Monday, December 16, 2002

[Colin Glassey 4 PM] Goodby to Some Old Ideas Last week Bishop Law, the most powerful member of the American Catholic Church resigned. Also, Henry Kissinger resigned from the 9/11 pannel. Lastly it seems likely that Trent Lott will be forced out of his position as Republican Senate leader. These are all good things. First the Bishop. It is quite clear that the Catholic Church in America brought this upon itself. Their insistance on celibacy in modern America had an obvious consequence, men with an interest in women as sexual partners would be less likely to join the priesthood. My short comment is: celibacy in the priesthood of the Catholic church is not justified on any grounds. It is not justified based on the example of the founders of the church: several of the disciples of Jesus were married men. It is not justified based on the teachings and example of Jesus: he officiated at a wedding, he personally blessed a marriage, ergo marriage is a good thing). It is not justified by the example of history: for the first 1000 years of the church's existence there was no celibacy requirement for priests in the church. As to Mr. Kissinger resigning from the 9/11 commission, the problem with Kissinger is that he is well known as someone is quite willing to lie in order to protect the best interests of the United States. This is a fine trait to have as a diplomat but it is far from a desirable trait in the head of a pannel to investigate the events that led to the 9/11 tragedy. The purpose of the 9/11 commission is to find the areas where we could (and should) have done better. The feeling one gets with Mr. Kissinger in charge is that if they had found out things that current powers in Washington didn't like, these things might have been supressed. After all, what reputation for honesty and impartial dealings does Kissinger have? None would be about right I think. Lastly, Mr. Lott. The more I've read about Strom Thurmond's Dixicrat campign, the less I like it. The Dixicrats were racists, disguising their hatred of blacks behind code words like states rights and police state when all they really wanted to do was keep blacks as unfree, non-voting, 2nd class citizens in their states. Take a look at this essay by Dave Koppel if you want the full details. For any person in the United States government to stand up in 2002 and say "Strom Thurmond's ideas back in 1948 were good" is revolting to me. Strom Thurmond was wrong in 1948 and with 50 years gone, it is even more obvious how wrong and evil his ideas were. Mr. Lott should be forced out of his position of power in the Senate as soon as possible. 4:23:16 PM     [Colin Glassey 2:30 PM] Hope vs. Fear of Globalization Steven Den Beste has a long attack on a paper from 1999 about ways to reduce global conflict by Randall Forsberg and two others. The pager by Forsberg is pretty dull and unrealistic in its time frame but I think the idea behind it is good. Steven argues that it is unrealistic and it ignores 2000 years of world history. One argument by Steven struck me: And if this happened, and if the resulting world government or world military came under the control of some sort of dictatorial power, it would not be possible to ever overthrow it, and the world would sink into a global abyss ruled by an evil dictator and his heirs which might last decades or centuries. I'd rather not place the entire world's eggs in a single basket, if I can in any way avoid it. I would rather not have the entire world become Myanmar, or North Korea, or Zimbabwe. I certainly do not wish to see the world become more like Myanmar, North Korea OR Zimbabwe but Steven's argument reminds me of the debate against the formation of the United States in the years following 1783. At the time it was argued that the individual states had no need for much formal authority over all the states. Instead simple bilateral relations between the states should work. Hamilton and Madison argued forcefully and persuasively that 13 states would eventually fight if they were not placed under a larger Federal government. The fundamental problem of human political groups: how do you resolve differences between groups without killing each other? I am not saying that people all over the world today can trust each other enough to submit to a common set of laws and government. What I do argue is It would be a good thing if it did happen eventually There are examples in human history of larger states created out of smaller states (so it can be done) Given enough time and the right technology (and the Internet is part of the solution) a global government should be possible To look at the current world and say "I don't trust (insert nation of choice here) so there is no way I would ever submit to those people having a say in our joint laws" is perfectly reasonable. There are at least 50 national governments I don’t trust. However, I can imagine the world 100 years from now where it will be possible to say "everyone on this Earth has access to the same information that I do, they share (roughly speaking) the same ideas as I do, I can imagine letting their representative vote over laws that would effect me." In my opinion, this is a goal Americans should be working towards. The idea that nations are going to continue the way they are, unchanged for the next hundred, 500 hundred, 1,000 years, is absurd. Even the sketchiest reading of history will show you that things change, and technology is forcing this change upon us. Read Robert Wright’s book Non Zero if you want to learn something about how the process of integration has been going on a very long time. I submit that have few choices. Technology is driving us towards closer integration. We can either work to make this process work better, or we can fight it, and by extension, fight the current system of economics and technology which is driving the integration. Given that the United States is the biggest contributor to this economic system, it really boils down to fighting ourselves. I must say that integration is going to be much easier when the whole world adopts American/Western ideals about: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, democracy, and individual rights. There won’t be any integration involving the United States into a system of government that isn’t 90% (or more) like the one we have here today in the United States. I will say this more plainly: if the world is going to integrate it will be based on our model of how people relate to governments. Not China's model, not Saudi Arabia's model, not Zimbabwe's model. The United States is the model for the world of the future. Finally, we (humanity) won’t have all our eggs in one basket. Eventually humans will be living off planet. Mars, the asteroid belt, Europa, Calysto, maybe further. The government we create here on Earth won’t be the only one in existence. Eventually humans will change, diverge, to the point that we will no longer even be the same species. This is not a problem I’m going to worry about, it’s a long way down the line. My descendents are the people who will need to avoid wars between the Earthlings and the Spacers. My worry is how to get from the world of today (multiple nations, vast room for conflict) to the world of the tomorrow: the United States of Earth. 2:40:12 PM

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