were never faced, or taken care of. The emotional dysfunction erupts into an evil end.
Many people who physically or sexually abuse their own children or spouces, also may exibit high academic skills. Again, a high IQ is NOT a garantee that the hidden problems of the past will vanish and take care of themselves. The cycle will continue until emotional education is taught and the cycle is broken.
Moral values and concern for others, is not a priority taught in the basic academic program. The issue of "loving one another," is put on the back burner to teach that we live in a COMPETITIVE WORLD. We are taught that everyone has to fight for themselves. That type of reasoning is not going to solve humanistic problems in the world.
Often the need to learn about emotional education drives people to seek this kind of teaching, by religious means. Sometimes religion helps, and other times it only adds to the guilt and shame a person already suffers with. Often a person only becomes more confused, and continues the cycle of shame under the protection of religion. Religion can become a cover for them to live a double life. It is not uncommon. Religion alone is not the answer for all who see relief from the deep dark secrets they were never able to deal with in the past.
The average academic subjects of Math, English, History ect. do not touch a childs "FEELINGS". Feelings are more a part of living than knowing all the answers on an academic exam. When emotions are put aside and neglected, to teach programmed lessons, often those who succeed will be emotionless in dealing with life issues.
Copyright © 2002-2009 Helium, Inc. All rights reserved.
by Simonne Liberty
EMOTIONAL EDUCATION
Our education system has built a mental image of what education is suppose to entail. Reading, writing and arithmetic has expanded to high tech skills. Academic intelligence has become a major concern in our modern society. Education in our system is viewed as the most important goal for success. Without education a person is lead to believe that all they can face is failure.
This type of view and attitude by the educational leaders of our country puts a band-aid on problems that need to be addressed in order for education to work. There are few two parent, stable and secure families in our society. Most families are plagued by dysfunctional relationships. Alcohol, drug abuse, physical and sexual abuse. Moral break-downs, child neglect and abuse. Single parent homes, and latch key kids. Fear of fatal disease (aids), poverty, homelessness, and hunger. When all these dysfunctional problems affect the majority of children in our society today, how can their educational skills be considered a FIRST PRIORITY in seeking goals for the future?
EMOTIONAL EDUCATION needs to be taught in schools along with academic education, for children to heal as they learn. Children who have to deal with heavy emotional problems at home, can not turn off the emotions when they walk through the front door of the school. High grade point averages and high IQ's are not going to benefit children who are inflicted with deep emotional problems, that are not dealt with.
Domestic violence, sexual and physical abuse, and a high crime rate will continue to escalate among bright and intelligent students who show potential to excel in academic skills, if they are left to fend with emotional struggles that they don't know how to handle. Children will react and respond to the actions that are done to them at home. They may be able to put aside the emotional stress during the school hours, and they may even get by without detection.
A high school diploma or college degree will not heal the hidden wounds that can't heal without treatment. Earning a decent salary for academic achievement may appear to be a sign of success. But when the fears of the past are deeply rooted, they can easily erupt or resurface unexpectedly, or in expected ways. Serial killers often are intelligent human beings who have been twisted emotionally into dangerous monsters. Often the root of problems go way back into a past where emotional problems were never faced, or taken care of. The emotional dysfunction erupts into an evil end.
Many people who physically or sexually abuse their own children or spouces, also may exibit high academic skills. Again, a high IQ is NOT a garantee that the hidden problems of the past will vanish and take care of themselves. The cycle will continue until emotional education is taught and the cycle is broken.
Moral values and concern for others, is not a priority taught in the basic academic program. The issue of "loving one another," is put on the back burner to teach that we live in a COMPETITIVE WORLD. We are taught that everyone has to fight for themselves. That type of reasoning is not going to solve humanistic problems in the world.
Often the need to learn about emotional education drives people to seek this kind of teaching, by religious means. Sometimes religion helps, and other times it only adds to the guilt and shame a person already suffers with. Often a person only becomes more confused, and continues the cycle of shame under the protection of religion. Religion can become a cover for them to live a double life. It is not uncommon. Religion alone is not the answer for all who see relief from the deep dark secrets they were never able to deal with in the past.
The average academic subjects of Math, English, History ect. do not touch a childs "FEELINGS". Feelings are more a part of living than knowing all the answers on an academic exam. When emotions are put aside and neglected, to teach programmed lessons, often those who succeed will be emotionless in dealing with life issues.
Copyright © 2002-2009 Helium, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Saving Private Jessica - The New York Times
Saving Private Jessica
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: Friday, June 20, 2003
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LinkedinDiggFacebookMixxMySpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalinkI've been roaming Iraq, turning over rocks in my unstinting effort to help the Bush administration find those weapons of mass destruction. No luck yet.
But I did find something related, here in the city where it seems (contrary to early Pentagon leaks) that Pfc. Jessica Lynch did not mow down Iraqis until her ammo ran out, was not shot and apparently was not plucked from behind enemy lines by U.S. commandos braving a firefight. It looks as if the first accounts of the rescue were embellished, like the imminent threat from W.M.D., and like wartime pronouncements about an uprising in Basra and imminent defections of generals. There's a pattern: we were misled.
None of this is to put down Private Lynch, whom her Iraqi doctors described as courageous and funny in the face of unrelenting pain; they said that she told Abdul Hadi, a hospital worker who had befriended her, not to take risks for her because he was needed by his 17 children. Ms. Lynch is still a hero in my book, and it was unnecessary for officials to try to turn her into a Hollywood caricature. As a citizen, I deeply resent my government trying to spin me like a Ping-Pong ball.
Staff members of Nasiriya's main hospital told me, as they have told other reporters, how surprised they were when military officers brought an American woman by ambulance. Private Lynch was unconscious, with broken legs, a head wound and other injuries, apparently sustained in a vehicle accident during a firefight.
''She was nearly dead,'' recalled Saad Abdulrazak, the deputy hospital director, who received her.
The Iraqi doctors were enchanted by this blonde warrior, who as she recovered spent her time alternately crying and joking. I don't know how much to credit the Iraqis' claims that they gave her the best room in the hospital, that they went to the market to buy orange juice for her with their own money, that they brought clothes so that she would have something to wear. But they didn't minimize Iraqi brutality. Indeed, they told of an execution of a handcuffed American male. (I've put a fuller account of this execution and of Ms. Lynch's saga at nytimes.com/kristofresponds.)
The hospital staff also said that on the night of March 27, military officials prepared to kill Ms. Lynch by putting her in an ambulance and blowing it up with its occupants -- blaming the atrocity on the Americans. The ambulance drivers balked at that idea. Eventually, the plan was changed so that a military officer would shoot Ms. Lynch and burn the ambulance. So Sabah Khazal, an ambulance driver, loaded her in the vehicle and drove off with a military officer assigned to execute her.
''I asked him not to shoot Jessica,'' Mr. Khazal said, ''and he was afraid of God and didn't kill her.'' Instead, the executioner ran away and deserted the army, and Mr. Khazal said that he then thought about delivering Ms. Lynch to an American checkpoint. But there were firefights on the streets, so he returned to the hospital. (Ms. Lynch apparently never knew how close she had come to execution.)
By the morning of March 31, all of the Iraqi military at the hospital had fled. The hospital staff members said that they then told Ms. Lynch they would take her to the Americans the next day. That same night, the American special forces arrived.
''I met the Americans at the hospital entrance,'' said Dr. Hussein Salih, adding that Mr. Abdulrazak then led the Americans to Private Lynch. The staff members all said that there was no resistance, and that they welcomed the Americans.
Is this account the truth? I don't know, but every time I voiced skepticism, the doctors and staff all insisted: ''Go ask Jessica! She'll tell you.'' The U.S. military has refused to make Private Lynch available, although that may be out of respect for her privacy; in any case, she is said to have no memory of her capture.
My guess is that ''Saving Private Lynch'' was a complex tale vastly oversimplified by officials, partly because of genuine ambiguities and partly because they wanted a good story to build political support for the war -- a repetition of the exaggerations over W.M.D. We weren't quite lied to, but facts were subordinated to politics, and truth was treated as an endlessly stretchable fabric.
The Iraqis misused our prisoners for their propaganda purposes, and it hurts to find out that some American officials were misusing Private Lynch the same way.
E-mail: nicholas@nytimes.com
Saving Private Jessica - The New York Times
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: Friday, June 20, 2003
Sign in to Recommend
Sign In to E-Mail
Reprints
ShareClose
LinkedinDiggFacebookMixxMySpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalinkI've been roaming Iraq, turning over rocks in my unstinting effort to help the Bush administration find those weapons of mass destruction. No luck yet.
But I did find something related, here in the city where it seems (contrary to early Pentagon leaks) that Pfc. Jessica Lynch did not mow down Iraqis until her ammo ran out, was not shot and apparently was not plucked from behind enemy lines by U.S. commandos braving a firefight. It looks as if the first accounts of the rescue were embellished, like the imminent threat from W.M.D., and like wartime pronouncements about an uprising in Basra and imminent defections of generals. There's a pattern: we were misled.
None of this is to put down Private Lynch, whom her Iraqi doctors described as courageous and funny in the face of unrelenting pain; they said that she told Abdul Hadi, a hospital worker who had befriended her, not to take risks for her because he was needed by his 17 children. Ms. Lynch is still a hero in my book, and it was unnecessary for officials to try to turn her into a Hollywood caricature. As a citizen, I deeply resent my government trying to spin me like a Ping-Pong ball.
Staff members of Nasiriya's main hospital told me, as they have told other reporters, how surprised they were when military officers brought an American woman by ambulance. Private Lynch was unconscious, with broken legs, a head wound and other injuries, apparently sustained in a vehicle accident during a firefight.
''She was nearly dead,'' recalled Saad Abdulrazak, the deputy hospital director, who received her.
The Iraqi doctors were enchanted by this blonde warrior, who as she recovered spent her time alternately crying and joking. I don't know how much to credit the Iraqis' claims that they gave her the best room in the hospital, that they went to the market to buy orange juice for her with their own money, that they brought clothes so that she would have something to wear. But they didn't minimize Iraqi brutality. Indeed, they told of an execution of a handcuffed American male. (I've put a fuller account of this execution and of Ms. Lynch's saga at nytimes.com/kristofresponds.)
The hospital staff also said that on the night of March 27, military officials prepared to kill Ms. Lynch by putting her in an ambulance and blowing it up with its occupants -- blaming the atrocity on the Americans. The ambulance drivers balked at that idea. Eventually, the plan was changed so that a military officer would shoot Ms. Lynch and burn the ambulance. So Sabah Khazal, an ambulance driver, loaded her in the vehicle and drove off with a military officer assigned to execute her.
''I asked him not to shoot Jessica,'' Mr. Khazal said, ''and he was afraid of God and didn't kill her.'' Instead, the executioner ran away and deserted the army, and Mr. Khazal said that he then thought about delivering Ms. Lynch to an American checkpoint. But there were firefights on the streets, so he returned to the hospital. (Ms. Lynch apparently never knew how close she had come to execution.)
By the morning of March 31, all of the Iraqi military at the hospital had fled. The hospital staff members said that they then told Ms. Lynch they would take her to the Americans the next day. That same night, the American special forces arrived.
''I met the Americans at the hospital entrance,'' said Dr. Hussein Salih, adding that Mr. Abdulrazak then led the Americans to Private Lynch. The staff members all said that there was no resistance, and that they welcomed the Americans.
Is this account the truth? I don't know, but every time I voiced skepticism, the doctors and staff all insisted: ''Go ask Jessica! She'll tell you.'' The U.S. military has refused to make Private Lynch available, although that may be out of respect for her privacy; in any case, she is said to have no memory of her capture.
My guess is that ''Saving Private Lynch'' was a complex tale vastly oversimplified by officials, partly because of genuine ambiguities and partly because they wanted a good story to build political support for the war -- a repetition of the exaggerations over W.M.D. We weren't quite lied to, but facts were subordinated to politics, and truth was treated as an endlessly stretchable fabric.
The Iraqis misused our prisoners for their propaganda purposes, and it hurts to find out that some American officials were misusing Private Lynch the same way.
E-mail: nicholas@nytimes.com
Saving Private Jessica - The New York Times
Mind-Controlled Zombie Slaves - Uncle Sam Wants Your Brain
Uncle Sam Wants Your Brain
Drugs that make soldiers want to fight. Robots linked directly to their controllers’ brains. Lie-detecting scans administered to terrorist suspects as they cross U.S. borders.
These are just a few of the military uses imagined for cognitive science — and if it’s not yet certain whether the technologies will work, the military is certainly taking them very seriously.
"It’s way too early to know which — if any — of these technologies is going to be practical," said Jonathan Moreno, a Center for American Progress bioethicist and author of Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense. "But it’s important for us to get ahead of the curve. Soldiers are always on the cutting edge of new technologies."
Moreno is part of a National Research Council committee convened by the Department of Defense to evaluate the military potential of brain science. Their report, "Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies," was released today. It charts a range of cognitive technologies that are potentially powerful — and, perhaps, powerfully troubling.
Here are the report’s main areas of focus:
Mind reading. The development of psychological models and neurological imaging has made it possible to see what people are thinking and whether they’re lying. The science is, however, still in its infancy: Challenges remain in accounting for variations between individual brains, and the tendency of our brains to change over time. One important application is lie detection — though one hopes that the lesson of traditional lie detectors, predicated on the now-disproven idea that the physiological basis of lying can be separated from processes such as anxiety, has been learned.
Mind readers could be used to interrogate captured enemies, as well as"terrorist suspects" passing through customs. But does this mean, for example, that travelers placed on the bloated, mistake-laden watchlist would have their minds scanned, just as their computers will be? The report notes that "In situations where it is important to win the hearts and minds of the local populace, it would be useful to know if they understand the information being given them."
Cognitive enhancement. Arguably the most developed area of cognitive neuroscience, with drugs already allowing soldiers to stay awake and alert for days at a time, and brain-altering drugs in widespread use among civilians diagnosed with mental and behavioral problems.
Improved drug delivery systems and improved neurological understanding could make today’s drugs seem rudimentary, giving soldiers a superhuman strength and awareness — but if a drug can be designed to increase an ability, a drug can also be designed to destroy it.
"It’s also important to develop antidotes and protective agents against various classes of drugs," says the report. This echoes the motivation of much federal biodefense research, in which designing defenses against potential bioterror agents requires those agents to be made — and that raises the possibility of our own weapons being turned against us, as with the post-9/11 anthrax attacks, which used a military developed strain.
Mind control. Largely pharmaceutical, for the moment, and a natural outgrowth of cognitive enhancement approaches and mind-reading insight: If we can alter the brain, why not control it? One potential use involves making soldiers want to fight. Conversely,"How can we disrupt the enemy’s motivation to fight? [...] How can we make people trust us more? What if we could help the brain to remove fear or pain? Is there a way to make the enemy obey our commands?"
Brain-Machine Interfaces. The report focuses on direct brain-to-machine systems (rather than, for example, systems that are controlled by visual movements, which are already in limited use by paraplegics.) Among these are robotic prostheses that replace or extend body parts; cognitive and sensory prostheses, which make it possible to think and to perceive in entirely new ways; and robotic or software assistants, which would do the same thing, but from a distance.
Many questions surrounding the safety of current brain-machine interfaces: The union of metal and flesh only lasts so long before things break down. But assuming those can be overcome, questions of plasticity arise: What happens when a soldier leaves the service? How might their brains be reshaped by their experience?
Like Moreno said, it’s too early to say what will work. The report documents in great detail the practical obstacles to these aims — not least the failure of reductionist neuroscientific models, in which a few firing neurons can be easily mapped to a psychological state, and brains can be analyzed in one-map-fits-all fashion.
But given the rapid progress of cognitive science, it’s foolish to assume that obstacles won’t be overcome. Hugh Gusterson, a George Mason University anthropologist and critic of the military’s sponsorship of social science research, says their attempt to crack the cultural code is unlikely to work –"but my sense with neuroscience," he said, "is a far more realistic ambition."
Gusterson is deeply pessimistic about military neuroscience, which will not be limited to the United States.
"I think most reasonable people, if they imagine a world in which all sides have figured out how to control brains, they’d rather not go there," he said. "Most rational human beings would believe that if we could have a world where nobody does military neuroscience, we’ll all be better off. But for some people in the Pentagon, it’s too delicious to ignore."
Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies [National Academies Press]
Image: University of Western Florida
Note: The NRC committee is formally known as the Committee on Military and Intelligence Methodology for EmergentNeurophysiological and Cognitive/Neural Science Research in the NextTwo Decades. In the future, cognitive technologies will apparently obviate the need for snappy, easily-acronymed titles.
WiSci 2.0: Brandon Keim’s Twitter and Del.icio.us feeds; Wired Science on Facebook.
Tags: Cognition, Human 2.0, Military
Drugs that make soldiers want to fight. Robots linked directly to their controllers’ brains. Lie-detecting scans administered to terrorist suspects as they cross U.S. borders.
These are just a few of the military uses imagined for cognitive science — and if it’s not yet certain whether the technologies will work, the military is certainly taking them very seriously.
"It’s way too early to know which — if any — of these technologies is going to be practical," said Jonathan Moreno, a Center for American Progress bioethicist and author of Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense. "But it’s important for us to get ahead of the curve. Soldiers are always on the cutting edge of new technologies."
Moreno is part of a National Research Council committee convened by the Department of Defense to evaluate the military potential of brain science. Their report, "Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies," was released today. It charts a range of cognitive technologies that are potentially powerful — and, perhaps, powerfully troubling.
Here are the report’s main areas of focus:
Mind reading. The development of psychological models and neurological imaging has made it possible to see what people are thinking and whether they’re lying. The science is, however, still in its infancy: Challenges remain in accounting for variations between individual brains, and the tendency of our brains to change over time. One important application is lie detection — though one hopes that the lesson of traditional lie detectors, predicated on the now-disproven idea that the physiological basis of lying can be separated from processes such as anxiety, has been learned.
Mind readers could be used to interrogate captured enemies, as well as"terrorist suspects" passing through customs. But does this mean, for example, that travelers placed on the bloated, mistake-laden watchlist would have their minds scanned, just as their computers will be? The report notes that "In situations where it is important to win the hearts and minds of the local populace, it would be useful to know if they understand the information being given them."
Cognitive enhancement. Arguably the most developed area of cognitive neuroscience, with drugs already allowing soldiers to stay awake and alert for days at a time, and brain-altering drugs in widespread use among civilians diagnosed with mental and behavioral problems.
Improved drug delivery systems and improved neurological understanding could make today’s drugs seem rudimentary, giving soldiers a superhuman strength and awareness — but if a drug can be designed to increase an ability, a drug can also be designed to destroy it.
"It’s also important to develop antidotes and protective agents against various classes of drugs," says the report. This echoes the motivation of much federal biodefense research, in which designing defenses against potential bioterror agents requires those agents to be made — and that raises the possibility of our own weapons being turned against us, as with the post-9/11 anthrax attacks, which used a military developed strain.
Mind control. Largely pharmaceutical, for the moment, and a natural outgrowth of cognitive enhancement approaches and mind-reading insight: If we can alter the brain, why not control it? One potential use involves making soldiers want to fight. Conversely,"How can we disrupt the enemy’s motivation to fight? [...] How can we make people trust us more? What if we could help the brain to remove fear or pain? Is there a way to make the enemy obey our commands?"
Brain-Machine Interfaces. The report focuses on direct brain-to-machine systems (rather than, for example, systems that are controlled by visual movements, which are already in limited use by paraplegics.) Among these are robotic prostheses that replace or extend body parts; cognitive and sensory prostheses, which make it possible to think and to perceive in entirely new ways; and robotic or software assistants, which would do the same thing, but from a distance.
Many questions surrounding the safety of current brain-machine interfaces: The union of metal and flesh only lasts so long before things break down. But assuming those can be overcome, questions of plasticity arise: What happens when a soldier leaves the service? How might their brains be reshaped by their experience?
Like Moreno said, it’s too early to say what will work. The report documents in great detail the practical obstacles to these aims — not least the failure of reductionist neuroscientific models, in which a few firing neurons can be easily mapped to a psychological state, and brains can be analyzed in one-map-fits-all fashion.
But given the rapid progress of cognitive science, it’s foolish to assume that obstacles won’t be overcome. Hugh Gusterson, a George Mason University anthropologist and critic of the military’s sponsorship of social science research, says their attempt to crack the cultural code is unlikely to work –"but my sense with neuroscience," he said, "is a far more realistic ambition."
Gusterson is deeply pessimistic about military neuroscience, which will not be limited to the United States.
"I think most reasonable people, if they imagine a world in which all sides have figured out how to control brains, they’d rather not go there," he said. "Most rational human beings would believe that if we could have a world where nobody does military neuroscience, we’ll all be better off. But for some people in the Pentagon, it’s too delicious to ignore."
Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies [National Academies Press]
Image: University of Western Florida
Note: The NRC committee is formally known as the Committee on Military and Intelligence Methodology for EmergentNeurophysiological and Cognitive/Neural Science Research in the NextTwo Decades. In the future, cognitive technologies will apparently obviate the need for snappy, easily-acronymed titles.
WiSci 2.0: Brandon Keim’s Twitter and Del.icio.us feeds; Wired Science on Facebook.
Tags: Cognition, Human 2.0, Military
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Lawyer: FBI Paid Right-Wing Blogger Charged With Threats | Threat Level | Wired.com
A notorious New Jersey hate blogger charged in June with threatening to kill judges and lawmakers was secretly an FBI “agent provocateur” paid to disseminate right-wing rhetoric, his attorney said Wednesday.
Hal Turner, the blogger and radio personality, remains jailed pending charges over his recent online rants, which prosecutors claim amounted to an invitation for someone to kill Connecticut lawmakers and Chicago federal appeals court judges.
But behind the scenes the reformed white supremacist was holding clandestine meetings with FBI agents who taught him how to spew hate “without crossing the line,” according to his lawyer, Michael Orozco.
“Almost everything was at the behest of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Orozco said in a 45-minute telephone interview from New Jersey. “Their job was to pick up information on the responses of what he was saying and see where that led them. It was an interesting dynamic on what he was being asked to do.”
“He’s a devoted American,” added the lawyer, who claims Turner was paid “tens of thousands of dollars” for his service.
Bill Carter, an FBI spokesman, said in a telephone interview the bureau’s policy is “to neither confirm nor deny whether an individual has an association with the FBI.”
Turner’s alleged 5-year-long bureau stint ended sometime in 2007, Orozco said, the year the mischievous online group, Anonymous, briefly shuttered his site — turnerradionetwork.blogspot.com — with a denial of service attack. At the time, hackers also posted what appeared to be private e-mails between Turner and the FBI.
The e-mails are legitimate, said Orozco. The FBI approached Turner, now 47, in 2002, and he spewed rhetoric about politics, white supremacy, immigration, abortion and other hot-button issues for years in exchange for government cash.
Turner was arrested in June at his apartment in suburban New Jersey.
According to court documents, (.pdf) after a three-judge panel of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit of Appeals upheld a Chicago handgun ban, he blogged that the judges should be “killed.”
“Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges deserve to be killed. Their blood will replenish the tree of liberty. A small price to pay to assure freedom for millions,” he wrote.
A day later he posted addresses, photos, maps and other identifying information about Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook and Judges Richard Posner and William Bauer, the authorities said. State charges are also pending in Hartford, Connecticut, where Turner is accused of inciting readers to “take up arms” against state lawmakers.
Though the alleged threats came after his FBI service ended, Orozco said Turner’s relationship with the FBI is relevant to his defense.
“It is not trivial that the very government that trained an individual where the line was is prosecuting him when he has not stepped over the line,” Orozco said.
In addition, he is banking (.pdf) on the First Amendment to save his client’s skin.
“It’s a protected political statement. He opined,” Orozco said. “He said they deserved to be killed. He did not say grab a gun and go out and do what is necessary.”
Lawyer: FBI Paid Right-Wing Blogger Charged With Threats | Threat Level | Wired.com
Hal Turner, the blogger and radio personality, remains jailed pending charges over his recent online rants, which prosecutors claim amounted to an invitation for someone to kill Connecticut lawmakers and Chicago federal appeals court judges.
But behind the scenes the reformed white supremacist was holding clandestine meetings with FBI agents who taught him how to spew hate “without crossing the line,” according to his lawyer, Michael Orozco.
“Almost everything was at the behest of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Orozco said in a 45-minute telephone interview from New Jersey. “Their job was to pick up information on the responses of what he was saying and see where that led them. It was an interesting dynamic on what he was being asked to do.”
“He’s a devoted American,” added the lawyer, who claims Turner was paid “tens of thousands of dollars” for his service.
Bill Carter, an FBI spokesman, said in a telephone interview the bureau’s policy is “to neither confirm nor deny whether an individual has an association with the FBI.”
Turner’s alleged 5-year-long bureau stint ended sometime in 2007, Orozco said, the year the mischievous online group, Anonymous, briefly shuttered his site — turnerradionetwork.blogspot.com — with a denial of service attack. At the time, hackers also posted what appeared to be private e-mails between Turner and the FBI.
The e-mails are legitimate, said Orozco. The FBI approached Turner, now 47, in 2002, and he spewed rhetoric about politics, white supremacy, immigration, abortion and other hot-button issues for years in exchange for government cash.
Turner was arrested in June at his apartment in suburban New Jersey.
According to court documents, (.pdf) after a three-judge panel of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit of Appeals upheld a Chicago handgun ban, he blogged that the judges should be “killed.”
“Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges deserve to be killed. Their blood will replenish the tree of liberty. A small price to pay to assure freedom for millions,” he wrote.
A day later he posted addresses, photos, maps and other identifying information about Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook and Judges Richard Posner and William Bauer, the authorities said. State charges are also pending in Hartford, Connecticut, where Turner is accused of inciting readers to “take up arms” against state lawmakers.
Though the alleged threats came after his FBI service ended, Orozco said Turner’s relationship with the FBI is relevant to his defense.
“It is not trivial that the very government that trained an individual where the line was is prosecuting him when he has not stepped over the line,” Orozco said.
In addition, he is banking (.pdf) on the First Amendment to save his client’s skin.
“It’s a protected political statement. He opined,” Orozco said. “He said they deserved to be killed. He did not say grab a gun and go out and do what is necessary.”
Lawyer: FBI Paid Right-Wing Blogger Charged With Threats | Threat Level | Wired.com
Ambien Addiction
The Addiction That Began While Sleeping
It usually starts out as someone just wanting to get a good night’s sleep. Innocently enough, they start out trying warm milk or tea before heading to bed. Nothing works. So, they’re left with a choice: continue not getting rest, which can affect daily activities, or taking a pill that guarantees a night of quiet comfort and bliss. Yes, they go for the pill. The drug in question here is none other than Ambien.
Ambien or Zolpidem is a drug that can be obtained without prescription and is to be used at most, for two weeks, though a few days is recommended by doctors. The effects of the drug are immediate, putting one to sleep in approximately 15 minutes. So, what is considered abuse? Usually, using more than the recommended dose (over 10 mg), for a few weeks builds up the user’s tolerance, causing one to need to use more in order to get the same outcome. Like most drugs, when mixed with other substances, like alcohol, there is an intensified effect. When ambien abuse occurs, people may take it orally, crush and snort it, or cook it for an intravenous injection.
How do you get high off of something that supposed to put you to sleep?
The Ambien brand specifically has become very popular among recreational drug users. Users often report that they get high by fighting the effects of the drug. This is done by not allowing the body to sleep which can cause visual effects and an overall high. For some people though, resisting the sedative effects helps them to feel the side-effect of euphoria more than sedation. Some people report decreased anxiety as well as perceptual changes, auditory/visual distortions and even hallucinations.
The company that produced Ambien, has put a protective covering on the drug which is supposed to prevent the possibility of snorting, however, to a serious drug user this is not an obstacle.
What are the side-effects of Ambien?
Regardless of what dosage one is taking of the drug, there are possible side-effects. Some of them include the following:
• Hallucinations, through all physical senses, of varying intensity
• Delusions- A false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence, especially as a symptom of mental illness
• Euphoria and/or dysphoria (the opposite of euphoria)
• Impaired judgment and reasoning
• Uninhibited extroversion in social or interpersonal settings
• Increased impulsivity
• When stopped rebound insomnia may occur
• Ataxia or poor motor coordination, difficulty maintaining balance
• Decreased libido
• Increased appetite
• Anterograde amnesia- loss of memory for events immediately following a trauma; sometimes in effect for events during and for a long time following the trauma
Some people take this drug for the side-effects; however, it may be less common than use of benzodiazepine (Any of a group of chemical compounds with a common molecular structure and similar pharmacological effects, used as antianxiety agents, muscle relaxants, sedatives, hypnotics, and sometimes as anticonvulsants). Because of the cost associated with the drug, use of it may be lower in the United States than in other parts of the world where there are generic brands available. No studies have been conducted as of yet to tell whether cost and availability of the drug is correlated with increased abuse.
Like any drug, if taken for extended periods of time, Ambien dependence can occur. Under the influence of Ambien, it is common for people to take more than is actually necessary because they have forgotten prior usage. In this particular, the elderly population is at particular risk. There is of course, also the percentage of the population that takes more than the necessary dose. It is recommended that users, who have a tendency for abuse, give additional tablets to a friend for safe keeping. Another suggestion is placing the medication in a cupboard locked with a combination lock since the side-effects listed above may prevent an individual from operating such a lock while under the drugs influence.
It is possible that before a user becomes fully acclimated to these effects, their symptoms maybe strong enough to be labeled as a drug induced psychosis. Incidentally it is possible that antipsychotics, like Seroquel, may be prescribed in order to combat side effects and to aid in sleep. However, due to the hypnotic effects of both of these medications, it is probably better to combine Ambien with an anti-depressant which also has sedative effects. This is more likely to cancel out the side-effects of either drug, producing the desired result – relief from insomnia.
Users have reported sleepwalking and in some cases binge eating, driving, sleep talking, and performing other daily tasks have been reported during sleep. The user can sometimes perform these tasks as though they were fully awake. Conversations may be carried on and users may be able to respond as though they were fully awake. This is similar to the average sleep talker, the difference being that sleep talking is usually incoherent and has no relevance to the current situation. In the case of an Ambien user, speech can sound similar to that of an individual suffering from schizophrenia. A common symptom of schizophrenia is word salad, which is a jumble of incoherent speech.
An individual under the influence of Ambien may seem totally in control which can bring about concerns of their safety of the sleepwalker and others. Driving while under the drug's influence is generally considered several orders of magnitude more dangerous than the average drunk driver, due to the diminished motor controls and delusions that may affect the user. For all these reasons, proper treatment of Ambien abuse is necessary. Ambien abuse should be treated like any other type of substance abuse. The proper counseling needs to be obtained in order to stop a problem from becoming life threatening.
Rachel Hayon, BSN, MPH
Works Cited
1. Ambien.com (2004). AMBIEN® Prescribing Information. Information About a Short-term Treatment for Insomnia - Ambien.com Home Page for Health-care Professionals. Sanofi-Synthelabo Inc. New York, NY 10016. Retrieved on 2007-06-9.
2. Depoortere H., Zivkovic B., Lloyd K.G., Sanger D.J., Perrault G., Langer S.Z., Bartholini G. (1986). Zolpidem, a novel nonbenzodiazepine hypnotic. I. Neuropharmacological and behavioral effects. Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics 237:649-58.
3. Kang, Peter. "Ambien Patent Extension Seen Positive For Pfizer, Neurocrine", Forbes.com, 2006-04-10. Retrieved on 2007-9-06
4. S. Afr. Med. J. (January 2000). Extraordinary arousal from semi-comatose state on zolpidem. A case report. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). Retrieved on
5. Schlich D., L'Heritier C., Coquelin J.P., Attali P., Kryrein H.J. (1991) Long-term treatment of insomnia with zolpidem: a multicentre general practitioner study of 107 patients. J. Int. Med. Res. 19:271-9.
6. Maarek L., Cramer P., Attali P., Coquelin J.P., Morselli P.L. (1992). The safety and efficacy of zolpidem in insomniac patients: a long-term open study in general practice. J. Int. Med. Res. 20:162-70.
7. Kummer J., Guendel L., Linden J., Eich F.X., Attali P., Coquelin J.P., Kyrein H.J. (1993). Long-term polysomnographic study of the efficacy and safety of zolpidem in elderly psychiatric in-patients with insomnia. J. Int. Med. Res. 21:171-84.
8. Caldwell J.A., Caldwell J.L. (2005). Fatigue in military aviation: an overview of US military-approved pharmacological countermeasures. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine 76:C39-51.
9. Evidente, Virgilio Gerald H., Caviness, John N., and Adler, Charles H. (2003). Case Studies in Movement Disorders. Seminars in Neurology 23:277-284. Thieme Medical Publishers. 26 Jan 2004.
10. Pritchett DB, Seeburg PH. "Gamma-aminobutyric acidA receptor alpha 5-subunit creates novel type II benzodiazepine receptor pharmacology." Journal of Neurochemistry. 1990 May;54(5):1802-4.
11. Wafford KA, Thompson SA, Thomas D, Sikela J, Wilcox AS, Whiting PJ. "Functional Characterization of Human Gamma-aminobutyric AcidA Receptors Containing the alpha4 Subunit." Molecular Pharmacology. 1996 50:670-678.
12. Perrais D, Ropert N. "Effect of zolpidem on miniature IPSCs and occupancy of postsynaptic GABAA receptors in central synapses." Journal of Neuroscience. 1999 Jan 15;19(2):
Ambien Addiction
It usually starts out as someone just wanting to get a good night’s sleep. Innocently enough, they start out trying warm milk or tea before heading to bed. Nothing works. So, they’re left with a choice: continue not getting rest, which can affect daily activities, or taking a pill that guarantees a night of quiet comfort and bliss. Yes, they go for the pill. The drug in question here is none other than Ambien.
Ambien or Zolpidem is a drug that can be obtained without prescription and is to be used at most, for two weeks, though a few days is recommended by doctors. The effects of the drug are immediate, putting one to sleep in approximately 15 minutes. So, what is considered abuse? Usually, using more than the recommended dose (over 10 mg), for a few weeks builds up the user’s tolerance, causing one to need to use more in order to get the same outcome. Like most drugs, when mixed with other substances, like alcohol, there is an intensified effect. When ambien abuse occurs, people may take it orally, crush and snort it, or cook it for an intravenous injection.
How do you get high off of something that supposed to put you to sleep?
The Ambien brand specifically has become very popular among recreational drug users. Users often report that they get high by fighting the effects of the drug. This is done by not allowing the body to sleep which can cause visual effects and an overall high. For some people though, resisting the sedative effects helps them to feel the side-effect of euphoria more than sedation. Some people report decreased anxiety as well as perceptual changes, auditory/visual distortions and even hallucinations.
The company that produced Ambien, has put a protective covering on the drug which is supposed to prevent the possibility of snorting, however, to a serious drug user this is not an obstacle.
What are the side-effects of Ambien?
Regardless of what dosage one is taking of the drug, there are possible side-effects. Some of them include the following:
• Hallucinations, through all physical senses, of varying intensity
• Delusions- A false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence, especially as a symptom of mental illness
• Euphoria and/or dysphoria (the opposite of euphoria)
• Impaired judgment and reasoning
• Uninhibited extroversion in social or interpersonal settings
• Increased impulsivity
• When stopped rebound insomnia may occur
• Ataxia or poor motor coordination, difficulty maintaining balance
• Decreased libido
• Increased appetite
• Anterograde amnesia- loss of memory for events immediately following a trauma; sometimes in effect for events during and for a long time following the trauma
Some people take this drug for the side-effects; however, it may be less common than use of benzodiazepine (Any of a group of chemical compounds with a common molecular structure and similar pharmacological effects, used as antianxiety agents, muscle relaxants, sedatives, hypnotics, and sometimes as anticonvulsants). Because of the cost associated with the drug, use of it may be lower in the United States than in other parts of the world where there are generic brands available. No studies have been conducted as of yet to tell whether cost and availability of the drug is correlated with increased abuse.
Like any drug, if taken for extended periods of time, Ambien dependence can occur. Under the influence of Ambien, it is common for people to take more than is actually necessary because they have forgotten prior usage. In this particular, the elderly population is at particular risk. There is of course, also the percentage of the population that takes more than the necessary dose. It is recommended that users, who have a tendency for abuse, give additional tablets to a friend for safe keeping. Another suggestion is placing the medication in a cupboard locked with a combination lock since the side-effects listed above may prevent an individual from operating such a lock while under the drugs influence.
It is possible that before a user becomes fully acclimated to these effects, their symptoms maybe strong enough to be labeled as a drug induced psychosis. Incidentally it is possible that antipsychotics, like Seroquel, may be prescribed in order to combat side effects and to aid in sleep. However, due to the hypnotic effects of both of these medications, it is probably better to combine Ambien with an anti-depressant which also has sedative effects. This is more likely to cancel out the side-effects of either drug, producing the desired result – relief from insomnia.
Users have reported sleepwalking and in some cases binge eating, driving, sleep talking, and performing other daily tasks have been reported during sleep. The user can sometimes perform these tasks as though they were fully awake. Conversations may be carried on and users may be able to respond as though they were fully awake. This is similar to the average sleep talker, the difference being that sleep talking is usually incoherent and has no relevance to the current situation. In the case of an Ambien user, speech can sound similar to that of an individual suffering from schizophrenia. A common symptom of schizophrenia is word salad, which is a jumble of incoherent speech.
An individual under the influence of Ambien may seem totally in control which can bring about concerns of their safety of the sleepwalker and others. Driving while under the drug's influence is generally considered several orders of magnitude more dangerous than the average drunk driver, due to the diminished motor controls and delusions that may affect the user. For all these reasons, proper treatment of Ambien abuse is necessary. Ambien abuse should be treated like any other type of substance abuse. The proper counseling needs to be obtained in order to stop a problem from becoming life threatening.
Rachel Hayon, BSN, MPH
Works Cited
1. Ambien.com (2004). AMBIEN® Prescribing Information. Information About a Short-term Treatment for Insomnia - Ambien.com Home Page for Health-care Professionals. Sanofi-Synthelabo Inc. New York, NY 10016. Retrieved on 2007-06-9.
2. Depoortere H., Zivkovic B., Lloyd K.G., Sanger D.J., Perrault G., Langer S.Z., Bartholini G. (1986). Zolpidem, a novel nonbenzodiazepine hypnotic. I. Neuropharmacological and behavioral effects. Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics 237:649-58.
3. Kang, Peter. "Ambien Patent Extension Seen Positive For Pfizer, Neurocrine", Forbes.com, 2006-04-10. Retrieved on 2007-9-06
4. S. Afr. Med. J. (January 2000). Extraordinary arousal from semi-comatose state on zolpidem. A case report. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). Retrieved on
5. Schlich D., L'Heritier C., Coquelin J.P., Attali P., Kryrein H.J. (1991) Long-term treatment of insomnia with zolpidem: a multicentre general practitioner study of 107 patients. J. Int. Med. Res. 19:271-9.
6. Maarek L., Cramer P., Attali P., Coquelin J.P., Morselli P.L. (1992). The safety and efficacy of zolpidem in insomniac patients: a long-term open study in general practice. J. Int. Med. Res. 20:162-70.
7. Kummer J., Guendel L., Linden J., Eich F.X., Attali P., Coquelin J.P., Kyrein H.J. (1993). Long-term polysomnographic study of the efficacy and safety of zolpidem in elderly psychiatric in-patients with insomnia. J. Int. Med. Res. 21:171-84.
8. Caldwell J.A., Caldwell J.L. (2005). Fatigue in military aviation: an overview of US military-approved pharmacological countermeasures. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine 76:C39-51.
9. Evidente, Virgilio Gerald H., Caviness, John N., and Adler, Charles H. (2003). Case Studies in Movement Disorders. Seminars in Neurology 23:277-284. Thieme Medical Publishers. 26 Jan 2004.
10. Pritchett DB, Seeburg PH. "Gamma-aminobutyric acidA receptor alpha 5-subunit creates novel type II benzodiazepine receptor pharmacology." Journal of Neurochemistry. 1990 May;54(5):1802-4.
11. Wafford KA, Thompson SA, Thomas D, Sikela J, Wilcox AS, Whiting PJ. "Functional Characterization of Human Gamma-aminobutyric AcidA Receptors Containing the alpha4 Subunit." Molecular Pharmacology. 1996 50:670-678.
12. Perrais D, Ropert N. "Effect of zolpidem on miniature IPSCs and occupancy of postsynaptic GABAA receptors in central synapses." Journal of Neuroscience. 1999 Jan 15;19(2):
Ambien Addiction
FOCUS | July 14, 2006 | PSYCHOBIOLOGY: Molecular Action of Popular Antianxiety Drugs Probed
Research Seeks to Separate Basis of Benefits from that of Addiction and Other Side Effects
Popular drugs prescribed to ease debilitating anxiety in people and to restore a good night’s sleep gave monkeys a serious case of the munchies, report researchers at the New England Primate Research Center.
The study may help explain the longstanding complaint of weight gain in patients who take the drugs. It also supports experimental evidence of increased food consumption in other animals and primates given the same drugs.
FOCUS | July 14, 2006 | PSYCHOBIOLOGY: Molecular Action of Popular Antianxiety Drugs Probed
Popular drugs prescribed to ease debilitating anxiety in people and to restore a good night’s sleep gave monkeys a serious case of the munchies, report researchers at the New England Primate Research Center.
