I tried Googling but can’t find any reference to what you’re talking about in Indiana. And most American presidents have professed to be Christians, and the things you mention were illegal and/or unheard of for most of our history. Does that mean we’ve always been a theocracy? If traditional gender roles, or the absence of gay marriage, or whatever, makes a nation a theocracy, then the vast majority of all the nations that have ever existed on earth have been theocracies until contemporary times. That’s such a vague definition of “theocracy” as to be meaningless.
Sure you did, it was in the link I provided but here it is again: A State-by-State List of the Lies Abortion Doctors Are Forced to Tell Women
Like I said, take me to the pit and I’ll tell you what I really think if you.
I’m just glad in Atwood’s book, Canada remains a clear bastion of secular freedom.
I had looked at the Indiana section of that site, which lists 4 bullet points, none of which mention clergy. So I did a Ctrl-F on “clergy”. It’s under Idaho, and states “Recommends ‘talking with a member of the clergy’ before having an abortion.” They link to the booklet, in which the actual text reads “You may also benefit from talking to a trusted friend, family member, clergy, or counselor about the important decision you are facing.” I realize you consider that horrific, but how is that evidence that the United States of America has “a form of government in which God or a deity is recognized as the supreme civil ruler, the God’s or deity’s laws being interpreted by the ecclesiastical authorities?”
I think this is the thread where it was most discussed.
My goddess! You have stepped down from SDSAB Olympus to honor us!
I thought the book was about a Mormon takeover. Probably shoulda read it.
For those that are not fans of Atwood’s book I offer you grumpy Australian writer Helen Razer’s You Didn’t Need to be a ‘Clairvoyant’ Literary Star to Have Seen Trump Coming
Margaret Atwood grew up in Quebec, and when she reached adulthood (1960), married women in Quebec still had no legal power to sign a document. So methinks she knows something of which she speaks.
My mom (who also grew up in Quebec as, subsequently, did I) has also told me about crap like that - her not being able to arrange financing and such without the approval of her husband, my father.
It frankly pisses me off.
Atwood, though, bounced back and forth between Quebec and Ontario in her childhood, probably spending more formative time in the latter. She taught for a time at a Montreal university that eventually became Concordia, my own alma mater.
Go Stingers.
To answer the OP - 200 years ago, plausible, yes. Today or in the future? Absolutely not.
Huh. Thanks.
I guess I am less invested in the human race than some. If people didn’t feel like breeding, I’m pretty sure I’d accept our extinction with a shrug.
Errm, that one had zip to do with Trump.
The future is not always spot on the target you envision.
The USA, in my lifetime, abolished capital punishment and decriminalized abortion, and then reneged and took them back again. There are a number of countries that have shaken off the chains of tyranny, and then allowed them to return. Russia is leaning that way, Belarus even more strongly, and Uzbekistan substantially. Philipinos, who at home are more or less democratic, are perfectly happy to go abroad to authoritarian states like Brunei and Qatar, where they trade liberty for prosperity. Iranians and others have no interest in having western democracy imposed on them, to replace their Sharia.
The Germans in the 1930s, reeling after a decade of economic disaster, welcomed a strong central government that promised order. In short, it is not very hard to persuade people to give up social progress and follow any path that makes life decisions easier for them. Human rights is something that takes work to maintain, and people don’t always see it as worth the effort.
Two episodes in, I can’t say I’m loving it. It seems heavy-handed— like, “osmium oven mitts” heavy— and as a faithful member of the choir, I fear that the sermon being screamed into my ears will sound (at best) like faint clicks and buzzes to its intended audience.
You youngsters went remember these, and you might not believe them.
10 Things That American Women Could Not Do Before the 1970s
Granted, not all of these are earth-shaking (no need to point that out), but did you know that a woman could not get credit in get own name? That there was no “no-fault” divorce-- someone had to be blamed. And of course, abortion was illegal. This was all in very recent memory.
I find it plausible enough.
I mean, I thoroughly enjoy all kinds of crazy conceits. I love Aliens IV even though I find it really hard to believe that a clone of Ripley would have her memories. It’s kind of hard to enjoy any movie nowadays if you can’t suspend your disbelief.
I think the only thing that makes A Handmaid’s Tale hard to swallow is the speed at which society transforms. But then again, the story is told from Offred’s perspective primarily. Maybe she gets some things wrong in her retelling. Like, maybe the story is set in one of the few places that have been successful conquered, and almost everywhere else people are still resisting the government. She wouldn’t know the truth given how closed off she is from information.
I have no doubt in my mind that most people will go along with any program. It is the special person who will fight when there is a gun pointed at them. And it won’t take that long for some people to go from “I’m doing this just to survive” to “This is okay now that I’ve gotten used to it” all the way to “I will defend this system since I believe it is better than the alternatives.” I think people will gladly condemn others to slavery as long as they aren’t one of the enslaved, and I think people will go along with enslavement if the alternative is death. And people will do kinds of brutal things if they believe that the Eye that is always watching them wants them to do those things. People will do brutal things when they are in a system that encourages those things (like when Offred channels all her pent-up rage on killing that rapist). The story is about these universal truths.
We’re not actually told what period of time elapses between June/Offred being captured and the full-blown red-dress-bonnet-institutionalized thing being in place. Maybe the book says, but it’s been ages since I read it.
When she’s running away, her little girl seems to be about four or five. Maybe younger-- a toddler-- because Offred does try to carry her. Later Ofglen asks her about her child, and Offred says she’d be eight. So that’s a period of three to five years.
How much time elapsed between *Kristallnacht *and the first ovens?
Three years. 1938 for *Kristallnacht *and 1941 for the use of gas chambers/cremation in Nazi “work” camps.
To expand on that a little, let’s say a huge disaster, a period of chaos, stability aggravated by a follow-up collapse, a radical group promising a return to prosperity, that group seizing permanent power and eventually engaging in systematic slaughter and repression…
Germany from the end of WW1 (1918), the post war hyperinflation (1923), into the crash and depression (1929-), the rise of the National Socialists (1933) to Auschwitz (1943). So less than thirty years, certainly, and I could picture it in as few as ten.
I don’t see Trump as an oppressive leader, though. I see him as a potential stooge of oppressive leaders.
Except Germany was already 4 years into a dictatorship when Kristallnacht occurred.
But more importantly, the US has a 250 year history of democracy (often flawed, but still a democracy) that a country like Germany never had.
Analogy fail.