Rant

The district courts have been attacking the Trump administration wherever possible. Many have overstepped their authority to intrude on the Article II executive.

A judge in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts decided that he was a final arbitrator of United States foreign policy. To that end, he issued a preliminary injunction stopping the deportation of criminal illegal aliens to third-party countries.

The criminal is detained in the United States. He is taken before an administrative judge, where he is given full due process. The judge can order the criminal released into our country with orders to report for further legal actions. He can decide that the person is not a criminal alien, and turn him loose or to other authorities. Or he can issue a deportation order.

At times, the criminal is not just here illegally, he has committed some other crime. In those cases, they are given a full trial. When they are found guilty, the judge can sentence them according to sentencing guidelines. After serving their sentence, they are then deported. The Article III judge will have ordered them deported, as part of their sentence.

In the alternative, the judge can just deport them. Make them someone else’s problem.

When we deport somebody, the rules say that they should be deported to the country of origin or to the last country they came through to reach the United States.

I’m not breaking it down. Some people hold multiple citizenships. Some people are citizens of their birth country and then move and become citizens in another country. Just assume that they are being sent to the correct country of origin.

Unfortunately, some of these criminal, illegal, aliens are nasty pieces of work. Many countries will refuse entry to people that they deem to be undesirable.

That includes many countries that feel that somebody convicted of murder is undesirable. Regardless of their citizenship.

My understanding is that under international law, a country is required to accept a deportee who is a citizen of their country.

As we well know, international law doesn’t really mean much. Countries have and do refuse entry to people that commit heinous crimes.

Having all of that in hand, let’s look at the facts of this case, according to Sotomayor.

The person being deported, O.C.G., had a removal order in place. He was being returned to his origin country, Guatemala.

When he learned of this, he begged an Immigration Judge to grant “withholding of removal to Guatemala”. Ok. This means that the next place he can be deported to is the last country he was in. Namely, Mexico.

Now, Sotomayor says that the Immigration Judge granted that withholding of removal to Guatemala and not to Guatemala and Mexico because there was no removal order to Mexico.

There is no record of why the Judge did this, only Sotomayor’s statement. The Judge knew that O.C.G. didn’t want to go to Mexico. He could have granted a withholding of removal to Mexico at the same time.

The judge did not.

Under the Trump administration, they looked at what they had. They had a legal removal order. It is legal to send him back to Mexico or Guatemala by statue, but he can’t be sent to Guatemala.

Bingo, he’s now on his way to Mexico.

When he arrived in Mexico, they said, “We don’t want your ass here.” and promptly deported him to Guatemala. It appears that there was no Immigration Judge in Mexico willing to grant a withholding of removal to Guatemala. Poor O.C.G.

From someplace in Guatemala, O.C.G. reached out to lawyers in the United States to start a class action suit to stop the administration from deporting criminal aliens to third-party countries.

Lacking in Sotomayor’s dissent is anything about O.C.G.’s criminal record. Nor was there was no evidence in the record that O.C.G. suffered any torture in Guatemala.

There is only O.C.G.’s claims.

The Immigration Judge who granted the withholding of removal found that O.C.G. was likely to suffer if deported to Guatemala. Therefore, the United States did not. The United States has no say on what Mexico does with its criminal illegal aliens.

This district judge feels that the United States is responsible for making sure nothing bad happens to these criminals after they are kicked out of our country.

The case is, DHS v. D.V.D. et al., No. 24A1153 606 U.S. ____ (2025).

The title is from Miguel.

I’ve written about “Black Fatigue”, a physiological condition of being done with “that” shit. It is that entire situation where I have gone from a person who doesn’t see skin color to somebody that treats it as a threat indicator, every time.

I’m old, I’m tired of this game. I’m tired of fighting to be left alone. I don’t like having to tell my wife what path to take to work to avoid the potential riots downtown.

I want to be a quiet man, left alone.

It appears that every week there is another group of cosplayers claiming that it is my belief that they all be put in a subservient position, to fulfill my needs. What utter bullshit.

It is Freudian projection. I don’t know a single conservative woman that would put up with being placed in the position these deranged girls suggest.

