The Road To Theocracy

NoodleFood :

"One of the central topics of the pre-election discussion has been whether the US is at genuine risk of turning into a Christian theocracy. The purpose of this essay is to argue that the risk is real and significant, and to show how this relates to Dr. Leonard Peikoff's DIM hypothesis. Even though the 2006 mid-term elections will be over tomorrow, the underlying issue will remain important. And my hope is that even if a reader is not immediately convinced by my arguments, he or she will keep them in the back of their mind and remain on the lookout for additional evidence of the trends I will be describing.

First, for the purpose of this essay, I'm defining a 'theocracy' as a system of government in which the laws are justified based on their fidelity to religious principles -- as opposed to, say, the Objectivist understanding of individual rights.

Hence, a central feature of a theocracy is that there should be no separation of church and state. Quite the contrary -- if a government is enforcing laws based on religious grounds, then the state by its very nature must be using religious doctrine as a guiding principle. Conversely, a government which generally adheres to a policy of separation of church and state cannot be a theocracy. (Of course, such a government may be good or bad in other ways; e.g., a Communist dictatorship is not a theocracy, but is still based on bad principles of secular collectivism.)"