Theos-Talk Archives (June 1997 Message tl00338)

In a message dated 97-06-11 23:52:21 EDT, Bart wrote:

(quoting me here)
> > solved. Drug laws are another example of this. By saying this, I'm trying

> to
>  > tie this in more closely with theosophical issues, but haven't done a
very
>  > good job of it. Anyone who's willing, though, please feel free to take
> this
>  > nucleus of an idea and run with it. ;-D
>

(Then, accepting the baton, ran the good race!!! ;-D)

>  	I COULD go all political, but I will try to do as you ask, instead :).

You did, quite awesomely! Addressing the issue, as you did, from the point of
view of thoughtforms was a stroke of genius, IMHO.
>
>  	It is difficult to speak Theosophically on what the duties of
>  government should or should not be. From a Theosophical point of view
>  government, for the most part, is irrelevent, as long as it permits
>  freedom of thought.
>
>  	When those who control communications create thought forms, however, it
>  is our duty as Theosophists to use proper discrimination to decide
>  whether or not that thought form is valid, and, if the thought form is
>  invalid, then to fight it as much as possible.

I agree with all of this and, as a small "t" theosophist, feel the same duty.
What is interesting is that a number of us, all sincerely trying to decide
the validity of a thoughtform so as to know whether to fight or support it
arrive at such diverse conclusions. :-)
>
>  	Government can take for itself much more power when it is defending the
>  people against an enemy. If such an enemy does not exist, then the
>  government will be forced to create it (note that a conspiracy is not
>  necessary; just a bunch of government employees individually trying to
>  ensure that their jobs will never disappear is sufficient).

Such "enemies" also take the form of "crises", (the scare-of-the-week
phenomenon or the childhood disease we Baby Boomers accepted as part of
childhood as the latest "killer disease", etc.) all "requiring" bigger
government as the only "solution". I agree that there is no requirement for a
conspiracy in this. In addition to the job preservation scenario you
presented, much of this IMHO is the result of extremely well-intentioned
though terribly misguided crusaders who demand governmental "solutions",
unaware of any others. It would be interesting to analyze the "utopia"
thoughtform that is behind a lot of this, IMHO. (And we'll have utopia, by
golly, whether you want it or not!! ;-D)

>From the
>  point of view of someone in power who craves power, the ideal political
>  system is feudalism, as that stratifies the power position. Feudalism is
>  created when people, threatened by an outside menace, give up their
>  freedom (i.e. ability to make decisions about karma) in return for
>  personal security (i.e. temporary comfort of the lower self). Between
>  the drug laws (creating a barbarian outlaw class) and the gun control
>  laws (creating a body of "knights" to whom the people must swear fealty
>  in order to be protected from the barbarians), the government is,
>  however unintentionally, creating a feudal society.

Now this is fascinating as I hadn't considered this as an evolution toward a
feudal society. However, I can't help but be amused when I think about the
fact the feudal lords extracted far less from their serfs than what various
layers of government take from us in taxes these days. Had they dared, the
cry would have gone out among the serfs to bring on the siege engines,
catapults, etc. ;-D And weren't the knights at least honor-bound to protect
those who had sworn fealty to them, unlike today's judges who rule that
government's aren't required to protect citizens from crime?

I'm absolutely thrilled to read your remark: "give up their freedom (i.e.
ability to make decisions about karma) in return for personal security (i.e.
temporary comfort of the lower self)." (Such folks karmically "deserve"
neither. ;-D.)This is one of, if not the scariest, implications of the loss
of personal freedom because it delays the evolution of much of humanity,
IMHO.

>Those who believe
>  that it IS intentional are the real force behind the militia movement (I
>  personally, using Occam's razor, believe that since intentionality is
>  not necessary, then I will not assume it to be there until proven
>  otherwise).

