The World Government Ideas of Garry Davis – Part 3
Excerpted from the 1997 book “Sovereignty Consciousness”, by Taansen Fairmont
~ More relevant today than ever ~
Distinguished [[firstname fallback=”Friend”]],
THE PHILOSOPHY AT THE BASIS OF WSA’s ACTIVITIES
How to Improve on Some of Garry Davis’s Ideas
It is interesting to observe the beautiful unfolding of Davis’s thinking. In general, his ideas are universally beneficial. One area, however, in which it appears he needs clarification, is in his blurring the line between the good of the whole and the good of the individual. For example, he greatly admires the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted in theory by the United Nations on December 10, 1948, even though in practice its good points have mostly been ignored. Although the Declaration says many good things, it still has one fatal flaw. It leaves open the door for the individual good to become secondary.
The Declaration, for example, “mandates the right to organize a world electorate,” where the few will represent the policies of the many, through a vote. Garry Davis praises this on page 12 of his book, Passport to Freedom. While it is admirable to bring wars between nations to an end, by replacing old dark-age nationalist governments with a new “world electorate” espousing world unity, it must be plainly seen that this still furnishes the mechanism through which government coercion and oppression can re-enter.
The idea of the “collective will” is referred to by Davis as being mentioned in Article 21 of the Declaration. As long as any organization claims to represent the “collective will,” it sows the potential seeds for future loss of individual liberty. It is this very failure to distinguish between the good of the collective and the good of the individual, that has been at the basis of much of the oppression and corruption in history.
While Davis’s wish to end war and bring world unity is praiseworthy, and his tireless service in liberating countless people from the restrictions of nationalist institutions is admirable, his ideas on exactly what role his World Government will play, need refinement.
Any group, whether a “World Government” or whatever it calls itself, needs to abandon the notion of collectivist human rights that it claims to “represent,” and favor instead the freedom of the individual. Garry Davis speaks of the sovereignty of the individual, which shows that he recognizes it. But if his recognition is to be clear and complete, then he will drop his ideas of the “collective will” and the “world electorate,” which are incompatible, contradictory opposites to the sovereignty of the individual.
If the freedom of the individual becomes absolute, the good of the whole is automatically and simultaneously achieved.
Admittedly, the abuse of such freedom will inevitably occur, but it will decline quickly, as familiarity with the new freedom brings maturity. And the consequences of abuse, resulting from too much freedom, are far, far less than, and greatly preferable to, the consequences of restriction, subjugation, and coercion, resulting from thousands of years of too little freedom.
Philip Dubois, a freedom-oriented attorney, put it this way, in relation to freedom of communication in a country: “We can have the kind of country where people can speak freely and privately and take the consequences of that. Or we can have the kind of country where they can’t, and take the far worse consequences of that.”
If you set up a group that is supposed to serve the world, and fail to explicitly clarify its mission as the good of individuals everywhere — individual property, individual rights, individual freedom — then you have left the door open for the possibility that the small group will someday start deciding for others, acting on behalf of others, legislating for others, and eventually ruling, dominating, coercing, and exploiting others . . . all in the grand name of ‘liberty, justice, and freedom.”
How many countless pathological actions have been committed against people by priests and politicians, down through history, in the name of “God,” “social good,” “liberty,” and so on? The way to prevent this retardedness from being repeated in the future, is by making sure the mission of any “world group” is crystal-clear about being against collectivist ideas, where the few act for the many; and being in favor of ideas of individual freedoms, individual rights, individual property, and individual decisions.
This is why the political sentence in Davis’s Credo of a World Citizen is potentially dangerous. It says:
“Politically, a World Citizen accepts a sanctioning institution of representative government, expressing the general and individual sovereign will in order to establish and maintain a system of just and equitable world law with appropriate legislative, judiciary and enforcement bodies.”
No matter how high their stated principles, inevitably the course of events have accumulated with sufficient energy so as to overwhelm the best intentions of such “representatives.” Tidal waves of seemingly insoluble dilemmas present themselves with such increasing force and quantity that their high principles soon start going out the window.
This is because ultimately, the very idea of using “representatives” reduces precision, and allows the possibility, even the likelihood, of confusion and misrepresentation. Using representatives diminishes the power of those who are represented, to communicate directly. It therefore compromises individual sovereignty and freedom.
Why are representatives, or any kind of government, even necessary? If decisions affecting billions of people need to be made, why not let the billions of people themselves make the decisions, and communicate them via computers? The technology already exists. The coordinators of this could operate like a business, much the way survey operators conduct public polls. This information can be easily networked and processed by a group operating as a free market business. Who needs a “representative government?” Furthermore, there should be many such free market businesses, all providing similar needed global services, so as to keep a healthy level of honesty and friendly competition, and prevent a monopoly.
No ideals, no matter how virtuous, can be decided by a few on behalf of the collective. Each individual must have the complete and absolute freedom to discover his or her own ideals and virtues, without having them voted, mandated, legislated, coerced, mind-controlled, brain-washed, or even lightly promoted by any “world government,” “world electorate,” or other hierarchy.
