{"id":10386,"date":"2011-09-04T12:58:15","date_gmt":"2011-09-04T12:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2011\/09\/04\/theocracy-and-the-left\/"},"modified":"2011-09-04T12:58:15","modified_gmt":"2011-09-04T12:58:15","slug":"theocracy-and-the-left","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2011\/09\/04\/theocracy-and-the-left\/","title":{"rendered":"Theocracy and the Left"},"content":{"rendered":"
I wrote<\/a>, "To reverse the scriptural phrase, they will swallow the imaginary gnat of 'theocracy' while straining at the all-too-real camel of Islamo-terrorism." <\/span><\/div>\n
 <\/span><\/div>\n
A reader comments, "I'm not so sure it's gullibility as much as flat-out dishonesty half the time. Honestly, when I first heard the 'Dominionist' rumblings again, I thought it was comedy. As in, someone was making a joke, not that this was a serious charge. Imagine my surprise."<\/span><\/div>\n

It is indeed dishonesty and we can expect more of it as Perry and Bachmann gain traction.  The Left will trot out the same old tired exaggerations and lies that they deployed during the Bush administration.  So it is appropriate that I repost  the following 2005 entry from the old blog.<\/span><\/p>\n

………………<\/span><\/p>\n

Serious thinkers, those who aim at the truth, do not engage in linguistic sleight-of-hand. This is a tactic of ideologues and polemicists, whose goal is not truth but power. So my advice to all contenders in the political arena who want to be taken seriously as serious thinkers is that they avoid trying to advance their positions by way of the misuse of language. One sort of misuse is verbal inflation: one takes a word with a fixed specific meaning and inflates it to cover phenomena to which it cannot legitimately be applied. A good recent example is the loose and irresponsible use of the word 'theocracy.' I should think that this term counts as a pejorative for most all of us, whether on the Left or the Right. Very few of us want a theocracy. But to proceed further, we need a definition. <\/span><\/p>\n

Theocracy is a form of government in which the rulers are identical to the leaders of the dominant religion, and  governmental policies are either identical to or strongly influenced by the principles of the majority religion.  The idea is much better conveyed by 'ecclesiocracy' since 'theocracy' is something of a misnomer inasmuch as God himself does not rule in any so-called theocracy.  But the word is in use and we are stuck with it.  In a theocracy, the government claims to rule on behalf of God or a  higher power, as specified by the religion in question.<\/span><\/p>\n

This definition of 'theocracy' is clear enough and comports well with standard usage. In light of it, those who refer to the Bush administration as 'theocratic' are clearly inflating and misusing the term. They are trying to win the debate by changing the rules of the debate in midstream. Among these rules is one that forbids tampering with the neutral terminology in which alone a reasonable debate can be conducted.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let us see if we can be clear about some elementary points. A  conservative is not the same as a theist. A theist is not the same as a Christian. A Christian is not the same as a fundamentalist. A theist is not the same as theocrat.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lefties need to be careful about their identity theories. Theist =  theocrat<\/em> is perhaps not as outrageous as Bush = Hitler<\/em>, but just as false.<\/span><\/p>\n

Are there advocates of theocracy here in the USA? Yes. Do they pose any sort of threat? Not that I can see.  But lefties don't care about truth; they care about winning.  And they will do anything to win.  The end justifies the means.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote, "To reverse the scriptural phrase, they will swallow the imaginary gnat of 'theocracy' while straining at the all-too-real camel of Islamo-terrorism."   A reader comments, "I'm not so sure it's gullibility as much as flat-out dishonesty half the time. Honestly, when I first heard the 'Dominionist' rumblings again, I thought it was comedy. … Continue reading “Theocracy and the Left”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10386\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}