...and you’re willing to sellout your married friends to the tune of thousands a year in taxes? Who’s the sellout, eh? Where’s your outrage considering that gap probably amounts to more than the extra you pay in auto insurance? Or maybe you’re calling and writing your representatives in Congress daily about it...?
We're not talking about taxes, we're talking about AUTO INSURANCE. Again, it's unfair to the unmarried to penalize them for not being married, which is a legal and valid lifestyle choice PROTECTED BY THE EEOC. I emphasize this because the ethics still seem lost on you. Like I said, I don't think government should be recognizing marriage at all, nor should they be penalizing or incentivizing marriage over non-marriage or vice-versa. Again, I'm being consistent. You are not.
Oh that’s a bridge too far, deciding I’d be a supporter of Jim Crow. Seriously, way over the line. I’ve been consistently clear in my beliefs, which are not and never have been in support of discrimination..but that’s just a low and classless attempt there.
It's not over any line. Your blatant support for discrimination seems unending, so I had to make a more obvious comparison. Be offended all you want, but I find your 'logic' offensive because it's intellectually dishonest. It could be that you genuinely don't understand the issue, but I'm trying to be charitable in assuming you're not that ignorant. So, my guess is that you understand the issue but simply don't care because you benefit from it. Thus, you're willing to allow discrimination as long as there's some tiny benefit to you, principles be damned. Yet, you seem to understand why segregation is wrong even if it were to benefit you in some minor way. This is the whole point of civil liberties and the Bill of Rights—protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority.
No offense to your friend, since I do respect the work it takes to become an attorney...but you can find an attorney to agree with any position. Just look at all the talking heads that are on these days. Good for you that you have a lawyer friend, though. I have a quite few too.
True. but he's one attorney who is married and sides with me. Remember too, Tesla Insurance can no longer use SEX as a metric with car insurance rates. Why do you keep ignoring this? Why do you think that is? Do you think Sex (as in male or female) is less relevant than marital status? You would make a fool of yourself trying to defend this disparity, which is why you continually ignore this point. You can't win on that point, and you will not win this debate on any ethical grounds.
...but, to top it off, you’ve decided to cast aspersions about my ethics.
Yes of course. I think you have it wrong and I don't think your arguments are honest, OR, you're just genuinely incorrect and cannot work out why. Clearly, we disagree.
Neither of us knows the other, and we’re talking about the economic fairness of auto insurance (and a few other large costs as examples) for married vs unmarried...and because I don’t agree super strongly with you that life’s totally tilted in the most unfair way towards married folk because we might get a measly $50-100 off our auto insurance vs you, you’ve declared me ethically bankrupt and practically a racist. Wow.
Have a nice day.
Again, this is an ethical question, not just about whether some group is penalized or incentivized for AUTO INSURANCE as it relates to marital status. Just think, HONESTLY, how absurd this is. You keep ignoring the comparison, but penalizing unmarried people is like penalizing someone for being religious or having kids. I chose the majority status here to make it OBVIOUS. The only reason I brought up Jim Crow laws was to demonstrate that 'legality' doesn't equal 'ethical'. It seems that you've understood this in grand fashion. Apply this to marital status discrimination now, with auto insurance rates.
Think about someone who has for no fault of their own found themselves unmarried, or has made the choice not to marry because they are too young, too old, or simply don't agree with it. YOU support penalizing these people with auto insurance rates, a practice now banned in Massachusetts and the European Union. I do not, because this is a private lifestyle choice (and not always a choice) which has NO PLACE in auto insurance rates, just as it currently is a federally-protected status with respect to equal employment opportunity.
If it is your right as an American to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the freedom to live your conscience without impinging upon the rights of others, and it is legal to be married OR unmarried, then how is it not an impingement of my civil liberties for an auto insurance company to impose a monetary penalty because I'm unmarried with an otherwise perfect driving record? Again, think about why the EEOC has protected marital status. Marital status is slower to become a protected status because a lot of American adults (though perhaps not a clear majority) are married. and why would they think about what's happening to unmarried people? When we being it up, we get responses like yours and others defending this discrimination as if it's perfectly natural and ethical. It's not.
Think about all of the anti-gay politicians out there, often on the right, who don't think for a second about 'gay rights' until they're personally finding themselves the parent or relative of a gay loved one. Why do you think this is? It's the same reason that marital status has taken longer to become a protected status. The EEOC position (a federal protection mind) is just the first shot across the bow. Insurance penalties based on this status are legacy discrimination....and they're in place in 49 states in our Democratic Republic...for now.
You have no argument that is ethical or consistent for your side, and you must pointedly ignore major points from my argument in order to avoid cognitive dissonance and massive logical inconsistency and questionable ethics on your part.
Really. Just think about this honestly instead of kneejerking another super facile response that I will destroy in minutes. See if you can work out why marital status shouldn't be a metric for auto insurance, but it's illegal to raise someone's rates because they're religious or have kids and now with Tesla Insurance, a person's SEX cannot be used as a factor. THINK about it, and see if you can find any ethical consistency in the law or your position.
If you can understand why sex is far more relevant a metric for insurance actuarial tables than marital status, and you now know that Tesla Insurance cannot use sex as a metric any longer....well how do you defend using marital-status as a factor? I think the law goes too far in ruling out sex as a factor, simply because men drive about 60% more than women. The law is inconsistent here and so are those who think marital status discrimination is just fine.
Remember, just because it's 'legal' doesn't make it ethical. I am sure you hold some view on something that comports with this, and surely you understand the mistakes of the past that were once legal but are undeniably understood to be wildly unethical. You must also understand that people 'in their time' didn't always recognize clear discrimination where those in the future often see it clearly. That future starts with a few, and it takes time to trickle down to the many. At first my argument may seem alien, but if you thought about it honestly you'd be hard pressed to find fault with it. Certainly, your 'case' here hasn't made a dent on the consistency or ethical side, and you're forced to ignore my major points to avoid cognitive dissonance and perhaps some untenable logical conundrums.
Speaking of marriage, remember in the old days when a man and a woman had to prove they were married (or claim as much) to get a room together? How dumb was that? Yet, this was the norm back in our parents' and grandparents' generations. This seems to old-fashioned and prosaic now to modern sensibilities, in about 5-10 years when our TSLA stocks have blown up, I think we'll think the same think about marital status as a factor in both vehicular and health insurance.
Have a nice day yourself.