As a synergic scientist, I claim to know a better way to protect humanity ? What is it ?
No Knives, No Guns, No Killing!
One hundred and twenty years ago the American West was a vast, open area brimming with natural resources and opportunity. Cow towns and mining camps sprung up across the landscape. From around the world, millions of people flocked to the Western territories with the hope of making a better life for themselves. Many came to find gold or silver. Others came to open saloons, general stores, and other small businesses. And still others came to steal from the productive members of the west.
It was in such a setting that Wyatt Earp lived and worked. Like many of his time, he skipped from one boom town to another, always optimistic that his fortune awaited at the end of another long, dusty ride. And in nearly every town he invariably found himself called upon to bring law and order to what was previously anarchy. Earp's exploits in taming lawless cow towns and mining camps and his bravery in facing ruthless killers-- particularly at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona-- make him one of the great figures of the American West. While the movies make much of the gunfights and use of intimidation in the streets of Dodge City. Earp's greatest tool was the Prohibition of weapons within the city limits. His rule was simple: "no knives, no guns, no killings."
The history of the American West, is in large part the struggle to overcome adversity. Earp's discovery of a mechanism to insure public safety spread. By the summer of 1876, Denver was slightly larger than Dallas, although not a mite different as far as being fronted by the inevitable plankwalks and halter-polished hitch rails. A sign posted at the edge of town warned: "No-guns in town." This law was strictly enforced.
What does any sane human want? They want a better world for themselves, and their families. They want a future world that is truly civilized – a world that is free of hate and violence. They want to live in a world where they can leave their home unlocked and not fear for their possessions – a world where they can allow their children to play with friends anywhere in the community, and not fear for their safety.
They want a world without fear. They want a safe earth. However, today the earth is not safe, and the probability that the existent political-economic order can make it safe is zero.
The history of science and the story of human progress is one of understanding and control. If we could learn to understand human behavior, we could learn to control it.
I know from my study of medical history that the discoverer's of cures possessed a thorough understanding of both the disease process they were trying to cure and the organ systems effected by that process.
If we aspire to find a cure for human violence, we would have to understand both the adversary process that generates violence and the human mind. Only then can we hope to create an effective treatment for adversary behavior. That has been my focus of my own personal study for the past thirty years. One thing I have learned is that you can't cure adversity with adversity.
As we watch the night and day 'mares' that serves as daily life for the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, we must see that "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" does not work.
I agree with President Bush that Saddam Hussein is an evil and dangerous man. I agree that he must be contained and rendered impotent--incapable of hurting others. But, I differ with Bush on the method.
We need to create a zone of safety. And, then we can begin to extend that zone. We need to protect those within the zone and isolate those outside the zone. This is how the immune system in our body works.
Within the safety zone, there should be no tolerance of adversity. None!
No violence would be allowed. No weapons would be allowed. Violation would result in expulsion from the safety zone. We could decide The skin is the boundary for the body. Its job is to isolate all adversity from the interior. We need to create a skin around our safety zone. That isolates all adversity from the interior.
Public Safety
In a synergic future, we could create a The Life Trust Guardianship that would be entrusted with the public safety. It will utilize synergic mechanism based on synergic morality to insure freedom from crime. This synergic organization will act more like our body’s immune system, than like the law enforcement agencies we are familiar with today. Life Trust Guardians will accept the premise that adversary behavior is caused by ignorance and not badness. Their focus will be on containment of adversary events followed by education and rehabilitation of those responsible, and then on prevention of future events.
Life Trust Guardians accept as their responsibility the protection of humanity as community as well as humanity as individuals. The Rule of Public Safety is that no human should be allowed to deliberately injure another human— that all adversary actions should ideally be prevented and when not prevented quickly contained.
The Life Trust Guardians will accomplish the rule of public safety by:
- 1) Seeking the Containment of all adversary events,
- 2) Performing Scientific analysis and investigation of all adversary events to determine the causes and parties responsible,
- 3) Holding Responsibility Hearings when those suspected of adversary actions claim innocence,
- 4) Providing Rehabilitation of those responsible for serious and dangerous adversary events up to and including incarceration for long term psychiatric and psychological treatment until they are found to be fully recovered and no longer a threat to the public safety,
- 5) Providing Education of those responsible for adversary events until they possess the understanding and knowledge necessary to avoid such events in the future,
- 6) Seeking Restitution from the responsible parties to repair to extent possible the injuries that their adversary actions have caused, and
- 7) And, always working toward Prevention of future adversary events, by monitoring and/or restricting personal freedom as appropriate to protect the public.
Committed Adversaries would be expulsed from community. They would be expulsed from the zone of safety. And that zone of safety is not anonymous. Everyone is the zone is know. The immune system of our bodies knows every cell. Unknowns are presumed to be adversaries until proven otherwise. Freedom and privacy is available to all who do not hurt others. Injure someone and forfeit both.
