The Santorum Theocracy

In 1940, noted science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein's short novel "...if this goes on" was first published. The story was set in a future theocratic American society ruled by a "Prophet." The first of these "Prophets" was Nehemiah Scudder, a backwoods preacher elected to the Presidency in 2012. No elections were held in 2016, the Constitution having been disposed of in the meantime.

Perhaps equating Rick Santorum with Nehemiah Scudder is a bit harsh. He's no backwoods preacher, after all. He's a big government (voted for No Child Left Behind), big spending (voted twice for Congressional pay raises, voted to increase the national debt limit five times and voted for the Bridge to Nowhere), liberal (opposed right to work legislation and repeal of Davis-Bacon, voted for the prescription drug entitlement), buddy of Wall Street (supported the airline bailouts), but he's no backwoods preacher.

He's smooth and articulate as well, but no friend of smaller government. Watch as former New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano exposes big-government Rick. This quote is particularly telling.

One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a libertarianish right. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, and that we shouldn't get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn't get involved in cultural issues. That is not how traditional conservatives view the world. There is no such society that I am aware of, where we've had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.

I guess by his standards, Ronald Reagan was no traditional conservative. And apparently Rick's not too sharp on American history either.



Even though Rick Santorum is no backwoods preacher, he has shown numerous disturbing tendencies of a Nehemiah Scudder sort, considered in the light of Heinlein's excellent tale. ¹

In 1996, he voted for the anti-gun Lautenberg Amendment to Federally strip citizens of gun rights if they are convicted of certain misdemeanors, and he voted with gun-controlling Democrats Dianne Fienstein and Frank Lautenberg to mandate locks on handguns in 2005. He crossed the aisle again to work with Hillary Clinton to ban "inappropriate material" in video games.

He voted for the USA PATRIOT Act, which granted government the right to spy on its citizens, and for the growth of the security state by the creation of the massive, bureaucratic Department of Homeland Security and the porno-scanning Transportation Security Administration. He has stated he supports the National Defense Authorization Act, which allows for the detention of American citizens without trial.

He advocates sodomy laws to imprison homosexuals, the right of states to outlaw birth control, and supports racial profiling.

His bellicosity toward other countries is apparent in his advocacy for a trade war with China, his support for assassinating foreign scientists, and his stated willingness to bomb Iran absent any aggressive acts on their part.

That he was the most lobbied member of Congress and made the list of the most corrupt members of Congress is just icing on the cake. There are several other, more detailed reviews of Rick Santorum's theocratic, big-government tendencies, including this one from RedState and this one from Politico.

Before we leave Prophet Rick, let me share two more fascinating quotes.

Don’t give me this idea — I hear this: ‘Oh, you’re a moralist. You’re trying to impose your values.’ Everybody’s trying to impose their values. That’s what America’s about.

Government needs to be big if people don't order their lives correctly.

Ordered correctly according to whom, Rick?

...and that's all I have to say about that.

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¹ The short novel was was revised and expanded for inclusion in the 1953 collection Revolt in 2100, later combined with Methuselah's Children and released in paperback in 1998. It's available on Amazon, and highly recommended by this Tireless Agorist.