The Nightmare At Church And State

I’m laying in bed, unable to sleep, watching television when a documentary about the civil unrest taking place in America comes on and discusses how protests and riots are practically all that’s seen on the news these days and how we are helpless to stop the violence and bloodshed being brutally handed out by the government’s morality security forces, the “Dark Angels.”

Wait. What?

The show continued on showing liberals and the members of the Frappucino Party waving protest signs claiming that the President is leading the country toward a theocracy and demanding an end to the burning of books, music and movies that might have the slightest tinge of impiety. Banners saying “Stop revising our history books with your lies” and “Kill the Bill” referring to the National Dress Code Bill, which would force everyone to adopt a uniform style from the 50’s…no the 1850’s, are displayed throughout the crowd.

Hold on, this has to be some kind of a …what the hell?

The narrator spoke...

“The death spiral toward full governmental control of individual freedoms began when the then President Jack Harroldsen became ill and died shortly after taking office in 2009, leaving his Vice President, the Reverend Billy Joe Hickom, a former governor of Kentucky and twice mayor of Higginsville, MO (Pop. 4,571) to assume the Presidency and institute some drastic changes on the political landscape.

Hickom had been a third-rate governor, noted for his many failures, incompetence and the ease at which he alienated everyone, even those in his own party and staff. The choice of Hickom as VP candidate was incredulous to any and all that knew of him. The media, in fact, had generously referred to him as a “half-wit legislator without an ounce of integrity nor common decency.” Yet President Harroldsen sought him out because he knew a loss with such a man on the ticket would drive the Democrats raving mad. He hadn’t counted on that aneurism months after the election that claimed his life and propelled this fundamentalist Christian whack-job to the highest position in the land.”

No friggin’ way! This is too crazy to be true. Isn’t it? This has got to be a Twilight Zone episode or something.

The narrator continued…

“What followed came to be known as the ‘Church Wars’ as the different denominations fought each other to become the official religion of the United States. It was a violent time in America where you were judged harshly, even shunned or worse, based on the church you attended. Eventually there was just one church, the newly formed American Church, which was also known as the Presbapticostal Church. Those who espoused religions other than Christianity were beaten and tortured until they either died or converted to the American Church. Atheists and agnostics found religion quickly, otherwise they simply disappeared never to be seen again.

Under the direction of President Hickom, a new law was passed with the help of his newly named Rebiblical Party, in which a systematized method of pay-as-you-go redemption was instituted. People with enough money could purchase "Salvation Points" whereas for the right price any penalties or infractions you incurred could be wiped clean with no lingering stigma attached to your reputation.

For example, Senator Hume Gifford, (R-NC) was charged 70 “Salvation Points” after being caught in a motel room with a young black male exotic dancer with whom the Senator claimed he was discussing the bible. According to sources involved in the investigation, the Senator was expounding on the concept of “turning the other cheek” in one sense of the phrase. He was released from custody and had his record expunged after he paid the fine (approximately $7.5 million dollars US).

Not everyone got off so easily. Farmers in rural Kentucky were strongly advised to keep their relationships with their livestock purely on a platonic basis after one of their own, Cyrus Dillon of Knob Lick, KY, was caught violating the code of morality with a sheep. He was summarily beheaded.”

Images flash on the screen of women and children crying as their husbands and fathers are chained and loaded like cattle onto waiting transport trucks. Their eyes portend a sense of hopelessness and defeat as the trucks head to an underground complex where prisoners of the “Dark Angels” are given the opportunity to make peace with God before they are individually executed for their crimes against the church. The new state cable channel televises the executions and replays them around the clock. “Subject Before God” boasts the highest ratings of any show currently showing on television, moreso than “The 700 Club” even.

At a break in the show the narrator reminds that citizens are obligated to report anyone that they believe is guilty of a crime of immorality and briefly goes over the reward point system that is established to encourage people to inform on their friends, teachers, co-workers and even family members. The greater the crime the greater the point values. Special accommodations are made in death penalty cases involving abortion, adultery and unrepentant homosexuality.

No way the radical religious right could ever take dominion over our country. Our free-thinking society would never stand for their takeover of our cherished institutions such as our schools, our government, our literature and arts, our entertainment media and news media, our science and medical research endeavors…and certainly not our sports teams!

As the narrator discusses the President’s mission to cleanse the country of the stain of secular humanism and how everyone who espouses those beliefs are to be considered agents of Satan whether they be politicians, writers, housewives, teachers, students, or other wrong-thinking intellectual opponents of America’s new model of society, the sounds of machine gun fire and rocket explosions nearly drown him out as the camera pans to show homes and buildings burning and the masses of charred bodies of the young and old smoldering in the streets.

Suddenly I am jolted awake from my slumber to find myself covered in sweat with my heart racing excitedly. Quickly I switch the TV to CNN and see Republicans spitting at congressmen, yelling “Baby Killer” on the House floor at fellow congressmen, and using all manner of hateful and vile language at Democratic members of Congress. There were those radical right-wing activists, those Tea Partiers, and they were calling President Obama things like Hitler, the Anti-Christ, and labelling him as being Marxist and Fascist and Communist and Socialist (because they can’t all be wrong, right?) and spreading their ignorant hatred and contempt for our elected leaders in every disgusting way imaginable, including violence and destruction of property…and all in the name of freedom from oppression.

Ohhhh….it was only a dream. Everything was back to normal again.

That’s the last time I ever go to bed watching the news.


"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."
- Sinclair Lewis