The study may help explain the longstanding complaint of weight gain in patients who take the drugs. It also supports experimental evidence of increased food consumption in other animals and primates given the same drugs.
FOCUS | July 14, 2006 | PSYCHOBIOLOGY: Molecular Action of Popular Antianxiety Drugs Probed
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Experts Say MySpace Suicide Indictment Sets ‘Scary’ Legal Precedent
By Kim Zetter, Wired Magazine, May 15, 2008
In their eagerness to visit justice on a 49-year-old woman involved in the Megan Meier MySpace suicide tragedy, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles are resorting to a novel and dangerous interpretation of a decades-old computer crime law — potentially making a felon out of anybody who violates the terms of service of any website, experts say.
Lori Drew is charged with violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act"This is a novel and extreme reading of what [the law] prohibits," says Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "To say that you’re violating a criminal law by registering to speak under a false name is highly problematic. It’s probably an unconstitutional reading of the statute."
Lori Drew, of O’Fallon, Missouri, is charged (.pdf) with one count of conspiracy and three violations of the anti-hacking Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, in a case involving cyberbullying through a fake MySpace profile.
Drew is one of three people who helped set up and maintain a phony MySpace account in 2006 under the identity of a nonexistent 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans. The Evans account was used to flirt with and befriend 13-year-old Megan Meier, who’d had a falling-out with Drew’s daughter.
The fake "Josh" ultimately turned on Meier and told the girl that the world would be a better place without her. Meier already suffered from clinical depression, and shortly after that final message she hanged herself in her bedroom.
A nationwide community backlash ensued, after a news story published last year revealed Drew’s role in the cyberbullying, and pressure was placed on Missouri authorities to charge Drew with a crime. But after investigating the incident, local prosecutors concluded last December that they could find no law under which to charge Drew.
That’s when federal prosecutors began working to build a case — a difficult task, given that there is no federal law against cyberbullying. On Thursday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles unveiled its solution by charging Drew with "unauthorized access" to MySpace’s computers, for allegedly violating the site’s terms of service.
MySpace’s user agreement requires registrants, among other things, to provide factual information about themselves and to refrain from soliciting personal information from minors or using information obtained from MySpace services to harass or harm other people. By allegedly violating that click-to-agree contract, Drew committed the same crime as any hacker.
That sets a potentially troubling precedent, given that terms-of-service agreements sometimes contain onerous provisions, and are rarely read by users.
"Empowering terms of use to be key pieces of evidence in criminal matters — when terms of use are generally thought of by the people who are entering into them as purely contract or civil matters — is something that should be done carefully," says Andrea Matwyshyn, law professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business
School. "I think you’re going to have strong disagreement as to whether this is an advisable course to take."
In a statement, MySpace says it supports the prosecution.
"MySpace does not tolerate cyberbullying and is cooperating fully with the U.S. attorney in this matter," a company spokeswoman said. The company declined to say what the precedent would mean for otherwise innocent users who, for example, misstate their age or ZIP code when setting up their MySpace profiles.
"Theoretically, it applies to any use of a service in violation of the terms of service," says EFF’s Granick, who says the impact of the Drew prosecution could be far-reaching.
By way of example, Granick notes that some terms-of-use contracts prohibit users from making negative comments about the company. "If you write on a blog something disparaging about that company, are you in violation of criminal law?"
Other contracts have prohibited visitors to a website from linking to that site.
Matwyshyn says the Drew case is an especially creative use of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, given that the aggrieved party in this case is not really MySpace, the putative victim, but Meier.
The case is being prosecuted only because there is so much pressure to see justice done in the Meier tragedy, but existing law doesn’t provide an immediate solution, she says.
Matwyshyn says she understands the impulse, but is concerned that if successfully prosecuted the case could set a bad precedent for turning breach-of-contract civil cases into criminal ones.
"Terms of use have been progressively getting more Draconian and restrictive," she notes. "So as these provisions get drafted and users agree to them, we may find ourselves in a situation where a company that drafts one may try to leverage this kind of case law to take a breach-of-contract action and turn it into a computer-intrusion [case]."
Granick agrees. "The real problem is that something tragic happened, but the harm that occurred doesn’t have anything to do with the way they’ve charged the offense," she says.
"Normally you charge tax evasion because someone didn’t pay taxes," says Granick. "Or you charge a computer intrusion because someone broke into a computer…. By overreaching legally the indictment makes some very extreme leaps."
When asked if this is the kind of case Granick would want to litigate, she said, "If [Drew] calls me I’d be very interested in talking with her about this case. I think there is such an extreme reading here, and I do think it’s dangerously flawed for other cases. I think it’s scary and it’s wrong and something should be done about it."
Experts Say MySpace Suicide Indictment Sets ‘Scary’ Legal Precedent
In their eagerness to visit justice on a 49-year-old woman involved in the Megan Meier MySpace suicide tragedy, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles are resorting to a novel and dangerous interpretation of a decades-old computer crime law — potentially making a felon out of anybody who violates the terms of service of any website, experts say.
Lori Drew is charged with violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act"This is a novel and extreme reading of what [the law] prohibits," says Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "To say that you’re violating a criminal law by registering to speak under a false name is highly problematic. It’s probably an unconstitutional reading of the statute."
Lori Drew, of O’Fallon, Missouri, is charged (.pdf) with one count of conspiracy and three violations of the anti-hacking Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, in a case involving cyberbullying through a fake MySpace profile.
Drew is one of three people who helped set up and maintain a phony MySpace account in 2006 under the identity of a nonexistent 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans. The Evans account was used to flirt with and befriend 13-year-old Megan Meier, who’d had a falling-out with Drew’s daughter.
The fake "Josh" ultimately turned on Meier and told the girl that the world would be a better place without her. Meier already suffered from clinical depression, and shortly after that final message she hanged herself in her bedroom.
A nationwide community backlash ensued, after a news story published last year revealed Drew’s role in the cyberbullying, and pressure was placed on Missouri authorities to charge Drew with a crime. But after investigating the incident, local prosecutors concluded last December that they could find no law under which to charge Drew.
That’s when federal prosecutors began working to build a case — a difficult task, given that there is no federal law against cyberbullying. On Thursday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles unveiled its solution by charging Drew with "unauthorized access" to MySpace’s computers, for allegedly violating the site’s terms of service.
MySpace’s user agreement requires registrants, among other things, to provide factual information about themselves and to refrain from soliciting personal information from minors or using information obtained from MySpace services to harass or harm other people. By allegedly violating that click-to-agree contract, Drew committed the same crime as any hacker.
That sets a potentially troubling precedent, given that terms-of-service agreements sometimes contain onerous provisions, and are rarely read by users.
"Empowering terms of use to be key pieces of evidence in criminal matters — when terms of use are generally thought of by the people who are entering into them as purely contract or civil matters — is something that should be done carefully," says Andrea Matwyshyn, law professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business
School. "I think you’re going to have strong disagreement as to whether this is an advisable course to take."
In a statement, MySpace says it supports the prosecution.
"MySpace does not tolerate cyberbullying and is cooperating fully with the U.S. attorney in this matter," a company spokeswoman said. The company declined to say what the precedent would mean for otherwise innocent users who, for example, misstate their age or ZIP code when setting up their MySpace profiles.
"Theoretically, it applies to any use of a service in violation of the terms of service," says EFF’s Granick, who says the impact of the Drew prosecution could be far-reaching.
By way of example, Granick notes that some terms-of-use contracts prohibit users from making negative comments about the company. "If you write on a blog something disparaging about that company, are you in violation of criminal law?"
Other contracts have prohibited visitors to a website from linking to that site.
Matwyshyn says the Drew case is an especially creative use of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, given that the aggrieved party in this case is not really MySpace, the putative victim, but Meier.
The case is being prosecuted only because there is so much pressure to see justice done in the Meier tragedy, but existing law doesn’t provide an immediate solution, she says.
Matwyshyn says she understands the impulse, but is concerned that if successfully prosecuted the case could set a bad precedent for turning breach-of-contract civil cases into criminal ones.
"Terms of use have been progressively getting more Draconian and restrictive," she notes. "So as these provisions get drafted and users agree to them, we may find ourselves in a situation where a company that drafts one may try to leverage this kind of case law to take a breach-of-contract action and turn it into a computer-intrusion [case]."
Granick agrees. "The real problem is that something tragic happened, but the harm that occurred doesn’t have anything to do with the way they’ve charged the offense," she says.
"Normally you charge tax evasion because someone didn’t pay taxes," says Granick. "Or you charge a computer intrusion because someone broke into a computer…. By overreaching legally the indictment makes some very extreme leaps."
When asked if this is the kind of case Granick would want to litigate, she said, "If [Drew] calls me I’d be very interested in talking with her about this case. I think there is such an extreme reading here, and I do think it’s dangerously flawed for other cases. I think it’s scary and it’s wrong and something should be done about it."
Experts Say MySpace Suicide Indictment Sets ‘Scary’ Legal Precedent
EFF Posts ‘Terms of Service’ Tracker | Threat Level | Wired.com
By David Kravets June 4, 2009
The Electronic Frontier Foundation released Thursday a so-called “terms of service” tracker instantly chronicling changes to how some of the biggest names in the internet “interact with you and use your personal information.”
The TOSBack.org site was, in part, an outgrowth of Facebook’s change in its service agreement in February that seemingly allowed the company to use its members’ content forever. Facebook changed its terms after an internet revolution of sorts.
The new tracker, chronicling 44 internet companies, shows terms of service agreements side by side with older and new versions, and highlights what is new.
The companies include Facebook, Google,Wordpress, Data.gov, YouTube, Apple, GoDaddy and, among others, eBay.
EFF Posts ‘Terms of Service’ Tracker | Threat Level | Wired.com
The Electronic Frontier Foundation released Thursday a so-called “terms of service” tracker instantly chronicling changes to how some of the biggest names in the internet “interact with you and use your personal information.”
The TOSBack.org site was, in part, an outgrowth of Facebook’s change in its service agreement in February that seemingly allowed the company to use its members’ content forever. Facebook changed its terms after an internet revolution of sorts.
The new tracker, chronicling 44 internet companies, shows terms of service agreements side by side with older and new versions, and highlights what is new.
The companies include Facebook, Google,Wordpress, Data.gov, YouTube, Apple, GoDaddy and, among others, eBay.
EFF Posts ‘Terms of Service’ Tracker | Threat Level | Wired.com
What a Piece of Work is a Man - Part I - The Social Order
What a Piece of Work is a Man - Part I - The Social Order:
Part I: The Social Order
Medieval society was generally classed into three social orders—Oratores, bellatores, laboratores—as expressed in the words of Gerard of Cambrai: “from the beginning, mankind has been divided into three parts, among men of prayer, farmers, and men of war . . .” Added to this organization is the concept of society divided into two parts: the aristocracy—which included the ruler, nobles, and the higher clergy—and peasantry, which constituted everybody else.
These manuscripts demonstrate how artists physically characterized and differentiated the separate orders. Nobility and rulership are conveyed by luxurious clothing, opulent jewels, a regal bearing, and sometimes a larger size with relation to other figures in a composition. The clergy are mainly identified by the vestments of their rank, but can often be arranged in hierarchical order, with the most important rank placed at the top. The fighters—soldiers and knights—can be distinguished by weapons and armor. A soldier-king rode at the head of battle, wearing a crown on his head, with glorious banners and colorful horse trappings proclaiming his exalted status. Tournament knights faced off against each other wearing the colors and heraldic emblems of their family. Peasants, however, are usually visually classified as coarse and uncouth, depicted barefooted and barelegged, often with brutish facial features, dressed in simple garments, and performing menial tasks."
Part I: The Social Order
Medieval society was generally classed into three social orders—Oratores, bellatores, laboratores—as expressed in the words of Gerard of Cambrai: “from the beginning, mankind has been divided into three parts, among men of prayer, farmers, and men of war . . .” Added to this organization is the concept of society divided into two parts: the aristocracy—which included the ruler, nobles, and the higher clergy—and peasantry, which constituted everybody else.
These manuscripts demonstrate how artists physically characterized and differentiated the separate orders. Nobility and rulership are conveyed by luxurious clothing, opulent jewels, a regal bearing, and sometimes a larger size with relation to other figures in a composition. The clergy are mainly identified by the vestments of their rank, but can often be arranged in hierarchical order, with the most important rank placed at the top. The fighters—soldiers and knights—can be distinguished by weapons and armor. A soldier-king rode at the head of battle, wearing a crown on his head, with glorious banners and colorful horse trappings proclaiming his exalted status. Tournament knights faced off against each other wearing the colors and heraldic emblems of their family. Peasants, however, are usually visually classified as coarse and uncouth, depicted barefooted and barelegged, often with brutish facial features, dressed in simple garments, and performing menial tasks."
Darwinian Conservatism by Larry Arnhart: Nietzsche, Darwin, and Christian Morality
Darwinian Conservatism by Larry Arnhart: Nietzsche, Darwin, and Christian Morality:
"It is remarkable that religious believers who fear Darwinian science as a threat to religious morality can quote Friedrich Nietzsche as supporting their position. I have noticed, for example, that whenever I defend a Darwinian conception of morality, some religious believers will remind me of what Nietzsche said about David Strauss and George Eliot.
Nietzsche's long essay on 'David Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer' (1873) was published as the first of four essays collected under the title Untimely Meditations. It is a scornful attack on Strauss's book The Old Faith and the New.
In 1835, Strauss's book The Life of Jesus provoked intense criticism and even violence against him, because he denied the historical reality of Jesus and argued that he was a purely mythical creation of the early Christian community. (This book was translated from the German into English by George Eliot in 1846.) Nietzsche's reading of the book as a theology student in 1864-65 helped to convince him to reject his Christian faith and to refuse to take communion at Easter 1865."
"It is remarkable that religious believers who fear Darwinian science as a threat to religious morality can quote Friedrich Nietzsche as supporting their position. I have noticed, for example, that whenever I defend a Darwinian conception of morality, some religious believers will remind me of what Nietzsche said about David Strauss and George Eliot.
Nietzsche's long essay on 'David Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer' (1873) was published as the first of four essays collected under the title Untimely Meditations. It is a scornful attack on Strauss's book The Old Faith and the New.
In 1835, Strauss's book The Life of Jesus provoked intense criticism and even violence against him, because he denied the historical reality of Jesus and argued that he was a purely mythical creation of the early Christian community. (This book was translated from the German into English by George Eliot in 1846.) Nietzsche's reading of the book as a theology student in 1864-65 helped to convince him to reject his Christian faith and to refuse to take communion at Easter 1865."
Rebuilding the Social Structure (Chapter 3)
Rebuilding the Social Structure (Chapter 3): "Rebuilding the Social Structure
Chris R. Vanden Bossche, Professor of English, University of Notre Dame"
Chris R. Vanden Bossche, Professor of English, University of Notre Dame"
Social order - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Social order - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Social order is a concept used in sociology, history and other social sciences. It refers to a set of linked social structures, social institutions and social practices which conserve, maintain and enforce 'normal' ways of relating and behaving.
A 'social order' is a relatively stable system of institutions, patterns of interactions and customs, capable of continually reproducing at least those conditions essential for its own existence. The concept refers to all those facts of society which remain relatively constant over time. These conditions could include both property, exchange and power relations, but also cultural forms, communication relations and ideological systems of values."
A 'social order' is a relatively stable system of institutions, patterns of interactions and customs, capable of continually reproducing at least those conditions essential for its own existence. The concept refers to all those facts of society which remain relatively constant over time. These conditions could include both property, exchange and power relations, but also cultural forms, communication relations and ideological systems of values."
Feds Tout New Domestic Intelligence Centers | Threat Level | Wired.com
Feds Tout New Domestic Intelligence Centers | Threat Level | Wired.com: "Federal, state and local cops are huddling together in domestic intelligence dens around the nation to fuse anti-terror information and tips in ways they never have before, and they want the American people to know about it — sort of.
Some of the nation’s top law enforcement and anti-terror officials got together to hold press briefings Tuesday and Wednesday mornings at the second annual National Fusion Center conference held in San
Francisco.
Homeland Security Under Secretary Charlie Allen, formerly of the
CIA, described how sharing threat assessments, and even the occasional raw intel, with the new fusion centers marks a cultural shift from the Cold War era. Back then, spies treated everyone, other departments and agencies included, as suspicious.
'Things have changed remarkably in Washington. We are talking to each other,' Allen said Tuesday. 'I am from the shadows of the CIA where in the Cold War, we followed a different model. That model does not apply for the kinds of threats we have today that are borderless. The threats are so different and so remarkably dangerous for our citizens.'
The fifty or so U.S. fusion centers are where the federal, state and local cops share intelligence, sift data for clues, run down reports of suspicious packages and connect dots in an effort to detect and thwart terrorism attacks, drug smuggling and gang fighting."
Some of the nation’s top law enforcement and anti-terror officials got together to hold press briefings Tuesday and Wednesday mornings at the second annual National Fusion Center conference held in San
Francisco.
Homeland Security Under Secretary Charlie Allen, formerly of the
CIA, described how sharing threat assessments, and even the occasional raw intel, with the new fusion centers marks a cultural shift from the Cold War era. Back then, spies treated everyone, other departments and agencies included, as suspicious.
'Things have changed remarkably in Washington. We are talking to each other,' Allen said Tuesday. 'I am from the shadows of the CIA where in the Cold War, we followed a different model. That model does not apply for the kinds of threats we have today that are borderless. The threats are so different and so remarkably dangerous for our citizens.'
The fifty or so U.S. fusion centers are where the federal, state and local cops share intelligence, sift data for clues, run down reports of suspicious packages and connect dots in an effort to detect and thwart terrorism attacks, drug smuggling and gang fighting."
Slavery and War by Murray N. Rothbard
Slavery and War by Murray N. Rothbard:
Slavery and War
by Murray N. Rothbard
Excerpted from a 30,000-word memo to the Volker Fund, 1961.
The Road to Civil War
The road to Civil War must be divided into two parts:
the causes of the controversy over slavery leading to secession, and
the immediate causes of the war itself.
The reason for such split is that secession need not have led to Civil War, despite the assumption to the contrary by most historians.
The basic root of the controversy over slavery to secession, in my opinion, was the aggressive, expansionist aims of the Southern "slavocracy." Very few Northerners proposed to abolish slavery in the Southern states by aggressive war; the objection – and certainly a proper one – was to the attempt of the Southern slavocracy to extend the slave system to the Western territories. The apologia that the Southerners feared that eventually they might be outnumbered and that federal abolition might ensue is no excuse; it is the age-old alibi for "preventive war." Not only did the expansionist aim of the slavocracy to protect slavery by federal fiat in the territories as "property" aim to foist the immoral system of slavery on Western territories; it even violated the principles of states' rights to which the South was supposedly devoted – and which would logically have led to a "popular sovereignty" doctrine.
Actually, with Texas in the Union, there was no hope of gaining substantial support for slavery in any of the territories except Kansas, and this had supposedly been settled by the Missouri Compromise. "Free-Soil" principles for the Western territories could therefore have been easily established without disruption of existing affairs, if not for the continual aggressive push and trouble making of the South.
If Van Buren had been president, he might have been able to drive through Congress the free-soil principles of the Wilmot Proviso, and that would have been that. As it was, President Taylor's bill would have settled the Western territory problem by simply adopting "popular sovereignty" principles in New Mexico, Utah, Oregon, and California territories – admitting them all eventually as free states. Instead, the unfortunate death of President Taylor, and the accession of Fillmore, ended this simple and straightforward solution, and brought forth the pernicious so-called "Compromise" of 1850, which exacerbated rather than reduced interstate tensions by adding to the essential Taylor program provisions for stricter enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law. Since the Fugitive Slave Law not only forced the Northern people to collaborate in what they considered – correctly – to be moral crime, but also violated Northern state rights, the strict Fugitive Slave Law was a constant irritant to the North.
The shift from free-soil principles in the Democratic Party and toward the Compromise of 1850 wrecked the old Jacksonian Democracy. The open break became apparent in Van Buren and the Free Soil candidacy of 1848; the failure of the Democratic Party to take an antislavery stand pushed the old libertarians into Free Soil or other alliances, even into the new Republican Party eventually: this tragic split in the Democratic Party lost it its libertarian conscience and drive.
Pro-southern domination of the Democratic Party in the 1850s, with Pierce and Buchanan, the opening up of the Kansas territory to slave expansion (or potential slave expansion) in 1854, led to the creation of the antislavery Republican Party. One tragedy here is that the surrender of the Democrat and Whig parties to the spirit of the Compromise of 1850 forced the free-soilers into a new party that was not only free soil, but showed dangerous signs (in Seward and others) of ultimately preparing for an abolitionist war against the South. Thus, Southern trouble making shifted Northern sentiment into potentially dangerous channels. Not only that: it also welded in the Republican Party a vehicle dedicated, multifold, to old Federalist-Whig principles: to high tariffs, to internal improvements and government subsidies, to paper money and government banking, etc. Libertarian principles were now split between the two parties.
