If this is the case that’s awesome and I had no idea.

It requires a Google account so pretty bad.

Their icky emotions about it predate religion.

You’re going to have to prove that one because religion has existed alongside humanity for all of known history and marriage of first cousins is still common in the Arab world.

We already know that rules against incest don’t lead to rules against people with defects reproducing.

Says who? We’ve only just started our journey down the path of total secularity. We have no idea how this is going to play out. China’s CRISPR program has already demonstrated that gene editing is possible and Canada is letting people kill themselves. Brave New World already imagined how these ideas will run wild once free of the baggage of the past. Secularity has no moral construct. All options are on the table including the sterilization of people with hereditary defects.

You’re expecting people who support gay marriage to convince you about some other thing.

No I’m saying that gay marriage crosses the rubicon. It is a complete departure from what marriage means in any historical or religious context. Which begs the question of what it is and why it even exists. If gays can marry despite prohibition across all cultures for all of human history then where are the limits? Who sets those limits and why to they get to be in charge of who gets to be married? It all falls apart you see.

And if any of these social taboos are actually a good idea, then you’re lumping gay marriage in with them, like comparing gays to pedophiles.

Don’t dismiss the argument because you are uncomfortable with the possible implications. Contend with the premise. You drew that conclusion not me.

Your view is an intellectually honest one from a modernist perspective. I would go further though and say that marriage should have no secular existence at all.

• polygamy is patriarchy, gay marriage isn’t

First of all this is a self-refuting assumption. It assumes out of the gate that women aren’t equally capable of leveraging polygamy to the subjugation of men. If women are not equally capable of abusing polygamy then patriarchy is naturalistic. If they ARE equally capable then this objection collapses.

Secondarily modernity leverages nothing but subjective feelings to make a moral claim about why something like patriarchy is wrong in the first place. “Patriarchy is bad” says who? And why should anyone care? Most of the world and history disagrees with that characterization. If cultural imperialism is “bad” isn’t it culturally imperialist to wholly reject all surviving traditions that predate the last 150 years because they aren’t compatible with an emergent value system? I could go on but hopefully you get my point about rootless modernism and it’s lack of justification for ought claims. Not to mention the lack of logical consistency for their ever-changing framework.

• incest is bad for the gene pool, gay marriage isn’t

Should people with genetic defects be able to reproduce? To what extent are we just acting as eugenicists?

Marriage and the rules around it are inherited from traditions that modernism rejects. The attempt to continue PARTS of these traditions by arbitrarily picking and choosing rules because of what makes us “comfortable” undermines the authority of marriage in general. Why even continue it?

Modernist takes on marriage are anathema to the entire point of marriage in the first place. Furthermore modernism offers no satisfactory reasons for why “modern marriages” should exist at all. “Taxes” is often cited but this could be managed in many other ways. (e.g. legal contractual relationships that enable many of the same benefits ala power of attorney)

If someone supports gay marriage they have no basis for opposing polygamist or incestuous marriages outside of how it subjectively makes them feel. Marriage is historically a religio-cultural institution. Without that context there can be no restrictions that don’t also violate foundational secular values such as personal freedom. Secularity and modernism gatekeeping marriage is a hilarious mental gymnastics routine. These days marriage is just something to keep lawyers in business anyway. The government should just get out of the marriage business entirely at this point.

The strong will always rule over the weak.

Money is a tool to make you stronger. Strength is a means to imposing your will on the world around you.

Somehow, the [weak] never develop enough [strength] to take that zero sum game to the [strong].

Exactly what I was saying.

You are really beating up that strawman. He doesn’t stand a chance.

Cop out

Then by OPs logic it would follow that the oppressed are only in that position because they are weak. (e.g. not temporarily disenfranchised revolutionaries) If they were “strong” they would be in the oppressors position.

I agree with you. Having the power to exert your will is what politics boils down to in this earthly life. Everything else is BS.

That’s possible with a confederate structure like the EU which maintains certain human rights standards while respecting sovereignty to a degree. Obviously if states were totally sovereign they could do whatever they want unless they were faced with undue external force from other countries (e.g. states).

Yeah but if it’s a universal truth then it transcends all categories. The stronger nation topples the weaker while the bully dominates others in the schoolyard. Therefore any semblance of egalitarianism or equality is artificial and sustained only by the threat of force. This force only exists if there are enough intelligent and strong people in the society that also agree to the social contract in enough numbers that it won’t collapse or be conquered by an outside force. (e.g. Brute force is all that matters)

This point is often dismissed but the United States really does need “a divorce”. At least a return to pre-civil war state sovereignty where incompatible ideologies can each find their home.

Whether you mean it or not you’re basically saying that the only order is the order of the strong over the weak.

One can only hope

But I thought guns couldn’t be used to fight the government and gun owners are stupid.

There are too many self-interested factions with incompatible ideologies. I don’t think we’re entering into civil war or some collapse but the US will definitely enshittify at a steady pace for the rest of its existence as a nation-state.