Might cannot make right
A new Age of Light matures

by Harrold "Haole" A`hole

There was a time in the world when might did make right. In fact, we're in the twilight years of that time. Unfortunately, such epochs are not like a clock, and we won't leave one age and enter a new age across a clear boundary. It will be ugly and muddy, with shades of gray, with two steps forward and one step backward. Many fear mongers will try to blind you so you cannot see the light and the universal truths contained therein.

The Age of Terrorism, I hope, is the last gasp of the dying belief that might makes right, that one group's worldview should be imposed on others.

The Age of Light, on the other hand, began before the United States of America was born. The U.S. has, of course, been a shining beacon pointing out the path towards a brighter future. As have the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Canada and other nations that have embraced freedoms for its citizens while reducing violence.

Many people began to flee religious persecution and the tyranny of kings during the dawn of the Age of Light. People didn't want religious leaders to tell them what they had to believe. People didn't want kings telling them what to do, granting a life of leisure and title to those who were born to the rich and noble class while subjecting the masses to poverty and hardships that created those very riches.

Both the religious leaders and the kings used coercion, the force of law and their mighty weapons to beat specious truths and people into submission. And it worked quite well, at least for brief periods of time. Revolutions and other nasty conquerors had a way of changing the cast if not the castes. If you weren't privileged, you were poor, uneducated and physical labor for the benefit of the few was your life's work. Life was harsh and short for the masses, much like it is today throughout the world.

This was the Age of Might. It started with the first creatures to crawl on Earth, through early civilization, through the Dark Ages, and continued all the way until the 20th century. It's based on Darwinian survival of the fittest.

The Age of Might has coexisted with the Age of Light for nearly 400 years, but it is being challenged by the Age of Terrorism, a mean-spirited splinter cult of the Age of Might. The Age of Terrorism is a force away from the Age of Light, a retreat into brutality, ignorance, tribalism and despotism. Modern gangs and secret government thugs in the U.S. are part of the Age of Terrorism, though most Americans seem unaware or are unwilling to acknowledge this mischief in their midst.

The choice is ours as to whether we let the Age of Terrorism rise as it most certainly will under current conditions and continuing technological advancement, or whether we take the bold, brave and mature steps necessary to stay on the path of this Age of Light.

If you compared the Age of Light to the growth of a man, we are just entering our adolescence, a time of confusion as we change from children into adults. This can be a dangerous time, when life choices are made under the influence of testosterone and without all of the information we may need, yet with a feeling that we're in control and we know it all. It's a time of anger, and a time when we learn that our bodies are bigger and stronger and we don't have to listen to our mothers for fear of physical power. It's a time when we form gangs, dabble with recreational drugs, and consider how easy it is to steal, lie and cheat. We learn that the Age of Might does indeed appear to make right in the broader world as well as in our neighborhoods.

But nobody would suggest that a teenager is best prepared to lead the world. We need to figure out how to help the teen mature towards the Age of Light and away from the Age of Might, and more importantly, to avoid going to the dark side with the Age of Terrorism.

Most of the great thinkers of the past have recognized the basic failings of humans. Greed, corruption, sloth, fear, envy, secrecy and anger have created unjust societies since time immemorial. Some, like Jesus, were on the right track, but Jesus was limited by his times and the people he was preaching to.

The Buddha, Jesus, Socrates and Plato, Mohammed, Confucius, and Gandhi were all trying to lead people deeply rooted in the Age of Might towards the Age of Light, but they were unsuccessful because all humans were still infants, so to speak, incapable of caring for themselves and seeing beyond their own self interests.

I grew up a Roman Catholic and attended a Catholic seminary high school. But I was never particularly devout. I had seen enough of the bad side of Catholicism (and other religions) to realize that its views were not my own. I learned about the sordid history of popes and crusades, and what I read about Jesus just didn't jibe with oddities like the Trinity, the reverence of Mary, the gruesome stories about saints whose body parts were torn apart to be held as devotional relics. The crosses, crucifixes, rosaries, statues and stained glass windows are often works of art, but they seemed more idolatry to me, harkening back to paganism.

I had learned the First Commandment, but it seemed antithetical to the Church's teachings, and even worshiping Jesus seemed to violate the belief in one God. Of course, Catholics believe that Jesus is God, the Spirit is God and the Father is God, so they are able to sidestep that. But in my readings of the life of Jesus as outlined in the Gospels, Jesus certainly didn't appear to be aware he was God and he didn't go around saying he was God and he was often found praying to God. In fact, he seemed more like a Jew with greater compassion than the prevailing Jewish authorities of his time, but certainly he didn't go about claiming to be God. I'd have described him, in today's language, as a New Compassionate Jew. He certainly saw the mischief and financial shenanigans of those who proclaimed themselves to be religious leaders. I certainly see the same today.

Jesus, in my opinion, was leading us toward the Age of Light, long before it was feasible to implement. Life was still too harsh, people were mostly illiterate, and people were still too superstitious to seek a path of light. But the Bible taught me that God is light, and to arrive at the Age of Light, we need to make some hard choices and leave our animal instincts behind.

