Evidence for True Ideals

Liberty: There are many forms of liberty recognized in a civilized society: personal, religious, speech, press, privacy, 2nd Amendment, and 4th Amendment. All forms of liberty are subject to the same boundaries. (a) The liberty in question applies to private activities. Which of these rights is allowed in public, which is to say, on public airwaves, at work, in markets, on public billboards, and on advertisements is entirely up to the community. See Public vs. Private. (b) The liberty in question cannot put anyone at involuntary risk. The right to take a voluntary risk is part of what we mean by liberty.

Reciprocity: This is give and take, wages for labor, profits for risk successfully taken, the Golden Rule and the Mosaic Law.

Democracy: The people own the government, rather than vice versa. All the people, not just some of them.

Union: The only permanent solution to the problem of war is to create a union of the warring communities in a hierarchy of communities.

Equal opportunity and responsibility: equality under the law for every gender, race, tribe, religion, family, ethnicity, and age, both in prohibitions and in benefits.

Justice: symbolized by Lady Justice, with her scales, blindfold, and sword.

Public Aesthetics: Aesthetic pleasure derives from intelligible novelty.

Evidence

1. Liberty:
Let us examine in more detail the personal, religious, free speech, right to access, free press, right to privacy, 4th Amendment and 2nd Amendment liberties. These rights apply only to private affairs, not to public spaces, places, airwaves, etc. See Public v. Private. For instance, we are under no obligation to allow pornography, prostitution, or drug taking in public or at work. Similarly, we are not required to allow street preachers to make a nuisance of themselves, nor are we required to allow religions to own radio or TV stations, or to make advertisements for their religion.

Personal liberty is the right to take whatever risks we wish in pursuit of our personal career or avocation or hobbies, spend whatever amount of money we wish at these things, and spend whatever amount of time we wish, in private, of course, and placing no one at involuntary risk. It follows that the Puritanical Blue laws against drugs, gambling and prostitution must be struck down, as unconsitutional (violating the first amendment) and just plain wrong. It is apparent that voters and Supreme Court alike are perfectly capable of giving lip service to an ideal, while failing to recognize a clear and obvious violation of that ideal.
As evidence, I should point out that liberty was the rule in the US during the "gay nineties," or "La Belle Epoque," when immigration to the US was at its peak. Brothels and recreational drug use were all permitted. Justice was at its peak. Opportunities abounded. So it is difficult to pick out just one thread, since we have at least three ideals which reached their maximum during this period. The best we can say is the popularity of the US for emigrants during this period constitutes evidence for the truth of all three ideals.
Life was not easy for the immigrants, especially the first generation. They could not speak the language. They could only qualify for the worst and most dangerous jobs. Each new wave of immigrants moved into the slums, as the previous wave became middle class and moved out. Though life was hard, they wrote letters back to their home villages, persuading the rest of the family, and sometimes whole villages to emigrate as well.
The collapse of Communism and the failure of Prohibition are the latest examples of the failure of the only known alternative Ideal of "Big Brother Knows Best." While it has often seemed reasonable to intellectuals that an elite would know better than you what is best for you, this never works out in practice. Different people have different tastes, which they discover by experience. This is the root of liberty, the reason why everyone must make their own choices about how to spend their risks, their time, and their money.

Freedom of religion: Like all liberties, religious freedom only applies to private activities, and only those which place no one at involuntary risk. Thus, we must forbid the ritual mutilation of infants in the name of religion. If someone is going to be mutilated to mark their entrance into a religion, it must be voluntary. And someone must be "of age" to make a voluntary choice. I place that at a mental age of eight.
Freedom of religion is just a special case of freedom of private associations. In the Constitution of the Second Republic, it is called the Freedom of Peaceable Assembly. Understanding this liberty would help to clarify a lot of recent cases which have come before the Supreme Court. For instance, do the Boy Scouts have the right to reject homosexual scoutmasters? Of course! The Boy Scouts can do anything they like, so long as (1)they do it in private, and (2)no one is put at involuntary risk. Ditto with fraternities. Of course, forcing pledges to chug a fifth of whiskey does not qualify, since this puts the pledge at involuntary risk. Indeed, chugging a fifth of whiskey will kill anyone, unless they are forced to vomit immediately with a dose of Syrup of Ipecac. Furthermore, any fraternity which has such dangerous hazing rituals is, and should be, kicked off campus, and kicked out of the national organization.

