No, but it violates the very concept of a free country.
Not really, in large part because "free country" is in and of itself a vague and nebulous notion. Indeed, an equally strong argument could be made that granting marriage rights and privledges to anyone inherently goes against the concept of a free country as the state is placing limitations on some people.
The idea that you should have to prove a need to be allowed to do something private before the government grants you a right to do it, as opposed to the idea that you're free to do whatever the hell you want to do, unless the government can prove that it has a need to stop you, is the antithesis of a free society.
Wow that's a convoluted sentence. Going to do my best to follow the logic hear...
First, "marriage" of any kind that is recognized by the state isn't "something private" first and foremost. There's to my knowledge no substantial movement in this country by the GOP to have the government force same sex people to not be able to enter into a private marriage pact.
Second, the issue with ANY form of societal right is the fact that it IS constrained by the social contract and as such government and society can attach various strings to it. That's the inherent disadvantage and weakness of societal rights compared to natural ones.
Third, based on your definition of what is a free society...which seems to be that you must be free to do whatever hte hell you want to do unless the government can "prove" that is has a "need" to stop you (two more nebulous vague terms)...then we've not been a free country for the majority of our existance.
Fourth, all of that had little to do with talking about the government allowing people additional benefits from the government but rather was speaking about doing things in private and the government limiting those...which doesn't really apply to government recognized same sex marriage.
The idea of a "constitutionally limited federal government" is nice, but to what end? We could write fascism, communism, or anything else into the Constitution through amendments, and then have a "constitutionally limited federal government", but not a free country.
Absolutely correct. That
IS possible. It's also likely the point where you have a number of individuals finally break from the social contract and attempt to part ways with the seeming majority that would be catagorically changing the mindset of how America should function. That said, part of the beauty of the Constitution is that its extremely difficult to change (at least in the manner it actually lays out for changing it) making your hypothetical a long shot unless a large majority of the country agrees.
An empty framework may be nice, but not that nice.
No worse than an empty framework of a "Free" country that uses nebulous terms like you presented earlier that places all the power into whatever majority gains control and gets to deem what is "proof" and what constitutes a government "need".
If the objective is individual freedom, then simply following the framework isn't meaningful, without considering what you're putting into it.
Individual freedom is the philosophical mentality to push for as much as possible, within the framework of the constitution. If the care was truly singularly about individual freedom then there wouldn't be "freedom of speech"...because If I have the ability to force you to shut your mouth and not talk if you don't let me do that you're limiting my individual freedom. We wouldn't have the various rights against search and seizure, because you're limiting my individual freedom if you disallow me the ability to take whatever I can from you. The very concept of any society typically relies upon the notion that, through the social contract, we're agreeing to give up portions of our individual freedom for the time that we coexist within that contract.
Conservatives seek to strive for pushing the ideal of individual freedom, but seek to do so within the framework of our social contract which is generally outlined within the Constitution.
