Entry tags:
Fuckin' Theocrats
How would you like to live in a country where your religion was dictated by the government? Where the government took all of its laws and mandates from the tenets of a very restrictive sect?
Whether you actually believed it or not, you would have to live by the strict tenets and conduct rules of that religion, including in private personal matters, or risk your job, your home, and even your life.
You could partake no entertainment that was not approved, and deemed "appropriate" for all upstanding citizens, including children. Anything deemed obscene or blasphemous would be censored or outright banned from the entire country.
If you were even believed to engage in certain sorts of activities, you could be executed by a mob of "believers", without even trial. Even if you had a trial and "proved" your innocence (no, they don't have to prove you guilty, you have to prove your innocence), you would be forever tainted by the accusation, and under suspicion until the day you died.
You would be suspect of moral turpitude if you did not make public demonstration of adherence to the dominant religion. Every utterance that you made would be suspect, and might get you sent to a re-indoctrination center, exorcism, revival or whatever that religion used to retrain and reinforce it's "one true way".
You very body would be viewed as not your own, but put to the service of that religion and it's life script. Any misgivings would be sternly admonished, and any rebellion or refusal would result in "legal" action against you and any who aided you.
Your relationships, from your parents, to your friends, to your romance, would be forced into the accepted mold. Your marriage would be set in stone, all of your actions would be scripted.
If you were a woman, your body would be seen as a vessel for the continuance of the ranks of the faithful, and as the "reward" to the man your were paired with. Your tasks in life would be proscribed according to the tenets of the religion, whether you were suited for them or not. Any rebellion could get you murdered.
Individuality would be suffocated under the veil of adherence to the religion. What you could read or learn would be controlled from the earliest age by the tenets of the religion. Children would not even learn of anything different, only the religion and its dogma.
Sound like Afghanistan? Maybe. But it's actually what the Radical Religious Right wants: Dominionism, Theonomy, or Christian Reconstructionism. Anyone with half a clue sees it for what it is - an attempt to overthrow the US Constitution and put a totalitarian theocracy in its place.
Think it's impossible? Google on things like "US Marriage Amendment", "US Abortion Law", "US Pornography Censorship", "Intelligent Design Science", "Public Ten Commandments", "US Internet Gambling Restriction", "War on Drugs". Thirty years ago the proponents of crap like this would have been laughed at, or slapped down hard. We have right wing pundits, talk show mouths, and bloggers (all of whom who have the gall to try to call themselves journalists) calling for the execution of gays, adulterers, and liberals (and non-"Christians"). These yammerheads would have been laughed out of the public arena 25 years ago, or put on an FBI watch list as dangerous subversives. Now these people are given mainstream media airtime, and are making traction in local councils and school boards!
By me, if you need a holy book or preacher to tell you right from wrong, you are morally deficient. If you feel the need to enact your religious dogma as law, you are a menace. I support the US Bill of Rights - All Ten Amendments!!!
Whether you actually believed it or not, you would have to live by the strict tenets and conduct rules of that religion, including in private personal matters, or risk your job, your home, and even your life.
You could partake no entertainment that was not approved, and deemed "appropriate" for all upstanding citizens, including children. Anything deemed obscene or blasphemous would be censored or outright banned from the entire country.
If you were even believed to engage in certain sorts of activities, you could be executed by a mob of "believers", without even trial. Even if you had a trial and "proved" your innocence (no, they don't have to prove you guilty, you have to prove your innocence), you would be forever tainted by the accusation, and under suspicion until the day you died.
You would be suspect of moral turpitude if you did not make public demonstration of adherence to the dominant religion. Every utterance that you made would be suspect, and might get you sent to a re-indoctrination center, exorcism, revival or whatever that religion used to retrain and reinforce it's "one true way".
You very body would be viewed as not your own, but put to the service of that religion and it's life script. Any misgivings would be sternly admonished, and any rebellion or refusal would result in "legal" action against you and any who aided you.
Your relationships, from your parents, to your friends, to your romance, would be forced into the accepted mold. Your marriage would be set in stone, all of your actions would be scripted.
If you were a woman, your body would be seen as a vessel for the continuance of the ranks of the faithful, and as the "reward" to the man your were paired with. Your tasks in life would be proscribed according to the tenets of the religion, whether you were suited for them or not. Any rebellion could get you murdered.
Individuality would be suffocated under the veil of adherence to the religion. What you could read or learn would be controlled from the earliest age by the tenets of the religion. Children would not even learn of anything different, only the religion and its dogma.
Sound like Afghanistan? Maybe. But it's actually what the Radical Religious Right wants: Dominionism, Theonomy, or Christian Reconstructionism. Anyone with half a clue sees it for what it is - an attempt to overthrow the US Constitution and put a totalitarian theocracy in its place.
Think it's impossible? Google on things like "US Marriage Amendment", "US Abortion Law", "US Pornography Censorship", "Intelligent Design Science", "Public Ten Commandments", "US Internet Gambling Restriction", "War on Drugs". Thirty years ago the proponents of crap like this would have been laughed at, or slapped down hard. We have right wing pundits, talk show mouths, and bloggers (all of whom who have the gall to try to call themselves journalists) calling for the execution of gays, adulterers, and liberals (and non-"Christians"). These yammerheads would have been laughed out of the public arena 25 years ago, or put on an FBI watch list as dangerous subversives. Now these people are given mainstream media airtime, and are making traction in local councils and school boards!
By me, if you need a holy book or preacher to tell you right from wrong, you are morally deficient. If you feel the need to enact your religious dogma as law, you are a menace. I support the US Bill of Rights - All Ten Amendments!!!