Free speech and free access: This is the right of every individual to artistic, literary, musical, scientific or philosophical expression to the world and the right of every individual to private access to all such public expressions; and the right of every full citizen to decide for themselves what they want to learn. No more government propaganda. I define a "full citizen" as someone who has come of age, who is not a convicted felon, and has not been declared incompetent to manage their own affairs. A child "comes of age" somewhere between 8 and 12 years old, and this event should be marked with suitable ceremony. This is something like a Bar Mizvah.
One immediate consequence of this ideal is repeal of compulsory education for those who have come of age. Maybe we can force the little ones to acquire the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic, but once a child has come of age, they may be allowed to become an apprentice and get a job, leave the public schools and use their vouchers in other ways. I would give everyone vouchers, and let them be collectable over years, tradable, salable, and usable by other members of the family. The whole family might go together to send someone to Harvard or to pay for Enlightened Hospice for Gramma. Enlightened Hospice would have lectures by people who have experienced NDE, and would allow Gramma to try any recreational drug or alternative therapy. Dying made easy. It can be done.
Evidence for the truth of this ideal of freedom of expression and access comes from the effect of the Catholic Index of prohibited books and ideas. Because of the Index, southern Europe played no role in the Enlightenment, or the social revolutions of the 18th Century, or the industrial revolution of the 19th and 20th Centuries, even though Italy and Spain had been the leaders of Western Civilization in the Renaissance. Tiny England and Holland grew mighty because they respected liberty. We have not yet applied this ideal to our schools.
Web publishing now gives everyone the right of World Wide self-expression in any medium, or soon will, at the cost of learning HTML.
The boundary of every liberty is involuntary risk to others. In the case of freedom of information, this comes either in libel or invasion of privacy. In another piece of judicial legislation, the Supreme Court has apparently ruled that ---public figures, members of the government, and celebrities---- have no right to privacy, and anything can be said or printed about them, so long as it is not libelous.
I can see no justification for denying anyone the right to privacy just because they are famous. Some situations may be defined as "public," for instance, the red carpet at the Emmys and Oscars. Even now, celebrities who do not wish to be photographed or interviewed are allowed secret entry in the back of the building. A person who walks the red carpet is giving implicit permission for interviewers and photographers to use their images and words. In other situations, in private life, no one's image or words or even well-known facts about them may be published or broadcast without their explicit consent. This rule used to be followed. For instance, during their careers, many famous movie stars in the Golden Age of Hollywood were openly homosexual, but this was never published, and unknown to the general public. Such public knowledge would have destroyed their careers.

Fourth Amendment rights and privacy rights go together. No one should be able to search my house, my office, my bag, purse, wallet, car or clothing unless they have reason to think I have committed a crime (for instance, seen fleeing from the scene of a crime), or unless they have a search warrant or an arrest warrant signed by the local magistrate. A person may have to voluntarily give up these rights in order to enter high security areas, such as commercial airports. Let us hope there will always be other means of travel.

Second Amendment rights: The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the Second Republic actually refers to military weapons, and the right to form local militias, what we today call the National Guard. But let us say people have a right to arm themselves for their personal protection. Modern firearms are definitely overkill. I suggest that arms concealed in a pocket or a purse must pass the metal detectors, and cannot be used frontally without giving the target ample time to duck. This might include ceramic (Ginzu) switchblade knives and throwing knives. Such weapons would be sufficient to allow a woman to defend herself against a mugger or rapist. Non-concealable weapons, suitable for home defense might include the modern compound bow (but not crossbows) and black powder smooth bore flintlock muskets or blunderbusses. Either type of gun would be sufficient for home defense and yet useless for assassination, armed robbery or armed insurrection.
Evidence for this elimination of modern firearms lies in the large number of crimes, suicides and fatal accidents involving them. It is still possible to commit armed robbery, suicide or have a fatal accident in other ways, but it is not made so easy. The target has a chance to duck. Black powder muskets are inaccurate at any great distance, and the large cloud of black smoke marks the location of the shooter.

