Both health care (Medicare) and pensions (Social Security) have not only not been "raided", but are being unsustainably financed by politicians too terrified to attempt any reform.

Repeating fifty-year-old Bircher nonsense doesn't make it true. It just makes you more deluded for repeating it.

I know a "proper" caste system is wrong on several levels

But you like it anyway. That student grades are most dependent on the financial status of one's parents isn't a sign of inequality, it's a sign that we should bring back the system where you are an aristocrat, a member of the bourgeois, or an Untouchable.

If you're mother flipped burgers, the best you will do is flip burgers. If you're fuckup that goes so far as to kill people in a DUI? Forgiveness and an eventual corporate position for you.

We spend more than enough money trying to help the troubled kids.

Generational poverty laughs at your willful ignorance of the world. As do all the poor straight-A students who will never see a hundredth of the earnings of the rich kid who flunked out of high school between his second and third cocaine busts.

I'd say Musk relies far less on tax dollars than Jobs did. Apple, despite all their billions, pays virtually no taxes. Tesla got a government loan and paid it off early with interest.

Your first sentence seems to disagree with the second....as well as the rest of your post. Case in point:

There's a tax subsidy for buying an electric car

There isn't one for buying a Mac or an iPhone. So...who's getting benefits from tax dollars again?

These days, Slashdotters have been Musk worshiping even worse than they used to Jobs worship.

You're as likely to find Jobs worship on Slashdot as you are to find praise of socialism at a Republican convention, Hateboi.

Ah, there it is.

Yes, the American Exceptionalist Butthurt. Even when your best is half what other countries with far less money can do....'Murica! Fuck yeah!

You are aware that plenty of people are monitored for their entire shift in much less safety critical jobs, like bank tellers, grocery or retail store cashiers, dock workers, etc, yes?

You are aware that's because of the risk of theft, yes? What is a train operator going to steal?

There's worse than being monitored by a camera : being monitored by your colleagues in an open space office.

Do you remember what your colleagues were wearing last Friday, before the start of a three day weekend? Most likely not. Unless you do something memorable, whatever it is you are currently doing is going to be out of your colleagues short-term memory in a matter of seconds, and any testimony is hearsay. Whereas video is not hearsay, and lasts as long as it is stored.

Wouldn't these issues be solved by what this post argued for: incorporated marriage?

I don't see how it would solve any of those problems, but I do see one it would create. Sue and Molly could vote to split the kids and assets between them, and leave Rachael out on the street.

How is that any different to the situation for a sick/comatose/senile/end-of-life parent without a living spouse

Having a spouse is the difference. If you die unmarried and without relatives, the state can auction off your possessions, but that's obviously not going to happen if you're married.

I am sorry for the bad responses you are getting here.

Why. He's a bigot. Would you be excusing him if he was championing miscegenation laws or insisting that Jews repent for killing Jesus?

Why the arbitrary limit?

Lots of reasons. Because polygamy generally involves powerful men taking lots of wives, and sometimes forcing young men out of the community so they have their pick of women. And no, it's not going to even out of a few Marisa Mayers take on a few "brother husbands."

Because it creates an inherent power imbalance in the relationship - if you call your wife Sue a fat bitch she can stop speaking to you until you've done a few weeks of groveling. But if you're a polygamist, you can tell Sue that if she doesn't get over it, you'll just be fucking your second wife, Molly.

Because it takes issues that are otherwise straightforward and turns them into a mess if there is no will. If you get in a car accident and end up in a coma, your wife can make medical decisions for you. If you die, she inherits everything and has custody of the kids. But if you're a polygamist who adopted, who gets the kids...Sue or Molly? Who gets the house? Which one makes the call to keep you on a feeding tube while you're in the coma?

Well, the marriage benefits are intended to help with child rearing.

You know gay people can have biological kids as well as adopt, right? This was always a red herring from homophobes anyway, as you never had the same Concerns over post-menopausal women or elderly couples marrying.

question of why we're extending benefits for no reason should be asked.

You should be asked if you've ever heard of the word "inheritance". How about the right to make medical choices for your partner in the event of his or her incapacitation.

Why don't you guys demand the same equality from the moslem countries?

Why do you think they aren't?

If you guys really want equality why do you do it in the West?

Because that's where they live, dumbass. Same reason why you spent more time dealing with the laws where you live than what they are in Bumbfuckistan.

You are mistaken.

You're in outer space. The same president that's bombed twice as many Mulsim countries as Bush, the same president that tripled forces in Afghanistan over Bush levels - and arranged them to stay there through two full terms of Jeb or Hillary - the same president that joked about murdering American kids right after murdering American kids with drones, the same president that demanded the right to throw American citizens in military prisons without trial...wanted to 'cut and run from Iraq' cuz he was too liberal?

Are you out of your fucking mind?