God sets the idea, as amplified by Jesus, that He recognizes marriage only between a male and female. Yet even He recognized the many wives of King Solomon, a situation that many find revolting. (lest we allow Mormon plural marriage today)
I observe the real Sabbath, the one in the Bible, not the one imposed by the Roman Church many centuries later on Christianity. Those who observed Sunday as a day of rest (gradually becoming the hour of rest), did not hesitate to use the armed agents of the State to force stores to be closed on Sunday for many generations. Would anyone here want to give me the same power of the State to force stores to close on my day of rest? I don't think so.
A good start on this topic is to consider what aspects of the present tax system allow government to define things that government should not be defining. Who my heirs are should be none of government's business, except they need to know so proper taxes can be levied. Who my wife is none of government's business either! We only have to know so we can properly exempt some income from taxation.
The Fair Tax leads us away from this mess and towards more liberty and privacy. (so a caution here in how the “prebate” is structured!)
This is a wonderful topic for as we wrestle with it, the concepts of liberty can once again be brought to the fore and back into the public’s conscious. (hey! the left is always talking about “consciousness raising”! Let's do some of our own.)
The history of the Mormons presents a perfect example of how the "relatively mild laws"* excuse fails. Once the power of the State takes a side, brutality up to and including unpunished lynching may readily be brought to bear against the disfavored group.
*The other alternative -- "social restrictions" -- does not fall within the scope of this debate, unless and until agitators translate them into law so that they can palm off onto the State the work of upholding them.Those who observed Sunday as a day of rest (gradually becoming the hour of rest), did not hesitate to use the armed agents of the State to force stores to be closed on Sunday for many generations. Would anyone here want to give me the same power of the State to force stores to close on my day of rest? I don't think so.
And, I gather, you do not want any such power. If so, that speaks well of your wisdom and morality, and shows that you have what it takes to lead by persuasion and example. Once the State is called upon, those qualities decay in the same way, and for the same reason, that the work ethic of habitual welfare dependents does.
The Fair Tax leads us away from this mess and towards more liberty and privacy. (so a caution here in how the "prebate" is structured!)
A simple per capita prebate avoids most potential problems, since it requires only information (how many citizens live where) that is legitimately needed for electoral purposes and is generally obvious public knowledge anyway.