They might meekly put on the costume, but if you tried to put any of my women into that costume, you better have a dipstick to check fluid levels because you will have a major leak. My daughters are not going to submit to that shit. My wife is not going to submit to that shit.

You will only find out just how “meek” conservative women are if I’m already dead. At which point I will have my honor guard.

These same girls, playing out their fantasies, will also scream to disarm themselves. Oh, and me as well. If they don’t want to be the sex toys of their fantasies, then they had damn well better be ready and willing to standup to anybody that would attempt to make their fantasies real.

But it isn’t just these girls cosplaying their sick fantasies. It is the entire left-wing of our body politics. The screaming about Trump doing this or that. It is the fantasies they have. Of what they would do.

I’m tired of these mentally ill children trying to use emotional blackmail on me and mine.

Be strapped, keep your head on a swivel, be where they are not.

Your repressed fantasy is showing its hem

1. There will likely be runs on banks, grocery stores and gas stations no later than Monday.
2. Make sure your fuel tanks and propane bottles are topped off TOMORROW, meaning Friday (I’m writing this at midnight Thursday night.)
3. If you need groceries, get them TOMORROW, Friday!
4. Get some cash out of the bank and keep it on hand.
5. Traveling, especially air travel, should not be considered for the next week or so, until we see how this goes.
6. AVOID CROWDS AT ALL COSTS!
7. Above all, stay alert! Don’t assume or take anything for granted. If you see something that looks out of place, don’t ignore it, let someone know.
8. Some of you carry guns, some of you don’t. Right now would be a damned fine time to start!
9. This is in addition to the preparedness items that you should already have. If you haven’t started preparing yet, you’re too late, forget it.
10. I hope I stayed up until 1am writing all this for nothing, but I don’t think so. If it doesn’t apply Saturday, it might apply next week, or a month from now. But be assured, your efforts will not be wasted!

Minor edits for formatting and suggested grammar fixes.

Ms. Google will try to get me to read “news” from different sources. Yesterday, she showed me one of many articles claiming that the Trump administration is reacting differently to the riots in LA than they did to the “riot” on January 6th.

Paraphrasing Mr. Dunn, “Orange man bad. He pardoned those evil J6ers that admitted to …”

This is an absolutely true statement. Many of the people who were detained for their actions on January 6th did plead guilty to multiple crimes.

What was not said was that these were people who had been crushed by the juggernaut of the Department of inJustice. These people were often arrested in S.W.A.T. type raids, early morning dynamic entry. They were then held without bond awaiting trial.

There are multiple reports of these people being held in horrible conditions for many months. There were people who served multi-year sentences before their trial even began.

They were offered a chance to plead out and if they did not take the plea deal their court date was frequently pushed back.

It was never about justice, it was about punishment and sending a message.

So people did plead out. They took the plea so they could get out of the damn gulag. They wanted their lives back. They knew that they would continue to be punished for maintaining their innocences.

One of the hard things for anybody to understand is that these were people that had never expected to be locked up. They aren’t prepared for prison/jail.

These aren’t gangbangers that expect to do a few years behind bars to gain cred.

These were just regular people that were abused by the inJustice system to make a despicable point.

Yesterday’s article was a surprise to me. I started the post with one mindset, and ended in a different place. Occasionally, it helps to talk out your issues.

It started with my statement, Snope should have been GVRed.

Why? Because the Supreme Court has already done a gun ban case. It is a slam dunk, easy case.

Slam dunk, easy cases, don’t make good law. Just like bad facts make bad law, easy cases don’t advance the law.

Every case the Supreme Court takes is important. They intend it to be important. While every case is important to somebody, or to a group, not every case is important to the country or the Court.

Every Second Amendment case is important to me. I want every court at every level to make a good ruling based on the plain text of the Second Amendment and this Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation. To do anything less is to flaunt the rule of law and our founding documents.

Too many judges are agenda-driven hacks, black robed wannabe tyrants, operating their rogue inferior court as if they are the supreme authority of this nation.

When an inferior court makes a bad decision, their superior court should step in and set them right.

If every inferior court judge had every bad decision slapped down, there would be many fewer bad decisions. On Monday, the court decided 116 cases.