Many people are afraid of their own thoughts and proclivities, a puritannically inspired notion. They worry about their delights and feel ashamed of successes. Many more are the opposite, believing that riches and power over others brings them the pleasure that they seek, but rarely find. Envy and lust misguide them into mischief. Riches can help bring health and happiness only if you're not consumed by those riches and learn to share and delight others.

In my own life, growing up middle class and well cared for, Jesus's disdain for riches and money didn't jibe with my own goals or that of most Americans, or even of most humans from what I gather. I rarely found a Catholic who didn't seem interested in money, and money certainly can be used to care for the less fortunate and advance other needed causes. The Pope and the Church certainly don't look like my impression of what Jesus was about. Money isn't the root of all evil. That root was in the flawed character of many people who seek money as a substitute for living, compassion and friendship. Those who are consumed by money, use money as a weapon, as a way of furthering the cause of the Age of Might.

The old prophets had a tit for tat mentality towards justice, a simplistic form of the Age of Might. This led to "life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth..." (Exodus 21:23-24) and the related "Limb for limb, eye for eye..." (Leviticus 24:20) As the joke goes, an eye for an eye rule tends to leave a lot of people blind. Such thinking causes a vicious cycle, feuding, grudges and a chain reaction, much like a nuclear bomb exploding, but over a much longer period of time. You injure me, I injure back, so his family takes offense and injures my family and there's no end in sight (pun intended). The unfortunate decades long fighting between Israel and the Palestinians is a modern example of how such ignorant and childish Age of Might thinking leads everyone down a miserable and failing path.

Jesus addressed this shortcoming of the old wisdom: "You have heard the commandment, 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you is: offer no resistance to injury. When a person strikes you on the right cheek, turn and offer the other." (Matthew 5:38-39) He even suggests we should love our enemies. (Matthew 5:44) And he suggested that "If you want to avoid judgment, stop passing judgment." (Matthew 7:1) And he left us with the Golden Rule: "Treat others the way you would have them treat you." (Matthew 7:12)

Jesus was clearly on the right track towards the Age of Light, but it was so powerful and foreign a concept that nobody else could actually do as he said and did.

Some have misunderstood Jesus, in my opinion, thinking that the Golden Rule and the issue about judgment simply means that if you think you're the good guy and are ready for judgment, you can judge others and treat them the way you want to be treated. But they are missing the point: treating someone as you would have them treat you doesn't mean that you can make them live by your rules and be judged by your rules because you are okay with them making you live by those rules and being judged by those rules. It means that if I have different rules than you do, you wouldn't want me to impose them on you, so you shouldn't impose your different rules on me. You should treat me with respect and dignity and allow me to live my life, and I will do the same back to you. Now that's golden and worthy of the Age of Light.

Jesus knew that peace and justice were interrelated and one could not be achieved with the other. Jesus lived and worked with outcasts and showed great compassion. He led by his wonderful example and taught with provoking parables. He denounced the corruption of religious leaders who were abusing their positions to enrich themselves and hold power over others, and it got him executed by the state.

He renounced violence and held people to an extremely high level of good behavior, telling us to offer our other cheek if we were struck, to give our last dollar to help someone in need since money would never lead you to his Father's house, to realize that even thinking bad thoughts was as bad as doing them.

Personally, I find that to be too hard and pointless. It's one thing to do some good, enjoy oneself while we briefly inhabit this wonderful planet, be a good friend and neighbor, and try hard not to be a pain to others, but it's quite another to do as Jesus did. I suppose that's why it was a goal, but it seems unattainable for me and for most people I've met.

I'm certainly not a pacifist, while Jesus was, even if Catholic doctrine says that's not the case. I believe in peace and letting others live in peace, but I believe you have to defend yourself when you are unjustly attacked.

I'm certainly not about to renounce money and live a poor life. Most of the world doesn't want to live in poverty, and money allows us to live longer and healthier lives. Money allows us to feed ourselves, clothe ourselves, find shelter and creature comforts, take jobs that stimulate us, obtain educations and travel to better understand our world. Money allows us to acquire health care that allows our longer lives to be more productive, pleasant and interesting. It also allows us to help others beyond our physical capabilities by enlisting the support of others (and helping or employing them in the process, too).

Money is a tool. You don't need to give it all away to be blessed by God. The poor are buried in mudslides in Haiti, are the victims of substandard housing, food and water, and generally have shorter, more miserable lives. If that's God's blessing, then I suspect most are not interested in being blessed. I have never heard anybody ask for someone else's blessing with the thought that such disasters could be the result of receiving it.

You should work hard and earn money so that you can not only have a better life for you and your family, but so that you can more easily help others. Sure, you can and should help with your labor: such volunteer work is outstanding! But when you consider the riches of Bill Gates, note that he can donate a billion dollars (a small amount in his world), he can help a thousand people help thousands more, far more than he could ever do if he stopped pursuing what interests him and instead fed the poor by laboring on a farm. Even Jesus recognized that it was better to teach a man to fish than to feed him a fish, and money is one the vehicles that allows such improvements in humankind to accelerate.