Although Garry Davis fails to identify or eliminate the contradictions between his stated ideal of individual sovereignty, and the collectivist statements in his Credo of a World Citizen and in the U.N. document he praises, Declaration of Universal Human Rights, he does clearly acknowledge:
“The truth is: no one can hand us freedom or security. And no one can exercise our reason and conscience on our behalf. Every one of us is absolutely and solely responsible for his or her thoughts and actions regarding our personal welfare. Only when we secure and use our conscience and reason will we discover the joyful world of sovereign humanity.” — Passport to Freedom, Ch. 3
However, he shows fuzzy thinking again in Chapter 6 when he says, “Humankind in turn represents the ultimate sovereign on planet Earth, the whole of which each of us is a part. Any government that refuses to recognize humanity as the ultimate sovereign is actually denying the source of its own authority. Plainly, no constitution can deny, inhibit or limit the sovereignty of humankind.”
And in Chapter 13 when he says: “. . . you place yourself at the threshold of a new allegiance — to humanity and the world.“
While the intent of these statements is appreciated, namely, to transcend national differences and realize planetary harmony, nevertheless he makes the mistake of identifying humankind as a sovereign, in singular, rather than human beings as sovereigns, in plural. At first glance, most people may think this difference is insignificant. But it is precisely in such “insignificant” mistakes from where all the evil of politics begins. It is much better to nip it in the bud.
By calling humankind a sovereign in singular, the way is opened for a certain “select” few to eventually claim to be the “spokesmen” for this singular “sovereign humankind.” Since obviously “humankind” doesn’t have a single voice, but five billion voices, there is no way for every individual on the planet to automatically agree on the thinking of this singular entity called “sovereign humankind.”
Therefore inevitably there are always a few who will presume to speak on behalf of this entity, claiming to be its voice, and expecting everyone else to pay heed. This is exactly what priests and politicians have been doing, down the ages, fooling the people for their own greed on behalf of “God” or “justice” other supposedly great “entities” or “ideals.” And it is under the guise of these so called “noble ideals” that some of the greatest crimes and violations of the individual have been committed. It is fuzzy thinking like this that sows the seeds for later corruption, domination, and oppression.
The correct way, as defined by what is most universally beneficial for all individuals, is to replace nationalism with an unconditional, uncompromised, and complete sovereignty of all individuals everywhere free from domination and coercion of any kind, where the individual rights, property, and liberty of all individuals without exception, are universally respected by everyone all the time.
The world this idea creates is one where no one would ever even dream of imposing his or her will over another, or interfering with the freedom of another. To move towards this kind of world, no single idea or entity can ever be allowed to take priority over the freedom and rights of the individual, as applied to all individuals individually.
Everyone in the world who otherwise likes the ideas of Garry Davis, needs to understand this. His thinking again sounds fuzzy when he says:
“Only through the recognition and enforcement of world law can our basic rights be protected and the warmaking of the nation-states be stopped.” – – Passport to Freedom, – – Ch. 28
This raises the question, what does he mean by “enforcement?” Does he presume to think he will use weapons of force to defeat all the armies of the world? This would be wrong in principle, not to mention grossly ineffective — impossible. There is no way we can compete with them on that level, and even if the fantasy were to come true, that we were to succeed in using violence to actually defeat all the violence, what would that accomplish?
It’s like using a pesticide on crops . . . a billion pests are killed, but the few who are the strongest survive, and within a few weeks a billion have reproduced again, this time a much stronger strain. So now you have to use even stronger pesticide, and on and on it goes. Likewise, if you use violence to defeat the violent, the mind of the enemy still remains. As soon as he can get arms again, you’re back at war. Peace cannot be achieved this way. “You cannot fight fire with fire.“
If Davis does not mean enforcement through weapons, then what does he mean by “enforcement“? He doesn’t say. As it is, he left his statement as a contradiction in terms. You cannot “enforce world law” and at the same time have “rights protected” and “the warmaking of nation-states be stopped.” If a world government were to succeed in actually ruling the world through “enforcement“, then it would be nothing more than the Orwellian dictatorship and police state on a global scale.
What is the alternative? If there are no police and no armies, you might ask, how will criminals be dealt with? The answer is: People can use “neighborhood watch” programs, “citizens arrest” tactics, “private eyes,” and other free market approaches. There is no need for a “government” to do it, especially when you consider all the monstrous abuses of a population that come with making the mistake of empowering a government with force.
One of the most fantastic advantages of this idea, is that then the millions of people employed in militaries and police forces worldwide, and the trillions of dollars in funding they receive, could all be converted to constructive peacetime projects working for the social good.
A perfect analogy to illustrate how world law can be managed through a World Court of Justice without the use of violent force, is the example of the international standard of time. Greenwich, England, has a “world clock” against which all the other clocks are measured. Is anyone forcing you to set your watch by it? No, that would be ridiculous. If you set your watch half an hour later, no one is going to point a gun at you and put you in jail because of it. You have created your own disadvantage, by being late for your appointments.
Like that, the World Court can simply set the standard of individual rights, freedoms, ethics, laws, and so on. Enforcement using weapons and jails will be made obsolete.
Garry Davis has made some major contributions to the well-being and advancement of mankind. That is why we are appreciating him by taking this much time to study his ideas. And, because of this, we would like to see him round out his rough edges, and polish his thinking even further. It would be well for him to sharpen his blurry vision on notions like “enforcement” and the other issues raised in this section. Otherwise, he has done a magnificent job of penetrating to some of the deepest solutions to the problems of the human species on Earth.
(This topic to be continued in future editions of the Brilliance in Commerce Newsletter).
The key to infinite safety, unbounded security, the repulsion of all harm, and theattraction of all good, is the daily experience of samadhi in deep meditation. More information on how to experience this is available at this link.
In Fellowship and Cosmic Communion,
Yours, Taansen Fairmont
Founder, Brilliance in Commerce
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