.
71:2.1 (801.13) Democracy, while an ideal, is a product of civilization, not of evolution. Go slowly! select carefully! for the dangers of democracy are:
71:2.2 (801.14) 1. Glorification of mediocrity.
71:2.3 (801.15) 2. Choice of base and ignorant rulers.
71:2.4 (801.16) 3. Failure to recognize the basic facts of social evolution.
71:2.5 (801.17) 4. Danger of universal suffrage in the hands of uneducated and indolent majorities.
71:2.6 (801.18) 5. Slavery to public opinion; the majority is not always right.
.
Last night, it struck me how the American experiment in democratic rule is failing. Looking at the list of dangers posted above, the American system, and the West in general, are lacking on every point. Entertainment madness consumes society staring at their pocket televisions, elected rulers have succumbed to an irrational self-interest, social progress is in reverse, the general populace is ignorant of history and clueless with regard to the meaning and value of legislative, moral, and spiritual ideals, and the truth has become so relative as to be without value.
.
All this, and the fact that China is rising, made me realize the importance of the Chinese translation of the UB. While Western democratic rule devolves in to a base populism, even dipping into fascism in Europe, the US, and elsewhere, China is solidifying its base of authority and has an eye to ascending to its once dominant position on the world stage. China’s leader, President Xi Jinping, is the new Mao Tse Tung. He is reuniting his country while Western democracies are quickly descending into a state of civil war.
.
We know all empires rise and fall. I hate seeing mine, the American, go down, but the signs of the times are unmistakable. It’s becoming apparent that Western humanity is not mature enough to handle democratic rule. It has been an interesting and revelatory experiment, and the results are self-evident. The profit motive has blinded leaders. American freedoms, like the right to bear arms, the right to vote, the right to self-determination, have spun out of control. And the national debt ($20 trillion and climbing) will consume the next generation as our leaders blithely add to it without thought or regard to consequence.
.
And this isn’t so much about the current leaders of America, or the UK, or Turkey, (and several other faltering democracies). These leaders are the symptoms, the consequences of a failed idealism and a drift away from worthy values.
.
The Chinese translation is expected to be completed by decades’ end. May we pray, and work, that it is completed before the West collapses. I think it could happen quickly and many will be taken unawares. Therefore do I encourage UB readers to speak with our leaders at Urantia Foundation, within our Association, and the readership in general, about the importance of the Mandarin translation, which needs to be available to a nation that has for many, many millennia been the only nation that maintained its unity, and is now about to rise once more the pentacle of global leadership. President Xi recently set 2050 as the date to achieve this.
.
This ominous statement from a Mighty Messenger seems to be coming true. About all we can do is to prepare for what seems inevitable now, a step back toward a more authoritarian past:
.
118:8.6 (1302.3) The slowness of evolution, of human cultural progress, testifies to the effectiveness of that brake — material inertia — which so efficiently operates to retard dangerous velocities of progress. Thus does time itself cushion and distribute the otherwise lethal results of premature escape from the next-encompassing barriers to human action. For when culture advances overfast, when material achievement outruns the evolution of worship-wisdom, then does civilization contain within itself the seeds of retrogression; and unless buttressed by the swift augmentation of experiential wisdom, such human societies will recede from high but premature levels of attainment, and the “dark ages” of the interregnum of wisdom will bear witness to the inexorable restoration of the imbalance between self-liberty and self-control.
Richard E Warren
) Sure. “The goal”. The achievement of which is a long way off. As I said, I expect we have many more wrong turns before we get even close to reaching the goal when it comes to a global system of government.