Anyway, back to the Age of Light.

As people began to seek freedom from the tyranny of those who used might against them, many traveled to America. Coming to American back then was nothing like modern travel. It likely required a person to spend their life's savings and risk their lives crossing a dangerous ocean. Life was still hard and the climate in America was brutally hot and bitterly cold. But they were freer and could practice their religious faith as they wanted. So they stayed and made a new home.

As more and more people came to America, the old powers wanted to assert their control over these newly free people. The Kings of Spain, England and France weren't about to give up their privileged life during the Age of Might to these rebellious freedom seekers.

It took a revolution, sponsored by brave Americans and the military might of France, to birth the United States and its historic Declaration of Independence and Constitution. The Constitution would have been a rather bland document had the Age of Light not shown upon those great individuals who created the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights was a huge step in the modern world towards freedom.

That freedom allowed the U.S. to grow, albeit with the Age of Might still heavy upon the minds and souls of common people. Slavery, the theft of land from the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean and Americas, the harsh mistreatment of those natives and the various wars showed that the Age of Light was just a baby in a world dominated by the declining Age of Might.

This freedom allowed a wealth of cultures of mix, with many religious and non-religious folks being able to seek and live better lives. The quality of food, housing and medicine all improved. Slavery was eventually abolished and equality under the law was expanded to include poor whites, blacks, women and children. More and more people were able to attend schools, read books and take positions that would have landed them in jail, if not killed, before. New jobs were created and whole new industries were born. Many greedy people horded the wealth and continued to abuse the less fortunate, while many others despoiled the lands. But overall, the U.S. was becoming a shining example of what good could come about by allowing people to be free.

With a few greedy folks who still held firm to the Age of Might, the power of the government continued to grow. Those who didn't believe in certain religious ideals were abused, and those whose skin color didn't match their bigoted lunacy were cheated, held down and often killed. Basic rights for all were growing, albeit not perfected.

With that abuse of the poor, counter cultures, including communism and labor unions, rose in power across the world. But capitalism was considered to be trouble because the rich used their ill gotten money to keep others down and began to create modern dynasties in which people didn't have to earn their way, but became entitled like the nobility of old. Of course, the old nobility also moved to American and used their wealth to create ever greater wealth, but freedom showed that despite their economic advantage, hard work, smart thinking and good luck could bring about good fortune even to those who didn't start with a silver spoon in hand.

Jealousy and greed drove laws to be enacted that reduced people's ability to be free. You can't marry who they wanted. You can't have sex with whomever you want. You can't practice your faith in public areas. You can't read certain books. You can't consume certain drugs or foods or medicines. You can't spend all of your money how you see fit. You can't practice medicine, found a church, practice law, drive a truck, fix plumbing or electricity, build a barn, cut hair or do a myriad other things without getting government approval through licensing and certifications and zoning codes. You can't drive a car without wearing a seatbelt or smoke a cigarette with people you want to associate with, even if the Bill of Rights declared your freedom of association.

More and more often, laws have been enacted to oppress one group over another's objections, even if the other group couldn't point to a complaining victim. Laws were no longer created just to protect people from the abuses of others, but to institute a new moral authority that imposed one group's views on the rest. This was no Taliban, but the ideas were very similar: the law was going to be used to make you behave a certain way because they said it was so, not because people were actually being harmed by the bad behavior. They were worried, perhaps, that they couldn't avoid the temptations if it weren't illegal, and they had no better explanation for their children than "because it's against the law."

The Force of Law was bringing the Age of Light back to the Age of Might. Tax policies were used not to fund government activities that benefited all Americans, but were used to implement the preferences of special interests, causing class warfare, irresponsible government waste and creating new entitlements that corrupted the work ethic, created unfair advantages and reduced freedom the way a heroin dealer robs the money and freedom of his victims by giving him a few "free" samples so that he thinks he's getting what he wants until he realizes he's addicted and cannot fend for himself any longer.

Now that we're entering the 21st century, the Age of Might is being challenged by the Age of Terrorism. The Age of Light has been dimming prematurely. No teen should die so young and innocent and full of life and possibility.

To combat terrorism, the old guard believes that they can use the power of force to rid themselves of this new threat. They claim it worked on Japan and Germany, but they have the stories backwards. Japan and Germany were the (currently) last foolish governments to use the Age of Might's misguiding principles to try to dominate the world through military power. These two countries had conquered and killed millions in their evil quests, learning once again that it's easy to conquer, but hard to hold on through occupation.

The forces of the Age of Light are not pacifists. They were and are able to use their freedoms to innovate and create the great wealth that allows them to build a military powerful enough to defend themselves.