Of those, three cases were an invitation to the Solicitor General to file a motion on how the US Government stands in the case.

Two were, “You can proceed as a pauper, you must pay to play.” One denial of cert had two dissents written. The rest are denials. Most of which are dealt with by being put in a column titled “Denied”. Nothing more.

If the Supreme Court was capable of dealing with more cases in a meaningful way, then I could see them taking these slam dunk cases.

Unfortunately, the court has painted itself into a corner in what they feel they can say. I can wish all I want that a GVR would say more than “in light of Rahimi“, but a GVR never has more than “do it over obeying this new opinion”. This should be happening with more targeted language.

But they don’t.

Instead, they hear 65 to 70 cases per term. They decide which cases will have the most impact on our country. Which cases will bring common understanding across all the circuits.

They choose. And right now, Roberts is not going to let more than a couple of Second Amendment cases be heard per term.

I agree with Thomas and Alito, the Court should have dealt with Snope in some way other than ignoring it.

Dealing with it now might make a difference in the next few years.

More likely, it would not have accomplished anything. The Court is supposed to set guiding principles. It isn’t supposed to be fixing individual results.

Assume the Court said, “AR-15s are arms under the plain text of the Second Amendment. They are in common use. They cannot be banned.”

What would change in the Ninth Circus court? The First, Second Third, Forth and Seventh Circuit? Nothing.

“The Supreme Court has said that Semi Automatic rifles are arms under the plain text, they are most similar to machine guns which can presumptively be banned.”

Or they require a permit to own an “assault weapon”. It is no longer “banned”. Instead, you are required to register as an assault weapon owner, pay $1000/year per assault weapon.

They didn’t ban those evil assault weapons, they are just making sure that people treat the ownership of such weapons seriously.

We need to see advancement in the Second Amendment.

When Bruen was decided, multiple cases were GVRed. Those cases are making their way back to the Supreme Court. If the Court takes any of them and produces a major opinion, like Heller, or Bruen, then we are on track.

So I’m licking my wounds and preparing to fight for the rights of The People to keep and bear arms.

During the term, the Supreme Court has multiple conferences. The Friday conference is when they decide which cases will be granted cert, which will be denied, and other issues relating to cases, outside of opinions.

On the following Monday, they publish their order list. This is a list of all the cases they have an action on. Some of those a denial of cert, others are denials of moving forward as somebody that can’t pay filing costs, others are invitations to the federal government to speak up on the case.

The only people in the conferences are the 9 justices. There are no law clerks, no bus boys, no secretaries. It is just the nine of them.

When evaluating a motion for a writ of certiorari, it only takes 4 justices to grant the writ.

A case that is granted cert can be quickly handled by vacating the inferior court’s decision and remanding the case back to the inferior court. This is normally accompanied by instructions to “do it over, right, in light of a recent opinion”.

I would have loved to see the Court GVR Snope with “in light of Heller and Bruen“. Not that it would have done anything when dealing with the Fourth Circuit, but it still would have been an interesting method of dealing with these rogue inferior courts.

If they are not GVRing a case, but simply granting cert, they will schedule oral arguments and set deadlines for all briefs to be filed. They never state a dissent or make a statement when a case is granted cert.

If they deny cert, most times it is a simple list of cases with a short sentence at the end, “the motion for certiorari is denied.

The Snope case is ripe to be heard by the Court. It has been kicking around since 2013. It was one of the cases that was seeking cert while Bruen was seeking cert. It could have been the case to move Second Amendment jurisprudence forward.

The Court did the right thing in taking Bruen. Snope, known as Bianchi at the time, was a simple repeat of Heller. Bruen advanced our cause significantly.

The holding was that the Second Amendment extends outside the home. That is huge. It is much bigger than saying, “It is a gun ban case, we decided it in Heller, you can’t ban guns in common use for legal purposes.”

The Supreme Court only hears 70 or so cases a year. That is across all parts of the legal landscape. First Amendment, Fourth and Fifth amendments, environment and a host of other subjects.

The question becomes twofold, how many Second Amendment cases will the court hear in a term, and what are the best cases to take?

The Supreme Court heard Rahimi in the 2024 term (current term) as well as VanDerStok.