The fantastic Dred Scott decision changed the political scene completely: for in it the Supreme Court had apparently outlawed free-soil principles, even including the Missouri Compromise. There was now only one course left to the lovers of freedom short of open rebellion against the Court, or Garrison's secession by the North from a Constitution that had indeed become a "compact with Hell"; and that escape hatch was Stephen Douglas's popular sovereignty doctrine, in its "Freeport" corollary: i.e., in quiet, local nullification of the Dred Scott decision.
At this critical juncture, the South continued on its suicidal course by breaking with Douglas, insistent on the full Dred Scott principle, and leading to the victory of their enemy Lincoln. Here again, secession was only "preventive," as Lincoln had given no indication of moving to repress slavery in the South.
It is here that we must split our analysis of the "causes of the Civil War"; for, while this analysis leads, in my view, to a "pro-Northern" position in the slavery-in-the-territories struggles of the 1850s, it leads, paradoxically, to a "pro-Southern" position in the Civil War itself. For secession need not, and should not, have been combated by the North; and so we must pin the blame on the North for aggressive war against the seceding South. The war was launched in the shift from the original Northern position (by Garrison included) to "let our erring sisters depart in peace" to the determination to crush the South to save that mythical abstraction known as the "Union" – and in this shift, we must put a large portion of the blame upon the maneuvering of Lincoln to induce the Southerners to fire the first shot on Fort Sumter – after which point, flag-waving could and did take over.
The War Against the South and Its Consequences
The Civil War was one of the most momentous events in American history, not only for its inherent drama and destruction, but because of the fateful consequences for America that flowed from it.
We have said above that the War of 1812 had devastating consequences for the libertarian movement; indeed, it might be said that it took twenty years of devotion and hard work for the Jacksonian movement to undo the étatist consequences of that utter failure of a war. It is the measure of the statist consequences of the Civil War that America never recovered from it: never again was the libertarian movement to have a party of its own, or as close a chance at success. Hamiltonian neo-Federalism beyond the wildest dreams of even a J.Q. Adams had either been foisted permanently on America, or had been inaugurated, to be later fulfilled.
Let us trace the leading consequences of the War Against the South: there is, first, the enormous toll of death, injury, and destruction. There is the complete setting aside of the civilized "rules of war" that Western civilization had laboriously been erecting for centuries: instead, a total war against the civilian population was launched against the South. The symbol of this barbaric and savage oppression was, of course, Sherman's march through Georgia and the rest of the South, the burning of Atlanta, etc. (For the military significance of this reversion to barbarism, see F.J.P. Veale, Advance to Barbarism). Another consequence, of course, was the ending of effective states' rights, and of the perfectly logical and reasonable right of secession – or, for that matter, nullification. From now on, the Union was a strictly compulsory entity.
Further, the Civil War foisted upon the country the elimination of Jacksonian hard money: the greenbacks established government fiat paper, which it took 14 long years to tame; and the National Bank Act ended the separation of government from banking, effectively quasi-nationalizing and regulating the banking system, and creating an engine of governmentally sponsored inflation.
So ruthlessly did the Lincoln administration overturn the old banking system (including the effective outlawing of state bank notes) that it became almost impossible to achieve a return – impossible that is, without a radical and almost revolutionary will for hard money, which did not exist. On the tariff, the virtual destruction of the Democratic Party led to the foisting of a high, protective tariff to remain for a generation – indeed, permanently, for the old prewar low tariff was never to return. It was behind this wall of tariff-subsidy that the "trusts" were able to form. Further, the administration embarked on a vast program of subsidies to favored businesses: land grants to railroads, etc. The Post Office was later monopolized and private postal services outlawed. The national debt skyrocketed, the budget increased greatly and permanently, and taxes increased greatly – including the first permanent foisting on America of excise taxation, especially on whiskey and tobacco.
Thus, on every point of the old Federalist-Whig vs. Democrat-Republican controversy, the Civil War and the Lincoln administration achieved a neo-Federalist triumph that was complete right down the line. And the crushing of the South, the military Reconstruction period, etc. assured that the Democratic Party would not rise again to challenge this settlement for at least a generation. And when it did rise, it would have a much tougher row to hoe than did Van Buren and Co. in an era much more disposed to laissez-faire.
But this was not all: for the Civil War saw also the inauguration of despotic and dictatorial methods beyond the dreams of the so-called "despots of '98." Militarism ran rampant, with the arrogant suspension of habeas corpus, the crushing and mass arrests in Maryland, Kentucky, etc.; the suppression of civil liberties and opposition against the war, among the propeace "Copperheads" – the persecution of Vallandigham, etc.; and the institution of conscription. Also introduced on the American scene at this time was the income tax, reluctantly abandoned later, but to reappear. Federal aid to education began in earnest and permanently with federal land grants for state agricultural colleges. There was no longer any talk, of course, about abolition of the standing army or the navy. Almost everything, in short, that is currently evil on the American political scene, had its roots and its beginnings in the Civil War.
Because of the slavery controversy of the 1850s, there was no longer a single libertarian party in America, as the Democratic had been. Now the free-soilers had left the Democrat ranks. But, especially after Dred Scott had pushed the Douglas "Freeport Doctrine" to the fore as libertarian policy, there was hope for a reunited Democracy, especially since the Democrat party was still very good on all questions except slavery. But the Civil War wrecked all that, and monolithic Republican rule could impress its neo-Federalist program on America to such an extent as to make it extremely difficult to uproot.
Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) was the author of Man, Economy, and State, Conceived in Liberty, What Has Government Done to Our Money, For a New Liberty, The Case Against the Fed, and many other books and articles/www.mises.org/mnrbib.asp>. He was also the editor – with Lew Rockwell – of The Rothbard-Rockwell Report.
Copyright 2008 Ludwig von Mises Institute
All rights reserved.
Slavery and War
by Murray N. Rothbard
Excerpted from a 30,000-word memo to the Volker Fund, 1961.
The Road to Civil War
The road to Civil War must be divided into two parts:
the causes of the controversy over slavery leading to secession, and
the immediate causes of the war itself.
The reason for such split is that secession need not have led to Civil War, despite the assumption to the contrary by most historians.
The basic root of the controversy over slavery to secession, in my opinion, was the aggressive, expansionist aims of the Southern "slavocracy." Very few Northerners proposed to abolish slavery in the Southern states by aggressive war; the objection – and certainly a proper one – was to the attempt of the Southern slavocracy to extend the slave system to the Western territories. The apologia that the Southerners feared that eventually they might be outnumbered and that federal abolition might ensue is no excuse; it is the age-old alibi for "preventive war." Not only did the expansionist aim of the slavocracy to protect slavery by federal fiat in the territories as "property" aim to foist the immoral system of slavery on Western territories; it even violated the principles of states' rights to which the South was supposedly devoted – and which would logically have led to a "popular sovereignty" doctrine.
Actually, with Texas in the Union, there was no hope of gaining substantial support for slavery in any of the territories except Kansas, and this had supposedly been settled by the Missouri Compromise. "Free-Soil" principles for the Western territories could therefore have been easily established without disruption of existing affairs, if not for the continual aggressive push and trouble making of the South.
If Van Buren had been president, he might have been able to drive through Congress the free-soil principles of the Wilmot Proviso, and that would have been that. As it was, President Taylor's bill would have settled the Western territory problem by simply adopting "popular sovereignty" principles in New Mexico, Utah, Oregon, and California territories – admitting them all eventually as free states. Instead, the unfortunate death of President Taylor, and the accession of Fillmore, ended this simple and straightforward solution, and brought forth the pernicious so-called "Compromise" of 1850, which exacerbated rather than reduced interstate tensions by adding to the essential Taylor program provisions for stricter enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law. Since the Fugitive Slave Law not only forced the Northern people to collaborate in what they considered – correctly – to be moral crime, but also violated Northern state rights, the strict Fugitive Slave Law was a constant irritant to the North.
The shift from free-soil principles in the Democratic Party and toward the Compromise of 1850 wrecked the old Jacksonian Democracy. The open break became apparent in Van Buren and the Free Soil candidacy of 1848; the failure of the Democratic Party to take an antislavery stand pushed the old libertarians into Free Soil or other alliances, even into the new Republican Party eventually: this tragic split in the Democratic Party lost it its libertarian conscience and drive.
Pro-southern domination of the Democratic Party in the 1850s, with Pierce and Buchanan, the opening up of the Kansas territory to slave expansion (or potential slave expansion) in 1854, led to the creation of the antislavery Republican Party. One tragedy here is that the surrender of the Democrat and Whig parties to the spirit of the Compromise of 1850 forced the free-soilers into a new party that was not only free soil, but showed dangerous signs (in Seward and others) of ultimately preparing for an abolitionist war against the South. Thus, Southern trouble making shifted Northern sentiment into potentially dangerous channels. Not only that: it also welded in the Republican Party a vehicle dedicated, multifold, to old Federalist-Whig principles: to high tariffs, to internal improvements and government subsidies, to paper money and government banking, etc. Libertarian principles were now split between the two parties.
The fantastic Dred Scott decision changed the political scene completely: for in it the Supreme Court had apparently outlawed free-soil principles, even including the Missouri Compromise. There was now only one course left to the lovers of freedom short of open rebellion against the Court, or Garrison's secession by the North from a Constitution that had indeed become a "compact with Hell"; and that escape hatch was Stephen Douglas's popular sovereignty doctrine, in its "Freeport" corollary: i.e., in quiet, local nullification of the Dred Scott decision.
At this critical juncture, the South continued on its suicidal course by breaking with Douglas, insistent on the full Dred Scott principle, and leading to the victory of their enemy Lincoln. Here again, secession was only "preventive," as Lincoln had given no indication of moving to repress slavery in the South.
It is here that we must split our analysis of the "causes of the Civil War"; for, while this analysis leads, in my view, to a "pro-Northern" position in the slavery-in-the-territories struggles of the 1850s, it leads, paradoxically, to a "pro-Southern" position in the Civil War itself. For secession need not, and should not, have been combated by the North; and so we must pin the blame on the North for aggressive war against the seceding South. The war was launched in the shift from the original Northern position (by Garrison included) to "let our erring sisters depart in peace" to the determination to crush the South to save that mythical abstraction known as the "Union" – and in this shift, we must put a large portion of the blame upon the maneuvering of Lincoln to induce the Southerners to fire the first shot on Fort Sumter – after which point, flag-waving could and did take over.
The War Against the South and Its Consequences
The Civil War was one of the most momentous events in American history, not only for its inherent drama and destruction, but because of the fateful consequences for America that flowed from it.
We have said above that the War of 1812 had devastating consequences for the libertarian movement; indeed, it might be said that it took twenty years of devotion and hard work for the Jacksonian movement to undo the étatist consequences of that utter failure of a war. It is the measure of the statist consequences of the Civil War that America never recovered from it: never again was the libertarian movement to have a party of its own, or as close a chance at success. Hamiltonian neo-Federalism beyond the wildest dreams of even a J.Q. Adams had either been foisted permanently on America, or had been inaugurated, to be later fulfilled.
Let us trace the leading consequences of the War Against the South: there is, first, the enormous toll of death, injury, and destruction. There is the complete setting aside of the civilized "rules of war" that Western civilization had laboriously been erecting for centuries: instead, a total war against the civilian population was launched against the South. The symbol of this barbaric and savage oppression was, of course, Sherman's march through Georgia and the rest of the South, the burning of Atlanta, etc. (For the military significance of this reversion to barbarism, see F.J.P. Veale, Advance to Barbarism). Another consequence, of course, was the ending of effective states' rights, and of the perfectly logical and reasonable right of secession – or, for that matter, nullification. From now on, the Union was a strictly compulsory entity.
Further, the Civil War foisted upon the country the elimination of Jacksonian hard money: the greenbacks established government fiat paper, which it took 14 long years to tame; and the National Bank Act ended the separation of government from banking, effectively quasi-nationalizing and regulating the banking system, and creating an engine of governmentally sponsored inflation.
So ruthlessly did the Lincoln administration overturn the old banking system (including the effective outlawing of state bank notes) that it became almost impossible to achieve a return – impossible that is, without a radical and almost revolutionary will for hard money, which did not exist. On the tariff, the virtual destruction of the Democratic Party led to the foisting of a high, protective tariff to remain for a generation – indeed, permanently, for the old prewar low tariff was never to return. It was behind this wall of tariff-subsidy that the "trusts" were able to form. Further, the administration embarked on a vast program of subsidies to favored businesses: land grants to railroads, etc. The Post Office was later monopolized and private postal services outlawed. The national debt skyrocketed, the budget increased greatly and permanently, and taxes increased greatly – including the first permanent foisting on America of excise taxation, especially on whiskey and tobacco.
Thus, on every point of the old Federalist-Whig vs. Democrat-Republican controversy, the Civil War and the Lincoln administration achieved a neo-Federalist triumph that was complete right down the line. And the crushing of the South, the military Reconstruction period, etc. assured that the Democratic Party would not rise again to challenge this settlement for at least a generation. And when it did rise, it would have a much tougher row to hoe than did Van Buren and Co. in an era much more disposed to laissez-faire.
But this was not all: for the Civil War saw also the inauguration of despotic and dictatorial methods beyond the dreams of the so-called "despots of '98." Militarism ran rampant, with the arrogant suspension of habeas corpus, the crushing and mass arrests in Maryland, Kentucky, etc.; the suppression of civil liberties and opposition against the war, among the propeace "Copperheads" – the persecution of Vallandigham, etc.; and the institution of conscription. Also introduced on the American scene at this time was the income tax, reluctantly abandoned later, but to reappear. Federal aid to education began in earnest and permanently with federal land grants for state agricultural colleges. There was no longer any talk, of course, about abolition of the standing army or the navy. Almost everything, in short, that is currently evil on the American political scene, had its roots and its beginnings in the Civil War.
Because of the slavery controversy of the 1850s, there was no longer a single libertarian party in America, as the Democratic had been. Now the free-soilers had left the Democrat ranks. But, especially after Dred Scott had pushed the Douglas "Freeport Doctrine" to the fore as libertarian policy, there was hope for a reunited Democracy, especially since the Democrat party was still very good on all questions except slavery. But the Civil War wrecked all that, and monolithic Republican rule could impress its neo-Federalist program on America to such an extent as to make it extremely difficult to uproot.
Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) was the author of Man, Economy, and State, Conceived in Liberty, What Has Government Done to Our Money, For a New Liberty, The Case Against the Fed, and many other books and articles/www.mises.org/mnrbib.asp>. He was also the editor – with Lew Rockwell – of The Rothbard-Rockwell Report.
Copyright 2008 Ludwig von Mises Institute
All rights reserved.
Jim R. Schwiesow -- A two party system of slavery governs our voting choices
Jim R. Schwiesow -- A two party system of slavery governs our voting choices: "A TWO PARTY SYSTEM OF SLAVERY GOVERNS OUR VOTING CHOICES
By Jim R. Schwiesow
January 2, 2006
NewsWithViews.com
A recent poll by WorldNetDaily asked the question, “Whom should be the Constitution Party nominate?” A list of names was presented, which included the following patriotic Americans:
1. Tom Tancredo
2. Ron Paul
3. Alan Keyes
4. Jim Gilchrist
5. Jerome Corsi
6. Howard Phillips
7. Chuck Baldwin
There were several other choices on the menu, which included some alternative choices to the naming of a particular candidate, they were:
1. “The name doesn’t matter so much, I’ve had it with the two major parties, and will vote for a third party.”
2. “Someone of even more profile than these names.”
3. “A vote for any Constitution candidate will virtually assure that Hillary or another Democrat will win.”
Guess which of the ten options the majority of the respondents selected. You guessed it; they chose number three from the alternative options. Nearly forty percent of the poll participants expressed that they would cast their vote for the lesser of the two evils presented by the two national parties. What an extraordinarily sad state of affairs this is. To ignore a superior third party candidate in order to vote for the less deficient of two clearly deficient candidates is ludicrous. This is just the silliest justification for a vote that I can think of. To illustrate the absurdity of such thinking, consider the following.
Suppose that you had a daughter, a beautiful young lady who was the apple of your eye. And since she was your pride and joy, you wanted only the very best for her. Now suppose that your nubile young daughter was being courted by three eligible young men about town, two of who came from very rich and influential families, but who you knew to be of reprehensible character. In fact one of these was, if possible, a tad bit more reprehensible than the other. The third suitor came from modest circumstances, and although he was not from a wealthy and powerfully influential family, he was nevertheless possessed of wonderful intelligence and character, and was imbued with unquestionable integrity. Would you, in deference to the wealth and influence of the families of the two young men with no moral scruples, encourage your daughter to marry the lesser of these two reprobates, or would you do everything in your power to see to it that your beautiful young daughter, the apple of your eye, was delivered into the capable and loving hands of the young man who would care for her, provide for her, and cherish her?
That should be a simple question to answer. If you chose the former over the latter, then there is something wrong with your thinking. You are not going to reform a reprobate, and if you think that you can, you are in for many years of misery and grief. When we choose a president, why would we not want the very best to represent our interests, and to act as our commander in chief? If we think that we can elect the lesser of two evils, and then reform him once he is in office, we deserve the grief that will surely follow. This should be clearly evident when one assesses the damage done to the people’s sovereignty by the current administration, which is headed up by a lesser of two evils.
The fact is that the political tenets of our national two-party system are contributing to the rapid decay of society, and have been doing so for some time. This necessary and brilliant contrivance ensures that the corrupted will endeavor to limit the choices for national office to a choice between the perverted and the likewise perverted. The differences in the two parties are cosmetic at best. They are horses of the same likeness internally, but with different outward appearances. These appearances are carefully devised and cultured so as to fool the people into believing that they have alternative choices within a limited two-party system. This is brilliant and effective and has serious implications for the nation.
Any of the above named potential third-party candidates would be infinitely superior to those who comprise the long list of prospects of the two national parties. Unlike all of the potentials of the Republican and the Democrat parties they are not internationalists, and are not motivated by a quest for one-world governance. They understand the implications of our continual drift into a socialistic system, and they understand the dangers of flirting with the inducements to abandon a commitment to a governance, which is guided by the principles set forth by the Constitution in order to chase after the godless dogma of international new world order advocates.
Above all else these people, unlike their contemporaries of the national parties, have a sincere and steadfast fixity of purpose in regard to the absolutes of morality, and are able to differentiate between right and wrong. The likes of Obama, Clinton, Kerry and ilk of both parties represent the evil of the godless one-world internationalists. A look at their voting habits on moral issues should convince even the most intractable that they are devoid of moral scruples. Their consistent pursuit of the legalization of abortion under any circumstance bespeaks a deviant soul. Only the most wretched of medical practitioners can coldly, and with human detachment, push a sharp instrument into the soft malleable skull of a fully-formed living baby and suction the brain in the perpetration of a most heinous act of murder. And that political leaders of any persuasion would not only condone, but also encourage, such an act points up an utterly depraved inner being.
I have repeatedly stated my belief that we are on the cusp of tipping over into a communistic form of governance. In fact the unsophisticated internationalists among us, whether they know it or not, promote the doctrines espoused by Marx and Lenin when they advocate for a one-world order. They are, most assuredly being used by the true believers in this evil doctrine, which advocates the destruction of humanity and the institution of worldwide slavery to a Godless system of communism. Too many of our political leaders are unwitting dupes of truly evil men who would build their utopian world upon the carcasses of untold millions of God’s people. And others are not so unwitting; they push for a one-world order knowing full well the consequences.
If you, as a voter, want to hasten the fulfillment of the wishes of the utterly depraved, and usher in that new world order, keep voting for the lesser of two evils, and you will surely help bring to fruition the ultimate destruction of not only this nation, but the slavery of all mankind.
© 2007 - Jim R. Schwiesow - All Rights Reserved
By Jim R. Schwiesow
January 2, 2006
NewsWithViews.com
A recent poll by WorldNetDaily asked the question, “Whom should be the Constitution Party nominate?” A list of names was presented, which included the following patriotic Americans:
1. Tom Tancredo
2. Ron Paul
3. Alan Keyes
4. Jim Gilchrist
5. Jerome Corsi
6. Howard Phillips
7. Chuck Baldwin
There were several other choices on the menu, which included some alternative choices to the naming of a particular candidate, they were:
1. “The name doesn’t matter so much, I’ve had it with the two major parties, and will vote for a third party.”
2. “Someone of even more profile than these names.”
3. “A vote for any Constitution candidate will virtually assure that Hillary or another Democrat will win.”