Unlike today's foolish war against Iraqis, the Greatest Generation lined up to fight against the Germans and Japanese. They lined up because the cause was clearly just and the enemy had clearly attacked. There were no intel gaffes or forgeries or what ifs because they used reality instead of suspicion. The leaders took responsibility for their actions and fretted over the details. The defense of freedom was clear as Germany and Japan used their racist military machines to kill and conquer. Now it's the U.S. that is using its military machine to kill and conquer rather than defend, while the terrorists' cause is emboldened and grows under the yoke of our unfortunate tyranny.

The U.S. needs to return and lead the world down the path towards the Age of Light, so that the world can indeed grow into adulthood. By taking the high road, fighting in defense, even with overwhelming might, is understood and accepted by the world because it speaks of justice. Untel leads us down the low road, in which attacks against Americans appear justified since we're the invaders and occupiers, with few supporting facts to back up the assertions that lead us into the bloody conflict in the first place. ("Untel" seems more accurate than "intel" because it implies the opposite of true intelligence, which is based on facts, reality, understanding and logic, and also hints at a secret untold world in which torture, counterspies and con men produce untruths and theft of our tax dollars.) This low road has resulted in the killing of hundreds of innocent Iraqis in 0 for 50 bombing runs against the top Iraqi leadership bsaed on flawed untel. It led to an invasion unsupported by what U.N. inspectors had found, and now makes Saddam appear to be the speaker of truths as it related to his weapons programs, even if he was less than forthcoming to foreign powers who had surrounded his nation, controlled his airspace and had crippled his economy.

Unfortunately, the journey to adulthood, like that of adolescence, will be a complicated road, full of pocked faces, awkwardness, tears and confusion, yet with a glimmer of hope and anticipation of good things to come.

The current War on Terror lost its focus when America attacked Iraq. It doesn't matter that Saddam was a bad man or that he struggled to keep his power while the U.S. and U.N. breathed down his neck and control his airspace and economic lifeblood. Liberation is good, but you don't start a war to liberate without a consensus, or a country that is at least struggling through revolution for its own liberation, and you certainly don't do it by claiming they are terrorists with weapons, with neither having been proven. Rather than defending ourselves against real enemies who seek to continue the failed policies of the Age of Might and Terrorism, we've fueled the fire rather than doused the flames. To win against the bigotry, ignorance and violence espoused by a few small terrorist organizations, the Age of Light shows us that we need a two pronged attack.

First, we must vigorously defend ourselves against such enemies, even if the enemy turns out be our "friends," as in the case of Israel and Saudi Arabia. Israel has foolishly fought its own war against terrorism since it was founded, hoping to keep Israel as a "Jewish country" rather than a fair and democratic country open to the various people who live there. They fight daily against terrorism using the failed tactics of the Age of Might, assuming U.S. bought weapons alone will lead them to peace. The U.S. has been slow to come to the aid of Israel's war on terror, too, showing that its policies lack credibility and consistency. Saudi Arabia continues to teach its children that infidels need to be eradicated and that Arabs should rein supreme, that Islam is the only true religion and that all others are unacceptable. This lack of freedom, xenophobia and intolerance under the brutal House of Saud bred Osama bin Laden and most of the 9/11 terrorists. Its failed policies embolden other failed Islamic regimes such as the Taliban's Afghanistan and those in Nigeria, Libya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Syria and Iran.

We need to stop arming all other nations and use our power to punish those who commit crimes against us. We should come to the aid of nations that are under attack from other nations, and we should come to the aid of civilians who are being attacked by their own misguided governments. But when the causes is clearly just, there's no lack of world support. There's no need to rely on bogus intel or fear of imagined threats when responding to such situations.

Second, we must expand freedoms at home and abroad. The U.S. is one of the most generous nations in the world, but our CIA and failed oil policies have bred resentment and mistrust. We have armed Saddam and the Taliban, supported Saudi Arabia despite their abysmal human rights record, armed Israel without consideration for and resolving the cause of the Palestinians, armed the Shah of Iran and then sold arms to Islamic-militant Iran for hostages taken in Lebanon, and we've abused and bombed Vietnam (and worse, we're now selling arms to Vietnam!), Cambodia, Laos, Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq. At home, we continually reduce freedoms, increase our national debt, allow considerable foreign pressure to be placed on our political processes because trillions of the dollars are invested here, restrict our borders, create unfair tax policies, have unsatisfying and unrepresentative elections, and believe that "you are either with us or against us." Personally, I've disagreed with my friends, parents, teachers, bosses and government officials, yet I'm not against any of them. Such platitudes are meant for the unthinking drones who support the Age of Might.

We used our military forces well when we defended Saudi Arabia and Kuwait against an aggressive Iraq, when we defend South Korea from the despotic dynasty to the north, when we defended Europe against the onslaught of the racist Nazis, and when we defended ourselves and many others against the raging imperial excesses of Japan. It's unfortunate that we've squander our good efforts and world approval of our generosity. It's unfortunate that we've squandered a worldwide effort to combat terrorism by being seduced by the power of oil (Saudi Arabia and Iraq), hold old grudges (Iraq), fudge economic deals (Taliban), loot the treasury for rebuilding what we just destroyed (Halliburton et al) and leave long before the mission was actually accomplished (Al Qaeda).

