Politics IS Religion

Let's face it, Politics in the U.S. is no longer about the secular world. It's all about religion.

Recall, now, that I define a religion as a set of dogmatic behaviors. Defining Politics as religion may be stretching this definition a bit, but if you consider the fact you can describe the behaviors of a conservative as well as a liberal within a fairly narrow boundary for each, and that each side is moving to push their people to abide within those boundaries, and that the boundaries are becoming even more restrictive, politics become less about government and the running thereof and more about religion.

There is definitely a belief system involved here. It's already been pretty conclusively proven that neither extreme of the political spectrum (conservative and liberal) has ANY answers. They've moved out of range of actually solving any problems with the party planks they've acquired over the last couple of decades. When people believe in things that can't really happen, you start moving into the realm of religion as well. Though beliefs don't qualify something as a religion in my book (Behaviors do, remember), they definitely have the same area code. And when those beliefs move into the impossible (or extremely improbable), then we're looking at shared zip codes.

Another reason why politics is a religion is because of the reason the effort is put into it. And the reason is secular power. Though one could argue that there is no religious basis for politics, that it's all about social issues and the way governments run, let's look at it from the flip side. Organized religions are all about secular power. They brow-beat their followers with dogmatic platforms demanding compliance to a certain behavioral code. Belief is only a by-product and, in the end, isn't really necessary. Provided the followers go through the motions and say the right things, they "believe" in the eyes of others, whether they actually do or not. Further, while religions have long since insinuated themselves into social issues, more and more lately they've inserted themselves into how governments run as well. The language of government is fraught with religious symbolism and ideology.

All of this describes a political rally, although I'm inclined to say that at a political rally, the followers are far more likely to believe in their nonsense than someone in a church.

And what that nonsense has the same impact: That is to say regardless of who's in power, nothing really changes. The progressives try to move forward while the conservatives try to move backward. There may be some movement at times while one or the other is in "power", but the fact remains that as much as the progressives move forward while in power, the conservatives move backward. Like a religion, it doesn't matter what you believe politically because the end result is always the same - nothing changes, no one new is converted, no one who believes stops believing.

Finally, and most telling of them all, is the fact that politics includes violence against others to force them to "behave" the same way as those inflicting the violence. Religion is fraught with examples of coerced conversions. Politics is fraught with the same thing.

Pundits exhort their rabid fans in vague terms (which in reality can only be interpreted one way) to go out and save the country from the bad guys (who are invariable the politically polar opposite of them). The violent imagery involved in these exhortations is subtle, but apparent to those who have a discerning eye or are too simple-minded to understand that the images aren't meant to be taken literally. While cause and effect isn't always linear, the fact remains that political rhetoric, passing off politics as a religion that is to be followed with no questions and no resistance and to call those who don't the enemy who should be "targeted", is widespread and that people have died who were targeted because of their differing political ideology.

This puts politics down there with religion. The only difference I can see is that unlike religion, with politics, the people vote for who their gods will be.