Religion & Government
RELIGION & GOVERNMENT
In the first part of this brief essay, the author treats the problem of religious extremism and notes the similarity between Islamic extremism and Christian extremism. Both are viewed as degenerate manifestations and contrasted with the higher or true spirit of both religions.
In the second part the focus is the role of government. The principles underlying the 1991 Iraq War are differentiated from those underlying the 2003 invasion.
Since many of the most apparently intractable problems today are related to religion and government, it may be useful to consider them together.
As we witness the fruits of religious extremism, many people are so turned off by religion that they become atheists. They assume that religion is the problem, not the solution.
It would be unfair to single out radical Islam, for the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 could be held up as an example of radical Christianity, as, in fact, it has been in the Islamic world. This is one reason this misguided war has been such a potent source of recruitment for the more extreme and violent Islamic groups; they saw the war as yet another wave of the Christian crusade to conquer the Middle East.
Let us remember that George Walker Bush and Dick Cheney are nominal Christians and that the vast majority of those who originally supported the 2003 invasion are nominal Christians. We can therefore single out Christian groups that are as much to be faulted as those we describe as terrorists and whom we today group under the label “radical” Islam.
In fact we are here pointing out neither Christianity nor Islam but the degenerate manifestation of both religions. There is also a lofty side to Christianity and to Islam and when we speak of religion we should emphasize this, the true expression of the major religions and the positive object of a cultural education. If we look to these positive examples we shall also find that their exponents have no difficulty getting along with one another.
Only the degenerates on both sides are eager to engage in an endless war. This may be attributable to the failure of many of the existing institutions, or to other causes, but there is nothing “radical” about such ignorance or the violence that results from it. It is, rather, the age-old tribal mentality, along with the fear and hatred of the “other”, whomever the other may be. This is not “religion” but its absence.
Government is the organization of the nations based inevitably on the given “material” offered by the citizenry and the existing state of affairs. A statesman or genuine leader makes the best of this situation by evoking from those around him their best possibilities. He may work through a group or party and through selected individuals but ultimately his work must be judged in relation to the nation as a whole and to the community of nations. The failure of religious institutions presents the national leaders with a “material” that is spiritually inert, so that even the best of leaders is handicapped from the start.
Thus, if we want better national executives and more enlightened policies on the national and international playing field, we need the type of education and culture that builds the acceptance of such policies in the citizens of the nations. The religions can and should play a part in building this acceptance, but they cannot do so, obviously, if they are institutionally crippled and reduced to cults of bigotry, hypocrisy and savagery.
To the extent that the religions foster the higher type of man, they will build the basis of brotherhood; the national executives, working in the political field, will then have the possibility of creating an international order that fulfills the ideals originally associated with the United Nations.
Thus, we should not say that religion is the problem, or that religion is the solution, but we should become aware of the quality of the religious education being offered, whether we are considering Islam or Christianity, or any other religion.
Nor should we say that Russia is the problem, or China, or America. All nations have been at fault; those who have had the power have generally been most at fault, having the most opportunity to work their will. It is time for people everywhere to acquire a perspective that is free from national and religious bias, to see life fairly, and to work toward solutions honestly.
Iraq 1991 & 2003
The spiritual government operates from the center of illumined power, with complete justice. Allowing for the free will of man, however, it cannot control all events. It maintains the sphere of life and opportunity and leaves in human hands the responsibility for human affairs.
The problems and disasters besetting mankind are not, therefore, signs of God's indifference but the effects of causes generated by man himself. They are lessons in life on the road to man's higher destiny as a responsible creator and co-worker with the evolutionary process.
Human government approximates the spiritual only to the limited extent that man is aligned with his own higher power. The degree of this alignment is a variable but extremely critical factor. Upon it hinge the rise and fall of nations and civilizations.
The theory of the divine rule of kings implies the perfect alignment of the ruler and the higher will. This is something we scarcely expect today, but the principle lives in the back of the human brain and plays a powerful role in the support given to charismatic leaders who are (rightly or wrongly) deemed to be above criticism.
Beyond the magic of personalities, however, are those principles and policies which affirm and support the growth and welfare of the race, and which we have the right to expect from anyone representing himself as a leader.
Everyone can understand the difference between statesmanship and ordinary politics. The former is related to the educational process, while emphasizing those factors which require immediate attention. It is the high road, seldom taken. The low road replaces education with propaganda, manipulation and the mis-use of psychology in order to mold public opinion along degenerate paths. This was seen in the build-up to the senseless 2003 invasion of Iraq, a country which had nothing to do with 9/11 and posed no threat to America. That the leader of Iraq was a bad man is a moot point. He was terminally ill and, thanks to years of robust international sanctions, he no longer constituted a significant menace to the world community. Manipulative propaganda, like brute force, by-passes the educational process as an extraneous factor, an inconvenience, whereas it is at the heart.
The best recent example of this substitution was seen before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, not a part of the War against Terror, as advertised, but merely a new wave of terror, unleashed this time by America, and justifying future attacks by those who concluded that America is the world's leading sponsor of terrorism.
