Z. Claude

I don't think I would want to let George Bush III into my country after he spent his adolescence in exile in Dubai. That's just me though.

Lots of places will recognize a civil union or a common law marriage on the basis of living together for a certain period of time. However, I don't think it makes sense to allow everyone in the house from Entourage to emigrate to another country together as a family unit.

You don't think the British or the French would do a coup? The United States has hundreds of billions of dollars worth of other countries' gold in Fort Knox. I don't think they would let it fall into the hands of a communist government.

You're talking about capitalists summarily executing expats on the border and you think the ascendant communist government should just.. let anybody into the country?

The future you imagine is a strange place. I wonder if any real people live in it.

Do you think China just lets anyone into their country? Do you think Cuba does? They are worried about spies and sabotage the same way the US government is (although with better reason than anyone in the US) and they control immigration accordingly.

If a Cuban doctor wants to practice medicine in China, she needs to get authorization from the host country to travel there. Because China recognizes her marriage, she can bring her spouse and their children on the same visa to live with her.

It gives me and my wife authorization to work in a country where neither of us was born or has citizenship. She was able to travel to the country on my visa and use the same work authorization I have. Any future communist government should allow people to work and study with a spouse.

Citizens of the Cuban, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Soviet communist governments all have/had citizenship and passports. Citizens of foreign countries are not executed at the border.

The laws DO matter to me and well-meaning people can disagree on what "good" is. I like having my piece of paper that says "married." I think it's good because it is recognized by other countries. It means my wife can come with me and work while I'm in school in a country where I am not a citizen.

And what if I want to move to another place?

You're handing out mandatory identity documents to avoid giving people birthright citizenship! You've clearly not thought this through.

What laws? Tax laws? Are you talking about filing a joint tax return? What are the laws about marriage that are so burdensome that they have to be abolished?

Oh so now there are utility bills in the communist utopia? I thought we had abolished scarcity and abandoned the need for currency?

I don't think so. I don't want to live in a society that declines to recognize my family. The communists in Cuba expanded their definition of family to include more relationships as familial. I'd be happy if things went in that direction in the US. I am unwilling to see less recognition of family.

How would you know? 300k people live in Newark. Political machines used to bus people around to vote in multiple precincts and then give them a shave to go around again. People cheat at elections if they can get away with it.

The original post I'm responding to is "I want to ban marriage as an institution..." Saying the religious ceremonies are still allowed or that you only mean the part that is a property relationship doesn't clarify anything when lots of people get civilly married and/or don't have any property.

I'm an immigrant and I want to vote in the elections in my home country. Because I'd like to go back there. If I stay long enough in my current country to be eligible to vote, I would exercise that right too. Somebody who takes the bus from Philly to Newark shouldn't get to vote twice.

You should try to be less arrogant. A marriage is not simply a property relation with some religious ceremony sprinkled on top. If you really think you know enough to run the world as a communist, you need to be thinking about it more deeply than this.

So if you move to another state for school or a job, do you get to vote in both places? I'm a dual citizen and I live in a third country. I don't have a current address in the US. Do I get to vote? If everybody is a citizen of "where they live" I would vote in a country I barely know anything about.

Again, slaves who were themselves property got married. One of the worst crimes of slaveholders was splitting up these families for profit. Those marriages were not about property even if many of the institutions recognizing marriage under the state are.

I don't get a vote for the mayor of Philadelphia. I don't live there. That doesn't mean I'm being denied any rights. There needs to be a way of determining which elections you can vote in. That is part of defining someone's citizenship and that depends on where they live and who their family is.

Enslaved people in the Americas got married even when they were explicitly forbidden from having property. One of the hallmark civil rights movements of the last several decades has been to recognize marriages between same sex couples. Saying you want to ban that institution is not a viable position

I want to abolish ICE. Citizenship in a place, enfranchisement in elections, recognition of your academic qualifications across jurisdictions are all things that need to happen and be administered by some authority on the basis of some rules. Recognizing marriages will be necessary for that to work.

If you're really arrogant enough to think you can eliminate an institution that is older than every world religion and more universal than written language, by all means try. You'll waste your whole life on it and still fail. That's not my revolution.

I don't agree that marriage should be abolished. Aside from the considerations around citizenship you're simply waving away, lots of people like to be married. Throughout history, most people have been married in some way. If there's a fight between communism and marriage, I'm betting on marriage.

Have you considered inviting the Heat Miser? Maybe he can turn your day around.

Definitely. Hindu gods and goddesses were married so traditions of marriage in that culture predate those scriptures. Greek gods were married before there was a concept of "The West" and there were marriage traditions in pre-contact North American cultures that raised children communally.

I'm just giving my perspective on marriage and why it would not be desirable for me to abolish it - at least in the short to medium term. If the revolution happens tomorrow while my wife's green card is pending, is she welcome in the new community? If the govt doesn't recognize marriage, perhaps not

Speaking personally, I never wanted to get married just to get married. My wife and I never had a formal religious ceremony. I wanted her to be able to live and work in the United States in her field without needing a sponsor or being afraid of getting deported. It's not just about property.

I get that. I'm saying marriage predated the religious ceremonies. Christians invented ceremonies to sanctify this thing that their followers already wanted to do. If you wanted to make marriage more inclusive or less about property or government that's one thing. Abolition is unlikely to take.

I don't know about that. Marriage as an institution is older than every govt in existence. When Christianity first started there were people who thought they shouldn't have marriage because Christ would be right back and they quickly abandoned that because a lot of people want to get married.