Well at least it's the force behind the "black helicopter" crowd. I'm not
sure if it extends to entire militia movement because it's difficult to come
by information about anything more than its fringe elements if the news media
is ones sole source of info. I agree that Occam's razor is indeed appropriate
here.
>
>  	Those in charge of the communications, threatened by the militia
>  movement, are attempting to swing popular opinion against it by creating
>  thought forms dehumanizing the members; concentrating on the radical few
>  rather than the non-radical many (note that Timothy McVeigh was THROWN
>  OUT of the Michigan Militia, although he is portrayed as being
>  middle-of-the-road in the militia movement).

A good example of this dehumanization was the shrill, blatently biased A&E
"Investigative Reports" episode that was shown last week. Of course, despite
many mentions of McVeigh in that show, it was never mentioned that he was
THROWN OUT of the Michigan militia. While the show gave example after example
of racism in the militia movement, they never breathed a whisper about the
militias who are not at all racist--I know of several with minorities in
their leadership. The militia in my county (I'm not a member) is headed by an
Iranian Jew, but you'd never hear about that from most news outlets who
portray all militias as anti-Semitic.
>
>  	The reason it concerns me is the parallels to the way that the Nazi's
>  portrayed Jews in their communications prior to WWII, creating thought
>  forms that dehumanized them so that the German people would quietly
>  accept the concentration camps. If one must make up lies to use against
>  a cause, then one has proven that one's own cause has already been lost.

I've seen and have been concerned by the same chilling parallels.
>
<friendly snip regarding drug laws causing more problems than drugs
themselves--I strongly agree>
>
>  	When the World Trade Center was bombed, the first thing the politicians
>  did was go out and say that that this was a reason to have stronger gun
>  control laws.

Even though we both agree that there isn't necessarily a "conspiracy" to
increase the size and power of government, there is strong evidence that
there is an "agenda" to get guns out of the hands of the American people.
Being that explosives (used in the WTC bombing) are *not* guns, it's obvious
to me that the politicians were using it only to further their agenda.

>Yet, when gun control laws are passed, they are either
>  meaningless (like the so-called "assault weapons" law, which banned guns
>  based on the fact that they had plastic trim instead of wooden trim), or
>  making the posession of a gun a crime in and of itself, without
>  criminalizing further the use of a gun, so that someone using a gun to
>  commit a crime can use it as a chip in the plea bargain process, but
>  someone who is otherwise law-abiding ends up in an all-or-nothing
>  situation.

I agree with this in its entirety.
>
>  	I am not saying that either guns or drugs are good things (although,
>  knowing this group, a bunch of people will automatically say I am). I am
>  saying that creating false thought forms to combat the abuse of guns and
>  drugs in our society only creates a worse problem.

The reason, IMHO, for this reflexive reaction is that folks insist on
confounding "things" again with the abuse of them. Even a nuclear weapon is
not inherently evil in itself, IMHO. For example, if an asteroid were
hurtling toward Earth and a nuke was the only explosive device with enough
power to deflect it from its collision course, I think we'd find a lot of
suddenly pro-nuke folks out there and Oppenheimer, Teller, Dyston, et al
would again be heroes. (What would really be rich would be watching
fringe-type environmentalists debating among themselves the rightness of
launching an "evil" nuke into space or letting a large part of the
environment be destroyed by an incoming asteroid.) ;-D

In a nutshell, I think most of these invalid thoughtforms are problematic
because they represent forms of attachment. Revulsion, repulsion, etc. are,
IMHO, *still* forms of attachment. (This is also, IMHO, the root of the
celibacy vs. non-celibacy debate we had earlier.) While those who inveigh
(not to be confused with mcveigh) against guns and drugs may seem to be "on
the side of the angels", they are still manifesting attraction (just a
reversed polarity of it, so to speak) to the object they are trying to
regulate, ban, or destroy. We won't get beyond the problems associated with
the abuse of anything until we start transcending the attachments we have to
them, regardless of polarity. Yet this cannot be karmically learned unless we
have the freedom to make these karmic choices and experience the resulting
lessons.

Lynn

Lynn