Was Snope the right vehicle for the next major Second Amendment opinion?

Maybe not. If the Court could hear every Second Amendment case presented to them, then yes. This was a slam dunk case for The People.

It would not have advanced Second Amendment jurisprudence in any significant way. It would be a redo of Heller.

Justice Thomas would have written, either as the author of the opinion or in a concurrence, that the plain text is plain, there is no evaluation to do. But it would still just be another Heller.

We have other cases coming forward. My feelings were that an opinion in Snope would have addressed these other cases, but maybe we need to have the court look at sensitive places?

When the Bruen opinion issued, I remember focusing in on “sensitive places”. It was obvious to me that many of the rogue states would laser focus on making as much of their state “sensitive places” as possible. The goal isn’t to make every place illegal for you to carry, it is to make it so legally dangerous that you don’t bother.

Every time something comes up on Craigslist that I want which is in MA, I evaluate it in terms of drive time and danger. Because I have to leave my firearm behind when I travel into Mass. It is painful.

There are two east-west roads near me. One is faster to certain towns in NH. But, it dips into Mass for part of that trip. I refuse to use that route, even if it adds 15 to 30 minutes to trip time.

Now imagine thousands of little “legal guns prohibited” areas in a state. What happens if you’re driving to pick up a rabbit hutch, and you drive past a school. With the way some states work, that could be a felony.

So the Court could be looking for a sensitive places case. Or, one that I would like to see, a reciprocity case? How cool would it be if the court found that whatever requirements my state requires is all it takes for me to be able to carry any state?

I’m disappointed. I never expect anything of Roberts. I was hoping for better from Amy.

This is a war. It is better to not lose this battle and continue to make headway in the Supreme Court.

Boy am I disappointed.

I was in 2nd grade when I decided I was going to make a table and chairs. I had watched my grandfather make things. It couldn’t be that hard. With my mother and grandparents providing the material, I made a table and chair.

It was a success. Was it sturdy enough for an adult to stand on? No. Regardless, for a 2nd grader, it was very much a success.

As a 4th grader, I watched my father rebuild the engine of our VW Microbus. He used the original “idiot” book to do it.

From my father, I learned how to break concrete, how foundation forms were put in place, how concrete was poured and how to frame in a room. When I say, “I learned”, it means that I had my hands on the tools doing. I had the blisters to show for it.

A few years later, 6th grade or so, I purchased my first motorcycle. When it needed work, I am the one who tore it down and rebuilt it. And then got it back together and running.

That was my success. My father didn’t lay hands on that motor or motorcycle. It was mine, and I was going to do.

Did I mess up? You bet I did. I don’t remember the failures because they were mine. I learned from them. Then I went and tried again. Today, 50 years later, I can still hear the sound of that MX-80 screaming back to life.

My parents let me own my failures, they let me own my successes. They never stole my success nor my failures from me.

Years passed. It didn’t matter what it was, I was willing to try. I was willing to fail. I tried learning how to draw. I spent four months drawing hands. In the end, I decided that I preferred photography.

When my brother and I needed to work on the VWs, we pulled the engines ourselves. We could tear down and rebuild an engine on the side of the road. How do I know we can? Because we did. It was in a gas station parking lot. Bro and I pulled the engine from the VW, tore it down enough to get to the broken, removed and replaced the broken part. Put the whole thing back together and put it back into the bus.

We did it between 1700 and 0200, then we drove another 400 miles the next day to get to my grandparents.

“Can do” isn’t the correct version of our attitude, it was more like, “We’ll make it work.”

Today, children aren’t allowed to fail. Even in simple things. My son made a wonderful meal the other weekend. I was asking him what went into it. We are about done, but still discussing things, when my wife pipes up to tell me a spice that was in the meal.

I knew it was there. I wanted my son to tell me. She stole his success.

I’m lucky, my kids do know how to succeed because they also know about failure.

My second wife refused to try new things. She explained the reason thus:

As a child, her mother would look at what she was going to attempt to do, then her mother would tell her, don’t bother to try, you can’t do that.

How can you succeed if you don’t try? How can you fail if you don’t try?

It is said that Edison said, “We didn’t fail, we just learned another material that doesn’t work as a filament.”

