Schori is still blind on her journey to Damascus.

The lepers and the blind were different too.  I guess Jesus shouldn't have healed them.

And aren't the poor just different?  So really there was no need for Jesus to command his disciples to care for them.

These quotes make it obvious that she holds herself as God, and that to her the Holy Spirit is the progressive liberal zeitgeist of multiculturalism.

I should have been more clear - there are examples of heretics being killed with the "blessing" of the church but this was not the norm.  There's this notion that the church regularly hunted down and executed heretics and witches and whoever else but this is false.  Certainly the church abused it's political secular and religious power at times but in general the church acted
as a moderating influence on secular authorities.

Your history is off.  Heretics were not killed - they were excommunicated. Killing of "witches" or "heretics" were driven by secular authorities and mobs - not religious institutions or authorities.  In fact the Church tried to moderate these impulses in the people.

Also, the Enlightenment did bring about more tolerance in some ways but it was also very bloody and brought other intolerances to prominence.

I'd chalk this up to a cultural shift - going on for a long time - that holds that disapproving of peoples personal lifestyle choices is "bad" (there are of course exceptions for liberal shibboleths like "bigots").

What does long bow mean in this context?

Except for liberal groups who were obviously just as political sailed through the process.  There was even one tea party group that got tired of waiting (for over a year) and re-applied using a liberal group name and were successfully processed in 3 weeks.

These groups are allowed to engage in some political activity though they are not allowed to support specific candidates (they can support ideological positions).  But the real issue is that the rules were not evenly applied.  It's obvious that the IRS wasn't trying to generally weed out groups that were 'too' political - they were specifically targeting conservative groups.  It should also be noted that Obama's own campaign organization (OFA) sailed through the same process.

I'll agree with Farhad Manjoo - the government shouldn't do any profiling whatsoever.  Of course this means that we have to dismantle the entire tax code as not to profile rich from poor or single from married or renting from home-owning.  The government wont be able to favor one group of citizens over any other group of citizens in any way - so no Social Security, Medicare, welfare handouts, state-funded boondoggles and all the rest of it.

So, I guess liberals really do believe in profiling - their entire system of government directed and engineered society is based on it.  The trick is to get profiled as one of the 'blessed' citizens.

Does this slate writer tear off all the labels of the food products in his pantry and refrigerator?  How dare he use labels and discriminate and profile! (shamelessly ripped off from Jonah Goldberg).

It's ridiculous to correlate peaceful political activity and general civic involvement with terrorism and criminal activity.

Janet Nepolitano also said that tea party groups were dangerous and a potential domestic threat (with no proof of course).

If there actually was a history of tea party groups committing acts of terror or documented tea party messages or propaganda calling for violence then the government would be smart to profile tea party types.  But if this were true then it would NOT be the IRS which would do the profiling and it wouldn't happen in their determinations for 501c status.  It would be a matter for law enforcement.

The IRS persecution of citizens was political chicanery pure and simple - there was no larger common or state interest at hand being served.

I think the more relevant question is whether or not Muslim immigrants in general do a sufficient job integrating with Western countries in which they choose to live.  I'd say it's more a clash of culture and civilizations than it is of religions.

Certainly there are many Muslim immigrants who do integrate well and there are even some Muslim countries with large populations which share traditional Western values (like Turkey).  However, there are a lot of Muslim immigrants who don't or don't want to integrate with their host countries and the host countries which follow a multicultural ethos are willing to sacrifice the liberty of it's people to appease the more radical elements of the Muslim immigrants.  It's gotten so bad now that some Muslim immigrants find they have settled in more radicalized communities in Europe than they left in the Middle East.

European nations should expect all immigrants to respect cultural values like tolerance and the freedoms of religion, speech, etc.  Host nations should not care if immigrants are offended by citizens.

I'd be fine with private "public" utilities and private fire fighters.

It's completely appropriate for countries to expect immigrants to integrate with the national culture.  Western societies are rightly open to a great deal of diversity in society based on the cultural values of freedom and liberty but these societies have for decades substituted multiculturalism for liberty and felt it wrong to expect immigrants to respect and integrate into local culture and basic freedoms have eroded in order not to offend immigrant sensibilities.

If Germany, or any other European nation, wishes to reverse this process (if that is indeed what's happening) I think it's a welcome change.  There are many Islamic communities that have built up in Europe which are antithetical to the traditional values of their host countries.  Mark Steyn speaks on this regularly.

If you like Lark Rise you'll also like Cranford (miniseries).

Cadfael (older but excellent, medieval monk solves mysteries)

Sherlock

Inspector Lynley Mysteries

Wallander

Battlestar Galactica (if you like scifi-ish shows and dystopian future stories)

The problem isn't the IRS - it's the reality - embodied by the tax code and other laws and bureaucracies - that most people want the government to favor some citizens over others and redistribute "justice".  We are less and less citizens and more and more patrons and clients to a royal court government.

So, in general I'd support getting rid of the IRS but this is a pipe dream and say that the real issue is changing the hearts and minds of the people first.  If the populace really supported dramatic tax code changes or abolishing the IRS then you'd see politicians pushing for it.  As much as we love to hate politicians they are a dark reflection of the will of the people.