The Church of the Divine and Infallible State

The Concept of Statolatry, Simplified

Full Disclosure: This was originally published as a guest spot on The Scuttlebutt back when it was on hosted on The Hashtag. Like a fine wine, I believe it has aged very well, especially in light of the events of recent days, and how some people are responding to them. I’ll be throwing in recent images as a form of validation of that assertion.

Welcome to the Guest Basement. Beers are in the cooler, ice is in the chest freezer, and the bar is in the corner. Cokes are in the corner. The dartboard is regulation height. Feel free to fling a few. I know I’m about to, because I’m gonna talk about the Church of Statism, and the mindset of both the priesthood, and the laity.

I’ve concluded that this is the best possible metaphor to illustrate how and why believers both inside and outside the mechanism of the State engage in Doublethink so powerful it enables them to ignore reality outright, and feel wonderful about it and how they convince themselves that anyone attempting to convince them otherwise is not merely mistaken, but evil.

Let’s start with the priesthood, the insiders, the bureaucrats at every level. However they become a part of they machine, whether it was for the benefits, the job security or the hope of “making a difference,” slowly, a change overcomes them. They adopt a new worldview.

One of two things happen. Either they conclude they’re going to make no practical difference at all, but are nearly impossible to fire, and spend the rest of their career mailing it in, or, they “Get Religion.” They come to see the Holy State as a great and beautiful machine, lovingly crafted by the Wisest of the Wise, to manufacture the most good possible in a bad world. It is the only good that matters, because it, at least in their minds, works for the good of all. If the machine is imperfect, if are flaws, if the machine occasionally, or not so occasionally, grinds people into paste, this is acceptable in pursuit of the Holy Greater Good. They see it Great Machine of the State as the One True Source of all things worth having, and they conflate, wholesale, the State with civilization itself.

Give yourself a minute to wrap your head around this worldview, and its implications. If you buy in, then the State is Civilization, and anything that isn’t the state, is either anarchy, or an organized attempt destroy civilization. If you tell them the State should not be involved with providing something or controlling something, then their default reaction is to assume that your intent is that it should not be provided to anyone whatsoever, or controlled by anything, or anyone. This is the foundation of the fallacious “who will build the roads,” argument.

Oh, but wait! There’s more! If the State is civilization and civilization is the State, then whatever the State requires, or claims to require, is inherently necessary for the survival of civilization, and the State is therefore entitled to it by default. In doing so, they adopt the perspective that any dissent, any criticism of how the State functions, of what the state claims to require to of the populace, and especially any active non-compliance, AKA any attack upon the Great Machine, to be an attack on human civilization, and/or its ability to continue to improve itself. Of course, if they can even tangentially link this fallacious argument to some impact upon a protected class of people they will demonize it as some kind of “-ism.” By this logic:

Social welfare programs should be more efficient, and some of them eliminated outright = “You want to get rid of any kind of safety net, and don’t care if people die, ESPECIALLY ‘People of Color!’”

Taxes should be reduced and spending curtailed = “You don’t believe in roads, want people to die without adequate health care, and think people should just ‘shrug off’ natural disasters.”

The Department of Education fails to achieve ANY of the purposes for which it was created = “You want our kids from learning science, and finding out how babies are made!”

Gun control doesn’t prevent murders and is a bad idea long term = “You want kids to die in school shootings and to arm terrorists!”

The list goes on and on, and goes a good distance toward explaining the otherwise incomprehensible level of rage and hatred certain officials seem to have toward anyone who isn’t part of their “church,” either as a clergy, or as a parishioner. As far as they’re concerned you are a drooling, insane barbarian, howling at the gates with fire and sword to put an end to everything worth having.

If you think the Church of the Holy State is insane within the priesthood, wait until you see the laity. The parishioners. You see for the True Believers at this level, it’s not a church. It’s a CULT. Like all cults, it starts out innocently enough. Dissatisfaction with life, worry about the future, fear about your financial and physical security are a part of most people’s lives.

Then the priesthood of the Church of the Holy State, and their missionaries, the legacy media, get to work making promises, and stoking fears. Soon you’ve got someone who’s terrified of everything except the Holy State, and is willing to surrender anything to feel protected by it, despite multiple SCOTUS opinions stating outright that it is under no obligation to do so.

That would be bad enough, but once they see the State as their only hope of security, any obstacle your freedoms might represent to the State’s perceived ability to provide it are instantly intolerable to them. This is how you end up with the Patriot Act, gun bans, mandatory minimum sentences for drug possession, and secret no-fly lists that you can’t see, and can’t appeal once you become aware of them. All the while, they listen to the seductive whisper, “Just one more freedom surrendered, just one more percentage taxed on your vehicle and gasoline, one more food you can’t eat any more, or can’t afford to eat, and you’ll be safe from the latest scary disease, and those scary evil people. This time we totally pinkie-swear.”

Once it’s their church, their One True Source of physical and emotional security and well-being, then they’re fully invested, and thoroughly brainwashed. Then they’re ready to be terrified of anyone the State identifies as a problem, to overlook any flaw, to react to any questioning of the State’s Holy Good Intentions, as “conspiracy theories,” and “misinformation,” and most recently, “foreign disinformation.” Only those acting outside of the State are capable of conspiracies, collusion, and criminal behavior.

Once they’ve crossed that threshold, they will break any bond, abandon any friendship, or familial tie in order to maintain the purity of their worldview, and to label them with the very darkest of emotionally loaded epithets in order to justify it. Not satisfied with this, they will threaten to ostracize anyone not willing to do the same with their own circle of friends using the same emotional extortion.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a little something. Observe this comparison to Bonewits' Cult Danger Evaluation Frame to the actions of the Statist Left. Bear in mind, I could easily do the same with the crazies on the right as well.