The Age of Light is threatened more by the Age of Terrorism than the Age of Might precisely because the Age of Terrorism is harder to define. Terrorists do not have large militaries to target. They do not represent any particular country. They attack randomly. They target civilians as well as military targets. They use unconventional weapons. They don't wear a uniform or receive a paycheck. They leverage freedoms to subvert freedom, causing fear to erode our freedoms in the name of eroding theirs. They are distributed and resilient. They are willing to die for their cause, so killing them or capturing them won't suffice. Killing them usually means killing lots of innocent people along the way, and that only serves to fuel their fiery anger and lubricate their wicked machinery. It's a losing cause to use the military alone against them.

Terrorists fight using women and children as well as young men. They are illiterate stooges, and they are well educated faithful. They have no timetable and are not in a rush. They have multiple leaders, including a powerful one that hides in caves and is sick from kidney failure. They can use conventional bombs and unconventional planes. They can target people who are amassed in public transportation and disrupt our economy by disabling public transportation. They can breed fear through atrocity, so the more wicked their acts, the more power they obtain by destabilizing our economy and by decreasing our freedoms.

Because Americans refuse to negotiate or otherwise hold peace talks, we make no progress and make no amends for past wrongs. We do not understand their cause, so we cannot hope to resolve them. We lie to ourselves that they are just evil and hate freedom and ignore the many injustices we've committed over decades. We abuse Iraqis after invading and killing many more who never harmed us, so they feel justified in their retaliation and their claims about an imperial and unjust America resonate with their people. We enrich imperial Saudis and Kuwaitis without regard for their abusive regimes, creating greater animosity towards "infidels" and their own corrupt and often immoral systems.

Instead of increasing our freedoms and increasing our world charity, we appear to be coming unhinged to many outside of the U.S. They see us fighting imagined enemies while allowing terrorists to continue their daily assaults throughout the world. They see billions being spent to kill rather than to build. They see liberties dwindling, tracking of everyone rising, newspapers being censored, the truth being hidden, deception through secrecy growing, incarceration of Muslims without pressing charges increasing, and a divided America showing fear at the borders by fingerprinting and photographing everyone. What they see is real as we retreat from the Age of Light and grasp hopelessly to the notion that the Age of Might will rescue us once again.

Unfortunately, the modern technological world serves the purposes of the fringe Age of Terrorism. For the Age of Might to win, it must adopt more brutal and oppressive measures that lead us away from the light, from Jesus's message and that of many other great thinkers and doers.

As technology advances, so does our ability to kill others, either on purpose or by accident. Nuclear energy was discovered by scientists and has been used in medicine, astronomy and clocks. It has powered our appliances, and it has threatened humanity with annihilation. Nuclear weapons have been more a threat than a reality, thank goodness, but as technology advances, the ability to create and exploit nuclear energy for the cause of terrorism has also increased. We may think we can find Saddam's WMD if we invade, but we may discover that the weapons never existed, or we may discover that what limited control the Iraqis had over them are now lost to the highest bidder, increasing the chances of them being used against us instead of making us safer. What will we do with North Korea's arsenal or that of Pakistan or Israel or India or China or Russia or France or the United Kingdom or….? Radioactive materials are lost in the U.S. regularly, and weapons are stolen or lost throughout the world. If we don't subdue terrorism, these modern advances will be used against society.

A simple rifle brought terror to the D.C., Maryland and Virginia communities because two lone Muslim snipers were angry and mentally lost. Anti-abortion murderers shot doctors in the name of unborn babies and religious zealotry. McVeigh killed many using fertilizer, oil and a rental truck because he felt the government was wrong to incinerate the men, women and children at Waco, Texas. Arson is impossible to prevent, including deliberately set "wild fires" or torching new construction as done by the Earth Liberation Front, another local terrorist organization. A distraught pilot can crash the airplane he's entrusted with, just as can a distraught truck driver, bus driver, oil tanker captain or car driver. We cannot stop murder in this country, so it's silly to believe we'll be able to stop terrorism. The only hope is to reduce the level of danger through world justice and good will, and to concentrate on known terrorists when they make themselves known.

While it's rather hard to acquire the raw materials needed for nuclear bombs, finding radioactive waste is less difficult. And with a deep enough pocket, even nukes may be obtainable now or in the future. But biotechnology, genetic engineering, robotics and nanotechnology are some of the latest great advances in the modern world and will be harder to contain because they don't require rare materials and research on them clearly has positive benefits that can mask those who do not seek a healthy result.

Some people already worry about catastrophes caused by accidents using such technologies (Remember the Unabomer? How about Bill Joy?). And if accidents can be devastating, imagine that same technology in the hands of terrorists or powerful governments. Scientists have assembled polio in a lab, and others are working on strains of bird-flu. Others are able to create insects that can cause massive destruction by unleashing them at a time of agricultural harvests, or by having them spread infectious diseases. Such scientists and entreprenuers are not restricted like those who work on weapons grade biotoxins, but the chance of inadvertent releases into the wild is higher than many might guess. Our country started the nuclear age and is the only country to have ever used them against civilian populations. We have been a top producer of biological and chemical weapons and have sold them to other nations, including rogues like Saddam's Iraq when he was at war with Iran. We're building laser weapons, space weapons, and have robotic drones that fire missiles. Machines that kill people without people remaining in direct control is already possible, even if it was science fiction not too long ago.

