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.
Since that liberty includes the freedom to speak in the public square, I hope to persuade others that there indeed are long term benefits to observing the Sabbath. Even so, I realize that each person must accept this truth as a matter of free will.
This is why it is essential that we get our children out of the government run indoctrination centers. Aside from their high costs, fewer and fewer are able to get away with teaching Biblical values. More and more, values that are hostile to those found in the Bible are advocated, and reinforced by peer pressure.
This also extends to both the accreditation apparatus, where a school must be given approval by the very libertine and progressive edu-crat establishment who firmly control the public school system.
Yes, liberalism in the modern progressive sense, is at war with Judeao-Christian values. Those who treasure and understand the later must take away every advantage their opposing forces have.
Happily, the present administration's high level of spending has scared a lot of nominal leftists. Maybe now is the best time in a generation to press for the case of smaller government. This worked for me, for in a conversation with an advocate of big government who got scared by the deficits, I remarked that being able to print an borrow an unlimited amount of money allows governments to go to a war that the public does not support. He almost jumped out of his chair, almost yelling, “that illegal war!”, by which he meant Bush and Iraq. I almost could not contain my laughter, for finally a big spending progressive saw the danger of big government.
It is time to restrain Leviathan, for even those who normally are glad to see the beast intervene for causes they cheer are getting nervous about the cost of feeding the beast.