the US a theocracy?

How many times do we hear from conservatives to "love this country or get the hell out!"? 

Well, here's another perspective which makes a lot more sense.

Dear Conservatives: If You Want to Live in a Theocracy, Get the Hell Out of the United States

by Allen Clifton at Forward Progressives

The word “freedom” is something I don’t think most conservatives understand.  While it can be subjective at times (I wouldn’t recommend yelling “bomb” in an airport, for instance) it’s not really that difficult of a concept to grasp.  Especially when it comes to religion. 

See, in this country, religion is meant to be a private matter.  After all, isn’t that much simpler?  Even those who believe that this country was founded on Christianity can’t tell me what denomination we should follow.  Because the fact of the matter is, Catholics and Baptists (while both Christians) practice their faiths very differently. 

“Religious freedom,” as conservatives like to call it, means that privately we’re allowed to identify with whatever religion we want to identify with.  That doesn’t mean, however, that we’re allowed to discriminate against people just because we disagree with them. 

Our Constitution, as subjective as it might be, presents one undeniable fact – the words Christianity, Christian, God or Jesus Christ appear within its text not even once.

So, if the United States is indeed a “Christian nation,” our Founding Fathers sure as hell forgot to mention that.

But the truth of the matter is, conservatives don’t want to live in a nation based on liberty and freedom – they want to live in a theocracy.  They want a nation and government based on religion. 

And if that’s what they want then they need to get the hell out of the United States, because this isn’t a nation based on theocracy.  Our Founding Fathers made that perfectly clear when they wrote our First Amendment. 

If they want to practice whatever religion they want, in the privacy of their own homes (or churches), by all means go right ahead. But that doesn’t give them the right to force their narrow-minded religious beliefs on those who don’t agree with them. 

I always find it funny how these religious conservative radicals talk about how much they love this country, yet seem to hate the principles on which it was founded.  It’s especially ironic considering a large part of why this nation was founded in the first place was to escape religious persecution from a tyrannical form of government. 

But for some reason these people still seem to believe that restricting their “right” to discriminate against others based on their religion is somehow an infringement on their rights.  Basically, their attempts to infringe on another person’s rights are being infringed upon and that’s ticking them off. 

So to these people, I say – get the hell out.  If you think a government based on theocracy would be so wonderful, by all means, go check out Iran and Saudi Arabia then come back and tell me how “free” the people of those two nations are.

Because that’s what these people seem unable to understand.  The words “freedom” and “religion” are complete contradictions.  Religion is about control – not freedom.  You can’t say you support freedom, while trying to control people with your religion.  Because that doesn’t make any damn sense.

Allen Clifton is a native Texan who now lives in the Austin area. He has a degree in Political Science from Sam Houston State University. Allen is a co-founder of Forward Progressives and creator of the popular Right Off A Cliff column and Facebook page. Be sure to follow Allen on both Twitter and Facebook. 

Original.