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Actually i think the point of government of the United States is to protect the "natural rights" of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness for all, not just the majority, as long as the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness doesn't prevent others' right.

yes, but our government wasnt based on the views of Hobbes. as i recall, a lot of the constitution came from a few other people of around the same time. i think John Locke was one, but i wasnt paying too much attention in history class, so i cant say for certain.

without commitment i do not feel there can be any sort of love. i would call whatever goes on something else, maybe just sexing.

real love demands real sharing, which implies commitment.

marriage is just a word, a title, its the decision, the mutual decision behind it that counts.

I wasn't trying to imply that because it was older it was more correct, I was implying that John Locke based his theory of government, in part, off of Hobbes' social contract theory.

As for the love, I do not agree. To me, love is nothing more than an emotion one person has for something else. The other thing need not share, commit or even recipricate this emotion back. This emotion, like any other, is strictly based on the individual in question.

I can assure you, if such a law existed, I would break it merely for the sake of breaking it. You may wait to kiss if you want, but I would never accept such a law.

Sex and marriage can go either way. They can be totally dependant or totally independant. When (if) I marry, I'd like a happy medium. Or something.

I am married, but getting divorced sometime in the near future.

I'll just go into my story here and you guys can extract anything of use from it, or criticize me (it's over the net, so I don't mind).

The story begins just after I left my hometown and started living in a larger city in which I really didn't know anyone. I didn't yet have a job, and the people I was around regularly I just didn't hit it off well with (not that they were bad people). In short, I was both lonely and bored, so when I met this Japanese chick at a language exchange club, I asked her out for a coffee only cause I was bored (I don't know if she read that as my being interested in her or not). Anyways, she accepted, as she also had nothing to do (offseason at the place she worked at, a ski resort), and she and I actually got to be good friends.

Later, I decided that the ski resort she worked at sounded like a lot of fun, so I applied for a job, and I got the job. At about this time, she asked me one night if I wanted her, and while I didn't feel that I wanted her, I didn't quite know how to turn her down without hurting her feelings, and so well......

Anyways, we moved in together, and while I thought it was a comfortable relationship, she was actually not the person I ever imagined getting married with (according to MSN, a lot of guys have a chick that they are comfortable with, but consider second best to what they actually want, and therefore they avoid giving any signs of commitment, so I guess I'm not alone in this). Well, she got pregnant, and my being a Christian at the time meant that I was opposed to abortion. She told me she was moving back to Japan, and the only way I could support the child was if I also moved to Japan, which without a University degree, meant the only way I could move there was if I got married.

Ok I thought, so I'll get married, and perhaps I can come to actually want to be with her. After seven years of not really feeling I wanted to be here, of differing ideas on lifestyle, and of her also not feeling satisfied with our relationship, did I initiate a serious talk about divorce.

I could live in a sort of comfortable mild disatisfaction in this relationship, and she could as well, but we both want something more. As far as we know, we only have one life, and at least I don't want to spend my life in a relationship that I never actually wanted (and I did try to want to be here, but at least I found it impossible to change a desire for something more that I knew existed), and would it be fair to my wife if she never felt this relationship fulfilling due to my inablility to actually want to be here? I mean, I could never give her what she was looking for.

I don't know, is it possible to want to be with someone you were never really attracted to? I suppose some of the arranged marriages in places like India might indicate that that is possible, or perhaps that's an effect of a psychological theory that people will compare the present moment to other moments of happiness. Therefore, while an arranged couple didn't feel much happiness at the beginning of their relationship, they are now more comfortable with each other, and the comfort compared to the sudden life with a person one neither knows or is attracted to makes the present life seem good.

On the other hand, after the initial 'high' of a new romantic relationship that according to neuroscience resembles an 'obsession' like seen in 'obsessive complusive' people, the high fizzles since it's impossible to keep up that intensity indefinitely (perhaps two years is the longest this intense feeling of romantic infatuation can be maintained). So when this fizzles, then the 'high' might be the feeling some couples compare their now routine life with their spouse to. The frustrations, stresses, and annoyances of living with this spouse that inevitably come up (more for some than others of course) compared to the initial high of the relationship might make them feel the relationship is worse.

There is also the fact that people get on well with those who are likeminded, and as one person put it, opposites rarely attract (which may be why the idea fascinates us so much), but rather that 'likeness begets liking'. Certianly I like those people who are hold opinions, beliefs, and other stuff that are like mine own. So if a couple start going down different paths, that is to say, they start becoming very different in opinions, beliefs, activities, and such, then perhaps it is somewhat natural for the relationship to fade into non-existence. Certainly I know that the lifestyle, the way I want to spend my time, and the things I care about are now quite different from my wife's, and I find that I just can't see myself satisfied with the kind of life she wants to live, and also that she really holds little interest in those things that fascinate me.

I don't know, I think about this a lot..... and I try to make the connections of what makes a relationship work, and what doesn't. Both my mother and my wife feel that I am somehow cold and distant, and they both feel that I might be that way due to my early childhood, when I was abandoned by my mother, left with an uncle who neglected me, and then shipped around to various foster homes till I was adopted at age five. A lot of psychologists feel that these early years are crucial to a child's ability to connect well with others. It's true, I do find it difficult to connect with others, but I am generally a happy person, and getting happier as I go along, and pretty much all I can do is keep trying to make connections with people.

Ok.... so that was a long post.