Reply #65: Because it's an idea grounded in nonsense. [View All]

[laconicsax]

Religious fantasy, "Marriage is a religious affair."
Reality, "Marriage is a civil affair that can have a religious ceremony"

Try this:

A town had a spring that feeds into a public fountain and was used as the public water supply. An enterprising individual decided to bottle the water and sell it to people as a convenience and the bottled water is sold under the trademarked name, 'Water.' 'Water' is sold only in exclusive retail locations and after a while, the townspeople always associated the bottled product's name with what they got from the fountain.

Now the entrepreneur who founded 'Water' had some interesting ideas about who should and shouldn't be allowed to buy his product leading to certain people being refused service at any of the 'Water' stores. He also launched an impressive ad campaign that led people to rely on 'Water' instead of the town fountain. The town council also let the businessman set up a 'Water' location at town fountain. After a while, this arrangement led people to forget that the fountain and the spring belonged to the town and was only being leased to the 'Water' company.

Years later, some of the people who had been denied service at the 'Water' retail locations started complaining, saying that it was unfair that they were only able to get water out of town and insisted that since the spring and the fountain belonged to the town, they couldn't be denied access to it. The town council agreed with them and decided to restart the municipal water system so that everyone could have a drink. The 'Water' company launched a massive effort to prevent this, insisting that 'Water' is their product, and the city has no right to distribute it.

The town council had already decided that everyone has a right to be hydrated but was evenly split on the naming issue. The first group insisted that the town had a municipal water system before 'Water' came along and set up shop and shouldn't have to change the name because a private company wanted them to. The second group had always associated water with 'Water' and felt uncomfortable calling the municipal system by its original name--they wanted to change the name of the town supply to 'civil aqua.'

Should the town kowtow to private interests and call the water they distribute 'civil aqua' or should they stand up to the private organization and distribute water as they had before?