The Theocratic States of America
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Yes, you read the title correctly. We, the people of the United States of America, are effectively living in a theocracy. I can hear the screams from some people right now, no, this is not possible. Our country is nothing at all like the middle-eastern Theocracy’s. This is America, the home of free religion. No, sorry, we are the home of free religion if you are one of the “right” religions. That would be Christian, preferably protestant and a “white” denomination. Meaning one that has it’s primary origin and worshipers in Europe and North America. Preferably Northern Europe, really meaning Germany, Great Briton, or Scandinavia.
There has been a thread of Theocratic impulse running through the United States since before its founding. This impulse is why there was an explicit article in the Constitution separating the government from any state control of religion. The first amendment was not just about keeping Government out of Church business, which was enough of a disaster multiple times in Europe. But with the idea of keeping Churchs out of Government business an even worse a historically worse disaster.
Then over the last forty years or so, there has been a movement in the far-right wing of the Republican party to ignore the pesky little separation of church and state clause in the Constitution. It wasn’t the first clause that was casually or blatantly ignored, but it is probably the most important to the survival of our country as our country. They started with blatant lies that they were some kind of silent majority and worked from there, adding intrusive morality laws at the state and federal levels that were based entirely on their own view of morality. While at the same time ignoring those morals and the laws that they had put in place to enforce them on everyone else.
This slow takeover has left the country in the state where government officials and news media publically praise Fanatic Christian-Terrorists and their organizations. Where the distribution of propaganda, lies, misinformation, and blatant double-talk over nominal news networks of all supposed affiliations — left, right, or center. Where government officials can openly break the law in public in full view of hundreds if not thousands of people including supposed law enforcement and the reaction is, yea so, they have done worse. What are we…
