Column by Paul Bonneau.
Exclusive to STR
I was reading an article [4] about Roger Williams. The more I learn about him, the more impressed I become.
It seems that Williams was concerned with separating church and state, which the author obviously agrees with. However, I wonder if it ever occurred to either of them that church and state might be inherently inseparable? If government is itself a form of religion, as it increasingly appears to be, then talking about “separating church from state” is like talking about “separating church from church” or “separating church from itself”! Can’t be done . . . .
I searched for the phrase “government religion” and found remarkably little about it; most hits seemed to be articles in which government and religion were used as distinct concepts, or that were pleas to maintain the separation of the two. But surely it must be dawning on a lot of people by now, how similar they really are? At what point does “similar” become “identical”?
To have a religion, there must be some kind of Bible or Torah, and the Government Religion has one--the US Constitution--along with supporting documents (call them Sunnah or Talmud) such as the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, and state constitutions. Like the Bible, they are held in reverence, and simultaneously ignored in deed.
A religion has priests of some sort, in a hierarchy; the Government Religion has that, too--judges up to the Supreme Court, along with acolytes we know as media talking heads in support of the Government Religion. Think of them all as explainers of the dogma.
Then of course there are the adherents. Lots of those around here, essentially everyone who is not an anarchist or voluntaryist. They support the One True Church with their money (the tithes we call taxes), and send their children to be sacrificed in modern-day Crusades in the Holy Land, which is the Land of Oil and Source of Power. Primarily though, they support the Church with their belief; they are so immersed in the belief system that they find it hard to think outside the boundaries of church worship. They go to “church” every Election Day.
Pretty much every religion has good ideas, such as the Golden Rule in Christianity. The Government Religion has that too; for example, the Second Amendment. Often these good ideas just get a lot of lip service.
Every religion has its dubious beliefs, such as the virgin birth. The Government Religion has that too; “representative government” is one of the more fanciful views, as if someone in power above you acts as your proxy, while doing the same for your opponents at the very same time. Government restrained by parchment is another howler. Yet another is the notion of being “protected” by the most murderous agency in human history.
“Making the world safe for democracy” and “nation building"--can one imagine a more obvious example of proselytizing and of conversion by the sword? Just another Islamic conquest . . . .
Of course, anarchists and voluntaryists are apostates from the Government Religion. Every religion has its apostates, right? We used to believe, but something opened our eyes to see what is really going on.
I’m finding it harder and harder to look at government as anything else but religion. No wonder we find it so difficult to get people to question it. As one wag put it, it is hard to reason someone out of a place he didn’t use reason to get into. That’s what it means, to have a faith. Most people are simply born and raised in the religion; the government schools are really Sunday schools.
Take your average Catholic or Jew or Baptist. He spends a lot of lip service on his professed religion, but when you examine his actions, it is clear his true allegiance is to the Government Religion. It is the center of his life; it is the first, if not the only solution he turns to for any problem he encounters.
We don’t have separation of church and state in this country, nor do we have religious tolerance. Instead, we have an established church, with all that implies. We will have religious tolerance only when Panarchy [5] becomes the norm.
Even panarchists typically get this point wrong, by the way, as they hold up the example of religious tolerance as an analogy that can be emulated in the political sphere. It never seems to occur to them (unless I missed it) that government and religion are not just like each other, but are in fact the very same thing.
Just as Roger Williams supported tolerance while simultaneously being very much a true believer, anyone can support Panarchy, which is complete tolerance. All one has to do is to give up imposing one’s will on others, and supporting those who do the same. In other words, a person must give up war and aggressive violence. He must fall away from the established church--the Government Religion--and rejoin the one he professes to believe in (assuming he has one).
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