The following is a list of requirements for a representative form of government, which is the ideal:
71:2.9-19 There are ten steps, or stages, to the evolution of a practical and efficient form of representative government, and these are:
1. Freedom of the person. Slavery, serfdom, and all forms of human bondage must disappear.
2. Freedom of the mind. Unless a free people are educated — taught to think intelligently and plan wisely — freedom usually does more harm than good.
3. The reign of law. Liberty can be enjoyed only when the will and whims of human rulers are replaced by legislative enactments in accordance with accepted fundamental law.
4. Freedom of speech. Representative government is unthinkable without freedom of all forms of expression for human aspirations and opinions.
5. Security of property. No government can long endure if it fails to provide for the right to enjoy personal property in some form. Man craves the right to use, control, bestow, sell, lease, and bequeath his personal property.
6. The right of petition. Representative government assumes the right of citizens to be heard. The privilege of petition is inherent in free citizenship.
7. The right to rule. It is not enough to be heard; the power of petition must progress to the actual management of the government.
8. Universal suffrage. Representative government presupposes an intelligent, efficient, and universal electorate. The character of such a government will ever be determined by the character and caliber of those who compose it. As civilization progresses, suffrage, while remaining universal for both sexes, will be effectively modified, regrouped, and otherwise differentiated.
9. Control of public servants. No civil government will be serviceable and effective unless the citizenry possess and use wise techniques of guiding and controlling officeholders and public servants.
10. Intelligent and trained representation. The survival of democracy is dependent on successful representative government; and that is conditioned upon the practice of electing to public offices only those individuals who are technically trained, intellectually competent, socially loyal, and morally fit. Only by such provisions can government of the people, by the people, and for the people be preserved.
I’m interested in discussing #4, since that is what protesters claim they are doing, exercising their right to free speech. The quote recommends freedom of all forms of expression. Is that meant to include violence . . . violence in either word or deed?
It seems, by reading these next quotes, that violence may be an inevitable natural state, but not a preferred one:
70:1.1 Violence is the law of nature, hostility the automatic reaction of the children of nature, while war is but these same activities carried on collectively. And wherever and whenever the fabric of civilization becomes stressed by the complications of society’s advancement, there is always an immediate and ruinous reversion to these early methods of violent adjustment of the irritations of human inter associations. [This is where we are today! It too will pass.]
71:5.2 The ideal state undertakes to regulate social conduct only enough to take violence out of individual competition and to prevent unfairness in personal initiative.
Is a war of words, or a war of ideas, any better than a war of actions and deeds? Perhaps it’s the goal of evolution to move in that direction, then finally abandon both kinds of wars?