It is time to put away the adversary way.There is no need for weapons in the zone of safety. In civilized community, the simple possession of a weapon is an adversary act. It must be surrendered immediately and voluntarily, or you leave the zone of safety.
Living in the zone of safety is not a right, it is a privilege available to civilized humanity. Civilized humans do not want or need weapons.
I believe it is time to create and then extend zones of safety. This is the only way the Israelis can make their people safe. No knives, no guns, no killings! None. The same is true for all nations. Except for small weapons in the hands of Containment Officers charged with protecting both Humanity as Individuals and Humanity as Community, it is time to put away all weapons.
Our message to Saddam Hussein, and all who would act to harm humanity. This needs to be applied to all nations holding weapons of mass destruction. That includes not only India, Pakistan and Russia, but also to Israel, England, France, and yes even the United States.
DISARM! If you want peace lay down your weapons. All of them.
Read more by Timothy Wilken: Protecting Humanity, A Synergic Future
Also on the SynEARTH network today:
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Barry Carter writes: A couple hundred years ago at the beginning of the Industrial Age someone uttered the famous words, "We are a nation of laws not men (people)." ... All civilizations must have a system of social order. Industrial society uses government. In specific representative government. The primary tool used to provide this order is laws. The primary function of our representatives, in addition to levying taxes, is passing laws. These laws are then supported by a judicial system and the potential violent force of police and militaries. We see how ineffective our laws are in an Information Age, when they run counter to our lose/win norms, with out of control violence, crime, riots, corruption, white collar crime, terrorism and overloaded prisons. As Stephen Covey explains, "When mores are strong enough laws are not needed and when mores are not strong enough laws are irrelevant." Today our mores are lose/win and until this changes anything goes! The fact is that our norm in society is lose/win and adversarial competition. We artificially attempt to separate some lose/win activity from other lose/win activity with laws. In an Information Age where people are empowered more and more daily, with expanded social freedoms, it simply does not work. Lose/win is lose/win and a norm is a norm. Man-made micro rules and laws that make one form of lose/win legal and another illegal, are meaningless. This is why progress seems hopeless in our present paradigm. (08/11/02) | |
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New York Times -- The Land Trust Alliance, as its name implies, is a coalition of 950 of the 1,263 land preservation organizations in the nation. According to the alliance, the total number of acres protected in New York State through the efforts of local and regional land trusts (not including acreage held by federal, state and local governments) catapulted from 70,938 in 1990 to 552,220 acres in 2000 — a 678 percent increase. In New Jersey, the number of acres protected by land trusts rose 122 percent, from 62,347 to 138,249 over the decade. In Connecticut, there was a 95 percent increase, from 36,034 to 70,361. (An acre is 91 percent of a football field.) And the pattern held across the country. The total acreage in the nation protected by land trusts rose 226 percent, from 1,908,547 in 1990 to 6,225,225 in 2000 — an area twice the size of Connecticut. At the same time, the number of land trusts increased from 887 to 1,263. (08/11/02) | |
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SCIENCE NEWS Online -- Buckyballs—microscopic, soccer ball-shaped cages made of exactly 60 carbon atoms—had been recognized just 5 years earlier. The Nobel prize was awarded in 1996 to their discoverers, who had formally named the molecule buckminsterfullerene for its resemblance to the geodesic domes of architect R. Buckminster Fuller. Although these molecules resembled nothing found in any pharmacy, Friedman's mind started calculating after his friend mentioned them. A buckyball, he mused, might just be exactly the right size to block the active site on the HIV protease enzyme—like a cork in a crazy-shaped wine bottle. HIV requires the protease's active site to build new copies of itself. On his computer, Friedman soon modeled the interaction of a buckyball with the HIV protease and suddenly Roe's casual suggestion seemed profound. (08/10/02) | |
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Terence R. Wilken writes: A derivative is a financial security such as an option or future whose value is derived in part from the value and characteristics of another security, the underlying asset. The underlying asset is usually a commodity, bond, stock, or currency. You “bet” that the value derived from the underlying asset will increase or decrease by a certain amount within a certain fixed period of time.A derivative is usually a contract rather than an asset. You buy a promise to convey ownership of the asset rather than the asset itself. Because the legal term of a contract is much more varied than property ownership it has a special appeal to investors. It provides for a “sophisticated” management of risk. ... This makes it just right for Companies such as JP Morgan, Citigroup, Golden Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. They are in the business of making as much money as possible for their Shareholders. ... Some of these Companies suffered major losses with the collapse of Enron, Worldcom, Global Crossing, Williams Communications, and others that ran out of money. That's because they had loaned billions of dollars to these companies. These loans were carried as "assets" on the books of the banks. But when their debtor companies collapsed, the lender “banks” are required to report these loans as non-performing. They are no longer assets for the bank, now they are losses. Billions of dollars in assets are suddenly billions of dollars in losses. Not to worry, the major money that they make is made in betting with their derivatives. JP Morgan alone has over $23 trillion of derivatives on their books. (08/10/02) | |
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