Izzgo

He’s now a QAnon nut.

I was just thinking that I hadn’t heard much about Qanon lately, that maybe it had been fading out. No?

Ex presidents get protection as much because they are a security risk as for their own safety.

Do you mean on social media overall?

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In the US where I live, a civil ceremony is a legal marriage, and that’s what we did, right at the courthouse. Previously we were in a domestic partnership, which required no ceremony just signing the papers, and gave us many of the legal rights of marriage. I’m not a Christian, nor a member of any major religion, so I would not avail myself of that type of religious ceremony anyway.

I fully agree with you, don’t need anyone else defining my relationship. Neither government nor religion. 38 years ago she first asked me to marry her and I said no, I will never marry. We went back and forth on that issue over the decades, but as we enter old age, it just seemed wise.

One clear legal benefit came up recently for me and my wife. She was in the hospital for several days. As her legal wife I was given certain medical information that would only go to next of kin. Before we got married we were not legal next of kin, and in fact that’s the reason we got married.

The value would be, that church considers you married in the eyes of God, irrelevant of what human laws say. Not that I believe in any such god, but I remember gay people who got married in their Quaker church, and within their spiritual circle they were treated as married like any other married couple. Of course it didn’t count for anything in the secular world.

Furthermore, it has always been possible to get a religious wedding (certain churches only), even before it could be a legal marriage.

If this isn’t the definition of “too little too late”, I don’t know what is.

I’m 70 years old. Of course it’s not the first time. Cute meme though.

These are times when I’m ashamed to be an American.

As you know, the current system in America is that we pay into the retirement system. In the present time those funds are used to support present day seniors, and then when you have reached the proper age the people currently paying into it are supporting you but can (supposedly) expect to be supported the same way. I started paying into it at age 16, and now at 69 I am collecting. And additionally, I need to have saved up.

I don’t know how we would transfer out of this system and into a completely self sufficient one. I DO know that this system mitigated the deep deep poverty many elderly used to experience. Because for the working and poor classes, no one realistically makes enough to set aside for retirement.

Of course this is a good thing, but there are still serious negative consequences to a reducing population, which must be mitigated. Primarily, old people who are past working age are an expensive population to maintain. When there are as many or more old people as there are young, the burden is too heavy for young people to bear. And I say this as a 70 year old. Young people today CANNOT hit old age without their own substantial retirement resources.

The day is yet young.

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I clicked before I realized it was a link to twitter…er…X.

Don’t you use X when you want to cross something out?

Political news is different from discussions where people take political sides and fall into sparring (at best) or political spin.

Federation as an ethical concept is completely foreign to Meta. Most of their users LIKE what they have: a huge monolithic social media company. If they want to use something federated, they will make the effort to switch. Might be worthwhile to educate some of those users…maybe. But not to take on Meta wholesale. I agree that eventually the whole concept of this federation would become defunct or at best an anomaly.

Congratulations. Well done and very inspiring!