Those who believe we're still in the Age of Might believe we can control this by limiting who can conduct such research, but it's impossible to contain information and knowledge. Information is spread electronically at the speed of light and can reach a worldwide audience easily. Containment of information is simply not feasible in a free world. Containment is impossible when capital markets require that patents be published, detailing how to build viruses and other "advancements" in order to secure a limited monopoly. Containment is impossible when one country pursues the research and then claims all other nations who do the same are evil.

A lot of research is conducted in foreign labs outside the reach of national laws. Such research will rely on ethical scientists, so only a just world will keep us safe. You can't even make a substance illegal or regulated until it's been invented, and there's no end to the types of materials that scientists will dream up. The invention of dynamite will seem like a child's chemistry experiment compared to what will be invented in the next few decades, and while dynamite can be dangerous in a localized area, viruses and virulent bacteria can spread across the modern world, as we've seen with AIDS, SARS, Mad Cow and Bird Flu.

As an American, when you walk down the street, you don't feel safe because there are police on every corner. We don't feel safe because the military patrols the streets ready to kill anybody who gets out of line. We don't feel safe because bad guys are captured before they commit their crimes (they rarely are). We don't feel safe because we have national ID cards. We don't feel safe because new immigrants are rejected at the borders and foreign tourists are fingerprinted and photographed after their backgrounds are checked. We don't feel safe because we're at code yellow or orange or red or green. We don't feel safe because we're abusing prisoners and arresting Muslims based on bad intel. We don't feel safe because the government is bigger than ever while our national debt grows ever larger. We don't feel safe because we rely on foreign oil, pay dearly for gas, subsidize Iraqi oil, and have no plans to break the oil habit that has caused us to sell a lot of America's interests to foreign governments through their investments and political clout. We don't even feel safe because we're all walking down the street armed with handguns and concealed weapons permits.

We feel safe because most Americans are good people. We feel safe because we live in a free society that allows us to pursue our interests, benefit from our hard work, and raise our families with the ideals that we choose for ourselves. We feel safe because we are better educated and live longer than ever before. Our safety comes from justice, peace, equal rights and personal liberty. Our safety comes from our bravery and our ability to rise to any challenge and to meet any enemy when we are attacked and we need to defend this great nation or our communities. Our safety comes from economic prosperity and mobility. In fact, many people in the U.S. don't feel safe precisely because they live in a climate of fear, bigotry, injustice and economic disadvantage.

The path to the Age of Light is not paved with good intentions. It's paved with good deeds. Peace and safety can only be achieved through justice, freedom and equality. Note "equality" is not the same as "sameness." We have to let others be who they want to be so long as they don't harm others. If there's no victim who can clearly be shown to have been harm, there is no crime and we should mind our own business. We must allow for differences in tastes, cultures and needs. We must resist our faulty nature to assume our views apply to others and, as Bertrand Russell noted, we must resist our joy at winning at the expense of others. Competition is good only when it's used to improve oneself, not when it's used to harm others.

Russell, of course, was a socialist with bitterness towards religions, which was his prerogative since there's no reason why his tastes should match my own or anybody else's. Of course, his interests in communism and socialism, the ideals of which may be honorable, are certainly simplistically misguided, and Russell was anything but a simpleton. Communism and socialism as a philosophy, when done perfectly, would lead towards the Age of Light. Socialism would very much mirror Jesus's thinking. The communist precept suggests that society should take "from each according to his abilities" and give "to each according to his needs." This is certainly a nice sounding proposition and led to a huge movement across the world. A few countries still cling to the ideals even though it has proven a failure in practice. Since it was introduced by people who lived during the Age of Might, they believed in totalitarianism and atheism, even if these are not required to achieve the ideals. In fact, had communists embraced Christianity, they may have succeeded far better than an atheistic one ever did. It would have been easy to create supporting notions based on the New Testament. Jesus told people to pay the tax collector, give his last dollar to help others, to be a pacifist, etc. These are surely ideals that could have been leveraged by tyrants to keep people under control while enriching themselves on the labor of others. But without a religious underpinning, communism failed to provide proper meaning for all the good works that citizens did, especially for those who had useful abilities.

However, in practice such ideals only work at the family level, and at best, at the tribal level. In America, family ties are already strained by mobility and divorce, and tribalism only exists as parochialism. Proximity is far less binding than ancient bloodlines. Beyond that, it is unrealistic to think people will work hard for strangers, especially strangers who slack off and live off the fat and profit produced by the hard working and capable members. Jesus would have understood this ideal as he was an exemplar of such sacrifice and good works. But Jesus was a rarity in this regard, both in his time and nowadays.

