It came to me last night. It was terrifying.
Dahlia Lithwick alluded to it during her segment on MSNBC. But she didn’t say it all out loud. She merely said that the recent SCOTUS rulings had no basis in law, they were just predetermined outcomes in search of a rationale.
Then I realized what the outcomes were supposed to be.
What basis could SCOTUS be using for rulings that subjugate women’s rights, that permit unrestricted proliferation of weapons, that prevent governments from regulating environmental damage, that permit Christian prayers at school football games, that restrict the voting rights of “wrong” people?
Why would the justices be encouraging, even celebrating, the demise of American culture, the end of the longest secular democratic experiment on Earth?
Climate scientists have warned for decades that unmitigated continuance of our current lifestyles, our population growth, our cultural mores would almost certainly result in the extinction of life on the planet. But imagine for a moment that that’s not really a problem. Imagine instead that that’s the fulfillment of scripture. We’ve always thought that climate deniers were misinformed and deluded. But what if they’re not? What if the extinction of all life is really the objective?
It is no coincidence that all the conservative justices are Catholic.
The basis for the SCOTUS rulings is clearly not the Constitution, nor the body of law generated by hundreds of years of precedence. It’s the Bible.
But let’s be even more clear. It’s not the Torah, nor the Talmud. It’s not the Bible of the Gospels. It’s not the Christian Bible of compassion and hope and love. The justices are taking their cues from the Book of Revelations. It’s the End Times. It’s the Apocalypse. It’s the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
For years and years, the damn liberals have stood in the way. Tried to improve society. Tried to build a better future. Tried to make America a land of justice and compassion. Tried to put lipstick on the pig of sin. But finally, scripture will prevail. Jesus is coming. Let the smiting begin.
It all finally made sense. The perfect model of American society is not Camelot or Athens. It’s not Shangri-La or Valhalla.
It’s Jonestown.
Hallelujah. Welcome to Hell.