If you have ever attempted to change your name you know it is way more annoying to change your name than accept someone else’s change of name. The amount of admin it takes to make that update in your social circle even before you try and make it legal is a test of social fortitude and willpower.

Remember when someone is changing their name they are very aware of the imposition of the mental load they are placing on you. Grace goes a long way.

I did not call Americans morons nor was my intention to tell you what to do to solve the problem. I simply told you why there isn’t more help coming from the outside. It’s not a matter of people deliberately sitting on their hands.

Unless American leadership breaks the International rules enough to get the sign on of multiple countries to work in concert against America in a world war you are on your own because of rules designed to allow countries to self govern. Other countries cannot alter another country’s government for good or for ill. This is not an indictment of the voting habits or a rebuke of the process of citizen power the American public.

Whether you or any other country solve your problem democratically or through violent collapse the world is handcuffed. There are civil wars going on right now in other countries and the rules are the same for them as they are for you. The world will recognize whatever government is effectively in power once the dust settles but outsiders cannot lawfully tip the scale and go kingmaking unless one side of the conflict violates the rules of war. War itself is not internationally illegal. The US falling into a full on civil war is kosher from an international law standpoint.

The USA has a historic tendency to ignore that international legality and go kingmaking themselves utilizing the resource of spies and subterfuge ONLY because they are singularly powerful enough on the world stage to get away with it. America essentially declared itself a world police force and the sheer infrastructure they have worldwide means that no individual country can compete. Look for yourself how many bases America has on foreign soil compared to every other country. How many armaments and millitary force and how, their ethics policies of their intelligence agencies differ. America is singularly unique. It may be why you believe the rest of the world will help you “fix” things but that’s not in the interests of the rest of the world.

Foriegn leaders are “standing up to America” but they are doing so by cutting themselves free of American coercion for the security and benefit of their own citizens. By framing America out of the picture and moving reliance to other countries and letting America starve itself once the supply chain contracts and treaties expire they will decrease American influence on world policy. It doesn’t benifit those countries to try and swoop in and shore up a crumbling empire which has held guns to their heads for generations. International help currently isn’t coming for American citizens. Unless your country fixes it’s problems itself fairly soon the “standing up to America” that is happening will level your economy and diplomatic power as other governments profit from the diminishing of American hard power that will continue for decades.

Believing that someone is or should be coming to your rescue may not be in your best interest. Not when so many stand to gain long term from your division.

Because that would require either a terrorist action or a bunch of Internationally illegal tampering with American Democracy or declaring war against the World power with the the largest standing army and deepest pockets for arsonal. The rest of the world is effectively held hostage while Americans solve their own problems.

It’s the reason why a lot of bad people in power stay in power. There can be tariffs and sanctions and all manner or soft power deals but the rules are rules. Sovereignty and a right to run your country mostly the way you want is protected as a right and and the US used its positioning as the least devastated megapower/millitary supremacy post WWII to basically bend the world over and get a lot of acceptions to a lot of rules.

Marriage makes locktight a lot of “privileges” that matter. Your “roommate” of several years can be denied a place at your bedside when you or the child you are raising together are dying. In regards to kids a lot of joint non-married/divorced mixed sex custody is held on the name placed on birth certificates… but same sex couples will have only one name on that certificate. Marriage is super important in a queer context for making sure you are able to participate in your childrens lives.

In the same way a lack of formal marriage can make your next of kin parents who do not “agree with your lifestyle” make critical health decisions on your behalf. They can stick your partner in hellish limbo spaces with banks if you die and you didn’t make a will leaving you without support of pre existing programs or survivor benefits. A bunch of legal doors can close meaning you are more easily separated from your nearest and dearest when traveling, emigrating, interfacing with the criminal justice and court system. Queer marriage is a legal sheild that protects the pair of you in many ways more than straight couples because it stops a lot of institutional bias that dismisses your relationship as potentially not relevant to the authorities who gatekeep access.

Absolutely. I belong to a non cheating group. It’s just seems completely unfathomable that it could happen. Most of us are in 15+ year relationships and are friends with everyone. It’s not just a “the women are friends with the women, the men are friends with the men” situation. We got a blend of genders all participating in the same hobbies. There would be so much social cost to cheating it would be kind of insane.

Where I work though there’s a decent amount of drama in that regard though and I have noticed that one common factor is that the relationships are atomized. They either keep their old friends going in and there’s almost zero expectation of their partners integrating into each other’s friendships or there’s just this expectation that men and women are fundamentally different creatures. That whole men are from Mars women from Venus shtick. From the outside it seems like emotional distance where people look at each other like they aren’t targets of empathy - more like they play by a book as if they can just put the right inputs in they will get the desired outputs.

I know this is entirely anedotal and that anybody could theoretically cheat for any number of reasons… It’s just something that I noticed about the groups of cheats that I am aware of.