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2. The Ideal of Reciprocity:
The only known alternative to reciprocity is the ideal of socialism, refuted by the collapse of Communism in 1989, and by the failure of socialism wherever it has been tried, e.g., in Post-War Britain, present day Cuba, and in the Soviet Empire. Reciprocity is the basis of my analysis of social welfare, morality, family and free enterprise. Figuring out how any institution works means figuring out the pattern of motivations. This is always easy to do if the institution is based on reciprocity. Many of the proposals of Utopians seem to work only by idealism, not self-interest. In the long run, these always fail.
In the economic sphere, we now know that people will not produce according to their ability, unless there is some incentive to do so. The socialist economy is something like the slave economy, where everyone tries to do as little as possible, as little as they can get away with. In a free market, some will prosper more than others. This bothers some Utopians. But there is no known workable economic system that is based on the principle of equal income for all.
Envy can become a socially divisive problem if it becomes impossible for the poorest to rise to become the richest. Clearly Bill Gates in the US and the founder of Virgin Atlantic in the UK show that both nations have freedom of mobility. Envy is lessened by the philanthropic activities of the very rich. Indeed, the long term stability of free enterprise may depend on such wise philanthropy. Charity balls are one of the chief social activities of the very rich, so I expect philanthropy to continue, and to be a natural part of the lifestyle of the very rich.
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3. The Ideal of Democracy:
The people own the government, rather than vice versa. All the people, not just some of them. Thus, the government must treat each and every person as if they have an inherent right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, unless by their own actions, a citizen forfeits that right.
It follows that a military draft is undemocratic, since it turns draftees into war material, objects which may be used up in the name of "national interest." Not only must military personnel be volunteers, they must volunteer for every mission, and have a right to voice objections to the detailed plans of the mission, if they think their lives will be put at more risk than is necessary. Democracy is government by the consent of the governed. A stronger requirement is that it be "government of the people, by the people, and for the people," not government by bureaucracy, choked by endless red tape and stymied by idiotic bureaucratic or judicial rulings.
There are many different possible forms of democracy, including the tricameral, multi-level, judicial superior form we have, and the Parliamentary, Commons superior form found in the UK. "Judicial superior" means that the Supreme Court may overturn the decisions of any other part of government. Furthermore, there is no mechanism for overturning their decisions or ousting members. "Commons superior" means that all other decisions may be overturned by Commons in the UK, including the decisions of Barristers, Church of England Primates, House of Lords decisions, and the decisions of the monarchy. I will call the UK system "parliamentary government" and the US system "tricameral government."
Parliamentary government works better than tricameral government. How can we tell? One clue is voter turnout, which is high in the UK and other countries with a commons-superior Parliament, low in the US. Another clue is citizen apathy. There is no apathy under Parliament, because it is possible to create new parties, which may even come to power. In the US, we are stuck with the same two tired old parties we had in the Civil War. And because of the "winner takes all" rule on the state level, it has so far proven impossible to create a viable new party. A third clue is the degree of allegiance by elected officials to special interest groups which pay for elections. Countless polls show the majority of people in the US want gun control, but the NRA is so strong that they can easily defeat any congressman who votes against them. This undemocratic allegiance to the financiers is high in the US, almost non-existent in the UK. A fourth clue is efficiency. In the US, efficiency is low, and overhead is high. There are as many people working for government on all levels as there are tax-payers. The American government has become the butt of jokes by Late Night comedians, for it seems government against the people, by faceless bureaucracy, for special interest groups (PACs).
Sometimes a government will do something which is fundamentally undemocratic. An example in US history is the draft of soldiers for WW II and Vietnam. These men were used up like other expendable supplies of war, so they named themselves "GIs," which means "Government Issue," no different from all the other olive drab munitions used up to take some meaningless hill or hamlet, which benefited the GI not at all. The GIs were given no choice at all, about anything. They could not even refuse suicide missions. I grieve for these GIs, and cannot stand to watch war movies. If allowed to volunteer, many would have, and perhaps the generals would then have been more careful with their lives, as they have been in more recent wars, such as Desert Storm.
I advocate a third form of democracy, which I call Aristarchy, based in part on the classical Chinese mandarin system of the T'ang, Sung, and Ming dynasties. Local magistrates would combine powers of chief of police, mayor and judge. Above them would be metropoles in charge of a metroplex and surrounding countryside, governors in charge of regions of the country, and archons in charge of national government. It would be a single unified system, unicameral, without the duplication of legislative, executive and judicial functions at each level of community that we now have.
Do not imagine that this would be government by college professors, who are notoriously specialized, and ignorant and irrational outside their own narrow field of interest.