Our Secretary of Defense told us that we had plenty of money to pay for the wanton destruction. This was before the surplus turned into a deficit and the deficit into a financial crisis. It helps to explain the lack of funds to pay for health, education, or the rebuilding of infrastructure. The flooding of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina may be seen as ample evidence that there are projects more worthy of our resources. Many of the voters in 2008 concluded that the greatest threat to American security was found in Washington, D.C., in the inept leadership that sowed the seeds of discord and reduced the stature of America in the eyes of the world, even as it squandered the nation's resources.
Of course the electorate is equally to blame. A vast majority supported the initial invasion. Only a people living on lies and fantasy would ratify such a travesty. Now the American people must share the responsibility for their choices, including the hundreds of thousands of innocent victims of the American aggression, lives that were as precious as the lives that were lost on 9/11, but which we blithely refer to as collateral damage.
The valuation of education above government correlates with the fact that the former is concerned with the purpose of life, while the domain of the latter is the regulation of life processes so that that purpose may be fulfilled.
Minimal government is an ideal that corresponds with the blossoming of a higher humanity. After all, who would need to be regulated? The non-existence of such an ideal situation underscores the need for a culture of liberation and points to the true purpose not only of education but of religion. In the meanwhile, we require an organized way of life that is suitable for the contemporary world, such as may be achieved through wise government.
When it wishes to pursue some specific course for which it requires popular support, government immediately launches an educational campaign to inform the public. True, government-sponsored “educational” campaigns are often only manipulative propaganda, but it is only the low level of the public awareness that makes this possible. A more enlightened, better educated public would not be so susceptible to crude manipulation.
Propaganda may be only the propagation of prejudice, half-truth, or outright lie; it may empower the very illusions and distortions that the seer and the educator seek to dispel. The Jews who were sent to the gas chamber were told it was a shower. The Bush administration told the American public that the invasion of Iraq would be a cake-walk, and that Americans would be welcomed as liberators. Self-deception, like lies, has the effect of facilitating evil actions.
Does it matter if the deceiver believes his own lies? This only makes the deceiver more believable. He accepts his own prejudice or delusion as an incontrovertible truth, and his apparent sincerity disarms like the charm of the confidence man. With prejudice we find stupidity. Alas, stupid people seldom feel stupid, for stupidity thrives on complacency and self-satisfaction. These are the ones who thought of the war in Iraq as a kind of football game. For them it was sufficient to root for the home team. Or they confused the elective war with an action movie pitting black hats against white hats.
As the educational work can be analyzed in terms of a threefold mental bridging, the work of government also has three aspects:
1) Statesmanship;
2) Legislation;
3) Law enforcement.
Statesmanship is related to the understanding and enunciation of ideas. This is a question of right emphasis and timing, implying a clear view of the present need.
Legislation is the passage into law of those ideas that have won acceptance (for better or worse). Law enforcement completes the trinity. Much depends upon an educated public opinion, as well as enlightened statesmanship, and the integrity of those who pass and enforce the laws.
With law enforcement the main issue is one of a judicious and reasonable employment of force, relative to the problem at hand. The same standards are applicable to the use of military force by nations. Force can be either excessive or deficient, like the dosage of a medicine.
The use of force by the international community in 1991 to overturn Iraq's invasion of Kuwait met (or came close to meeting) these standards. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 did not.
Only when there is equality in the enforcement of a rational law, applied to all nations, will there be any prospect of justice, peace and security for the community of nations. Only when there is equality under the law for all within a nation will there be domestic tranquility.
This is no easy thing to achieve, given the uneven development and diversity of standards among nations. It is an impossibility as long as the Unites States and the other so-called great powers refuse to submit to the rule of law.
Not everyone was keen for the 1991 action in defense of Kuwait, given the apparent injustice underlying the creation of that tiny but extremely wealthy nation. Some viewed it as a pseudo-nation and a remnant of the colonial era.
But a wide consensus existed in support of existing international law. The development of such a consensus follows from the reasoning that, if there is established the certainty of a robust international response to any act of aggression, such aggression will soon lose its appeal.
Unfortunately, such a successful affirmation of principle has only been possible when principle has coincided with the interests of the powerful. When there is no such interest, nothing is done, no matter how great the flouting of the law or the disaster to this or that region. The Bosnian intervention was reasonably disinterested, but it would probably not have taken place if the genocidal violence that prompted it had taken place in Africa.
This leads to the charge of hypocrisy, or double standards, a charge that cannot be denied. As the world community grows in maturity, it must be expected that such double standards will, in time, disappear.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq, based on misinformation, was a step backward.
This is widely recognized outside the United States. It remains only for Americans to realize that they have played the fool on the world stage, and that a blind and arrogant parody of leadership, using fear to justify aggression, has shamed the nation.
During the darkest days of World War II, FDR told us we had nothing to fear but fear itself. That was leadership. Today this great truth is inverted and fear is used to drive an anti-social agenda, in line with the purpose of the forces that oppose the evolution of the race.