Changing your legal name for anything except marriage is much harder in some states than changing it for marriage. The process seems streamlined for marriage because it's so common, but is sometimes prohibitively difficult and/or expensive in other cases. I see this decision as Facebook wanting to be like one of the "easier" states and be available that way to people in all states regardless of how hard it is to change your legal name there. Kudos if they can accomplish that goal without significantly compromising the integrity of peoples' identities in other ways.

I think the point is to limit you in virtual space to the same number of identities you have in reality. You only have one body, and so Facebook wants you to have one identity with them. Even a schizophrenic has to accept the fact that their many personalities have to share the same body, and, just like their body, Facebook can't automatically adjust to their new identity as it comes forward. So they have to pick a single identity through which to present themselves to others, even if they are separate internally. Cross dressers similarly have to make a choice. You only get one identity, so make it the one you want to share with everyone. You can either be transgender or not, not both... pick one identity to share with others, and make it the one you're sharing in reality.

I've heard from people in the transgender community that often times it's much harder to change your name outside the context of marriage than inside. I think this is because the process is streamlined for marriages because they are so common. The process is not at all streamlined for transgender name changes (at least in some states).

It's unfair because others don't have to bear the burden of accepting a name that conflicts with their gender.

Exactly. They were born only knowing how to fit into society as a gender that conflicts with their anatomy. And they can't pretend that they are the gender that they were assigned at birth because they don't know how to be someone else. I know 3 transgender women, and from what I understand of their tales, their choices were basically suicide or gender transition because they simply could not live with the gender they were assigned based on their anatomy.

I think you misunderstand what it means to be transgender. Although "Drag Queens" may make a show of their situation, which might imply some degree of pretense, to be transgender in itself is not to be mentally ill nor does it generally involve any pretense (it's not "fake"). People who are transgender generally experience great emotional and psychological turmoil over their condition (which might lead to other mental illnesses) before finding out that the source of it all is a mismatch between their birth-assigned gender and their self-identified gender. But once these are aligned, they're much better off and can live much more normal lives. The transition, however, can be very difficult, especially when laws and rules don't support the transition (name change, gender change, etc).

It's not wrong if the one group who's getting the exception represents the group who's unfairly burdened by the original requirement. I'm not clear whether you're supporting or against the decision, but transgender people are unfairly burdened by a requirement of using their birth name when that doesn't agree with the different name they're getting most people (hoping eventually everyone) to use in the real world.

Almost -- I said that if other evidence proves the employer's guilt of hiring illegally, then the employer's evidence would serve only to exonerate them of charges of paying below minimum wage. ("[...] allow them to provide that evidence after their guilt [...] is determined from others' evidence as a way to reduce the consequences," I said.)

My point being that, by avoiding the potential for 5th amendment problems in this way, it looks like the idea still has merit: illegal immigrants could cry foul when they are being paid less than minimum wage because they wouldn't have to fear losing that income as part of being deported if the burden of proof of wages is on the employer and the burden of proof of employment is on the worker. And thanks to the clarification, the employer's burden of proof shouldn't incriminate them more than they already are. I don't doubt that there are other problems with the idea, but I think, with this clarification or adjustment, it can at least avoid the 5th amendment concerns you raised.

My reasons for continuing the conversation are not just about "winning" but about coming to an understanding, I can't do that without questioning your reasoning. I don't mean to sound adversarial, but that's very difficult when reacting to such agressive replies. I didn't immediately understand why you thought the employer providing evidence of wages was a 5th amendment issue, but with further discussion I came to an understanding that you thought the evidence provided by the employer would also incriminate them on their illegal employment. So that understanding helped the idea evolve.

Normally I would be up for working out other issues, but I think our styles of discourse clash violently and I don't think I'm up for much more of this, if you'll excuse me :).

No, I'm not letting you play such cheap tactical tricks. You can give up or accuse me of misunderstanding you, but don't pretend I'm the one playing tactical games and only interested in winning when I adjusted my plan per the issue you exposed and you're the one ending the discussion with unanswered questions. I finally understood why you thought there was a 5th amendment issue, and responded with a way around it by postponing the need for evidence. Why is it so hard to have an honest civil discussion without all these games?

It fixes the problem that started this thread: employers circumvent minimum wage laws by employing illegal immigrants. That was the whole point of the suggestion. Stop employers from paying less than minimum wage to anybody.

It's not clear to me that this problem is different under the proposed rules than it is now. Illegal immigrants would already be depressing wages on jobs that would pay above minimum wage in the current system. So maybe the plan doesn't fix *that* problem, but I don't see it making it any worse.

I had been backing a wealth-based tax instead of an income-based tax myself, but I like the Fair Tax idea too, now that I read about it: http://www.fairtax.org/site/Pa...

I don't imagine illegals would be flooding the market with cheap labor if, as originally suggested, the penalty for employing them below the minimum wage was indefinitely supporting that employee financially via an alimony-like arrangement. And if illegal labor is afforded all the rights of legal labor (plus $1/hour according to the more recent suggestion), what makes it cheaper? Keep in mind that any laborer, legal or illegal, would essentially gain the right to speak up if they thought they were being treated unfairly in any way, and would not risk suffering any negative consequences as a result. Deportation would be discontinued in exchange for illegal employers shouldering the financial responsibility for the immigrant labor they took on illegally.

The burden of proof for having payed an employee should be on the employer. The burden of proof for being in the employ of a particular employer should be on the employee making the claim. Proof could be a video of the employer giving an employee work instructions, possibly with some indication of the date (newspaper in the shot) so we know it took place after the law took effect.

And in my opinion, the employer should be held responsible for supporting the employee going forward, and not necessarily retroactively.

The only case I see where there are hints of a 5th amendment issue would assume #1 that we know that the employee is an illegal immigrant. So for now I'll grant that assumption. And it would also assume #2 that whatever evidence the employer has of having paid minimum wage also incriminates them as having known that the employee they were paying was illegal, which is a bigger assumption, but I'll also grant that assumption for the moment. Even under these circumstances, the employer has two choices: provide no evidence and accept the default/de facto consequences of hiring an illegal immigrant if that can be proven based on the evidence of others, or provide the evidence to reduce their responsibility to the employee, if it shows they were paying minimum wage (which I suspect would not often be the case anyway). If that's still a 5th amendment issue (having to make that choice before their guilt is determined), then split the case in 2 and allow them to provide that evidence after their guilt of knowingly hiring an illegal immigrant is determined from others' evidence as a way to reduce the consequences. And those consequences would be support the immigrant until they voluntarily leave or gain legal status if minimum wage was not being paid. If it was being paid, then the consequences would be negligible? I'm open to suggestions here, but curious to know what kind of incentives it would produce if the consequences in that case were nothing (no deportation, no alimony-like arrangement, nothing). One might think all sorts of arrangements might be made to get around immigration laws to let people legally work here, but if you have to pay minimum wage anyway, how many people would want to participate in that on our end?

If it starts out as purely a minimum wage issue I guess there's the possibility that the evidence the employer might provide could incriminate them not only as having employed the person, but indicate that the person they were employing is an illegal immigrant, but I'm not clear why that would ever be proof of that. Why does the employer's evidence of payment entail evidence of having knowingly paid an illegal immigrant? Keywords there being "knowingly" and "illegal".