Laws would be made or changed by a vote of three-fourths of the citizens in the jurisdiction in question. The Aristarchy would have broad powers of interpretation of the spirit of the law, rather than the letter of the law. The basic idea, both in the Chinese mandarin system, and in Aristarchy, is to find the wisest and best informed person, and make him or her personally responsible for government. Then we would know who would listen to our complaints against a neighbor or a business, who to blame for bad government, and who to praise for good government.
The evidence for this system is the millennia of high success of the Mandarin system in China. During the T'ang, Sung, and Ming dynasties, the people enjoyed a peaceful anarchy, seldom troubled by the government. The Chinese avoided a disruptive hereditary aristocracy, while members of all classes could and did become Mandarins. All they had to do was study the Neo-Confucian classics and pass the essay exams. I propose something similar. The Chinese experienced repeated foreign conquests and natural disasters during this period, but the Mandarin system was restored in each new dynasty, after stability had returned.
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4. The Ideal of Higher Community:
The only permanent solution to the problem of war is to combine the warring communities into a higher community. In medieval times, cities fought cities and duchies fought one another (as in the War of the Roses, the Hundred Years war, and even the 17th Century Thirty Years war) until the rise of modern states, such as England, France, Italy and Germany. Then there was a period of fratricidal war between states until the emergence of the strong Nation of States, such as the USA. Europe is becoming a nation under the EEC and NATO. France and Germany will never again battle each other, and neither will Alabama and Ohio, except in the realms of sport, business, or culture.
This ideal naturally leads us to world community, something which we have been unconsciously creating for more than a Century, with the Olympic Movement, the jet plane, satellite TV, international science and business. The UN would suffice as a world government, but first the process of creating the global community must be completed. We must all think of ourselves as Citizens of Earth, first and foremost.
Note that a hierarchy of communities does not require all sub-communities to be the same or have the same laws and customs. But it does require giving up ancient hatreds, something which the ethnic groups in Yugoslavia did not do during the 50 years or so they had a single government. Community and government are two different things. Before the US Civil War, there was one Federal government, but unfortunately, two quite different communities, one slave-holding, the other industrial. We used to hear about "the melting pot," something undergone by all groups emigrating to the US. This is still a valid idea. It does not mean miscegenation, nor does it mean giving up distinctive music or cuisine. It just means melting down all those ancient hatreds, those tribal attitudes nurtured in the old country, and we must view with suspicion any group or tribe which refuses to undergo the melting pot.
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5. The Ideal of Equal opportunity / responsibility:
Everyone should have the chance to go as far as their talents and ambition will take them, regardless of race, religion, sex, tribe, age or family, but must also take up the responsibilities of a good citizen, such as paying taxes, voting, obeying the laws, giving ones children a conscience and a sense of civic duty. If everyone did feel that they had equal opportunity, they would probably also be more willing to take up equal responsibility. Every criminal or tax cheat represents a failure on one side or the other of this ledger. Crime grows out of a sense of hopelessness quite as much as a lack of discipline.
This ideal forbids discrimination for or against people on the basis of irrelevant factors. Usually tribe, age, gender, race, family or religion are such. I include in "gender" sexual preference. However, any of these things can become relevant factors. If we were casting the part of Abraham Lincoln, we could not be accused of arbitrary discrimination if we restricted our casting to tall, thin, white males. Similarly, in the army, where fighting unit cohesion is all important in combat, the highest level officer who leads them into combat could decide that she didn't want this or that. If she thinks it's relevant for cohesion, then it is. Similarly, scout leaders, who are alone with young boys or girls in campouts, can be required to be married and heterosexual, since pedophilia is usually found only among homosexuals. There is evidence that girls do better in math classes if there are no boys present. In other words, gender becomes relevant, and we could certainly segregate the sexes in classes and even in colleges.
More harm is done by discriminating for ones own family, tribe, gender, race, etc., than by discriminating against. Tribalism is especially problematic. Tribes like the Basques, Croats, Serbs, Bosnians, and Jews insist on having their own sovereign country and are quite willing to commit ethnic cleansing to eliminate other tribes or to scare them out. I suppose they could invoke a contrary ideal of Nationalism, or Self-Determination. But I think this is a false ideal. Great nations are open to all types.
On an individual basis, if a particular tribe or family always discriminates for their own kind in hiring and firing or giving out contracts, soon an entire industry or profession can be so dominated by members of that tribe or family that none other need apply. This should be illegal, and should be punished by deportation, as well as the firing of all those hired by the discriminater.
It isn't just tribalism we have to worry about. There is also class discrimination. In the revolution of 1776, we thought we had rid ourselves of the oppressive class structure of England, because we had gotten rid of titled Lords and the hereditary ruling class. But in the 20th Century, a new Overclass appeared, which dominates academia and media in the US. The creation of Aristarchy would overthrow this Overclass. Only non-tribal members of middle America (not the underclass nor the overclass) may enter the Aristarchy; otherwise it could become dominated by a tribe or a minority class.
