"Beware the leader, who bangs the drum of war,
In order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervour,
for patriotism is indeed a double edged sword.
It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind.
And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch
And the blood boils with hate
And the mind has closed; the leader will have no need of seizing
the rights of the citizenry.
Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism,
will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so.
How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar." - Julius Caesar
When you consider the incredible advances mankind has made in the last 200 years in the fields of nuclear physics, mechanical engineering, industrial machinery, biotechnology, information technology, automotive technology, space technology, medical technology, biochemistry, genetic technology etc. etc. it is absolutely astonishing that we have made absolutely no advances at all in political methodology for the last 2,000 years.
As a race, since Adam, we have 'advanced' from monarchy to democracy and that is it. The Greeks invented democracy over 2,000 years ago and we have not advanced our political system one inch since then.
We have put men on the moon, we have split the atom, we have sequenced our own DNA, we have built computers that can do billions of operations per second, but we cannot do better than one person one vote?
What does that tell us? It tells us that mankind has been held back by a very powerful intelligence. It tells us that democracy suited someone very powerful and that person has prevented any further 'evolution' of our political know how for the last 2,000 years. Who is that person? Well, consider these words of Jesus...
13 Go in through the narrow gate; because broad and spacious is the road leading off into destruction, and many are the ones going in through it;
14 whereas narrow is the gate and cramped the road leading off into life, and few are the ones finding it (Matthew 7).
So Satan has the majority. So a full and unqualified democracy would mean that the bad guys, whom he can control, are choosing our leaders. We discovered in I24 that 50% of mankind are saved into the Kingdom of God and 50% go to Gehenna for the duration of that Kingdom (unless they get early parole). We can break this down a bit further by symmetry. Crudely speaking 1/4 of us are 'good', 1/4 of us are 'bad' and 1/2 of us are neither. We are in the main floating voters as regards righteousness. So if Satan can control the media, if he can hog the microphone, then he is essentially choosing our leaders.
It is true that if you ignore heavenly interference, democracy as a method of choosing a leader is marginally better than a monarchy, since the leader is accountable to the people. But when you add heavenly interference into the mix, an unqualified election is worse than a monarchy, because Satan can ensure that we have a choice between two selfish liars, and then he can ensure that we pick the worse of the two. In that way we always get a really selfish liar. Whereas with a monarchy it is possible to actually get someone reasonably honest who is somewhat philanthropic. Would Prince Charles have invaded Iraq had the decision been his?
But even if we ignore the heavenly aspect to our rulership, how can we be so stupid as to hold our leaders accountable only to the people? We all know that this is the wrong thing to do. Every citizen of every western country is held accountable not to the people but to the law. When we are tried in court, the judge does not hold a popularity contest, he applies the law of the land. We all know that the law is much better than the mob at keeping citizens in order. Why then can we not see that the law is much better than the mob at keeping our leaders in order?
Isn't it absolutely obvious that our leaders should be accountable not to the people but to a constitution? Why do we have the law for citizens but the mob for leaders? OK if you want to choose a leader by democracy that is one thing. But he should then be accountable to the law, to a constitution, for the duration of his presidency.
So the first step beyond an unqualified lawless democracy is a Constitutional Democracy. What we mean by this is that not citizens but leaders must be held to account by a set of laws for them. Here are some examples of laws we might want them to obey.
[1] If they break an election promise, then another election is called. How is it that citizens are suing each other for breach of contract, and the law of the land holds each one of us accountable, but not the government? The government is made up of citizens is it not? Any election contract must be enforced by a third party, a government regulator, a group of independent judges.
[2] Human rights must be respected. If they are not then those responsible for violating them are removed, by the government regulator.
[3] Unjust wars should plainly be a crime. Leaders who carry them out without international legal authority should be removed and incarcerated.
The US is half way there as regards a constitutional democracy. It has a pretty good constitution, but it is plain that their government is not held to account when it breaks it. The US needs an independent body that enforces the constitution on the law makers. It too needs a government regulator. It needs a council of Jedi Knight judges! The trouble with all the US watchdogs is that they are corrupt, they only bark when a democrat screws up. None of them barked during Watergate and none of them bark today when things a lot worse than Watergate are routine. Watchdogs must be politically independent. The Supreme court likewise should be politically independent. The concept that the president chooses a judge is institutionally corrupt.
So a Constitutional Democracy is better than a Democracy, because the law is better than a popularity contest at holding leaders to account. So there is one step that we have not made.