Communism fails because hard workers and talented people tend to lose interest when their efforts are simply absorbed by the masses of people who are not pulling their own weight. All people are not created equal and do not put forth equal amounts of energy or positive actions. Lazy people quicly realize that laziness is a virtue, allowing them to ignore their work and still live as well as those who apply themselves and exhibit special skills. Eventually, mediocrity and sameness dominate, creating a world of underachievers and bored, under-appreciated performers. Why put in the extra effort if you'll get no benefit? Being spoiled is easy. But the typical result after deploying communism, after the brief euphoria of a revolution, is a government that mistreats everyone, demands moreunder the force of might, and ends up with less being produced. Greed and corruption enable a few in power to siphon off what little riches are produced.

Of course, some of this could be ameliorated through fame and public recognition. Riches aren't everything. Some could be helped by allowing the top performers to still live better than those who do not perform very well, yet reducing the discrepancy between the rich and poor as exists in a capitalist society. This is the twist of socialism, to allow people to achieve according to their abilities, but to use taxation to level the economic playing field by taking from one to give to another. Socialism sounds like a nice compromise, and it's certainly closer to a workable Age of Light than communism's unrealistic expectations.

But socialism suffers the same ills as communism over time, though it tends to deteriorate more slowly because people who are rich can still get richer, just not as quickly. Does Bill Gates really need $40 billion? If he had $1 billion, he'd still have more money than anybody has a need to own, and $39 billion could be diverted towards the public good. Naturally, to achieve such a balance, the tax rate would have to be very high on the wealthy. The desire to get rich would still exist, but once someone became rich, there would be little incentive to continue to build a business or work hard because each new dollar earned would be severely taxed. Some would continue to work -- after all, they are rich and don't really need the extra money -- but their competitive juices and desire to be relevant, recognized and powerful would keep them in the game. And they'd still get incrementally richer. But many more would take the Microsoft "rags to riches" path and retire early. Some of the retired would then go on to do other jobs, found other businesses that create more jobs, while many more would retire and open up a position for the job they previously had. Overall, it sounds pretty good that taxes should progressively go up as people earn or accumulate more wealth, allowing the "rich enough" to continue to get richer, albeit more slowly, while contributing more back to the society that allowed them to obtain that very wealth.

Unfortunately, socialism rarely is coupled with free markets and capitalism, and unfair taxation creates class conflicts. In a short-sighted attempt to save money, governments believe they can run various operations more cheaply than for-profit corporations. And in the short term, that is true. But society cannot be built for the short term. A socialist country will tend to see immigration from those who seek the benefits provided, while those who create riches will tend to emmigrate to countries where they can keep more of their wealth. The current outsourcing of jobs overseas, the growing trend of multinational corporations to establish their headquarters in tax havens outside the U.S., and the growing trend of corporations keeping their foreign earnings offshore are examples that show wealth leaving a highly regulated, highly taxed area for places that have fewer regulations and lower taxes.

Government monopolies, like all monopolies, grow fat and lazy. With government monopolies, there's no mechanism for change short of a revolution because huge bureaucracies are created in which many workers benefit while also providing some level of benefits to a subset of citizens. Many people hate the reality of privatization: when governments switch from their own monopolies to private enterprise, there is definitely a massive amount of fraud, waste and dislocation that occurs. Enron and South/Central America exhibit these pains quite clearly. Greed isn't good.

Unfortunately, that transitional pain is the same pain that occurs when a lazy, fat couch potato realizes he's leading an unhealthy lifestyle that cannot be sustained. He then begins a new exercise and diet regimen that's designed to make him fit again. There is pain and suffering in that transition, so the best idea is to stay fit from the beginning.

Socialism would work best if the government stepped aside and allowed the private sector to actually deliver the services deemed necessary by the government. By using its purchasing power, it could still achieve favorable pricing, but it could also switch vendors if one stopped providing a quality and affordable service. Unfortunately, when government controls huge contracts, corruption surely follows, and most of that money is funnelled into companies with the right political clout and connections rather than those with the best products and services at reasonable prices. And government certainly shouldn't be buying top of the line products and services using our tax dollars, and whatever it does buy, it tends to corrupt individual decisions.

Health care benefits show this clearly: people do not buy health insurance to cover "health wrecks," but now buy it for routine care. All of a sudden, we don't care that a hospital charges $1 for a bandage. Prices are rarely posted, and we're not allowed to bring our own medicines or bandages to reduce our costs. This is the opposite of a free market because individuals do not base their decisions on price versus performance. We can't buy a CT scan from a company that only has a technician because of licensing rules that preclude us getting cheaper services from people who may not be as high in quality, but are priced to meet our budgetary needs. We don't force everyone to drive a Mercedes car just because someone declares it's the best money can buy. Furthermore, most health benefits are masked in employment benefits, further removing the consumer's understanding of what is being spent for what is being acquired (not to mention the headaches we have when we lose or change jobs).

