Believe it or not, a Christian theocracy would actually be far more libertarian/small-gov than a democracy.
25 comments
I’ll leave the “not very much Liberty in your Hangout now, is there?” and “yes, because people actually want big government if they’re not wealthy and powerful in their own right” lines to others. Instead, I’ll ask:
I wonder what Liberty Hangout thinks would be the libertarian-ness of, say, a Norse theocracy, or a Hindu theocracy?
…and a certain group of Founding Fathers were fighting against a monarch who was the head of a state religion.
So we guess you fell asleep during History classes, eh…?!
"Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's" [Matthew 22:21, Mark 12:17, Luke 20:25]
ALSO
“My Kingdom is NOT of this world.” [John 18:36]
- JESUS OF NAZARETH
******
FINALLY
If one keeps Religion and State separate then both remain pure.
If one cares about a just government and faith focused on spiritual matters, keep both separate, lest earthly lusts and drive for earthly power perverts it.
Right!
And the Amish are a perfect example of this. Not much “government”, but micro-management of every single aspect of daily life one can possibly think of. Wanna get “shunned” and ex-communicated? Well, then tie your bonnet with an ever so slightly incorrect bow. Now, that’s what I call applied libertarianism.
Oh, they’d definitely be small-government economically, at least until they started assigning moral values to certain economic activities. Banking, tax collecting, and entertainment were long considered unsuitable jobs for Christians (at least in some parts of Europe) and those jobs were handed off to oppressed minorities. Who were then double-oppressed for having those jobs, even if it sometimes paid well enough to partially compensate for that. …And then called “greedy” for taking “immoral” jobs “just for the money” as if there was a whole lot in the way of choices. This is where the “greedy Jew” stereotype comes from, incidentally.
Socially, though? Big government. Real big.
You know where that whole church-state separation thing comes from, right?
Catholics were upset that their kids were being taught a Baptist prayer in school. I fear a theocracy would lddgislate prayer to the exact minute and the exact wording. And of course tge specific religion.
You think you would enjoy a theocracy because you only imagine your church setting the rules.
But imagine life in a theocracy where, say, the Mormons hzve complete control of the FDA. No coffee. No beer. No wine even for sacramental use.
Or Catholics fully own the FCC. No televangelists on any channel.
@Zinnia #92294
You've got an excellent point there, one that truly deserves examination. A great deal of the stereotypical characterization of Jews comes from the fact they were limited by law in Europe in how they could make a living. Often they were outright banned from competing with local craftsmen, traders, and labourers which as you pointed out are what is generally characterized as "honest" work. One notable and very explicit exception to this in many areas was usury lending, an already stigmatized and gradually criminalized profession that generates considerable hatred that is easy to scapegoat despite it's necessity which motivated a lot of pogroms. Incidentally this was also deeply insulting and considered sinful to shared teachings of Jewish and early Christian doctrine. Even today the very term "usury" lending has shifted from being a term for any loan that charges interest to specifically unreasonably high interest and predatory practices to make this historical trend sound more sinister.
A pretty diabolical scheme when you look at it: Making survival contingent on playing a role that while easily vilified and labelled as driven by greed and exploitation is a means to finance the local economy while placing the bulk of risk on the "villain" lender who could frankly be murdered at a whim erasing debts after successful businesses were established using loaned money that peasants with mercantile ambitions otherwise could not have dreamed of getting their hands on. The uneducated (i.e. virtually everybody outside politically invested religious and aristocratic circles) would likely know little and care less for the laws restricting Jewish business and see only what they perceive as immoral and skimming off the work of others similarly ignorant or willfully blind to how much their own economy relied on these investments.
If a venture failed a Jew ate the loss and being considered outsiders this is seen as no loss to the rest of the community. Those who generated a substantial enough immediate profit to quickly pay off their loan pushed the Jew right out of a newly strengthened local economy and made it appear an achievement of the community keeping the financier an outsider not worth mentioning or easily painted a jealous leech who demanded a cut of an "honest" man's superior business. At the mid-point? Too many businesses with stable but not extraordinary enough incomes to fully outpace the interest on ongoing debts to a handful of people who don't appear to have other more "honest" sources of income? Well then it's time to break the "insidious" Jewish stranglehold and take it all back from their (in practice nonexistent) control. No debts to dead men and a self written local story of the hero underdogs vs an oppressive menace that wormed their way into every household bleeding them dry justifying their prejudice and leaving them free to enjoy their rightful bounty sweeping their need for the loans to begin with under the rug along with the bones and ashes.
A byproduct of those practices could still be seen centuries later when it was less restriction by hard law and more by community shunning/exclusion in that successful Jewish fortunes were not typically tied to local economies, so that when an area hit hard financial times wealthy or middle-class Jewish families (or simply comfortably above the poverty line) suffered less visible impact which in turn generated resentment and suspicion making them once again easy targets of ire by a design already meant to stymie them in the first place.
Which of the thousands of Christian denominations do you wanna base your theocracy on? Just a fair warning, if you try to arrest me for something like wearing mixed fabric or eating meat on a Friday, I will shoot you.
@checkmate #92316
Sorry, should have specified the SCOTUS case that established it as in our constitution, applying to our government, for legislative reals.
@Malingspann #92263
The “absentee leader,” will, of course, need mortal representatives until such time as He deigns to make an appearance. That may be a while.
Until then, these proxies’ word will hold the same weight as their god, naturally.
@JeanP #92282
The idea is that this “small” government has no power to intervene in the internal affairs of the member states, allowing state and local governments and the church to manage their citizenry in any way they see fit without outside interference. Should Texas, for instance, decide to make seeking an abortion a crime punishable by death for both doctor and mother, or that only white property owners in good standing with their local IFB church can vote or receive any form of state assistance, the federal government will have no say in the matter, and the only available options for those citizens of Texas affected by the ruling are to tolerate the current state of affairs, or leave, assuming there’s anywhere else that isn’t a miserable, grinding, ass-backwards shithole. Each state is essentially it’s own country, with virtually no oversight.
It’s the Articles of Confederation all over again. If they get their way, the US will become a collection of balkanized, warring theocratic states. That’s the endgame. And there’s plenty of other nations that would gleefully help it along.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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