In certain countries in Africa, 80% of the citizens are illiterate. How can we possibly ask them who should be the president when they are incapable of independently informing themselves as to what his policies are? What happens in these countries is that either the one literate person in the village tells everyone else how to vote, or the smart president sends someone to bribe the chief of the village, and he tells everyone else how to vote. So in order for a democracy to choose a leader well, those who vote plainly need to meet the following criteria...
[1] Literate
[2] Properly informed
[3] Trained in rational decision making (having reached proficiency in a logical subject at some point).
In order for them to be properly informed, we need a free and honest press. Such a thing does not exist in any country regrettably. The famous quote from Colby, the CIA president at the time of Watergate and for 3 years afterwards saying: We own everyone of significance in every major media outfit, which was confirmed by Bernstein in his 1977 Rolling Stone Magazine article, show that in the west our media is corrupted by our spies. So the writer is suggesting first that intelligence agency and other political influences must be removed from the press and the media (not an easy task) and then in addition to that a level of qualification is necessary before one can register to vote. This is a step beyond one person one vote. This is one qualified person one vote. In the UK the writer would suggest GCSE English and GCSE in a logical subject like maths or a science. We have illiterate people in the UK as well. Worldwide, similar criteria could apply. I mean if you want to choose a new manager for Manchester united, you should ask the opinion of people who know something about football. It is completely pointless to ask the opinion of people who know nothing about football. But a general election is basically asking millions of people who know little or nothing about politics, who should be our leader. This is plainly going to give the wrong answer. We need to ask only the people who know something about the subject. This is not elitist or exclusive because all of us could get these 2 GCSE examinations, if we cared enough about politics. And if we do not care about politics, then why are we permitted to vote? Putting this another way, if we will not make the decision to get educated, then why should we be given any part in making the decision on our next leader?
So a qualifying democracy would improve the choices made by the voters, by having better informed voters. This would mean that selfish liars would be seen through by a larger percentage of the qualifying electorate and there be less likely to swing the masses behind them. So there is another step that we have not made. A qualifying constitutional democracy would be a large improvement on the kind of democracy that we practice today.
For the two reasons described above and for many other reasons, democracy as we practice it today is not by any means the best system of government for Western Nations. It 'works' after a fashion in the West. But this does not mean that it is useful political system for the Middle East or for Africa. The Coalition has evangelised democracy in Iraq, in the 21st century in the same way that we evangelised Christianity in the 12th century. Both invasions were equally naive and misled.
Democracy is a disaster in a polarised country such as Iraq. Imagine that a country contained 51% Manchester United fans and 49% Chelsea fans. And imagine that the people in this country were more interested in football that they were in politics (as most males are). Then what would be the result of a general election where one candidate was a Manchester United supporter and the other was a Chelsea supporter? Obviously the Manchester United supporter would get elected. How is that the best thing for the country? Now consider an African country where for example the Mugabe tribe have 60% of the vote and the Nkomo tribe has 40% of the vote. All that democracy will do for that country is put the larger tribe in power. But why is that the best thing to do? Suppose that the larger tribe is more ruthless, worse educated and more violent, but the smaller tribe is better educated less corrupt and non violent. Plainly the smaller tribe should be ruling the place, if the larger tribe will accept them.
Now let us return to Iraq. The largest tribe there, the Shia's are reasonably well behaved. But the smaller tribe, the Sunni's are fanatically violent. What democracy has done is taken the power away from the smaller more violent tribe and given it to the larger less violent tribe. Well, yes that does sound like a good idea, except that the fanatically violent Sunni's may never accept Shia rule. In that case Democracy has caused an indefinitely long civil war. The point is that democracy only works in a homogenous society. If the country is polarised as Iraq is, then democracy is a disaster. This understanding tells us that the only way to solve the problems in Iraq is to split the place and the oil three ways, (into Shia, Sunni and Kurd) and then give each homogenous new country democracy. That might work.
But the general concept behind democracy which is that the guy with the largest family should be the ruler is plainly flawed and prejudiced.
Why should a group have rulership just because there are more of them? Every country should be run by the most able leader, not by the most popular leader, and not by the leader who comes from the largest demographic group. It is amazing in the day and age when we reject racism with our lips, that our political system is in fact founded based upon it. Democracy in a polarised multi tribal society will just give you a leader from the largest tribe. South Africa and Zimbabwe have both shown us this. Both countries would even today be better run by a black and white coalition, or by whites alone. But since whites are in the minority they have very little power in either place. This is billed by the politically correct as a great leap for mankind against racism. It is nothing of the sort. It is a disaster for both countries. They have never been worse run, and millions have died as a result. Millions of blacks have died as a result.
