Characterizing modern liberalism as secular religion is commonplace today, although such a comparison amounts to a gross insult to Christianity, which has been the most frequent target of liberal assaults against religion, while Islam and other faiths have either been given a pass or even praised for their supposed virtues.  Certainly equating liberalism with other profane systems of belief, such as Nazism, Fascism, and Marxism makes left-wing heads explode.  On the other hand, at least these movements had codified their principles into convenient creeds or confessions; after all, you need something to set your thoughts on fire during book burnings, mob pillaging, frenzied adulations of the Great Leader, or the sort of ritualistic condemnations of Israel found at Democratic conventions.

So while Mussolini had his fascist ten commandments, Hitler had “Ein Reich, EinVölk, Ein Führer!” (along with the Nazi handbook), and Marxists had “Workers of the World, Unite!” (plus the Communist Manifesto), what do today’s liberals have?  Answer: other than some bankrupt slogans and a collection of hyphenated phobias hurled against their enemies (conservatives, Republicans, and bitter clingers), not much.

Fortunately, this flaw can be corrected; all one needs to do is scoop into the pottage of left-wing shibboleths and retrieve the effluents to produce a convincing enumeration applicable to most situations.  We’ll follow Mussolini in this regard, by using a Ten Commandments format, with God’s words followed by a liberal updating – or, perhaps better put, by some modern secular-progressive “corrections.”

1. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.  Liberal Version: The Government is your sovereign, almighty and supreme, which raised some of you from the ranks of American citizens, lavished you with riches, privileges, and power, granted you immunity from prosecution, and rendered you secure in your lives for the rest of your days.  You shall worship no other sovereigns before the government.
    
2. You shall not make for yourself a carved image – any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.  Liberal Version: You shall create images of worship that include the environment, approved groups, prominent government officials, and selected entertainment icons, forcing all citizens to venerate the same or suffer penalties of defamation, ruination of lives and livelihoods, or imprisonment.  The government will not tolerate rivals to its edicts, despoiling generations of those against it and granting privileges indefinitely to those and their progeny who have gained its favor and obeyed its commands.
    
3. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.  Liberal Version: You shall not mock the government, nor criticize it, nor utter any words derogatory or dismissive, in jest or inadvertently, about any group, person, or symbol considered special by government, academic, or media personages, and you shall revile your country, express contempt for its citizens and its history, appease its enemies, and scorn those who wish America well.
    
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God.  In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.  For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.  Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.  Liberal Version: You shall treat the first day of the week as you would any other day, expunge the word “Sabbath” from your thoughts and speech, submit cheerfully to commemorations of days bereft of any significance for you or the United States, and obey every edict that establishes special events for designated groups, while strictly observing admonitions about micro-aggressions, trigger warnings, and safe spaces, and preventing cultural appropriations of any self-proclaimed aggrieved person or group.
    
5. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.  Liberal Version: You shall observe the Woodrow Wilson Rule on raising children, making them as unlike their fathers and mothers as possible, by instructing them in educational institutions filled with credentialed people who dismiss marriage and the family while endorsing any relationships that inflict damage on the same, remembering at all times that the land you think you own is controlled by the government.
    
6. You shall not murder.  Liberal Version: You may murder unborn children if it suits your lifestyle or convenience, pay scant attention to murders within designated groups, while defaming those who, in the line of duty, take lives of individuals not of their own race, gender, or ethnicity, and tolerating murders committed by illegal aliens against American citizens.
    
7. You shall not commit adultery.  Liberal Version: You may engage in any sexual relationships you desire, while celebrating unions among members of the same gender, or transgender, or bi-gender, and suffer ruinous penalties, condemnation, and/or threats against you for failures to comply with judicial or bureaucratic edicts that support so-called non-traditional marriage and self-designated sexual orientations.
    
8. You shall not steal.  Liberal Version: You may take as much property from others as you can, through taxation, confiscation, or administrative extortion, while sympathizing with rampaging mobs, looters, and destroyers of property and neighborhoods, all the time justifying your actions as striving for social justice.
    
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.  Liberal Version: You may bear false witness against others whenever necessary to further progressive goals, while waging war against freedom of speech, patriotism, Christianity, police officers, America’s military, so-called traditional families, equality of opportunity, and the right to bear arms, and lying about those who favor border security against invaders who live off the public dole, scorn our country, murder our citizens, and receive approbation for refusing to assimilate.
    
10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.  Liberal Version: You may covet anything that is your neighbor’s, by dividing America into groups based on race, religion, creed, ethnicity, class, gender, and other useful categories, and creating invidious comparisons among them, pitting all citizens against each other, the better to exalt the power of government to covet the goods and honor of everyone in the United States of America.

A summary of these commandments is that you must worship the state with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love yourselves as well, in order better to proclaim your moral superiority over the vast majority of the country’s inhabitants, endeavoring always to reduce them to the status of your subjects, servile, obedient, and helpless.

That pretty well sums it all up, although apologies are in order for the long sentences.  However, in defense of the above verbiage, consider that the liberal version of the Ten Commandments is shorter than a typical Act of Congress by thousands of pages, is more honest and direct than a national party platform, and can easily be amended by adding sub-clauses (sub-commandments?) here and there, as need arises.

The liberal version also has the advantage of being mostly positive in nature, and reducing the font size yields a single sheet of paper that can be waved by hordes of devotees at liberal-progressive rallies – along the lines of those millions of screaming Chinese students waving Mao’s Little Red Book.  Indeed, just change the color of the paper, and you’re in business.

The difficulty, of course, is that these commandments are harder to recite by memory at appropriate occasions.  Then again, we’re talking about liberal-progressives, here; they don’t have to remember anything.  They have the government to do that for them.