Guess which of the ten options the majority of the respondents selected. You guessed it; they chose number three from the alternative options. Nearly forty percent of the poll participants expressed that they would cast their vote for the lesser of the two evils presented by the two national parties. What an extraordinarily sad state of affairs this is. To ignore a superior third party candidate in order to vote for the less deficient of two clearly deficient candidates is ludicrous. This is just the silliest justification for a vote that I can think of. To illustrate the absurdity of such thinking, consider the following.
Suppose that you had a daughter, a beautiful young lady who was the apple of your eye. And since she was your pride and joy, you wanted only the very best for her. Now suppose that your nubile young daughter was being courted by three eligible young men about town, two of who came from very rich and influential families, but who you knew to be of reprehensible character. In fact one of these was, if possible, a tad bit more reprehensible than the other. The third suitor came from modest circumstances, and although he was not from a wealthy and powerfully influential family, he was nevertheless possessed of wonderful intelligence and character, and was imbued with unquestionable integrity. Would you, in deference to the wealth and influence of the families of the two young men with no moral scruples, encourage your daughter to marry the lesser of these two reprobates, or would you do everything in your power to see to it that your beautiful young daughter, the apple of your eye, was delivered into the capable and loving hands of the young man who would care for her, provide for her, and cherish her?
That should be a simple question to answer. If you chose the former over the latter, then there is something wrong with your thinking. You are not going to reform a reprobate, and if you think that you can, you are in for many years of misery and grief. When we choose a president, why would we not want the very best to represent our interests, and to act as our commander in chief? If we think that we can elect the lesser of two evils, and then reform him once he is in office, we deserve the grief that will surely follow. This should be clearly evident when one assesses the damage done to the people’s sovereignty by the current administration, which is headed up by a lesser of two evils.
The fact is that the political tenets of our national two-party system are contributing to the rapid decay of society, and have been doing so for some time. This necessary and brilliant contrivance ensures that the corrupted will endeavor to limit the choices for national office to a choice between the perverted and the likewise perverted. The differences in the two parties are cosmetic at best. They are horses of the same likeness internally, but with different outward appearances. These appearances are carefully devised and cultured so as to fool the people into believing that they have alternative choices within a limited two-party system. This is brilliant and effective and has serious implications for the nation.
Any of the above named potential third-party candidates would be infinitely superior to those who comprise the long list of prospects of the two national parties. Unlike all of the potentials of the Republican and the Democrat parties they are not internationalists, and are not motivated by a quest for one-world governance. They understand the implications of our continual drift into a socialistic system, and they understand the dangers of flirting with the inducements to abandon a commitment to a governance, which is guided by the principles set forth by the Constitution in order to chase after the godless dogma of international new world order advocates.
Above all else these people, unlike their contemporaries of the national parties, have a sincere and steadfast fixity of purpose in regard to the absolutes of morality, and are able to differentiate between right and wrong. The likes of Obama, Clinton, Kerry and ilk of both parties represent the evil of the godless one-world internationalists. A look at their voting habits on moral issues should convince even the most intractable that they are devoid of moral scruples. Their consistent pursuit of the legalization of abortion under any circumstance bespeaks a deviant soul. Only the most wretched of medical practitioners can coldly, and with human detachment, push a sharp instrument into the soft malleable skull of a fully-formed living baby and suction the brain in the perpetration of a most heinous act of murder. And that political leaders of any persuasion would not only condone, but also encourage, such an act points up an utterly depraved inner being.
I have repeatedly stated my belief that we are on the cusp of tipping over into a communistic form of governance. In fact the unsophisticated internationalists among us, whether they know it or not, promote the doctrines espoused by Marx and Lenin when they advocate for a one-world order. They are, most assuredly being used by the true believers in this evil doctrine, which advocates the destruction of humanity and the institution of worldwide slavery to a Godless system of communism. Too many of our political leaders are unwitting dupes of truly evil men who would build their utopian world upon the carcasses of untold millions of God’s people. And others are not so unwitting; they push for a one-world order knowing full well the consequences.
If you, as a voter, want to hasten the fulfillment of the wishes of the utterly depraved, and usher in that new world order, keep voting for the lesser of two evils, and you will surely help bring to fruition the ultimate destruction of not only this nation, but the slavery of all mankind.
© 2007 - Jim R. Schwiesow - All Rights Reserved
Chains of Slavery
by Joe Blow
Political parties — comprised of incumbents, candidates, voters, agendas, special interests, and platforms — are the tools that the State uses to forge the chains of slavery for its citizens. The popular fiction of differences between political parties also perpetuates the enduring myth that citizens have only one means of governing themselves — by voting for a proxy. Not only is this notion patently false, the only real winner in the game is the State itself. The entire process consists of nothing more than mass delusion every time an election is held.
Political parties are very useful tools of the State, which is why they exist in the first place. Political parties can accomplish what the nebulous State cannot achieve by itself without bloodshed. Primary missions of political parties include: a.) transferring power from the people to the State; b.) pandering to special interests; c.) seizing and holding power; d.) crushing all competition; e.) fostering and maintaining the illusion that voters are governing themselves; f.) spreading propaganda; g.) demonizing the perceived political enemy of the day; and h.) lending some semblance of legitimacy to the State, however imaginary.
The Founders eschewed political parties, fearing the worst, and rightly so. John F. Bibby writes, “When the founders of the American republic wrote the U.S. Constitution in 1787, they did not envision a role for political parties in the governmental order. Indeed, they sought through various constitutional arrangements such as separation of powers, checks and balances, and indirect election of the president by an electoral college to insulate the new republic from political parties and factions. In spite of the founders’ intentions, the United States was the first nation to develop parties organized on a national basis and to transfer executive power from one faction to another via an election in 1800.” [Emphasis added.]
“Many of America's Founding Fathers hated the thought of political parties, quarreling ‘factions’ they were sure would be more interested in contending with each other than in working for the common good. They wanted individual citizens to vote for individual candidates, without the interference of organized groups — but this was not to be.
“By the 1790s, different views of the new country's proper course had already developed, and those who held these opposing views tried to win support for their cause by banding together . . . . By [1860], parties were well established as the country's dominant political organizations, and party allegiance had become an important part of most people's consciousness. Party loyalty was passed from fathers to sons, and party activities — including spectacular campaign events, complete with uniformed marching groups and torchlight parades — were a part of the social life of many communities.” [Emphasis added.]
Does this sound vaguely familiar? It should because just 60 years later Adolf Hitler used these same American political party methods to great success.
“The 25 points of the NSDAP Program were composed by Adolf Hitler and Anton Drexler. They were publicly presented on 24 February 1920 "to a crowd of almost two thousand and every single point was accepted amid jubilant approval.". . . Hitler explained their purpose in the fifth chapter of the second volume of Mein Kampf: The program of the new movement was summed up in a few guiding principles, twenty-five in all. They were devised to give, primarily to the man of the people, a rough picture of the movement's aims. They are in a sense a political creed, which on the one hand recruits for the movement and on the other is suited to unite and weld together by a commonly recognized obligation those who have been recruited.
“Hitler was intent on having a community of mutual interest that desired mutual success instead of one that was divided over the control of money or differing values.
THE COMMON INTEREST BEFORE SELF-INTEREST--THAT IS THE SPIRIT OF THE PROGRAM. BREAKING OF THE THRALDOM OF INTEREST - THAT IS THE KERNEL OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM.
“In these straightforward statements of intent, Hitler translated his ideology into a plan of action which would prove its popularity with the German people throughout the coming years. For many, the abruptness of its departure from the tradition of politics as practiced in the western world was as much of a shock as its liberal nature and foresight of the emerging problems of western democracy.”
Of course, common interest is merely code for special interest and self-interest must fall to party loyalty. Once that is achieved it is a short step to swearing loyalty oaths to the party leader himself.
Propaganda is not only a primary mission of political parties, it is the best means of achieving the political goals of the party, as Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf. The NSDAP was largely successful due to the extensive propaganda machine that it employed.
In 1931, Joseph Goebbels wrote in his “Will and Way” article, “Political methods always presume a political goal. Only when the goal is crystal clear and unchangeable is it possible to determine the foundations of practical work. The means one uses to reach the goal is political will.
“There are a variety of ways to gain power. There are illegal means to gain power through brute force; one can also gain power legally by winning a majority in an election. There are revolutions, Putsches, uprisings. But each of these methods requires a political group to win the sympathies of the broad masses, if it wishes over the long run to maintain its power. But the sympathy of the people does not come of itself; it must be won.
“The means of gaining that support is propaganda . . . . The goal of propaganda is to make what the theorists have discovered clear to the broad masses . . . . The great accomplishment of the National Socialist movement is that it created a synthesis of both elements [will and way] of the art of politics.”
Hitler was among the least likely of individuals to rise to power when he did. He was unimposing, a poor student, flat broke, and a failed painter. He lived like a bum for months on the streets of Vienna and he had no special gifts, other than an ability to speak in public. If not for the NSDAP, he would have gone nowhere. It was a political party that enabled Hitler to rise to power.
"Of what importance is all that, if I range men firmly within a discipline they cannot escape? Let them own land or factories as much as they please. The decisive factor is that the State, through the Party, is supreme over them regardless of whether they are owners or workers. All that is unessential; our socialism goes far deeper. It establishes a relationship of the individual to the State, the national community. Why need we trouble to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings." [Emphasis added.]
~ Adolf Hitler to Herman Rauschning in Why Does Socialism Continue to Appeal to Anyone? by Robert Hessen.
Hitler was much smarter than most Americans are today. He at least understood that the political party is the tool that the State uses to forge the chains of slavery for its citizens.
Political parties — comprised of incumbents, candidates, voters, agendas, special interests, and platforms — are the tools that the State uses to forge the chains of slavery for its citizens. The popular fiction of differences between political parties also perpetuates the enduring myth that citizens have only one means of governing themselves — by voting for a proxy. Not only is this notion patently false, the only real winner in the game is the State itself. The entire process consists of nothing more than mass delusion every time an election is held.
Political parties are very useful tools of the State, which is why they exist in the first place. Political parties can accomplish what the nebulous State cannot achieve by itself without bloodshed. Primary missions of political parties include: a.) transferring power from the people to the State; b.) pandering to special interests; c.) seizing and holding power; d.) crushing all competition; e.) fostering and maintaining the illusion that voters are governing themselves; f.) spreading propaganda; g.) demonizing the perceived political enemy of the day; and h.) lending some semblance of legitimacy to the State, however imaginary.
The Founders eschewed political parties, fearing the worst, and rightly so. John F. Bibby writes, “When the founders of the American republic wrote the U.S. Constitution in 1787, they did not envision a role for political parties in the governmental order. Indeed, they sought through various constitutional arrangements such as separation of powers, checks and balances, and indirect election of the president by an electoral college to insulate the new republic from political parties and factions. In spite of the founders’ intentions, the United States was the first nation to develop parties organized on a national basis and to transfer executive power from one faction to another via an election in 1800.” [Emphasis added.]
“Many of America's Founding Fathers hated the thought of political parties, quarreling ‘factions’ they were sure would be more interested in contending with each other than in working for the common good. They wanted individual citizens to vote for individual candidates, without the interference of organized groups — but this was not to be.
“By the 1790s, different views of the new country's proper course had already developed, and those who held these opposing views tried to win support for their cause by banding together . . . . By [1860], parties were well established as the country's dominant political organizations, and party allegiance had become an important part of most people's consciousness. Party loyalty was passed from fathers to sons, and party activities — including spectacular campaign events, complete with uniformed marching groups and torchlight parades — were a part of the social life of many communities.” [Emphasis added.]
Does this sound vaguely familiar? It should because just 60 years later Adolf Hitler used these same American political party methods to great success.
“The 25 points of the NSDAP Program were composed by Adolf Hitler and Anton Drexler. They were publicly presented on 24 February 1920 "to a crowd of almost two thousand and every single point was accepted amid jubilant approval.". . . Hitler explained their purpose in the fifth chapter of the second volume of Mein Kampf: The program of the new movement was summed up in a few guiding principles, twenty-five in all. They were devised to give, primarily to the man of the people, a rough picture of the movement's aims. They are in a sense a political creed, which on the one hand recruits for the movement and on the other is suited to unite and weld together by a commonly recognized obligation those who have been recruited.
“Hitler was intent on having a community of mutual interest that desired mutual success instead of one that was divided over the control of money or differing values.
THE COMMON INTEREST BEFORE SELF-INTEREST--THAT IS THE SPIRIT OF THE PROGRAM. BREAKING OF THE THRALDOM OF INTEREST - THAT IS THE KERNEL OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM.
“In these straightforward statements of intent, Hitler translated his ideology into a plan of action which would prove its popularity with the German people throughout the coming years. For many, the abruptness of its departure from the tradition of politics as practiced in the western world was as much of a shock as its liberal nature and foresight of the emerging problems of western democracy.”
Of course, common interest is merely code for special interest and self-interest must fall to party loyalty. Once that is achieved it is a short step to swearing loyalty oaths to the party leader himself.
Propaganda is not only a primary mission of political parties, it is the best means of achieving the political goals of the party, as Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf. The NSDAP was largely successful due to the extensive propaganda machine that it employed.
In 1931, Joseph Goebbels wrote in his “Will and Way” article, “Political methods always presume a political goal. Only when the goal is crystal clear and unchangeable is it possible to determine the foundations of practical work. The means one uses to reach the goal is political will.
“There are a variety of ways to gain power. There are illegal means to gain power through brute force; one can also gain power legally by winning a majority in an election. There are revolutions, Putsches, uprisings. But each of these methods requires a political group to win the sympathies of the broad masses, if it wishes over the long run to maintain its power. But the sympathy of the people does not come of itself; it must be won.
“The means of gaining that support is propaganda . . . . The goal of propaganda is to make what the theorists have discovered clear to the broad masses . . . . The great accomplishment of the National Socialist movement is that it created a synthesis of both elements [will and way] of the art of politics.”
Hitler was among the least likely of individuals to rise to power when he did. He was unimposing, a poor student, flat broke, and a failed painter. He lived like a bum for months on the streets of Vienna and he had no special gifts, other than an ability to speak in public. If not for the NSDAP, he would have gone nowhere. It was a political party that enabled Hitler to rise to power.
"Of what importance is all that, if I range men firmly within a discipline they cannot escape? Let them own land or factories as much as they please. The decisive factor is that the State, through the Party, is supreme over them regardless of whether they are owners or workers. All that is unessential; our socialism goes far deeper. It establishes a relationship of the individual to the State, the national community. Why need we trouble to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings." [Emphasis added.]
~ Adolf Hitler to Herman Rauschning in Why Does Socialism Continue to Appeal to Anyone? by Robert Hessen.
Hitler was much smarter than most Americans are today. He at least understood that the political party is the tool that the State uses to forge the chains of slavery for its citizens.
Intellect and Emotions
by Simonne Liberty
EMOTIONAL EDUCATION. Our education system has built a mental image of what education is suppose to entail. Reading, writing and arithmetic has expanded to high tech skills. Academic intelligence has become a major concern in our modern society. Education in our system is viewed as the most important goal for success. Without education a person is lead to believe that all they can face is failure.
This type of view and attitude by the educational leaders of our country puts a band-aid on problems that need to be addressed in order for education to work. There are few two parent, stable and secure families in our society. Most families are plagued by dysfunctional relationships. Alcohol, drug abuse, physical and sexual abuse. Moral break-downs, child neglect and abuse. Single parent homes, and latch key kids. Fear of fatal disease (aids), poverty, homelessness, and hunger. When all these dysfunctional problems affect the majority of children in our society today, how can their educational skills be considered a FIRST PRIORITY in seeking goals for the future?
EMOTIONAL EDUCATION needs to be taught in schools along with academic education, for children to heal as they learn. Children who have to deal with heavy emotional problems at home, can not turn off the emotions when they walk through the front door of the school. High grade point averages and high IQ's are not going to benefit children who are inflicted with deep emotional problems, that are not dealt with.
Domestic violence, sexual and physical abuse, and a high crime rate will continue to escalate among bright and intelligent students who show potential to excel in academic skills, if they are left to fend with emotional struggles that they don't know how to handle. Children will react and respond to the actions that are done to them at home. They may be able to put aside the emotional stress during the school hours, and they may even get by without detection.
A high school diploma or college degree will not heal the hidden wounds that can't heal without treatment. Earning a decent salary for academic achievement may appear to be a sign of success. But when the fears of the past are deeply rooted, they can easily erupt or resurface unexpectedly, or in expected ways. Serial killers often are intelligent human beings who have been twisted emotionally into dangerous monsters. Often the root of problems go way back into a past where emotional problems were never faced, or taken care of. The emotional dysfunction erupts into an evil end.
Many people who physically or sexually abuse their own children or spouces, also may exibit high academic skills. Again, a high IQ is NOT a garantee that the hidden problems of the past will vanish and take care of themselves. The cycle will continue until emotional education is taught and the cycle is broken.
Moral values and concern for others, is not a priority taught in the basic academic program. The issue of "loving one another," is put on the back burner to teach that we live in a COMPETITIVE WORLD. We are taught that everyone has to fight for themselves. That type of reasoning is not going to solve humanistic problems in the world.
Often the need to learn about emotional education drives people to seek this kind of teaching, by religious means. Sometimes religion helps, and other times it only adds to the guilt and shame a person already suffers with. Often a person only becomes more confused, and continues the cycle of shame under the protection of religion. Religion can become a cover for them to live a double life. It is not uncommon. Religion alone is not the answer for all who see relief from the deep dark secrets they were never able to deal with in the past.
The average academic subjects of Math, English, History ect. do not touch a childs "FEELINGS". Feelings are more a part of living than knowing all the answers on an academic exam. When emotions are put aside and neglected, to teach programmed lessons, often those who succeed will be emotionless in dealing with life issues.
Copyright © 2002-2009 Helium, Inc. All rights reserved.
EMOTIONAL EDUCATION. Our education system has built a mental image of what education is suppose to entail. Reading, writing and arithmetic has expanded to high tech skills. Academic intelligence has become a major concern in our modern society. Education in our system is viewed as the most important goal for success. Without education a person is lead to believe that all they can face is failure.
This type of view and attitude by the educational leaders of our country puts a band-aid on problems that need to be addressed in order for education to work. There are few two parent, stable and secure families in our society. Most families are plagued by dysfunctional relationships. Alcohol, drug abuse, physical and sexual abuse. Moral break-downs, child neglect and abuse. Single parent homes, and latch key kids. Fear of fatal disease (aids), poverty, homelessness, and hunger. When all these dysfunctional problems affect the majority of children in our society today, how can their educational skills be considered a FIRST PRIORITY in seeking goals for the future?
EMOTIONAL EDUCATION needs to be taught in schools along with academic education, for children to heal as they learn. Children who have to deal with heavy emotional problems at home, can not turn off the emotions when they walk through the front door of the school. High grade point averages and high IQ's are not going to benefit children who are inflicted with deep emotional problems, that are not dealt with.
Domestic violence, sexual and physical abuse, and a high crime rate will continue to escalate among bright and intelligent students who show potential to excel in academic skills, if they are left to fend with emotional struggles that they don't know how to handle. Children will react and respond to the actions that are done to them at home. They may be able to put aside the emotional stress during the school hours, and they may even get by without detection.
A high school diploma or college degree will not heal the hidden wounds that can't heal without treatment. Earning a decent salary for academic achievement may appear to be a sign of success. But when the fears of the past are deeply rooted, they can easily erupt or resurface unexpectedly, or in expected ways. Serial killers often are intelligent human beings who have been twisted emotionally into dangerous monsters. Often the root of problems go way back into a past where emotional problems were never faced, or taken care of. The emotional dysfunction erupts into an evil end.
Many people who physically or sexually abuse their own children or spouces, also may exibit high academic skills. Again, a high IQ is NOT a garantee that the hidden problems of the past will vanish and take care of themselves. The cycle will continue until emotional education is taught and the cycle is broken.
Moral values and concern for others, is not a priority taught in the basic academic program. The issue of "loving one another," is put on the back burner to teach that we live in a COMPETITIVE WORLD. We are taught that everyone has to fight for themselves. That type of reasoning is not going to solve humanistic problems in the world.
Often the need to learn about emotional education drives people to seek this kind of teaching, by religious means. Sometimes religion helps, and other times it only adds to the guilt and shame a person already suffers with. Often a person only becomes more confused, and continues the cycle of shame under the protection of religion. Religion can become a cover for them to live a double life. It is not uncommon. Religion alone is not the answer for all who see relief from the deep dark secrets they were never able to deal with in the past.
The average academic subjects of Math, English, History ect. do not touch a childs "FEELINGS". Feelings are more a part of living than knowing all the answers on an academic exam. When emotions are put aside and neglected, to teach programmed lessons, often those who succeed will be emotionless in dealing with life issues.