Make no mistake, it is democracy that has killed these people. Democracy gave power to the largest racial group in both countries, the blacks, because there are more of them than there are whites and the society is polarised. But the whites were better rulers. South Africa and Zimbabwe are both just as racist as they ever were. Where are the white rulers? Why are there no white rulers? Is it ok to be racist against a minority but not ok to be racist against a majority? The crazy thing is that it is the blacks who are suffering under racist black rulership. What both places need is a black white coalition. We need to work together.
But truly, if we continue to espouse this crazy method of choosing our leaders for much longer, then as democracy becomes more global, the whole planet will by run by the Indians or the Chinese! If they form a far eastern alliance, they will control the whole world.
Putting this in its simplest possible terms. Why should we pick as a leader, the person who has the largest number of brothers? Surely we should pick as our leader the person who treats the largest number of people like his brother!
In other words: Democracy gives you a leader who has the largest numbers of brothers. Christianity gives you a leader who treats the largest number of people as his brothers.
Democracy is a pop idol contest for choosing our leaders. But pop idol does not choose the best singers in the writer's opinion. There was an episode in the UK where a mixed race girl sang with a voice that sounded every bit as good as Whitney Houston before she met Bobby Brown. Pete Waterman described her as fantastic and even Simon Cowell said that she was 'On the money'. But she was good looking and she was talented so she was voted out of the contest due to Jealousy. Pop Idol in the UK has been won by an effeminate boy and a fat girl. It became a kind of who does not make me jealous contest. The only point that the writer is trying to make is that democracy does not choose the best person for the job, it chooses the most popular person, but the head boy at school was rarely the best pupil.
Running a country requires leadership skill, it requires a caring heart, it requires a strong spirit, it requires wisdom and of course it requires an iron grip on morality, which is love and justice.
So here is another step that we could have taken to improve upon democracy, but we did not take it. Instead of having the mob choose our leaders out of popularity, let us have a panel of experts choose them out of capability, out of a proven track record of merit.
I mean if we want to reduce bureaucracy let's elect Stellios from EasyJet. He would get rid of millions of parasitic bureaucrats in a heart beat. We could have EasyGov.com. One term of Stellios and our taxes would be halved and the UK would overtake China as the fastest growing economy in the world. Sure, maybe Stellios is not very popular with trade unionists and the likes, but he knows how to do it, he has proven by his track record, that he is up to the job.
We need a panel of economic experts to choose a chancellor, we need a panel of military experts to choose a defence secretary, we need a panel of medical experts to choose a secretary of state for health, we need a panel of educational experts to choose a secretary of state for education etc. etc. Then we might actually get a government that was qualified to do the job it was doing. As regards our leader we need a panel looking for someone with a proven track record of fighting for justice and of demonstrating love. Someone like Bob Geldof perhaps? Who has demonstrated more global love than him?
Really we want a true philathropist as our leader. Someone who will look at every situation with eyes focused on the advancement of his sheep, rather than his own advancement.
So the Qualifying Constitutional Meritocracy has a very high level of qualification required for those who choose our leaders. You need to be an expert in a field. This is really as far as we can go down the route of qualification. But this would be our best system of government without a detailed knowledge of God's law. And there was no earthly reason why we could not have run the planet in this way for the last 2,000 years.
[1] A constitution and a government regulator that enforces it upon our leaders
[2] The government regulator that enforces all panel-election promises,
just as we have to obey commercial contracts
[2] Every leader is chosen by a panel of experts, with regard to proven track records in their field
So the leaders are chosen not by the mob, but by experts, and they can be removed not by the mob, but by constitutional lawyers. If this system was in place in South Africa or in Zimbabwe, millions of lives would have never been lost. If this system was in place in Iraq today, the place and the oil would be split in three. When two tribes refuse to be ruled, one by the other then you must give them a divorce. How can the West be granting divorces to marriages of people all the time for any trivial reason but refusing to grant divorces to marriages of peoples for any reason.
9 All this I have seen, and there was an applying of my heart to every work that has been done under the sun, [during] the time that man has dominated man to his injury (Ecclesiastes 8).
But how do you choose this panel of experts?
At this point we might as well cut to the chase, for we are more or less describing the administration of the Kingdom of God here under Jesus Christ. The Panel of experts is the loyal angels. They see everything that we are doing and they have already chosen the heavenly leaders and the earthly leaders of the next system of government. They chose them on their love and on their desire for justice and on their faith that with God's help man could get there, and on their faith that God would give us that help. They chose the Bob Geldofs of this world in simple parlance. But of course there is one who showed more love for the world even than Bob, and that was Jesus Christ. So he will be the heavenly President of the Kingdom of God. There is another who has had more experience in being a human and in God's law than any other man, having been Jared for 962 years, Cainan for 460 years, and Jehoida for 130 years and Daniel and Simeon after these, his name is Melchizedek. He will be the President on earth of the Kingdom of God. Paul said about him...
