Freedom from within

One day, naked and alone in a small room, he began to become aware of what he later called "the last of the human freedoms" ? the freedom his Nazi captors could not take away. They could control his entire environment, they could do what they wanted to his body, but Victor Frankl himself was a self-aware being who could look as an observer at his very involvement. His basic identity was intact. He could decide within himself how all of this was going to affect him. Between what happened to him, or the stimulus, and his response to it, was his freedom or power to choose that response.

In the midst of his experiences, Frankl would project himself into different circumstances, such as lecturing to his students after his release from the death camps. He would describe himself in the classroom, in his mind's eye, and give his students the lessons he was learning during his very torture.

Through a series of such disciplines ? mental, emotional, and moral, principally using memory and imagination ? he exercised his small, embryonic freedom until it grew larger and larger, until he had more freedom than his Nazi captors.

I'm only going to say this once: if we change the definition of "marriage" to reflect anything other than a man and a woman, there's nothing to stop anyone in the future from advocating marriages between adults and children (eg. a 40-year-old man and a 6 year-old boy), or a man and his dog, for that matter. (And no, this is not a scare tactic, either -- I bet both ideas have occurred to NAMBLA and PETA, respectively.)

Romney has it absolutely right: it is one of society's most treasured institutions, and if it's also exclusionary, then that's just tough shit. (The same is true of the Boy Scouts, and look how the militant homosexual lobby is trying to infiltrate them, or failing which, put them out of business.)

Like other gay and lesbian couples around the state, Hall and Alhstrom were overjoyed with last week's state Supreme Judicial Court ruling that Massachusetts must create a law allowing gay marriage. The state Legislature now has six months to craft that law, but opponents of gay marriage have vowed to fight it.

"We were pretty surprised that the court came out with such a positive response," said Ahlstrom, a teacher who works at three schools in Boston and MetroWest. "We hope that our relationship will be equally valued."

But what does the state have to offer aside from benefits? The state has nothing sacred or even moral to impart. The state has only carrots and sticks and any carrot it might offer you was taken from someone else by way of a stick. You can only defile that which is sacred or intimate in your marriage by inviting the state to take part in it.

It's a core belief that dwells in the hearts of collectivists, liberal and conservative alike, that if they can, by force of law, dabble here and tweak there, then goodness and morality can be dispensed from the floors of state assemblies, legislatures, and city halls everywhere. Working from such a premise makes it nearly impossible to realize that there is nothing by way of grace or moral legitimacy that the state can bestow on anything. [...]

Sovereign Individuals are the Makers of Manners