Copyright © 2002-2009 Helium, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
THE NEW CEATIVITY AND THE FEMININE ARCHETYPE
Since 'creativity' and the Feminine Archetype are such integral elements of the 'cultural creatives' trend, and in business in general, Jamie Walters, founder of Ivy Sea, sat down in dialogue with Julie Daley, founder of Creative Wellspring, to discuss just what we're talking about when we say 'creativity' and 'Feminine', and why it's so important right now — both within and beyond the realms of business.
JW: What does 'creativity' mean to you?
JD: It means Self-expression, where "self" has a capital S. It means your highest expression, your highest Self, which I believe is the ultimate goal of being alive is to create and extend your own authenticity in the world. Very much as we were created by the force of the Universe.
JW: For many Westerners, creativity is something that we've been conditioned to see as "a luxury" reserved for only a few — it's kind of like many of the "self-care" or even wellness related practices that have been set aside in favor of the rational, linear, productive, business or material pursuits. Why is it important, and what's the flaw of this Western thinking?
JD: Well, for me, because of how I see creativity, it's absolutely necessary for not only successful life but for a happy life. Our reason for being here is to express from our soul what really matters, so we can't be fully happy and fulfilled at the end of our life unless we've done that. It's just as important as breathing and eating.
I agree there's that flaw in Western thinking. It's also tied in here in the West with the belief that creativity is something that 'some people have' — it has to be an artistic expression. And there's also the belief that people who are 'creative' are kind of 'out there'. So wherever that work ethic came from …
JW: In your observations and experiences, what are some of the general costs of the traditional ways of thinking?
JD: The most important thing is a lot of depression, disconnectedness — both personal and professional — and I would go so far as to say illness, if you look at creativity as an energy, if it's not moving it gets stuck in the body. There's no joy.
Creativity has a lighter side, but a darker side. A full range of expression includes both. We limit what we believe is 'acceptable expression' so a lot of what needs to get expressed it comes out destructively.
JW: I've seen these as well — individually or organizationally — where suppressing one's creativity, intuition, vision, and other traits associated with the Feminine archetype has high costs, including burn-out, less-than-optimal decision-making, putting "blood, sweat and tears" into something that ultimately has no meaning for you, and other things. What about some of the costs to business?
JD: If you look at business, you'll see slower production signs, less true leadership, fewer people stepping up into their own personal leadership. Collaborative work suffers. There's a whole level of judgment placed on people and their expression — what the appropriate expression is, so there's fear of expression.
In business, it's creativity in context — there are boundaries set — but when it's so judged, then it gets bottled up. So this might mean that we believe that we need to keep the whole idea of creativity and the free distribution of ideas cloaked, and that leads to that whole idea of scarcity.
If you believe in the flow of creative ideas, it's more of a generative expression. So if you let it out in one way or place, it's generative and supports creativity in other areas.
With technological advances, we see that information is shared left and right, where as before it was much more difficult. Creativity is the same way — when it's allowed to flow, it can only stimulate more ideas, more creativity, more business, more abundance, than is the case when you "keep it close to you."
JW: If we're talking about new levels of creativity, and new ways of seeing creativity, don't we need to transform existing organizational norms and cultures? After all, most current traditional organizational cultures aren't tolerant of true creativity. In fact, they seem to excise it as soon as it really shows itself as 'creative.' What have you seen in this regard?
JD: The bottom line is that companies say they want a creative environment, but creative environments require collaboration, a movement between actions, idea generation, time spent to say "I don't know, let's look at that." Unfortunately in business these days the mindset is that "any time we spend not producing is not serving the company," but nothing could be further from the truth.
As we've talked about before, there has to be a dance between the Feminine and Masculine archetypes and the traits inherent in those. So much of the Masculine is about pushing out into action, about competing; and sometimes what you have to do requires coming in, collaborating, allowing more time to really open up to the possibilities.
But the predominant business mindset is that we have to produce right away and we don't open up truly to what's possible.
Everything is a wave, but in most organizations and the economy in general, it's seen as a straight line, and it's always supposed to go up — profits are supposed to go up, production is supposed to go up, earnings are supposed to go up. But that's not the way that Nature or creativity works; there's that ebb and flow, up and down, in and out, in order for it to truly be a creative culture.
And I really believe that people know it inside; every body knows inside what feels right, and yet there's so much fear about choosing to be the one who is different.
JW: And now we get to a prevailing issue beneath it all. Fear. Isn't fear a clamp on creativity? So if the culture is a culture of fear, and the leadership style is a style of 'fear-based leadership', doesn't this actually stop the flow of creativity, or the possibilities for creativity to even exist in such a culture?
JD: Yes. For individuals, everyone's creativity is unique, so you are going to be different — that's your nature. We've been trained in school to conform, not to be different. The same is the case in a lot of business environments, yet that's where the creativity happens, when things are uncertain.
And that word — uncertainty — when used in a business environment, generates a lot of fear and horror! With that uncertainty, who knows? Who knows what's going to get generated? You don't, really.
JW: And that goes right into the face of the myth about just how much we control, how much we can will into place by brute force. It goes right in the face of our more rigid or unexplored expectations, doesn't it?
JD: Expectation kills all creativity, it kills all uncertainty. You pull that possibility wave right down to the line. And if that unexpected pops up, then you recoil, pull away.
JW: But even as we pretend that we've planned every bit of uncertainty away, uncertainty is exactly what exists. Change, uncertainty, are the only constants, regardless of the "security lies" we tell ourselves or the games of 'make pretend' we play. And yet creativity thrives in the fields of uncertainty!
JD: Exactly. It's all second to second, moment to moment, and all we can really respond to is what's happening right now, and trust that what happens in the next moment will be the effect of what we've just chosen.
So going back to the statement about our culture, we need to reframe how we see creativity — what does it mean — and how we see uncertainty and change, which gets right to the cultural mythology of just how much we control the world.
We're seeing this with the recent hurricanes in the United States: It makes clear that we don't control the world; we're part of that force, part of that Nature. Sometimes it comes through sweetly, and sometimes that force doesn't come through sweetly.
JW: Charles Johnston, in an article in the May 2005 edition of the IONs journal, Shift, wrote, "The particular challenges ahead require of us a new kind of creativity. The future demands that we bring a new fullness to our lives — new depths in ourselves and new sophistication in our understanding of what it means to be creative. In the end, it will require a maturity in our natures as creative beings that has never before been needed — or possible." What does this bring up for you?
JD: I think it's absolutely what we're being called to do and be. I feel the calling myself. There's such a draw to the word 'creativity' to me. That's the way we have to move if we're to survive.
It's not a creativity that's contained within self, but through presence or in creative community, seeing ourselves as part of the collective, the Spiritual sense of being in community and being creative. We need to allow that creative force to come through us and mix — that's why collaboration is so important.
Everything happens in relationship, and we don't learn that in this culture. We learn that we're individuals, and autonomous, and you have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And there is truth to that, but we don't learn that we're connected. We're part of the greater whole.
We need to cultivate collaboration, cultivate ways of being together, cultivate new ways of being together. We've created that capacity for connection with our technology. But our mindsets haven't caught up with the (possibilities of) our technology.
JW: These things — creativity, collaboration, conscious action, co-creating — these all entail a higher level of responsibility than might be comfortable or familiar to us, yes?
JD: Yes, and that's where the responsibility comes into creativity. The response is different, depending on how you're seeing it. If we see ourselves as an individual the response is different; if we see ourselves as part of a collective, that's a different choice. And that collective comes back to us and shows us the possibility!
There is a responsibility to choose love, to choose compassion, to think of the other.
Perhaps if we can increase that ability to respond to everything else in a way that has compassion, understanding and love, there doesn't have to be this sense that I have to control everyone's creativity.
In an organization, how can I set up an environment based on trust of people's ability to create? And how can I allow people to create, and see that they do need to create with responsibility?
So much of that goes to how quickly the Ego wants to judge. But when people are given an opening and see that they're not going to be judged, that natural tendency to create and be part of the collective, to be responsible.
Our nature is to create and to be responsible to the collective! When you shut down that energy, you also shut down the part of the collective connection, and then you see negativity.
JW: And this brings us, then, to 'higher values' of faith and trust, which uncertainty and creativity really require.
JD: Yes, it ultimately comes down to what we trust. The bottom line in business or anywhere is that you have to have trust in your own creativity and that everyone else is creative and that your sense of happiness, success, etc. all get fulfilled.
And ultimately when you have faith in that it allows you to be in that place of uncertainty because you know that you have the tools to respond, to act. And you know that the other person does too.
JW: You included some powerful quotations in your most recent email newsletter: "Tomorrow belongs to women." - Helen Fisher, The First Sex; "Learn not to be careful." - Photographer Diane Arbus to her students; "You can't stand out ... unless ... your heart is in it." - Tom Peters.
Let's talk a little bit about why these have meaning for you in terms of creativity and our experience of "the fullness of life".
JD: For me, what Charles Johnston talks about (in the IONs article that Jamie mentioned earlier) -- that new way of being -- is the Feminine. Collaborative, community, relationship. And I believe it's coming predominantly through women.
As Rainer Maria Rilke says in Letters to a Young Poet, "This humanity of woman, carried in her womb through all her suffering and humiliation, will come to light when she has stripped off the conventions of mere femaleness in the transformations of her outward status, and those men who do not yet feel it approaching will be astonished by it. Someday (and even now, especially in the countries of northern Europe, trustworthy signs are already speaking and shining), someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only life and reality: the female human being."
A new femaleness that's no longer in the image of man. That gets to the heart of what Wildly Creative Women is about — re-imagining what it's like to be a woman, to be female.
JW: As compared to what we've learned about what being male or female is supposedly about, which seems a distorted fraction of the true essence, the true potentials and gifts inherent in both genders, and the Masculine and Feminine archetypes which are resident in both genders.
JD: There's nothing outside of us, where we've been trained to look, to show us what that really is. It takes going inside. That Feminine is what's going to keep our world together.
JW: That's exactly what Dannion Brinkley emphasized when I heard him speak a few months ago, and he surely is an example of what happens when circumstances open a man to a greater balance of Masculine and Feminine. As such, he can appreciate and value the Feminine.
He also points to some of the recent aberrations in business or world politics as the result of what happens when the Masculine archetype is too far out of balance and the Feminine is too suppressed.
JD: Right now, much of what we see is what Ego would create — out of fear and scarcity. So it becomes a creative way to control.
But it also goes back to my idea of sexuality, in the fullest sense. You have to trust in your body and its intelligence. You have to trust in your nature as a woman or a man. There are so many false messages and images — they're all fake — so we don't even know what it means to "be our gender".
And we have to go inside to do that, and then go to each other, and reflect that.
JW: That's the "inner work" that allows us to transcend previous limited beliefs, concepts, and ways of seeing and working; and it also allows us to find our creativity, authenticity, vision, and even the courage so that we can "learn not to be careful," as photographer Diane Arbus told her students.
JD: David Kelly, one of my design professors at Stanford, always said: Fail early, fail often. He was talking about rapid prototyping. Getting it out there. But we sit back and we're so careful, because we're "in our heads" not in our bodies or out in action.
Companies want us to be in action, but we're in our heads, thinking of the perfect answer, because failure isn't tolerated. But creativity and being in action invites failure!
Do we not trust our bodies and instincts enough that we'll not know when we will really need to be careful? Careful means to 'have care' not to "stay safe". So it's looking at what we mean by the word 'careful'.
JW: And on the flip side, if the emphasis on safety and conformity nip creativity in the bud, what helps to cultivate creativity and the 'body wisdom' — the instinct and intuition — necessary to go with that flow?
JD: For me, a couple of the most important qualities are wonder and discovery! I love going out and just walking — looking at buildings, people, smelling smells. That idea that around the next corner, what will we find?
You see kids have that and we've lost it. If you're not careful in that "stay safe", it could mean that next great photograph.
What's really going to happen when you take a risk? You might fail. And then we go to what that word means in our society. And it goes back to that whole concept of having to have everything go up, not down, because "going down" or "going back" is failure. But creativity requires failure!
JW: I love Immanuel Wallerstein's comments about the importance of embracing uncertainty in order to allow for creativity and possibility. Wallerstein says, "If everything is uncertain, then the future is open to creativity, not merely human creativity but the creativity of all nature. It is open to possibility, and therefore to a better world. But we can only get there as we are ready to invest our moral energies in its achievement."
Similarly, Deepak Chopra in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success writes, "In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty … in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning. And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender ourselves to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the Universe."
JD: I believe that it's in the uncertainty that we actually feel most alive. It's the place where our deepest most authentic Being wants to be. And I think we all know that at some level.
Sometimes you feel that excitement about the unknown, the other voice, the fear, is also speaking loudly. Sometimes they go hand in hand. The creative voice that wants the uncertainty, and the fear from the part of us that wants to control and avoid uncertainty is just terrified of uncertainty!
The Ego voice gets louder — keep me safe, keep me safe!
JW: And then that inclination to control comes into play, and shuts things right down, often when you really need creativity, insight, intuition, vision, and possibility opened up.
JD: When we want to control, it's that place of seeing "It's me against the world, me against you," and that so stifles the creative juice that wants to come out.
In the general culture, we see this. I really feel that what we're moving towards this creative, more collaborative place culturally. And you can just see the Ego Voice; the old ways are fighting harder to hang on.
But we really have to listen to that voice that wants to emerge — what wants to emerge — I and we need to allow that and express it.
JW: Those who are creative — who open to their uniqueness and begin to express it or give it voice — go against the grain by stepping up and standing out. That's what many people fear about it, and that's what many bureaucracies or entrenched but out-dated systems find threatening.
JD: Yes. This old cultural paradigm has been around for so long, that feeling about "going against the grain" and that old cultural voice can seem so overwhelming, so that's where that shut-down occurs. Wanting to be part of the tribe — conforming — so I shut down.
That happens in organizations, too, where you see people saying to themselves, "I won't speak up" or "That's a dumb question, so I won't ask it." Things like that. That question is tagging on your shoulder, tugging on your pants to ask it, and you can hear the other voice telling you not to ask, not to speak, not to stand.
JW: And in some of the more entrenched, traditional cultures that really don't deal well with change, uncertainty or creativity — no matter what's said publicly — you see and hear a lot about wanting creativity or entrepreneurial spirit, but what's tolerated really isn't creative at all. It's a form of make-pretend, because real creativity or real entrepreneurial spirit would blow the boundaries of "how things have been done" right out the door!
JD: Sometimes you don't even know you're not being creative; we're so well-conditioned that it feels like you're being creative, but it becomes like a fib.
People want leadership, they want innovative, they want cultural or organizational change. And they know they need it. But all of those things depend on that inner voice — you can't really be a leader unless you hear that inner voice, and you open to what others offer, and then trust enough in your own voice and conviction to act from it.
Companies so often want innovation but they don't want creativity. Because somehow creativity has that bad rap — it's that loose cannon. It's hard to control!
JW: And as we've mentioned, so many people are afraid to see their own passion, their own desire, they're afraid to wake up to that. And yet there's such a great yearning for it. It keeps calling to us, and will, until we finally give it the time of day!
JD: Yes, because what happens when you do that — when you open to that voice of your passion calling to you? You feel! And desire and passion for a lot of people are lined up with the body — sensuality, sexuality — and all of those, culturally, are no-no's.
Passion is a feeling! But without desire and passion, there isn't enough energy to allow for newness, for bigness, for greatness. Desire, hope, excitement — that fuel that carries you to that base of creation. That's the energy!
You don't see a lot of people walking around with that kind of energy. It's more that anxious, stressful kind of energy.
In contrast, that Feminine feeling of being in the body, and feeling passionate about your work. You feel that it's so exciting, and you have so much passion around it, that you're willing to work 12 hours on a project if that's what you want.
People are probably most creative and happy and successful when they are themselves. This is the biggest thing that I've discovered, and it's so simple. If we could be fully ourselves — being fully in our bodies, being intelligent like we all are, being fully me — I will be the happiest most successful member of society, organization, relationship.
JW: And then our organizations, communities, and governments also reflect the very best that each of us has to offer, and are thus more enjoyable, creative, and prosperous. The result is the highest potential of humanity, for the greatest wellness and prosperity of all being — humanity, other beings, the Earth.
THE NEW CEATIVITY AND THE FEMININE ARCHETYPE
http://www.ivysea.com/pages/ldrex_1005_05.html
JW: What does 'creativity' mean to you?
JD: It means Self-expression, where "self" has a capital S. It means your highest expression, your highest Self, which I believe is the ultimate goal of being alive is to create and extend your own authenticity in the world. Very much as we were created by the force of the Universe.
JW: For many Westerners, creativity is something that we've been conditioned to see as "a luxury" reserved for only a few — it's kind of like many of the "self-care" or even wellness related practices that have been set aside in favor of the rational, linear, productive, business or material pursuits. Why is it important, and what's the flaw of this Western thinking?
JD: Well, for me, because of how I see creativity, it's absolutely necessary for not only successful life but for a happy life. Our reason for being here is to express from our soul what really matters, so we can't be fully happy and fulfilled at the end of our life unless we've done that. It's just as important as breathing and eating.
I agree there's that flaw in Western thinking. It's also tied in here in the West with the belief that creativity is something that 'some people have' — it has to be an artistic expression. And there's also the belief that people who are 'creative' are kind of 'out there'. So wherever that work ethic came from …
JW: In your observations and experiences, what are some of the general costs of the traditional ways of thinking?
JD: The most important thing is a lot of depression, disconnectedness — both personal and professional — and I would go so far as to say illness, if you look at creativity as an energy, if it's not moving it gets stuck in the body. There's no joy.
Creativity has a lighter side, but a darker side. A full range of expression includes both. We limit what we believe is 'acceptable expression' so a lot of what needs to get expressed it comes out destructively.
JW: I've seen these as well — individually or organizationally — where suppressing one's creativity, intuition, vision, and other traits associated with the Feminine archetype has high costs, including burn-out, less-than-optimal decision-making, putting "blood, sweat and tears" into something that ultimately has no meaning for you, and other things. What about some of the costs to business?
JD: If you look at business, you'll see slower production signs, less true leadership, fewer people stepping up into their own personal leadership. Collaborative work suffers. There's a whole level of judgment placed on people and their expression — what the appropriate expression is, so there's fear of expression.
In business, it's creativity in context — there are boundaries set — but when it's so judged, then it gets bottled up. So this might mean that we believe that we need to keep the whole idea of creativity and the free distribution of ideas cloaked, and that leads to that whole idea of scarcity.
If you believe in the flow of creative ideas, it's more of a generative expression. So if you let it out in one way or place, it's generative and supports creativity in other areas.
With technological advances, we see that information is shared left and right, where as before it was much more difficult. Creativity is the same way — when it's allowed to flow, it can only stimulate more ideas, more creativity, more business, more abundance, than is the case when you "keep it close to you."
JW: If we're talking about new levels of creativity, and new ways of seeing creativity, don't we need to transform existing organizational norms and cultures? After all, most current traditional organizational cultures aren't tolerant of true creativity. In fact, they seem to excise it as soon as it really shows itself as 'creative.' What have you seen in this regard?
JD: The bottom line is that companies say they want a creative environment, but creative environments require collaboration, a movement between actions, idea generation, time spent to say "I don't know, let's look at that." Unfortunately in business these days the mindset is that "any time we spend not producing is not serving the company," but nothing could be further from the truth.
As we've talked about before, there has to be a dance between the Feminine and Masculine archetypes and the traits inherent in those. So much of the Masculine is about pushing out into action, about competing; and sometimes what you have to do requires coming in, collaborating, allowing more time to really open up to the possibilities.
But the predominant business mindset is that we have to produce right away and we don't open up truly to what's possible.
Everything is a wave, but in most organizations and the economy in general, it's seen as a straight line, and it's always supposed to go up — profits are supposed to go up, production is supposed to go up, earnings are supposed to go up. But that's not the way that Nature or creativity works; there's that ebb and flow, up and down, in and out, in order for it to truly be a creative culture.
And I really believe that people know it inside; every body knows inside what feels right, and yet there's so much fear about choosing to be the one who is different.
JW: And now we get to a prevailing issue beneath it all. Fear. Isn't fear a clamp on creativity? So if the culture is a culture of fear, and the leadership style is a style of 'fear-based leadership', doesn't this actually stop the flow of creativity, or the possibilities for creativity to even exist in such a culture?
JD: Yes. For individuals, everyone's creativity is unique, so you are going to be different — that's your nature. We've been trained in school to conform, not to be different. The same is the case in a lot of business environments, yet that's where the creativity happens, when things are uncertain.
And that word — uncertainty — when used in a business environment, generates a lot of fear and horror! With that uncertainty, who knows? Who knows what's going to get generated? You don't, really.