We learn so much more from failure than we do from success.

Consider a class of 20 students. We can fit a bell curve to those students. There will be a mean and standard deviation for those students. From that, we can determine which will get As, Bs, Cs, Ds, and Fs. It is standard statistics.

We do this by using an instrument to measure something about those students. If we have an instrument that gives every student a 100%, we know nothing. That instrument is useless.

We want an instrument in which nobody gets 100%. At the same time, we need to be careful of the outliers on the high end. If you have somebody who gets 100% on a test where everybody else is getting 50% or lower, you can’t design your test/instrument to have the outlier get a 95%

One of the interesting things my mentor taught me about digital cell phone communications is that the protocols strive to match a 90% raw error rate. If the error rate is higher than that, the phone uses more power to get a cleaner signal. If it is better than that, the phone reduces power until it is running at that 90% error rate.

At 90% error rate, the algorithms can repair the damage and give a perfect digital signal.

If we were running at 100%, we would never know when we were using too much power.

We live in a society where the ego of a student is much more important than long-term success. We give out participation awards. We have games where we ‘don’t keep score.’

There is an old joke: A man walks up to a baseball diamond where some kids in a youth league are playing. He asks one of the fathers/couches, “What’s the score?” “We don’t keep score. We play for the joy of the game.” One of the kids yells over from the dugout, “We’re ahead 5 to 3.”

My children know that if they ask for feedback, they will get honest feedback. If they don’t ask, they will get a proud parents’ response. My kid’s friends know the same.

It also means that when I give out a “well done”, it means something. My kids know that their mother will always praise whatever they do, no matter how bad it is.

“Everybody makes mistakes!” is something I’ve had shouted at me.

Yep, that’s true. But not everybody learns from their mistakes. You cannot learn from your mistake if you don’t know you made a mistake. You can learn from your mistakes if you’re not allowed to make mistakes.

I’m learning how to turn wood. I’ve learned not to stand in front of the work when I first apply the cutting tool. Why? Because that damn bowl coming off the spindle at 1300 RPM HURT. I’ve learned a little.

I have seen some people decock the hammer of a firearm with their thumb between the firing pin and the hammer. I thought it was stupid. It is how I do it now. I had the hammer slip one time with a loud bang when the hammer stopped moving. It will not hurt all that much to have the hammer fall on my thumb if it stops a round from going “that-a-way”.

It is easy to see how stealing their successes can be bad. Stealing their failures is worse.

My oldest son is on the spectrum. He has a job but does not have a license. He still lives with his mother, my ex-wife.

When he was in middle school, I attended an IEP (individual education plan). This is where we lay out what accommodations he needs and how best to get him educated.

I’m in a conference room with his “team”. This is the principal, multiple teachers, the special-ed coordinator and a few specialists. There are two males in the room. The principal and me.

As we start the meeting, the special-ed coordinator says, “These math classes are difficult. We believe that your son will be best served by removing the math requirement. Math is hard.”

I was livid. “Have you ever talked to him? Do you have a clue as to what is capabilities are in math? That is his easiest class? I’m betting that not a one of you majored in a STEM major. Math is hard? No, it is hard for you.”

This is one of the most important concepts in mathematics. Anything times zero is zero. Dividing anything by zero is undefined.

Calculus is about pretending you can divide by zero. Not because you are dividing by zero, but you are using a very small number in place of zero. Or, as calculus puts it, “as delta x approaches zero…”

• The parent has fail math
• Unless the third grader is Sheldon or Doogie, the correct answer is, 0. And for most people, of any age, the answer is 0. Context matters.
• Sounds like the parents gotta go back to third grade LOL
• I disagree that a number divided by zero is undefined. You had a number, 1, in this case. Then you didn’t divide it. So, 1 remains untouched. It shouldn’t lose its definition based on something you didn’t do.
• Teachers right tho
• Logically he is technically right. If you have one thing then divide it by nothing then you still have that thing cause there is nothing to divide by.
• Both the parent and the kids sharing the same brain cell
• She didn’t know the answer is infinity either.
• typical USA level education
• Yes, give up this fight. This is sufficiently correct for grammar school.

There are more idiots responding. Luckily, those that can do simple math out number them.