The ideal of higher community is contrary to the false ideal of Nationalism or Self-Determination. Why did we fight the Civil War here in the US? To avoid Balkanization. The US would not be a great nation if it were broken up into smaller States or confederations of States. The Confederate States of the Old South would not be a great nation, would never be a factor on the world stage. Neither would the sovereign state of Texas, or of California. This was a war fought over the Ideal of Union, not over slavery. And tragic as that experience was, citizens of the present United States are glad of the outcome, whether they live in Atlanta, Miami, New York City, Austin, or Los Angeles.
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6. The Ideal of Justice:
This is defined by Lady Justice, with her scales, blindfold, and sword. The scales make punishment equal to the crime in order to restore peace in the community. The sword of decision suggests that we restore the ancient power of the jury to decide guilt or innocence, by eliminating appeal, with immediate execution of sentence. The blindfold means Lady Justice does not take sides; her only interest is in finding the truth.
The test of an ideal of Justice is the amount of suppressed rage in a society, and the resulting number of berserk mass killers. Simply comparing crime rates is irrelevant, because crime rate depends on many things, such as morality, community solidarity, and respect for authority.
It is my hypothesis that the primary function of Justice is to restore emotional harmony in the community by releasing pent-up rage and sorrow, rather than "correction" of criminal character or warehousing of violent people. The function of justice is revenge. This is a natural desire, a natural reaction to evil, which must be given an outlet, or it will build up like a festering boil, and burst out in mass killings. Compare the unrequited rage in the USA in the 1890s, when justice was swift, to the 1990s, when it takes forever, if it is attainable at all.
Lady Justice implies execution of murderers. Executions should not be public, nor should reporters or family members be given any access to condemned criminals. Execution of sentence should be immediate. No details of executions should be made public. That merely panders to the public's love of violence as a form of entertainment. I have shown in the "Abortion" chapter that the execution of murderers is not itself murder, because the murderer has broken the social contract. In the chapter on "Justice" I have shown how we can find out the truth, because we must be very sure of the truth before handing down a death sentence.
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7. The Ideal of Public Aesthetics:
Aesthetic pleasure derives from intelligible novelty. Building our cities according to intelligible novelty gives us beautiful cities. This can only be seen by example. Compare the anonymous boxes of the 20th Century, with their endless rows of identical rectangular windows, to the Taj Mahal, for instance, or a Gothic cathedral.
Aesthetics is not just beauty. It is everything we do to keep from being bored. Some people play the ponies. Some people play chess. Let everyone make their own choices. How then, can there be any universal truths about aesthetics? The universal truths of aesthetics all apply to community action, and all somewhat resemble zoning laws. We may not be able to guarantee beauty or other kinds of aesthetic pleasure (friendship, love, adventure, competition), but we can sometimes identify rules of boredom and exclude them. For instance, no building shall be rectangular, with rectangular and repetitious window treatments. This describes the vast majority of 20th Century skyscrapers, which will all be torn down, because they will become hideous in our eyes, once we see the alternative of mandala buildings.
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The Public Vs. Private Rule
A corollary of the ideal of liberty is the Public vs Private rule. Public is some or all of the following things: what is done at work, or on public transport, or in the street, or on the sidewalk, what is allowed to be broadcast, or put up on billboards, or sold in public stores.
A community may forbid religious activities in public places (streetcorner preachers), advertisement of religion, or public broadcasts of a religious nature. Why would they want to? Elsewhere, I show that religion is faith, a euphemism for dogma and superstition, and quite unnecessary in this age of psychical and mystical knowledge. Religion is the chief obstacle to rational thought and rational action, such as population control. It remains powerful enough to get the teaching of evolution and the Big Bang banned in Kansas, of all places. In Tulsa, most of the channels on cable are religious channels, taken up by shouting evangelists, spouting a hateful stream of lies and greed. I would much rather see these channels replaced by the Discovery channels, A&E, Bravo, and BBC.
It would ease the repeal of the blue laws against drugs, gambling and prostitution if we at the same time made these things illegal in public. To be more specific, we could have "Sporting Houses" for licensed and inspected courtesans and gamblers, while prohibiting street-walkers. As for drugs, I see no reason why we could not allow marijuana, coca leaves, opium gum, magic mushrooms, tobacco leaves and the dried and fermented forms of these plant materials to be sold in public stores, perhaps only in a special store called the herb shop, which would also have spices, aromatic and medicinal herbs, as well as alcoholic products from the farms that grow the raw materials. Camels, Cocaine, Heroin, and Jack Daniels would only be available from the local drug dealer (a perfectly legal business) who would deliver it to your home.
The Ideal of Equal Opportunity trumps the Public vs Private rule. This can happen if membership in a club is a prerequisite for financial or political advancement. If that is true, the club cannot be allowed a restrictive membership. Qualification for membership cannot depend on gender, race or tribe, although it could still depend on income or intelligence or other relevant factors.
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