JW: And that goes right into the face of the myth about just how much we control, how much we can will into place by brute force. It goes right in the face of our more rigid or unexplored expectations, doesn't it?
JD: Expectation kills all creativity, it kills all uncertainty. You pull that possibility wave right down to the line. And if that unexpected pops up, then you recoil, pull away.
JW: But even as we pretend that we've planned every bit of uncertainty away, uncertainty is exactly what exists. Change, uncertainty, are the only constants, regardless of the "security lies" we tell ourselves or the games of 'make pretend' we play. And yet creativity thrives in the fields of uncertainty!
JD: Exactly. It's all second to second, moment to moment, and all we can really respond to is what's happening right now, and trust that what happens in the next moment will be the effect of what we've just chosen.
So going back to the statement about our culture, we need to reframe how we see creativity — what does it mean — and how we see uncertainty and change, which gets right to the cultural mythology of just how much we control the world.
We're seeing this with the recent hurricanes in the United States: It makes clear that we don't control the world; we're part of that force, part of that Nature. Sometimes it comes through sweetly, and sometimes that force doesn't come through sweetly.
JW: Charles Johnston, in an article in the May 2005 edition of the IONs journal, Shift, wrote, "The particular challenges ahead require of us a new kind of creativity. The future demands that we bring a new fullness to our lives — new depths in ourselves and new sophistication in our understanding of what it means to be creative. In the end, it will require a maturity in our natures as creative beings that has never before been needed — or possible." What does this bring up for you?
JD: I think it's absolutely what we're being called to do and be. I feel the calling myself. There's such a draw to the word 'creativity' to me. That's the way we have to move if we're to survive.
It's not a creativity that's contained within self, but through presence or in creative community, seeing ourselves as part of the collective, the Spiritual sense of being in community and being creative. We need to allow that creative force to come through us and mix — that's why collaboration is so important.
Everything happens in relationship, and we don't learn that in this culture. We learn that we're individuals, and autonomous, and you have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And there is truth to that, but we don't learn that we're connected. We're part of the greater whole.
We need to cultivate collaboration, cultivate ways of being together, cultivate new ways of being together. We've created that capacity for connection with our technology. But our mindsets haven't caught up with the (possibilities of) our technology.
JW: These things — creativity, collaboration, conscious action, co-creating — these all entail a higher level of responsibility than might be comfortable or familiar to us, yes?
JD: Yes, and that's where the responsibility comes into creativity. The response is different, depending on how you're seeing it. If we see ourselves as an individual the response is different; if we see ourselves as part of a collective, that's a different choice. And that collective comes back to us and shows us the possibility!
There is a responsibility to choose love, to choose compassion, to think of the other.
Perhaps if we can increase that ability to respond to everything else in a way that has compassion, understanding and love, there doesn't have to be this sense that I have to control everyone's creativity.
In an organization, how can I set up an environment based on trust of people's ability to create? And how can I allow people to create, and see that they do need to create with responsibility?
So much of that goes to how quickly the Ego wants to judge. But when people are given an opening and see that they're not going to be judged, that natural tendency to create and be part of the collective, to be responsible.
Our nature is to create and to be responsible to the collective! When you shut down that energy, you also shut down the part of the collective connection, and then you see negativity.
JW: And this brings us, then, to 'higher values' of faith and trust, which uncertainty and creativity really require.
JD: Yes, it ultimately comes down to what we trust. The bottom line in business or anywhere is that you have to have trust in your own creativity and that everyone else is creative and that your sense of happiness, success, etc. all get fulfilled.
And ultimately when you have faith in that it allows you to be in that place of uncertainty because you know that you have the tools to respond, to act. And you know that the other person does too.
JW: You included some powerful quotations in your most recent email newsletter: "Tomorrow belongs to women." - Helen Fisher, The First Sex; "Learn not to be careful." - Photographer Diane Arbus to her students; "You can't stand out ... unless ... your heart is in it." - Tom Peters.
Let's talk a little bit about why these have meaning for you in terms of creativity and our experience of "the fullness of life".
JD: For me, what Charles Johnston talks about (in the IONs article that Jamie mentioned earlier) -- that new way of being -- is the Feminine. Collaborative, community, relationship. And I believe it's coming predominantly through women.
As Rainer Maria Rilke says in Letters to a Young Poet, "This humanity of woman, carried in her womb through all her suffering and humiliation, will come to light when she has stripped off the conventions of mere femaleness in the transformations of her outward status, and those men who do not yet feel it approaching will be astonished by it. Someday (and even now, especially in the countries of northern Europe, trustworthy signs are already speaking and shining), someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only life and reality: the female human being."
A new femaleness that's no longer in the image of man. That gets to the heart of what Wildly Creative Women is about — re-imagining what it's like to be a woman, to be female.
JW: As compared to what we've learned about what being male or female is supposedly about, which seems a distorted fraction of the true essence, the true potentials and gifts inherent in both genders, and the Masculine and Feminine archetypes which are resident in both genders.
JD: There's nothing outside of us, where we've been trained to look, to show us what that really is. It takes going inside. That Feminine is what's going to keep our world together.
JW: That's exactly what Dannion Brinkley emphasized when I heard him speak a few months ago, and he surely is an example of what happens when circumstances open a man to a greater balance of Masculine and Feminine. As such, he can appreciate and value the Feminine.
He also points to some of the recent aberrations in business or world politics as the result of what happens when the Masculine archetype is too far out of balance and the Feminine is too suppressed.
JD: Right now, much of what we see is what Ego would create — out of fear and scarcity. So it becomes a creative way to control.
But it also goes back to my idea of sexuality, in the fullest sense. You have to trust in your body and its intelligence. You have to trust in your nature as a woman or a man. There are so many false messages and images — they're all fake — so we don't even know what it means to "be our gender".
And we have to go inside to do that, and then go to each other, and reflect that.
JW: That's the "inner work" that allows us to transcend previous limited beliefs, concepts, and ways of seeing and working; and it also allows us to find our creativity, authenticity, vision, and even the courage so that we can "learn not to be careful," as photographer Diane Arbus told her students.
JD: David Kelly, one of my design professors at Stanford, always said: Fail early, fail often. He was talking about rapid prototyping. Getting it out there. But we sit back and we're so careful, because we're "in our heads" not in our bodies or out in action.
Companies want us to be in action, but we're in our heads, thinking of the perfect answer, because failure isn't tolerated. But creativity and being in action invites failure!
Do we not trust our bodies and instincts enough that we'll not know when we will really need to be careful? Careful means to 'have care' not to "stay safe". So it's looking at what we mean by the word 'careful'.
JW: And on the flip side, if the emphasis on safety and conformity nip creativity in the bud, what helps to cultivate creativity and the 'body wisdom' — the instinct and intuition — necessary to go with that flow?
JD: For me, a couple of the most important qualities are wonder and discovery! I love going out and just walking — looking at buildings, people, smelling smells. That idea that around the next corner, what will we find?
You see kids have that and we've lost it. If you're not careful in that "stay safe", it could mean that next great photograph.
What's really going to happen when you take a risk? You might fail. And then we go to what that word means in our society. And it goes back to that whole concept of having to have everything go up, not down, because "going down" or "going back" is failure. But creativity requires failure!
JW: I love Immanuel Wallerstein's comments about the importance of embracing uncertainty in order to allow for creativity and possibility. Wallerstein says, "If everything is uncertain, then the future is open to creativity, not merely human creativity but the creativity of all nature. It is open to possibility, and therefore to a better world. But we can only get there as we are ready to invest our moral energies in its achievement."
Similarly, Deepak Chopra in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success writes, "In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty … in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning. And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender ourselves to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the Universe."
JD: I believe that it's in the uncertainty that we actually feel most alive. It's the place where our deepest most authentic Being wants to be. And I think we all know that at some level.
Sometimes you feel that excitement about the unknown, the other voice, the fear, is also speaking loudly. Sometimes they go hand in hand. The creative voice that wants the uncertainty, and the fear from the part of us that wants to control and avoid uncertainty is just terrified of uncertainty!
The Ego voice gets louder — keep me safe, keep me safe!
JW: And then that inclination to control comes into play, and shuts things right down, often when you really need creativity, insight, intuition, vision, and possibility opened up.
JD: When we want to control, it's that place of seeing "It's me against the world, me against you," and that so stifles the creative juice that wants to come out.
In the general culture, we see this. I really feel that what we're moving towards this creative, more collaborative place culturally. And you can just see the Ego Voice; the old ways are fighting harder to hang on.
But we really have to listen to that voice that wants to emerge — what wants to emerge — I and we need to allow that and express it.
JW: Those who are creative — who open to their uniqueness and begin to express it or give it voice — go against the grain by stepping up and standing out. That's what many people fear about it, and that's what many bureaucracies or entrenched but out-dated systems find threatening.
JD: Yes. This old cultural paradigm has been around for so long, that feeling about "going against the grain" and that old cultural voice can seem so overwhelming, so that's where that shut-down occurs. Wanting to be part of the tribe — conforming — so I shut down.
That happens in organizations, too, where you see people saying to themselves, "I won't speak up" or "That's a dumb question, so I won't ask it." Things like that. That question is tagging on your shoulder, tugging on your pants to ask it, and you can hear the other voice telling you not to ask, not to speak, not to stand.
JW: And in some of the more entrenched, traditional cultures that really don't deal well with change, uncertainty or creativity — no matter what's said publicly — you see and hear a lot about wanting creativity or entrepreneurial spirit, but what's tolerated really isn't creative at all. It's a form of make-pretend, because real creativity or real entrepreneurial spirit would blow the boundaries of "how things have been done" right out the door!
JD: Sometimes you don't even know you're not being creative; we're so well-conditioned that it feels like you're being creative, but it becomes like a fib.
People want leadership, they want innovative, they want cultural or organizational change. And they know they need it. But all of those things depend on that inner voice — you can't really be a leader unless you hear that inner voice, and you open to what others offer, and then trust enough in your own voice and conviction to act from it.
Companies so often want innovation but they don't want creativity. Because somehow creativity has that bad rap — it's that loose cannon. It's hard to control!
JW: And as we've mentioned, so many people are afraid to see their own passion, their own desire, they're afraid to wake up to that. And yet there's such a great yearning for it. It keeps calling to us, and will, until we finally give it the time of day!
JD: Yes, because what happens when you do that — when you open to that voice of your passion calling to you? You feel! And desire and passion for a lot of people are lined up with the body — sensuality, sexuality — and all of those, culturally, are no-no's.
Passion is a feeling! But without desire and passion, there isn't enough energy to allow for newness, for bigness, for greatness. Desire, hope, excitement — that fuel that carries you to that base of creation. That's the energy!
You don't see a lot of people walking around with that kind of energy. It's more that anxious, stressful kind of energy.
In contrast, that Feminine feeling of being in the body, and feeling passionate about your work. You feel that it's so exciting, and you have so much passion around it, that you're willing to work 12 hours on a project if that's what you want.
People are probably most creative and happy and successful when they are themselves. This is the biggest thing that I've discovered, and it's so simple. If we could be fully ourselves — being fully in our bodies, being intelligent like we all are, being fully me — I will be the happiest most successful member of society, organization, relationship.
JW: And then our organizations, communities, and governments also reflect the very best that each of us has to offer, and are thus more enjoyable, creative, and prosperous. The result is the highest potential of humanity, for the greatest wellness and prosperity of all being — humanity, other beings, the Earth.
THE NEW CEATIVITY AND THE FEMININE ARCHETYPE
http://www.ivysea.com/pages/ldrex_1005_05.html
United States Cohabitation Laws
Background
The law has not traditionally looked favorably upon individuals living together outside marriage. However, the law in this area has changed considerably in the past 40 years, and cohabitation has increased dramatically. In 1970, about 530,000 couples reportedly lived together outside marriage. This number increased to 1.6 million in 1980, 2.9 million in 1990, 4.2 million in 1998, and 5.5 million in 2000.
In some respects, unmarried cohabitation can be beneficial from a legal standpoint. Unmarried partners may define the terms of their relationship without being bound by marriage laws that can restrict the marriage relationship. When a relationship ends, unmarried cohabitants need not follow strict procedures to dissolve the living arrangement. Moreover, unmarried couples can avoid the so-called "marriage tax" in the Internal Revenue Code that provides a greater tax rate for unmarried couples than it does for two unmarried individuals (notwithstanding efforts to eliminate this penalty).
On the other hand, unmarried cohabitants do not enjoy the same rights as married individuals, particularly with respect to property acquired during a relationship. Marital property laws do not apply to unmarried couples, even in long-term relationships. Moreover, laws regarding distribution of property of one spouse to another at death do not apply to unmarried couples. Children of unmarried couples have traditionally not been afforded the same rights as children of married couples, though most of these laws have now been revised to avoid unfairness towards offspring.
A fairly recent trend among both heterosexual and homosexual couples who live together is to enter into contracts that provide rights to both parties that are similar to rights enjoyed by married couples. In fact, many family law experts now recommend that unmarried cohabitants enter into such arrangements. Further changes in the laws may also afford greater rights to unmarried partners who live together. However, such arrangements may be invalid in some states, particularly where the contract is based on the sexual relationship of the parties.
Unmarried Cohabitation Compared with Marriage
Family laws related to marriage simply do not apply to unmarried couples. More specifically, marriage creates a legal status between two individuals that gives rise to certain rights to both parties and to the union generally. Unmarried cohabitants do not enjoy this status and do not enjoy many of the rights afforded to married couples. Thus, if a couple is married for two years, and a spouse dies, the other spouse is most likely entitled to receive property, insurance benefits, death benefits, etc., from the other spouse's estate. If an unmarried couple lives together for 20 years, and one partner dies, the other is not guaranteed any property or benefits.
Though many groups support legal reforms providing protection to unmarried cohabitants that would be analogous to laws governing marriage, very few such laws exist today. Unmarried cohabitants need to know what laws do exist in their state and cities and know what their options are regarding contractual agreements that may provide themselves rights that are analogous to marital rights.
Criminal Statutes
Laws prohibiting cohabitation and sexual relations outside marriage were very common until about the1970s. Though most of these laws have been repealed or are no longer enforced, they still exist in some state statutes. Eight states still have laws prohibiting cohabitation, which is usually defined as two individuals living together as husband and wife without being legally married. Nine states prohibit fornication, which is usually defined as consensual sexual intercourse outside marriage. More than 15 states prohibit sodomy, which includes any "unnatural" sexual activity, such as anal or oral sex. Several of these statutes apply specifically to homosexual activity.
While most of these criminal laws are clearly antiquated, they are sometimes enforced. In the United States Supreme Court case of Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986, the court upheld the enforcement of a criminal statute prohibiting sodomy between two homosexual men. Criminal statutes proscribing private sexual activity do not violate the federal constitution under Bowers, though some state courts have held that similar statutes are unconstitutional under the relevant state constitutions.
Legal Status and Discrimination
A person living as an unmarried cohabitant with another might face some form of discrimination. For example, an employer may expressly forbid employees from living together outside marriage and may terminate the employment of an employee who does cohabit with someone else outside marriage. Such discrimination in employment is not generally forbidden, either under federal law or under the laws of most states. Some state cases have, however, upheld the rights of individuals' cohabiting outside wedlock.
Acquisition of Property
Marital and community property laws govern the ownership of property acquired during a marriage. The characterization of property acquired by unmarried cohabitants is less clear. Some property acquired by unmarried couples may be owned jointly, but it may be difficult to divide such property when the relationship ends. Similarly, if one partner has debt problems, a creditor may seek to attach property owned jointly by both partners as if the partner owing the debt solely owned the property. Problems such as these are even more complicated if one partner dies without a will, since the surviving partner has no right to the other partner's property unless the property is devised to the surviving partner.
Children
Children born out of wedlock have not traditionally enjoyed the same legal protections as children born in wedlock. Such children were historically referred to as "bastards" in a legal context. Though many restrictions on illegitimate children have been repealed, legitimate (or legitimated) children still enjoy some rights that frustrate illegitimate children. This discrepancy is particularly clear with respect to inheritance. In most states, a child born in wedlock does not need to establish paternity to recover from the father. However, a child born out of wedlock generally must establish paternity before he or she can recover from the father.
Adoption
State laws have traditionally prevented unmarried couples from adopting children. Though some states have begun permitting unmarried couples to adopt, these couples still face difficulties. Married couples, on the other hand, are permitted to adopt and are usually preferred over unmarried individuals.
Eligibility for Benefits
Recent changes of policy by insurance companies permit unmarried couples to purchase life insurance policies on the life of the other partner or jointly purchase homeowners' insurance on a house owned by both partners. However, an unmarried couple will often have more trouble jointly obtaining automobile insurance covering an automobile owned by both partners. Similarly, unmarried couples continue to face serious problems with respect to health insurance family coverage paid or co-paid by an employer. A recent trend among some states, municipalities, and private employers is to extend benefits to registered "domestic partners."
Recognition of Domestic Partners
Several states and municipalities have adopted a system whereby unmarried cohabitants (heterosexual or homosexual) may register as "domestic partners." Other states and municipalities permit domestic partners to recover benefits. These classifications provide some rights that are analogous to marital rights, though these rights are certainly limited. The greatest benefit in registering as domestic partners is that each partner enjoys insurance coverage, family leave, and retirement benefits similar to married couples, though these rights are considerably more restricted than rights afforded to married couples. However, these rights are not generally recognized outside the jurisdiction that permits registration of domestic partners.
Common Law Marriages
A minority of states continues to recognize common law, or informal, marriages. Such a marriage requires more than mere cohabitation between a man and a woman. The couple generally must agree to enter into a martial arrangement, must cohabit with one another, and must hold themselves out as husband and wife to others. Parties that enter into such marriages enjoy the same rights as couples married in a formal ceremony, including rights related to insurance and other benefits, property distribution on dissolution of the marriage, and distribution of property upon the death of one spouse.
Proof that the marriage exists is often the most difficult aspect of a common law marriage, and this issue often arises after the relationship has ended either in death or divorce. For example, the question of whether a common law marriage exists may arise after one of the partners in a relationship dies and the other seeks to prove that the partners were informally married to receive property through the other partner's estate. Similarly, when a relationship ends, a partner may seek to prove that an informal marriage exists in order to seek property distribution under marital or community property laws.
Though a minority of states recognizes common law marriages, all states will recognize the validity of a common law marriage if it is recognized in the state where the parties reside, agreed to be married, and hold themselves out as husband and wife. Common law marriages apply only to partners who are members of the opposite sex.
Contracts Between Unmarried Cohabitants
Validity
Unmarried cohabitants can provide rights to one another that are analogous to rights granted to married couples by entering into a contract or contracts with one another. The validity of such agreements was the subject of the well-publicized case of Marvin v. Marvin in the California Supreme Court. In this case, the court held that an express or implied agreement between a couple living together outside wedlock to share income in consideration of companionship could be legally enforceable. The majority of states now recognizes these agreements, though many require that the agreement be in writing. Only a small number of recent cases have held that contracts between unmarried cohabitants are unenforceable.
When an agreement expressly includes consideration of sexual services provided by one of the parties, a court is more likely to find the contract unenforceable. For example, if one partner agrees to share his or her income in return for the other partner's love and companionship, a court may find that the contract implicates meretricious sexual activity and refuses to enforce the contract. Proving an oral agreement or an implied contract between unmarried cohabitants is also difficult, and several courts have refused to recognize such an agreement due to lack of proof.
Provisions of Written Cohabitation Agreements
Written cohabitation agreements usually involve financial and property arrangements. Parties can provide arrangements analogous to community or marital property laws or can provide other arrangements that are more favorable to the couple. Parties should consult with a lawyer prior to entering into such an agreement to ensure that the provisions are enforceable.
Wills and Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care
Nothing prevents unmarried cohabitants from leaving estate property to the other partner upon death in a will. Alternatively, intestate succession laws may not provide that any of the property will pass from one cohabitant to another, since intestacy laws are limited to marital and other family relationships. A fellow cohabitant might be able to get a share of the intestate's estate by arguing that the parties entered into a financial or property-sharing arrangement, though such claims are often difficult to prove. A will is generally the best method to ensure that a partner's property is given to the person he or she designates.
Another complicated situation can arise if one cohabitant is disabled and requires a guardian. To ensure that one partner is named guardian or is otherwise able to make decisions for the other partner, the parties can prepare a document providing durable power of attorney to the other partner. Under this arrangement, the person granted durable power of attorney could make healthcare decisions for the disabled person. Similarly, a party can draft a living will (also called a healthcare directive) that dictates the wishes of the party regarding life-prolonging treatments.
State and Local Provisions Regarding Cohabitation
Sixteen states recognize common law marriages, though several of these states have repealed their laws and only recognize these marriages entered into prior to a certain date. Several states and municipalities now recognize domestic relations rights, providing a registry, extension of benefits, or both. Unmarried cohabitants should check with the state and local laws in their jurisdictions to determine what rights may be available to them.
