In Iraq, a “mixed marriage” is one between a Shia and a Sunni. How progressive can you get?

Not anywhere close to sarcasm. The comments were aimed at the US and other Western governments.

Iraq has its own set of problems and I don’t really know enough about them to say if state intervention in marriage is a price worth paying to try and fix them, but I do know enough about Western governments to say they should stay the heck out of marriage.

For the majority to use financial incentives to tell consenting adults how they ought to live their life is patronising and insultung. It is also a tyranny of the majority.

I hope this is sarcasm. The US tax code awards financial benefits to those of us who are allowed to marry, and do. What is the differance between that and the Iraqi gifts?

This is a very ignorant statement. It’s obvious that you are and were just not paying attention. So the US founded a few hundred years ago is responsible for a 1400 schism in the Muslim faith?

I think you misunderstand slightly. It’s not that the US caused the schism, but rather that extremists on both sides (and often from neighbouring nations) used the invasion as a pretext to stage attacks against the populace to drudge up the old hatreds. The US did not have caused them, and not even responsible for the flare up of sectarian fighting in the country, but the invasion was the catalyst.

capitalism, aka. free markets

The two are not synonymous. “Capitalism” refers to the private ownership of items which are used primarily as a means of producing other items, or may also be used imprecisely to mean “state capitalism,” which is the use of government to grant monopoly status and taxpayer-funded subsidies to favored industries (and is what I meant above by “vulgar capitalism”). “Free markets” refers to allowing the sale, purchase, and exchange of goods, services, and other products to which individuals ascribe value without the introduction of artificial barriers or restrictions by the government. Note in particular that free markets and state capitalism are polar opposites. Also, while free-marketers are a minority among socialists (and even among non-state socialists), free markets are equally compatible with both non-state capitalism and non-state socialism.