Once upon a time there was a silly prince. He was very silly and also drunk. No one thought he'd ever amount to much. Then he met his own imaginary Magicfriendinthesky and accepted Him as his personal Savior and quit drinking.
The silly prince believed that his Magicfriendinthesky was going to return to Earth to rescue everyone who believes in Him and take them away to a lovely eternal theme park during something called The Rapture. This idea seemed dumb to some people, but not to the silly prince because part of his brain shriveled when he accepted Magicfriendinthesky as his personal Savior. You see, the silly prince's brain had quit working the same way that all people's brains quit working when they decide they've found One Truth that solves everything.
At a time when this silly prince was a mere governor, not yet the King, the silly prince did just one thing thoroughly: whenever a criminal appealed for mercy the prince said; "Off with his head!" and that person was executed. But other than never pardoning anyone and killing lots of people, this prince wasn't good at anything. Nevertheless he was able to get by because he had a rich famous daddy and also he had learned (while cheating at college) that if you act certain about everything you do, never change your mind or listen to other people, it may appear that you know something.
One day the silly prince became the King. Soon after that his Magicfriendinthesky "told" the King that war is good and so is an unregulated free market economy, deficit spending and lowering taxes for the rich.
This became the King's sacred creed: free markets and war are good!
Because this king had lost part of his brain he also believed that a peoples called the Specialtribe were The Chosen People of Big Magicdaddyinthesky (Magicfriendinthesky's heavenly dad) and that therefore the United States of America -- the unfortunate country the King was in charge of -- was wrapped up with the Specialtribe's fate in some magical way.
A weird collection of wicked advisers called Neoconspecialtribers came to the King. They teamed up with another weird collection of wicked advisers called born-again Magicfriendintheskyians, otherwise known as Evangelicaliters. The King was eager to listen to them all, for they were as stubborn, foolish -- and silly -- as he.
The King mostly listened because these wicked advisors agreed with him about two things: that the King should invent any excuse he could to justify an attack on anyone that didn't like the Specialtribe and their country The State of Magicland, and that -- no matter what -- there had to be no rules regulating free markets!
You see the King believed that Magicfriendinthesky would refuse to come back in the Rapture unless The State of Magicland was safe. According to the ancient prophecies written in the Crazy Book Of Magic (that the king read every night before bedtime), the only thing that might stop The Rapture would be if The State of Magicland was in jeopardy! So the King was going to do all he could for The State of Magicland to keep it around until Magicfriendinthesky came back to get him when, the King believed, almost all the Specialtribe folks living in The State of Magicland would die but never mind, because the King would be raptured outa' here!
At the same time that the King was going to war he was also ignoring many signs that his faith in a free market wasn't working. Wise men begged him to change his ways and do some regulating, but change was what this king never, ever, did. Banks were in a mess. People were losing houses, but the King said it was okay because Magicfriendinthesky would fix everything and/or come back soon and, anyway, he just knew; "The free market always works!"
When the King's country was attacked by some evil people who were angry (for a variety of reasons, including with the way the King's country had helped The State of Magicland steal these attacker's friend's land) the King had found his excuse for a war. So he attacked a country that had had nothing to do with the evil people attacking his country. He did this because the country he attacked was ruled by a dictator that hated all the Specialtribe and their country of The State of Magicland, and who also had once tried to kill the King's father. So the war was personal and what Magicfriendinthesky wanted, or so the King thought.
Because of this war and the billions and billions and billions of dollars the King spent on it, and because the King believed in free-markets-no-matter-what, and in lowering taxes while you fight wars, the King's country began to have many economic problems. One reason for the problems was that the world had lost confidence in this king and his country because other people in the world didn't agree about how magic is more important than facts, or believe that Magicfriendinthesky will come back and solve all our problems.
Another reason that this king's country began to have economic problems was that the price of oil -- that mostly came from the region of the world where the King had started a bunch of wars -- went through the roof. This was because the King had created chaos where there had once been order.
It was too late to change anything. So the King decided that the best thing to do was take everybody's money and use it to somehow pay off a lot of people who had taken advantage of the chaos he'd created. But his people didn't like having all their money taken to fix the really big worldwide mess that the King and his friends had made. And since they now hated their king no one would listen to anything he said.
And so the King's reign came to an end with his country in total chaos and mired in two wars that no one knew how to end, and with the world hating this king's country. And the king's people began to look for a new leader, but it seemed that many people had learned nothing. You see, just like their silly king, many of them also were silly too and believed in Magicfriendinthesky! And the part of their brains that was needed to think about how to fix their problems and pick a good new leader, was dead, killed by believing that all they needed to do was accept Magicfriendinthesky into their hearts.
Then the brain-dead people got set to elect a new Vice King. (She had been mayor of a toy town in a state with less people living in it than most small cities.) And the reason they were going to vote for her was because she too believed in Magicfriendinthesky!
And she became Queen! And the economy disappeared, and the wars that the old king had started got worse. And The State of Magicland was destroyed and the Specialtribe of Chosen People were killed. You see this was because the silly King had been wrong about just about everything, and instead of helping the Specialtribe of Chosen People and The State of Magicland he'd doomed them.
But lots of people in the ruined United States of America were still waiting for Magicfriendinthesky to come back! So they didn't mind their ruin because the parts of their brains that would have minded about the facts were dead. And they all talked happily about how dinosaurs and people coexisted six thousand years ago, and how you may be healed of cancer by placing your hand on a TV screen and praying along with a preacher while shouting out things in a special secret "heavenly tongue." And then they all perished happily ever after.
Frank Schaeffer is the author of CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back. Now in paperback.