1 For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him
2 and to whom Abraham apportioned a tenth from all things, is first of all, by translation: King of Righteousness, and is then also king of Salem, that is, King of Peace. (Hebrews 7).
He will be the earthly king of the Kingdom of peace, the Kingdom of God. But Jerusalem means twofold peace, and Jesus is the king of the heavenly fold, the overall king of that kingdom.
The contrast between the Kingdom of God and our present political system will be so stark and so great, because our lack of political progress over 2 millennia has been so lamentable. We have so much to learn.
Democracies have swung so far against the concept of a Monarchy that they have made the father in many Western countries almost obsolete. They proclaim family values with their lips yet they have decapitated every family by replacing the father with a social service in the case of financial hardship or with the courts in the case of family disputes. But this is all hypocrisy. George Bush Senior is a Patriarch, not merely of the Bush family but of the Republican party, which to its more brainwashed adherents, is America.
God has a very simple method of running things, it is called 'the family'. He runs the whole universe on this basis. He is the father, the patriarch, and the holy spirit is his wife, and we, the humans, are their kids. Democracy is a perversion of the family, it is a corruption of the family concept of one head, the father, and one advisory board, the multi-tasking wife, and one set of children, loved by them both. Democracy corrupts the family into multi-headed beast, and these things just take us round and round in circles. There should be no voting on any committee, or in any family other than for the purpose of demonstrating to the head of the committee or of the family the view of the majority on that committee or in that family. All decisions should be made by the head of the committee or of the family in consultation with the rest of his committee or with his wife, who is/are merely his advisors. This is also how a tribunal should work. The wife, or the committee members, exert influence on the head by diplomacy, not by voting.
So here are some principals of God's law that mankind has known for thousands of years, but in the last few centuries we have abandoned them in our rush show ourselves that we know more than both God and our ancestors.
[1] Every group of people in every organisation has one head only, nothing is decided by a vote. Every organisation is patriarchal, none are democratic.
[2] Every person with authority over people working in a field must be fully trained in that field to the standard of those whom he has authority over. Every Health Service administrator should have been trained as or should be a doctor or a nurse. Every administrator in the department of education should be or should have been trained as a teacher. Every person in authority in the ministry of defence on in the Pentagon should have undergone basic training in one of the armed forces etc. etc. etc.
[3] Pursue individualisation rather than nationalisation or privatisation. Take the power from large monopolistic bureaucratic bodies, whether public or private, and return it to the individual. For example social services should not be run by the state, or by any one large organisation, they should by run by individual families and individual corporations. Unemployment is basically a modern form of slavery. Everyone on the dole is a slave to the state. The state is a terrible and unloving and totally demotivating master, both to those without employment, and to those trying to care for them in the department of employment. The unemployed should become 'slaves' to families or businesses, not to the state. People are better at looking after people than the state is.
[4] Humanomics, not economics. You have heard the expression: Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves! This is nonsense! The people are the trees, money is merely the fruit. If you look after the fruit but do not look after the trees which produce the fruit, then how long are you going to be in the fruit business? Look after the people who earn the pennies that make the pounds and then we will all be rich. Just as the farmer cares for his fruit trees, so our government should care for its people first and their money second. For when Israel was at its richest the following was written...
25 And Judah and Israel continued to dwell in security, everyone under his own vine and under his own fig tree, from Dan to Beer-sheba, all the days of Solomon (1Kings 4).
But they do not put people first, they put money first.. They put the speeding cameras in the places that will earn them the most money, not in the places that will save the most lives. They fine you £50 if you cross the white line into a bus lane which puts no-one's life in danger. But they fine the bus nothing when it ventures over the white line in the middle of the road which separates you and the bus passengers from instant death in a head on collision.
But it does not matter how good your laws are, if the people do not understand why they need them and therefore do not accept them. Because society will fall either if good rules are not accepted or if bad rules are accepted. So we do not merely need the right set of rules. We also need the right people. We need people who understand what the rules are for and why we have them sufficiently well that they will actually accept them and obey them. Or more precisely we need a set of people who will obey this set of rules even if they do not fully understand them because they love God and they love mankind and they have faith that God knows how to give us the right set of rules, since he created us all in the first place. And in any event they can see that the rules of the kingdom are a hell of a lot better than the rules of this world.
This set of people are the citizens in the kingdom of God. They too are chosen by the angels. The way that they are chosen is revealed in the next section.