The follow up seems to be that the teacher wrote an apologized, claiming that she was taught that 1/0=0 back in the 90s.

Trump v. Wilcox on application for stay was granted. It was a 6-3 opinion. The usual suspects were on the wrong side of history, again.

Justice Kagan wrote the dissent.

Miggy made the mistake of letting me write for him. Then I begged him to let me write when he wanted to close GFZ. When I started, I knew I had things to say about some cases happening. I just didn’t know what I didn’t know.

I started reading and listening. The more I learned, the more I knew I needed to learn.

I have gotten to the point where I read at least part of every opinion the Supreme Court writes. Certain things keep showing up.

It is obvious to any honest person that the Second Amendment means that all gun-control is unconstitutional. The closest we have gotten to anything that is even remotely close to being allowed is that a violent person can be temporarily disarmed.

The Justices that believe in the Constitution express it as “The plain text and this Nation’s historical tradition of …”. This means that if the plain text of the Constitution is implicated, the burden shifts to the government to prove that there were similar regulations at the time the constitution was adopted and when the particular amendment was ratified.

The 14th Amendment must be interpreted as it was understood at the time it was ratified, in the late 1800s, not 1791. The Second Amendment must be interpreted as it was understood at the time it was ratified, in 1791.

The authority of the Executive branch was established on June 22, 1788.

Humphrey’s Executor v. United States was issued in 1935. It cannot be used to establish the meaning of Article II. It is NOT part of this Nation’s historical tradition of regulations regarding the President’s authority.

Since Roe v Wade, every Supreme Court nomination has been asked, “will you mess with Roe v. Wade?”. If the answer is “yes”, the Democrats would fight tooth and nail to keep that person off the Court.

This is always the way of the left. We see it in the court battles against the Trump administration. They will fight a battle, lose, claim victory, then fight the same battle again.

They repeat this until they win. After they win, they claim that this is the standard and cannot be chanted. To attempt to change it is evil, against the will of The Person, and wrong. This is what is happening with the court shopping they are doing. They don’t have to win every case against Trump, just one.

If they lose, they will attempt the same case in a different jurisdiction, until they get a win.

Roe v. Wade was a shit decision. The Dred Scott opinion was even worse. But according to the left, these cases should never have been challenged, much less overturned.

FDR decided that Government was the answer. Regardless of the question, the answer, according to him, was the government.

You don’t have a job? The government will create work, then hire you to do that work. People aren’t preparing for their retirement, the government will do that for you.

The problem he was facing was that much of what he wanted to do wasn’t really constitutional.

In addition, the next president could just undo the shitty things he had done. He needed a way to protect his policies.

The answer was the creation of Government Entities that were performing Article II duties, but which had limited presidential oversight.

Before FDR’s power grab, the president could fire anybody in the executive branch. He was that powerful. He got Congress to pass bills creating entities who’s governing body or head could only be fired for cause.

Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson all believe that an opinion from 90 years ago says more about this Nation’s historical tradition of regulations than does Article II, adopted in 1788.

The People chose to put the authority into one person, the President, who they could change, every four years. The government is beholden to the People. The government doesn’t get to say that “a group of knowledgeable people” should be exempt.

Power corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

We often talk about government interference. We are forced to talk about race, constantly.

Just as most gun control laws are racist in nature, designed to disarm blacks so that racist assholes could murder them, marriage license serve a similar purpose.

What is a marriage license?

In short, it is the government’s permission to perform a religious or secular ceremony declaring somebody to be your partner.

It is also a legally binding contract. At the moment you sign that contract, you have agreed to a set of laws, enforced by threat of force, on how you separate, what it costs to separate, and who will decide the access you will have to your children.

Many entities recognize that license as granting you special privileges and services.

In other words, that license is what your spouse uses to get on your insurance or for you to get on theirs. It sets the rules for custody and property. It details death benefits.

All of this in an implied contract.

Having signed that contract three times, I know what the contract implies.

How did marriage license come to be?

Before the War of Northern Aggression, the southern states had laws against blacks and whites marrying. It wasn’t allowed.

That didn’t mean that white men weren’t dipping their wick when they wanted. It didn’t mean there weren’t mixed race babies.

