Piling On (Me) Part II

Next, Gene: I might as well cite his post in full because it's short:

It's Not the Crime, It's the Cover-up

In response to Chickpea Eater's first post, Dan writes:

The fact that an unelected radio-evangelist should play a decisive role in determining United States Senate committee chairmanships---and that so many senators' and congressmen's knees should buckle in fear of his wrath---is an unrationalizable step towards theocracy.

Now, let me substitute some words here about Ralph Neas of the People for the American Way and see how it sounds:

The fact that an unelected policy activist should play a decisive role in determining United States Senate committee chairmanships---and that so many senators' and congressmen's knees should buckle in fear of his wrath---is an unrationalizable step towards socialism.

Firstly and pre-emptively, Gene is barking up the wrong tree if thinks he's going to bait me into defending the influence on policy of unelected and unaccountable liberal pressure groups. As a matter of fact, I'm surprised he doesn't already know that I burn with a white-hot hatred for all (okay, that's a restricted quantifier) such groups on both the left and the right.

But that doesn't mean that I don't take issue with his framing of the comparison, let alone his suggestion that these are equivalent cases. First of all, People for the American Way doesn't advocate socialism and Gene knows that. If Gene doesn't think that Messrs. Dobson, Weyrich et al. advocate theocracy, in the literal sense of reciprocal religious control of government and government control of religion, I don't think he really gets the religious right at all. Cf. the attempt to harpoon Arlen Specter, which ended with an extorted and humiliating pledge of feudal loyalty to the president. (If not for the odiousness of his persecutors, I'd say that as blustering a coward as Specter deserved to get his balls clipped in just the way that he did.)

Moreover, even if People for the American Way (or some hypothetical interest group, if that helps) did push for state control of the means of industrial production, it would belong to the same political category as any other economic special interest. No so with the theocrats. The Constitution itself creates a specific prohibition on government endorsement of religion, and for good reason.