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.

The woman who was actually in charge of determinations when most of this was going was in now running the ObamaCare division and received $100,000 in bonuses for her past work at the IRS.

I stopped posting on SSM because I thought we'd finally and conclusively and persuasively won the argument.

/sarcasm

Common Core is so great that it has to be federally mandated!

I think you're totally missing my point.

I'm not trying to debate whether or not Keynes being a homosexual mattered to his worldview or whether he was gay, why exactly he didn't have any children etc.

I'm talking about the general field of debate.  The lefts reaction to Ferguson's comments wasn't to engage the topic or the facts but to deem the whole affair off limits, homophobia etc.

Our media is a mix of palace guards and palace eunuchs.

I'm fine having a rational debate about it, people including more facts and discussing the whole thing.  Ferguson got several things wrong but his abject apology wasn't really because (it seems to me anyway) that he got some details wrong but because he'd offended politically correct sensibilities regarding homosexuality.  It's one thing to claim that Keynes childlessness (heavily influenced by his homosexuality) affected his world view and then debate the point but it's something entirely different to consider the question itself homophobia and improper and beyond the pale.

I thought the actual point of the Keynes thread wasn't whether being childless (because he was gay and married very late in life) affected his economics theories and world view but rather whether or not mentioning these things - or wondering if they influenced him - was beyond the pale because it's verboten to mention homosexuality in any incidental unflattering light.

Isn't this tantamount to an admission that SSM is absolutely not a question of rights?  If it were then you're essentially saying that you want your rights but don't care about the rights of others.

And I'm supposed to be the bigot.

Good question - so why in California have the SSM proponents fought tooth and nail over the definition of a word when they already had civil unions?

If gay marriage is some sort of triumph of bourgeois values then explain to me the rash of lawsuits - directed both from the state and individuals - aimed at pushing people out of the public square or forcing them to conform to progressive notions of "tolerance" (e.g., embracing) that seem to get worse wherever gay marriage is legalized (see also the European and Canadian experience in this regard)?

The left has been on a long march through the institutions.  The family is the last one they really need to finish the job.

From the "sexual revolution", to the Great Society and feminism (and most progressive efforts) the family - particularly in black and poor communities - has been largely destroyed.  SSM is just one piece of this larger effort - SSM hasn't spearheaded this trend and it's not the last straw but it's part of the composite effort.

Charles Murray looks at the growing cultural disparity between Bellevue and Fishtown and the destruction of traditional bourgeois values in society (still mostly practiced by Bellevue and abandoned by Fishtown) which produce prosperity and wonders why Bellevue doesn't preach what they practice.  This should be no surprise in a culture where it is anathema to stand for traditional values (which are racist, bigoted, unfair, and created by rich white people).

You can try to argue that SSM is similar enough to marriage that it doesn't change the institution but rather mimics or participates in it but legally and culturally this isn't what's happening - you are indeed redefining something and insisting that only your redefinition is valid.

The eternal debate about whether SSM is the same as traditional marriage will rage on but what is indisputable is:

* The SSM movement serves progressives ends of attacking the family culturally and legally (this is essentially the same thing with the erasing of the importance of gender).

* The SSM movement serves progressive ends in attacking religious liberty

* The SSM movement serves progressive ends in pushing people out of the public square

How about Glopzilla?