This didn’t bother them. If it popped out of a slave, it was a slave that would be a slave until emancipated or death. If its skin color was too dark, it was a slave until emancipated or death. Racist as hell.

I’m sure there were some “bucks” that were servicing white women, but that wasn’t acknowledged at all.

After the unCivil War, many of those racist laws were struck down. The rules against mixed marriages went away as they were rules for slaves, not laws.

So laws were passed. These laws were designed to work around certain federal restrictions on racist behavior.

The gist? To be legally married, you need to have a license from the government, granting you permission.

The requirements to get that license weren’t relevant enough, so we’ll just do that later.

Blood Tests

Ostensibly, the marriage license protected against inbreeding, transfer of STDs, and mixing of blood.

You know, that thing that got the German’s in so much hot water in the 1938-1945 time frame. Mixing races with a government designated inferior race.

The reason Los Vegas became a marriage destination wasn’t the Gambling, Food, and Shows. It was because there were no blood tests and no waiting.

You and your bride-to-be could fly into Vegas in the morning, be married by noon. Be broke by 5pm. Be on a plane back home by 7pm. Arriving with your beautiful wife to an empty airport.

But we need records!

Absolutely, we need records. Does the government require a record of your marriage? Not really.

But we want to stop people from marrying somebody else while still married!

What business is it of yours how many spouses a person has?

Well, we don’t want people defrauding insurance companies!

Sure. But is the least intrusive method?

The fact is, that before those racist laws came into existence, and the government took over record keeping, births, deaths, and marriages were recorded. They were recorded in the family bible and at the church where you married.

Those records are still trusted today. Finding a family bible with those records in them is a treasure trove for people doing genealogy.

There is no record keeping that requires government involvement.

But what about the children!

Yep, that’s an important thing. What about the children?

Bluntly, most people getting married have no idea what the contract they are signing implies. They are likely not even thinking of that.

It is the same with pre-nuptials. Why are you talking about pre-nuptials when we are about to get married? Don’t you love me? Don’t you trust me?

The needs of the children need to come first. Notice the word “need”, not “want”. If you separate, you still have a responsibility to your children.

Property

Let’s pretend you are wealthy, you’ve got an entire $1000 in your bank account. You get married in California. How much money do you have in your bank account?

The correct answer is $500. Your spouse now has $500 in your bank account.

As one cynical lawyer explained it to me, a 50/50 state is where she starts with 50 percent of everything you own, the rest of the divorce is her working to get 50 percent of what you have left.

An extreme example is during John Denver’s divorce. His wife was going to get 50% of everything he owned. He took a chainsaw to their wedding bed and cut it down the middle, giving 50% to her.

Of course the judge didn’t see it the same way, but that’s neither here, nor there.

All of these can be handled by actual, explicit contracts.

We had a constructed family a few years back. The family owned 125 acres of woodland and farm land as well as a large house, a barn, and a couple of out buildings. One part of the family put up the down payment. My lovely wife and I were putting our salaries into the homestead.

When the constructed family was destroyed, we needed to split up the household assets.

I had been stupid, I trusted and didn’t get a good contract.

The toxic person who destroyed the family had planned it that way. Her husband was responsible for the finances. Every penny she or her husband brought in went to paying down the mortgage. The money my wife and I brought in went to “maintenance” and “living expenses”. And he had records to prove all of that.

The amount of their down payment plus the total of all of their salaries was about 1/3 of the total contributes my wife and I made.

That was entirely my fault for failing to have a good contract in place.

Contracts

The legal books are awash with contract law. There are lawyers who have spent and will spend their entire career doing contract law, the last courtroom they saw was the mock court in school.

We know how to write good contracts. We know how to read contracts. We can write a contract that will cover what needs to be covered.

Do you want your spouse to have survivor benefits? Put it in the contract. Do you want child support to be 50/50? Put it in the contract. Do you want 50% of the first 5 years of your spouse’s income after you put them through school? Put it in the contract.

Is it challenging to think of all the things that should be in that contract? Yes. Are there people that can do it? YES.

Conclusion

Let’s go back to a time when marriage was a religious or secular event, and contracts were contracts.