ALABAMA: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
ALASKA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
ARIZONA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The cities of Phoenix and Tucson extend benefits to domestic partners.
ARKANSAS: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
CALIFORNIA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The following cities and counties extend benefits to domestic partners: Alameda County, Berkeley, Laguna Beach, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, Marin County, Oakland, Petaluma, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Francisco County, San Mateo County, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz County, Ventura County, West Hollywood. The following cities and counties offer domestic partner registries: Arcata, Berkeley, Cathedral City, Davis, Laguna Beach, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, Oakland, Palo Alto, Sacramento, San Francisco, Santa Barbara County, and West Hollywood.
COLORADO: The state recognizes common law marriages. The city of Denver extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
CONNECTICUT: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The state extends benefits to domestic partners. The city of Hartford extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
DELAWARE: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
FLORIDA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Broward County extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry. The city of West Palm Beach extends benefits to domestic partners.
GEORGIA: The state recognizes common law marriages entered into before January 1, 1997. The city of Atlanta extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
HAWAII: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The state extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
IDAHO: The state recognizes common law marriages enter into before January 1, 1996. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
ILLINOIS: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Chicago and Cook County extend benefits to domestic partners. The city of Oak Park extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
INDIANA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Bloomington extends benefits to domestic partners.
IOWA: The state recognizes common law marriages. The city of Iowa City extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
KANSAS: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
KENTUCKY: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
LOUISIANA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of New Orleans extends benefits to domestic partners.
MAINE: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Portland extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
MARYLAND: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The cities of Baltimore and Takoma Park and Montgomery County extend benefits to domestic partners.
MASSACHUSETTES: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The following cities extend benefits to domestic partners: Boston, Brewster, Brookline, Nantucket, Provincetown, and Springfield. The following cities provide domestic partner registries: Boston, Brewster, Brookline, Cambridge, Nantucket, and Northampton.
MICHIGAN: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Kalamazoo, Washtenaw County, and Wayne County extend benefits to domestic partners. The cities of Ann Arbor and East Lansing extend benefits to domestic partners and provide a domestic partner registry.
MINNESOTA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Minneapolis extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
MISSISSIPPI: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
MISSOURI: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of St. Louis provides a domestic partner registry.
MONTANA: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
NEBRASKA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
NEVADA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
NEW HAMPSHIRE: The state recognizes common law marriages but only for inheritance purposes. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
NEW JERSEY: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Delaware extends benefits to domestic partners.
NEW MEXICO: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Albuquerque extends benefits to domestic partners.
NEW YORK: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The following cities and counties extend benefits to domestic partners: Brighton, Eastchester, Ithaca, New York City, Rochester, and West-chester County. The following cities provide domestic partner registries: Albany, Ithaca, New York City, and Rochester.
NORTH CAROLINA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Chapel Hill extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry. The city of Carrboro also provides a domestic partner registry.
NORTH DAKOTA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
OHIO: The state recognizes common law marriages entered into prior to October 10, 1991. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
OKLAHOMA: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
OREGON: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The state extends benefits to domestic partners. The city of Portland and Multnomah County extend benefits to domestic partners. The city of Ashland provides a domestic partner registry.
PENNSYLVANIA: The state recognizes common law marriages. The city of Philadelphia extends benefits to domestic partners.
RHODE ISLAND: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
SOUTH CAROLINA: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
TENNESSEE: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
TEXAS: The state recognizes common law marriages. Travis County extends benefits to domestic partners.
UTAH: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
VERMONT: The state is the first to recognize "civil unions," which extends rights to homosexual partners that are similar to rights granted to married couples. The state also extends benefits to domestic partners. The state does not recognize common law marriages.
VIRGINIA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Arlington County extends benefits to domestic partners.
WASHINGTON: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The state extends benefits to domestic partners. The cities of Olympia and Tumwater and King County extend benefits to domestic partners. The city of Lacey provides a domestic partner registry. The city of Seattle extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
WEST VIRGINIA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
WISCONSIN: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Madison extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry. The city of Sherwood Hills Village and Dane County extend benefits to domestic relations. The city of Milwaukee provides a domestic partner registry.
WYOMING: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
Additional Resources
Cohabitation: Law, Practice, and Precedent, Second Edition. Wood, Helen, Denzil Lush, and David Bishop, 2001.
Family Law in a Nutshell. Krause, Harry D., West Publishing, 1995.
The Living Together Kit: A Legal Guide to Unmarried Couples, Ninth Edition. Ihara, Toni, Ralph Warner and Frederick Hertz, Nolo Press, 1999.
Understanding Family Law, Second Edition. DeWitt, John, Gregory, Peter N. Swisher, and Sheryl L. Wolf, LexisNexis, 2001.
Unmarried Couples and the Law. Douthwaite, Graham, Allen Smith Company, 1979.
Organizations
Alternatives to Marriage Project
P.O. Box 991010
Boston, MA 02199 USA
Phone: (781) 793-0296
Fax: (781) 394-6625
URL: http://www.unmarried.org/
E-Mail: atmp@unmarried.org
American Association for Single People (AASP)
415 E. Harvard Street
Suite 204
Glendale, CA 91205 USA
Phone: (818) 242-5100
URL: http://www.singlesrights.com
E-Mail: unmarried@earthlink.net
Primary Contact: Thomas F. Coleman, Executive Director
Focus on the Family
Colorado Springs, CO 80995 USA
Phone: (719) 531-3328
Fax: (719) 531-3424
URL: http://www.family.org/
Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund
120 Wall Street, Suite 1500
New York, NY 10005-3904 USA
Phone: (212) 809-8585
Fax: (212) 809-0055
URL: http://www.lambdalegal.org
The law has not traditionally looked favorably upon individuals living together outside marriage. However, the law in this area has changed considerably in the past 40 years, and cohabitation has increased dramatically. In 1970, about 530,000 couples reportedly lived together outside marriage. This number increased to 1.6 million in 1980, 2.9 million in 1990, 4.2 million in 1998, and 5.5 million in 2000.
In some respects, unmarried cohabitation can be beneficial from a legal standpoint. Unmarried partners may define the terms of their relationship without being bound by marriage laws that can restrict the marriage relationship. When a relationship ends, unmarried cohabitants need not follow strict procedures to dissolve the living arrangement. Moreover, unmarried couples can avoid the so-called "marriage tax" in the Internal Revenue Code that provides a greater tax rate for unmarried couples than it does for two unmarried individuals (notwithstanding efforts to eliminate this penalty).
On the other hand, unmarried cohabitants do not enjoy the same rights as married individuals, particularly with respect to property acquired during a relationship. Marital property laws do not apply to unmarried couples, even in long-term relationships. Moreover, laws regarding distribution of property of one spouse to another at death do not apply to unmarried couples. Children of unmarried couples have traditionally not been afforded the same rights as children of married couples, though most of these laws have now been revised to avoid unfairness towards offspring.
A fairly recent trend among both heterosexual and homosexual couples who live together is to enter into contracts that provide rights to both parties that are similar to rights enjoyed by married couples. In fact, many family law experts now recommend that unmarried cohabitants enter into such arrangements. Further changes in the laws may also afford greater rights to unmarried partners who live together. However, such arrangements may be invalid in some states, particularly where the contract is based on the sexual relationship of the parties.
Unmarried Cohabitation Compared with Marriage
Family laws related to marriage simply do not apply to unmarried couples. More specifically, marriage creates a legal status between two individuals that gives rise to certain rights to both parties and to the union generally. Unmarried cohabitants do not enjoy this status and do not enjoy many of the rights afforded to married couples. Thus, if a couple is married for two years, and a spouse dies, the other spouse is most likely entitled to receive property, insurance benefits, death benefits, etc., from the other spouse's estate. If an unmarried couple lives together for 20 years, and one partner dies, the other is not guaranteed any property or benefits.
Though many groups support legal reforms providing protection to unmarried cohabitants that would be analogous to laws governing marriage, very few such laws exist today. Unmarried cohabitants need to know what laws do exist in their state and cities and know what their options are regarding contractual agreements that may provide themselves rights that are analogous to marital rights.
Criminal Statutes
Laws prohibiting cohabitation and sexual relations outside marriage were very common until about the1970s. Though most of these laws have been repealed or are no longer enforced, they still exist in some state statutes. Eight states still have laws prohibiting cohabitation, which is usually defined as two individuals living together as husband and wife without being legally married. Nine states prohibit fornication, which is usually defined as consensual sexual intercourse outside marriage. More than 15 states prohibit sodomy, which includes any "unnatural" sexual activity, such as anal or oral sex. Several of these statutes apply specifically to homosexual activity.
While most of these criminal laws are clearly antiquated, they are sometimes enforced. In the United States Supreme Court case of Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986, the court upheld the enforcement of a criminal statute prohibiting sodomy between two homosexual men. Criminal statutes proscribing private sexual activity do not violate the federal constitution under Bowers, though some state courts have held that similar statutes are unconstitutional under the relevant state constitutions.
Legal Status and Discrimination
A person living as an unmarried cohabitant with another might face some form of discrimination. For example, an employer may expressly forbid employees from living together outside marriage and may terminate the employment of an employee who does cohabit with someone else outside marriage. Such discrimination in employment is not generally forbidden, either under federal law or under the laws of most states. Some state cases have, however, upheld the rights of individuals' cohabiting outside wedlock.
Acquisition of Property
Marital and community property laws govern the ownership of property acquired during a marriage. The characterization of property acquired by unmarried cohabitants is less clear. Some property acquired by unmarried couples may be owned jointly, but it may be difficult to divide such property when the relationship ends. Similarly, if one partner has debt problems, a creditor may seek to attach property owned jointly by both partners as if the partner owing the debt solely owned the property. Problems such as these are even more complicated if one partner dies without a will, since the surviving partner has no right to the other partner's property unless the property is devised to the surviving partner.
Children
Children born out of wedlock have not traditionally enjoyed the same legal protections as children born in wedlock. Such children were historically referred to as "bastards" in a legal context. Though many restrictions on illegitimate children have been repealed, legitimate (or legitimated) children still enjoy some rights that frustrate illegitimate children. This discrepancy is particularly clear with respect to inheritance. In most states, a child born in wedlock does not need to establish paternity to recover from the father. However, a child born out of wedlock generally must establish paternity before he or she can recover from the father.
Adoption
State laws have traditionally prevented unmarried couples from adopting children. Though some states have begun permitting unmarried couples to adopt, these couples still face difficulties. Married couples, on the other hand, are permitted to adopt and are usually preferred over unmarried individuals.
Eligibility for Benefits
Recent changes of policy by insurance companies permit unmarried couples to purchase life insurance policies on the life of the other partner or jointly purchase homeowners' insurance on a house owned by both partners. However, an unmarried couple will often have more trouble jointly obtaining automobile insurance covering an automobile owned by both partners. Similarly, unmarried couples continue to face serious problems with respect to health insurance family coverage paid or co-paid by an employer. A recent trend among some states, municipalities, and private employers is to extend benefits to registered "domestic partners."
Recognition of Domestic Partners
Several states and municipalities have adopted a system whereby unmarried cohabitants (heterosexual or homosexual) may register as "domestic partners." Other states and municipalities permit domestic partners to recover benefits. These classifications provide some rights that are analogous to marital rights, though these rights are certainly limited. The greatest benefit in registering as domestic partners is that each partner enjoys insurance coverage, family leave, and retirement benefits similar to married couples, though these rights are considerably more restricted than rights afforded to married couples. However, these rights are not generally recognized outside the jurisdiction that permits registration of domestic partners.
Common Law Marriages
A minority of states continues to recognize common law, or informal, marriages. Such a marriage requires more than mere cohabitation between a man and a woman. The couple generally must agree to enter into a martial arrangement, must cohabit with one another, and must hold themselves out as husband and wife to others. Parties that enter into such marriages enjoy the same rights as couples married in a formal ceremony, including rights related to insurance and other benefits, property distribution on dissolution of the marriage, and distribution of property upon the death of one spouse.
Proof that the marriage exists is often the most difficult aspect of a common law marriage, and this issue often arises after the relationship has ended either in death or divorce. For example, the question of whether a common law marriage exists may arise after one of the partners in a relationship dies and the other seeks to prove that the partners were informally married to receive property through the other partner's estate. Similarly, when a relationship ends, a partner may seek to prove that an informal marriage exists in order to seek property distribution under marital or community property laws.
Though a minority of states recognizes common law marriages, all states will recognize the validity of a common law marriage if it is recognized in the state where the parties reside, agreed to be married, and hold themselves out as husband and wife. Common law marriages apply only to partners who are members of the opposite sex.
Contracts Between Unmarried Cohabitants
Validity
Unmarried cohabitants can provide rights to one another that are analogous to rights granted to married couples by entering into a contract or contracts with one another. The validity of such agreements was the subject of the well-publicized case of Marvin v. Marvin in the California Supreme Court. In this case, the court held that an express or implied agreement between a couple living together outside wedlock to share income in consideration of companionship could be legally enforceable. The majority of states now recognizes these agreements, though many require that the agreement be in writing. Only a small number of recent cases have held that contracts between unmarried cohabitants are unenforceable.
When an agreement expressly includes consideration of sexual services provided by one of the parties, a court is more likely to find the contract unenforceable. For example, if one partner agrees to share his or her income in return for the other partner's love and companionship, a court may find that the contract implicates meretricious sexual activity and refuses to enforce the contract. Proving an oral agreement or an implied contract between unmarried cohabitants is also difficult, and several courts have refused to recognize such an agreement due to lack of proof.
Provisions of Written Cohabitation Agreements
Written cohabitation agreements usually involve financial and property arrangements. Parties can provide arrangements analogous to community or marital property laws or can provide other arrangements that are more favorable to the couple. Parties should consult with a lawyer prior to entering into such an agreement to ensure that the provisions are enforceable.
Wills and Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care
Nothing prevents unmarried cohabitants from leaving estate property to the other partner upon death in a will. Alternatively, intestate succession laws may not provide that any of the property will pass from one cohabitant to another, since intestacy laws are limited to marital and other family relationships. A fellow cohabitant might be able to get a share of the intestate's estate by arguing that the parties entered into a financial or property-sharing arrangement, though such claims are often difficult to prove. A will is generally the best method to ensure that a partner's property is given to the person he or she designates.
Another complicated situation can arise if one cohabitant is disabled and requires a guardian. To ensure that one partner is named guardian or is otherwise able to make decisions for the other partner, the parties can prepare a document providing durable power of attorney to the other partner. Under this arrangement, the person granted durable power of attorney could make healthcare decisions for the disabled person. Similarly, a party can draft a living will (also called a healthcare directive) that dictates the wishes of the party regarding life-prolonging treatments.
State and Local Provisions Regarding Cohabitation
Sixteen states recognize common law marriages, though several of these states have repealed their laws and only recognize these marriages entered into prior to a certain date. Several states and municipalities now recognize domestic relations rights, providing a registry, extension of benefits, or both. Unmarried cohabitants should check with the state and local laws in their jurisdictions to determine what rights may be available to them.
ALABAMA: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
ALASKA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
ARIZONA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The cities of Phoenix and Tucson extend benefits to domestic partners.
ARKANSAS: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
CALIFORNIA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The following cities and counties extend benefits to domestic partners: Alameda County, Berkeley, Laguna Beach, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, Marin County, Oakland, Petaluma, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Francisco County, San Mateo County, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz County, Ventura County, West Hollywood. The following cities and counties offer domestic partner registries: Arcata, Berkeley, Cathedral City, Davis, Laguna Beach, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, Oakland, Palo Alto, Sacramento, San Francisco, Santa Barbara County, and West Hollywood.
COLORADO: The state recognizes common law marriages. The city of Denver extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
CONNECTICUT: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The state extends benefits to domestic partners. The city of Hartford extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
DELAWARE: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
FLORIDA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Broward County extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry. The city of West Palm Beach extends benefits to domestic partners.
GEORGIA: The state recognizes common law marriages entered into before January 1, 1997. The city of Atlanta extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
HAWAII: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The state extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
IDAHO: The state recognizes common law marriages enter into before January 1, 1996. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
ILLINOIS: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Chicago and Cook County extend benefits to domestic partners. The city of Oak Park extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
INDIANA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Bloomington extends benefits to domestic partners.
IOWA: The state recognizes common law marriages. The city of Iowa City extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
KANSAS: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
KENTUCKY: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
LOUISIANA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of New Orleans extends benefits to domestic partners.
MAINE: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Portland extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
MARYLAND: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The cities of Baltimore and Takoma Park and Montgomery County extend benefits to domestic partners.
MASSACHUSETTES: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The following cities extend benefits to domestic partners: Boston, Brewster, Brookline, Nantucket, Provincetown, and Springfield. The following cities provide domestic partner registries: Boston, Brewster, Brookline, Cambridge, Nantucket, and Northampton.
MICHIGAN: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Kalamazoo, Washtenaw County, and Wayne County extend benefits to domestic partners. The cities of Ann Arbor and East Lansing extend benefits to domestic partners and provide a domestic partner registry.
MINNESOTA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Minneapolis extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
MISSISSIPPI: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
MISSOURI: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of St. Louis provides a domestic partner registry.
MONTANA: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
NEBRASKA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
NEVADA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
NEW HAMPSHIRE: The state recognizes common law marriages but only for inheritance purposes. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
NEW JERSEY: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Delaware extends benefits to domestic partners.
NEW MEXICO: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Albuquerque extends benefits to domestic partners.
NEW YORK: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The following cities and counties extend benefits to domestic partners: Brighton, Eastchester, Ithaca, New York City, Rochester, and West-chester County. The following cities provide domestic partner registries: Albany, Ithaca, New York City, and Rochester.
NORTH CAROLINA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Chapel Hill extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry. The city of Carrboro also provides a domestic partner registry.
NORTH DAKOTA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
OHIO: The state recognizes common law marriages entered into prior to October 10, 1991. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
OKLAHOMA: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
OREGON: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The state extends benefits to domestic partners. The city of Portland and Multnomah County extend benefits to domestic partners. The city of Ashland provides a domestic partner registry.
PENNSYLVANIA: The state recognizes common law marriages. The city of Philadelphia extends benefits to domestic partners.
RHODE ISLAND: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
SOUTH CAROLINA: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
TENNESSEE: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
TEXAS: The state recognizes common law marriages. Travis County extends benefits to domestic partners.
UTAH: The state recognizes common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
VERMONT: The state is the first to recognize "civil unions," which extends rights to homosexual partners that are similar to rights granted to married couples. The state also extends benefits to domestic partners. The state does not recognize common law marriages.
VIRGINIA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Arlington County extends benefits to domestic partners.
WASHINGTON: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The state extends benefits to domestic partners. The cities of Olympia and Tumwater and King County extend benefits to domestic partners. The city of Lacey provides a domestic partner registry. The city of Seattle extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry.
WEST VIRGINIA: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
WISCONSIN: The state does not recognize common law marriages. The city of Madison extends benefits to domestic partners and provides a domestic partner registry. The city of Sherwood Hills Village and Dane County extend benefits to domestic relations. The city of Milwaukee provides a domestic partner registry.
WYOMING: The state does not recognize common law marriages. Neither the state nor any municipality in the state provides specific rights to domestic partners.
Additional Resources
Cohabitation: Law, Practice, and Precedent, Second Edition. Wood, Helen, Denzil Lush, and David Bishop, 2001.
Family Law in a Nutshell. Krause, Harry D., West Publishing, 1995.
The Living Together Kit: A Legal Guide to Unmarried Couples, Ninth Edition. Ihara, Toni, Ralph Warner and Frederick Hertz, Nolo Press, 1999.
Understanding Family Law, Second Edition. DeWitt, John, Gregory, Peter N. Swisher, and Sheryl L. Wolf, LexisNexis, 2001.
Unmarried Couples and the Law. Douthwaite, Graham, Allen Smith Company, 1979.
Organizations
Alternatives to Marriage Project
P.O. Box 991010
Boston, MA 02199 USA
Phone: (781) 793-0296
Fax: (781) 394-6625
URL: http://www.unmarried.org/
E-Mail: atmp@unmarried.org
American Association for Single People (AASP)
415 E. Harvard Street
Suite 204
Glendale, CA 91205 USA
Phone: (818) 242-5100
URL: http://www.singlesrights.com
E-Mail: unmarried@earthlink.net
Primary Contact: Thomas F. Coleman, Executive Director
Focus on the Family
Colorado Springs, CO 80995 USA
Phone: (719) 531-3328
Fax: (719) 531-3424
URL: http://www.family.org/
Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund
120 Wall Street, Suite 1500
New York, NY 10005-3904 USA
Phone: (212) 809-8585
Fax: (212) 809-0055
URL: http://www.lambdalegal.org
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