California is showing the way forward for the aspiring authoritarians in our midst—and the drought is providing them with the perfect opportunity.  The front page of my local rag, the Press-Democrat, ran a story by Washington Post writer Bob Kuznia, “State’s wealthy guzzling water,” which sported this lede: “Drought or no drought, Steve Yuhas resents the idea that it is somehow shameful to be a water hog.  If you can pay for it, he argues, you should get your water.”

The piece goes on to quote Yuhas as saying that people “should not be forced to live on property with brown lawns, golf on brown courses or apologize for wanting their gardens to be beautiful.”  Citing his high property tax rate, Yuhas averred, “And no, we’re not all equal when it comes to water.”

Kuznia describes Rancho Santa Fe, where Yuhas lives, as “ultra-wealthy” and “bucolic,” which in the era of drought-inflicted self-denial are strikes one and two.  Strike three is Rancho Santa Fe’s defiance of the new Water Inquisition, which has been imposed by former Jesuit seminarian Jerry Brown, our dour governor: The Republican enclave in this Blue State “guzzles” five times more water than the rest of the state, we are told.  The accusatory tone reaches a crescendo when Kuznia warns that “a moment of truth is at hand for Yuhas and his neighbors, and all of California will be watching.  On July 1, for the first time in its 92-year history, Rancho Santa Fe will be subject to water rationing.”

Don’t let anyone tell you Americans have abandoned religion: They’ve simply reverted to paganism, and in California it’s a form of pagan fundamentalism more austere than the Wahabism of Saudi Arabia’s desert tribes.  Christ has been dethroned, and in His place Mother Earth is now ensconced.  Forget the End Times, as foretold in the Bible: Neopagan eschatology is based on the theory of global warming, which is the perfect mythology for the Birkenstock-wearing tree-huggers who revel in their visions of Mother Earth’s apocalypse.  Their version of Original Sin is the birth of human technology.  And the drought—like every natural occurrence—is attributed to the curse of human habitation.

My old friend and mentor Murray Rothbard was particularly interested in the effects of postmillennial pietism, introduced on these shores during colonial times in Puritan New England and revived through the Great Awakenings.  In brief, this theology exhorted Christians to inaugurate the return of Christ by preparing for the Kingdom of God on earth.  Thus arose the “reform” movements of the 19th century.  As Rothbard put it,

Each believer’s duty went far beyond mere support of missionary activity, for a crucial part of the new doctrine held that he who did not try his very best to maximize the salvation of others would not himself be saved.  After only a few years of agitation, it was clear to these new Protestants that the Kingdom of God on Earth could only be established by government, which was required to bolster the salvation of individuals by stamping out occasions for sin.

The temperance movement was an early application of this belief, but later on, as the doctrine became secularized and accepted by intellectuals and technocrats of the rising managerial class, it evolved into the Social Gospel, which envisioned government as the instrument of a moral imperative to boost the suffering masses with endless social-engineering programs—administered, of course, by themselves.  Thus was born the Welfare State.

Now we are witnessing yet another Great Awakening, a spiritual upsurge of militant paganism in the form of radical environmentalism: in essence, Earth-worship.  Like the secularized postmillennial pietists of the 19th century, today’s militants are zealous to “make America holy” by purging it of sinners—i.e., “water guzzlers” like Steve Yuhas, and anyone else who dares defy the edicts of the State Water Control Board, an unelected body.

Jerry Brown, with his “less is more persona,” is the veritable embodiment of the New Puritanism.  His latest jeremiad calls for the annulment of senior water rights held by farmers and others since the early 20th century, which is resulting in the complete cutoff of water supplies to the community of Mountain House, whose 15,000 residents are days away from having no drinking water.

The water god is vengeful, and his ministers in the state water bureaucracy are intent on carrying out his will.  In their quest to make California holy, no one is to be spared.  Their next step: taking charge of the state’s private wells, one of which is on my property.  The plan is to install meters that will automatically shut off the water supply when it has reached a state-mandated limit.

The pagan armies are at the gates, demanding surrender.  I can sum up my answer to them in four words: Over my dead body.