Christopher Hitchens put it more simply when he observed, “The essential principle of totalitarianism is to make laws that are impossible to obey.”53 This strategy allows those in power a pretense to eliminate anyone at any time, because they are surely guilty of something. Judeo-Christianity, and particularly Catholicism with its confession and priestly absolution, relies on thoughtcrime to ensure perpetual guilt. Then the guilty—everyone—must turn to the Church for forgiveness and absolution.