Internal Control: Amount of internal political and social power exercised by leader(s) over members; lack of clearly defined organizational rights for members: Superdelegates, re-definition of language to facilitate vilification of critics, narrowing of party platform.

External Control: Amount of external political and social influence desired or obtained; emphasis on directing members’ external political and social behavior: Shaming the possession of friends with differing views (often to the point of threats of ostracism), admonitions to only date within the Cult, the Great Unfriending of the last six years or so, social media platforms silencing dissent (including news items later determined to be absolutely truthful), restaurants and businesses picketed and/or burned to the ground for the political stances of the owner...

Wisdom/Knowledge Claimed by leader(s); amount of infallibility declared or implied about decisions or doctrinal/scriptural interpretations; number and degree of unverified and/or unverifiable credentials claimed: People touting socialism who've never experienced it firsthand, politicians pretending a degree in one field magically grants them expertise in any subject, "Follow the Science," when the science was unclear or intentionally buried for political expedience, or ignored outright them it might inconvenience the movement.

Wisdom/Knowledge Credited to leader(s) by members; amount of trust in decisions or doctrinal/scriptural interpretations made by leader(s); amount of hostility by members towards internal or external critics and/or towards verification efforts: See above. How many stories that we're labeled conspiracy theories were proven in the last three years, and how many narratives fell like wheat from the moment that they received serious questions.

Dogma: Rigidity of reality concepts taught; amount of doctrinal inflexibility or “fundamentalism.": One word. "Intersectionality." The idea that if you don't enthusiastically support the entire slate of leftist causes, and THEIR individual dogmas, that you aren't entitled to call yourself a feminist, LGBTQ, a supporter of minority rights, a liberal, or even a woman.

Recruiting: Emphasis put on attracting new members; amount of proselytizing; requirement for all members to bring in new ones: Articles instructing you on how to debate at your family's Thanksgiving dinner, college political groups, and the outright violent suppression of dissenting groups.

Front Groups: Number of subsidiary groups using different names from that of main group, especially when connections are hidden: ACORN, BLM (The ORG. not the movement), AFL/CIO, Etc.

Wealth: Amount of money and/or property desired or obtained by group; emphasis on members’ donations; economic lifestyle of leader(s) compared to ordinary members: Millionaires and billionaires far beyond the reach of the consequences of their policies claiming to represent the impoverished. BLM harvesting nearly 80 million dollars and walking away with most of it, and giving the rest to a party that provides only lip service in return.

Sexual Manipulation of members by leader(s) of groups; amount of control exercised over sexuality of members in terms of sexual orientation, behavior, and/or choice of partners: Covered above but let's add being labeled some flavor of "-ist" for not wanting to sleep with someone they're not attracted to.

Sexual Favoritism: Advancement or preferential treatment dependent upon sexual activity with the leader(s) of groups: Kennedy, Clinton, Kamala Harris...

Censorship: Amount of control over members’ access to outside opinions on group, its doctrines or leader(s): I'm not sure where to BEGIN on this. Facebook and Twitter, bans and suspensions, "fact checks" that do nothing of the sort, ANTIFA and other domestic terrorist groups assaulting citizens for openly speaking out in public, colleges opening diversity Gestapo offices to suppress students and professors alike, a press that even Dan Rather pulled the eject lever on, cancel culture, and "deplatforming."

Isolation: Amount of effort to keep members from communicating with non-members, including family, friends and lovers: See AGAIN The Great Unfriending, the massive use of in-group/out-group rhetoric, and the othering of any dissenters as a subhuman "those people," a "Basket of Deplorables," and so on.

Paranoia: Amount of fear concerning real or imagined enemies; exaggeration of perceived power of opponents; prevalence of conspiracy theories: See Hillary's entire 2016 campaign with its dire warnings of "literally Hitler," roving gangs of armed fascists rounding up Muslims, immigrants, and LGBTQ, and placing them in concentration camps. See the Russian Collusion Hoax and the Steele Dossier.

Grimness: Amount of disapproval concerning jokes about the group, its doctrines or its leader(s): See the near death of comedy, cancel culture, etc. See also the regular rhetoric of killing anyone who opposes them and the clear belief that they would be "asking for it."

Surrender of Will: Amount of emphasis on members not having to be responsible for personal decisions; degree of individual disempowerment created by the group, its doctrines or its leader(s): an entire political narrative built around a sense of Victimhood, justifying just about anything, including rioting and murder, paired with the doublethink that their opponents are responsible for the acts of their ancestors.

Hypocrisy: amount of approval for actions which the group officially considers immoral or unethical, when done by or for the group, its doctrines or leader(s); willingness to violate the group’s declared principles for political, psychological, social, economic, military, or other gain: See Monica Lewinsky slut-shamed, Jennifer Flowers painted as a "desperate stalker," Beto's DWI, and subsequent cover-up, the entire DNC overlooking Harvey Weinstein's open secret, anti-gun politicians with armed security, and last, but not least Epstein and his many crimes while being the darling of DNC fundraisers and politicians alike (and the ongoing cover-up thereof). I could go on for hours about how nobody was going to take the “Trump Vaccine” until it was magically cured of all possible risk of danger by simply changing presidential administrations.

All this, because the State cannot possibly be wrong. If this in any way sounds historically familiar to you, you may have read Judgment in Moscow, by Vladimir Bukovsky, or Gulag Archipelago, by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn. Perhaps one day we’ll properly teach civics again. Until then, I foresee a fine new business opportunity in deprogramming former cultists.

With that, I wish you good luck, clear thinking, dry powder, and the favor of whatever divinity you have a thing for.

Sincerely,

Scott “Voodoo” Reichek