Politicians are nearly universally rich themselves, and they rub elbows with those of their own class and rarely mix with others. They often are lawyers who see nothing but a real benefit in creating more laws that require more lawyers. And they then further a legal system that makes it harder to purchase legal services from people who don't have a license. Like in medicine, this also means that practicioners and apprentices cannot easily compete for our health and legal dollars because they have not achieved an arbitrary level of competence according to the licensing boards, even if we still hear about medical malpractice and doctors and lawyers who worked hard enough to become licensed, but then fail to stay current or work hard in the best interests of their customers. Ex-CEOs are able to direct policies that further enrich the companies they came from, while acting CEOs use corporate wealth to subvert tax and other laws to their benefit. This is yet another reason why a simple and fair tax is truly just: it reduces graft by reducing the ability of the government to establish rules that benefit one group over another.

Taxation is a mechanism created by the Age of Might. You pay those taxes not because you want to help society, but because if you do not, you'd go to jail. But society does need money to operate shared services like defense, roads, clean air and rivers, and other services we deem are necessary for all Americans. For taxation to be truly fair, it needs to apply to all people at the same rate. This avoids class warfare and treats each dollar earned or spent the same way. Deductions for one group over another lead to greater divides, and such micromanagement of the free markets rarely results in a quality solution. If society deems it necessary to offer a base level of support, that support should be given equally to all Americans. This might be true for education, food, shelter and health care. The richer will still pay more real dollars, but will pay the same percentage. The poor will pay fewer dollars, at the same percentage rate, though a greater percentage of their total income. The rich will receive the same benefits, but that benefit will be a much smaller percentage of their total income. By providing true equal protection under the law, justice is best served. Nobody said being poor was better than being rich, and the poor pay a greater percentage of their money for all basic needs because all of their money goes for basic needs, while the rich have lots of money left over after they meet their needs. No American seeks poverty over riches, and it's unreasonable to believe that being poor shouldn't be harder than being richer. The motivation for hard work needs to be wealth or fame or, for those special few, creating a benefit for posterity and the poor. Nobody believes a poor or rich person should have greater rights than the other, or should be allowed to pollute more, or commit a crime and receive more or less punishment. We see the injustice there, but we allow envy and greed to trick us into believing that taking a greater percentage of money from one group of people than another, under the force of law, is somehow just. It's not. And this is why socialism fails in the real world. It may seem to be on the path towards the Age of Light, but in fact, it's a detour, a misguided attempt to use might to make right.

When the world becomes more just, people tend to automatically take care of their families, friends and neighbors. Again, it's unrealistic to expect people to truly care about strangers or people who live far away and have no interactions. But during catastrophes, most Americans do rise to the occasion and donate money for such special causes. America is a shining example of providing aid to regions hardest hit by disasters. By allowing people to contribute on their own, however, people are empowered and receive satisfaction for their donations. Nobody gets that satisfaction by paying taxes. Taxes rob our money and our nobility, even when those taxes are well spent, which is rare enough. And then government entities confuse themselves into believing that taxation is revenue, as if they've somehow earned that money. If a business used force to take money from you, we'd recognize that criminal behavior instantly.

When you child or parent is sick, and you struggle to provide care, you don't do it because you are forced to. Love and devotion drive your good behavior. Some people believe that the reason you don't go next door and rob your neighbor is because it's against the law. While this may be true for a few individuals, it's certainly not the case for the vast majority of people. We don't rob our neighbors because we are good people, we have no quarrel with them, we understand that what we have is a blessing and results from our work, we believe that stealing is morally wrong, and we do not want them robbing us so we treat them as we'd have them treat us.

Sure, we need laws that protect people from theft, but the law isn't want makes us good or keeps us safe. The police more typically investigate crime than stop crime, though arresting criminals surely stops future crimes. The fact that people are arrested for theft (among the many other crimes in which there is a true victim) shows that the law doesn't stop criminal behavior. And it hasn't stopped that behavior by a minority of people after thousands of years using the law to punish those who do. Therefore, we need such laws to be enforced to punish wrongdoing and prevent future crimes, but we must realize that goodness does not result from such enforcement. And if we could think about punishments that didn't just include incarceration but allowed for restitution, we would begin to move away from the Age of Might towards the Age of Light.

There will be those who fight the light and only want control through might (note it's primarily the mighty or the oppressed who think this way). It's unfortunate and paradoxical, but this transition will require our might, and it's guaranteed that a few miscreants will continue to be a thorn in the lives of good people just as we have criminals in our midst today. We'll have to fight to prevail, and with a cooperating world, this should be achievable through law enforcement and a fair criminal justice system rather than war.

To reach the Age of Light, we need to reach a point where we don't have to turn our cheek because nobody ever hits the other. We don't have be envious of riches if those who have money use their economic advantage not only for their personal financial freedom, but also to gain satisfaction by helping others through charity and good works. This was George H. Bush's "thousand points of light." It's being charitable. It's being neighborly. It's being American. It's being Christian. It's being just about any religious, moral, ethical or civic persuasion.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. And it is a train. The train is bound to glory, here on Earth, regardless of your faith or lack thereof. All aboard!