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The 5th Epochal Revelation
-The Urantia Papers
PAPER 72
GOVERNMENT ON A NEIGHBORING PLANET
72:0.1
BY PERMISSION of Lanaforge and with the approval of the
Most Highs of Edentia, I am authorized to narrate
something of the social, moral, and political life of
the most advanced human race living on a not far-distant
planet belonging to the Satania system.
72:0.2
Of all the Satania worlds which became isolated because
of participation in the Lucifer rebellion, this planet
has experienced a history most like that of Urantia. The
similarity of the two spheres undoubtedly explains why
permission to make this extraordinary presentation was
granted, for it is most unusual for the system rulers to
consent to the narration on one planet of the affairs of
another.
72:0.3
This planet, like Urantia, was led astray by the
disloyalty of its Planetary Prince in connection with
the Lucifer rebellion. It received a Material Son
shortly after Adam came to Urantia, and this Son also
defaulted, leaving the sphere isolated, since a
Magisterial Son has never been bestowed upon its mortal
races.
1. THE CONTINENTAL NATION
72:1.1
Notwithstanding all these planetary handicaps a very
superior civilization is evolving on an isolated
continent about the size of Australia. This nation
numbers about 140 million. Its people are a mixed race,
predominantly blue and yellow, having a slightly greater
proportion of violet than the so-called white race of
Urantia. These different races are not yet fully
blended, but they fraternize and socialize very
acceptably. The average length of life on this continent
is now ninety years, fifteen per cent higher than that
of any other people on the planet.
72:1.2
The industrial mechanism of this nation enjoys a certain
great advantage derived from the unique topography of
the continent. The high mountains, on which heavy rains
fall eight months in the year, are situated at the very
center of the country. This natural arrangement favors
the utilization of water power and greatly facilitates
the irrigation of the more arid western quarter of the
continent.
72:1.3
These people are self-sustaining, that is, they can live
indefinitely without importing anything from the
surrounding nations. Their natural resources are
replete, and by scientific techniques they have learned
how to compensate for their deficiencies in the
essentials of life. They enjoy a brisk domestic commerce
but have little foreign trade owing to the universal
hostility of their less progressive neighbors.
72:1.4
This continental nation, in general, followed the
evolutionary trend of the planet: The development from
the tribal stage to the appearance of strong rulers and
kings occupied thousands of years. The unconditional
monarchs were succeeded by many different orders of
government -- abortive republics, communal states, and
dictators came and went in endless profusion. This
growth continued until about five hundred years ago
when, during a politically fermenting period, one of the
nation's powerful dictator-triumvirs had a change of
heart. He volunteered to abdicate upon condition that
one of the other rulers, the baser of the remaining two,
also vacate his dictatorship. Thus was the sovereignty
of the continent placed in the hands of one ruler. The
unified state progressed under strong monarchial rule
for over one hundred years, during which there evolved a
masterful charter of liberty.
72:1.5
The subsequent transition from monarchy to a
representative form of government was gradual, the kings
remaining as mere social or sentimental figureheads,
finally disappearing when the male line of descent ran
out. The present republic has now been in existence just
two hundred years, during which time there has been a
continuous progression toward the governmental
techniques about to be narrated, the last developments
in industrial and political realms having been made
within the past decade.
2. POLITICAL ORGANIZATION
72:2.1
This continental nation now has a representative
government with a centrally located national capital.
The central government consists of a strong federation
of one hundred comparatively free states. These states
elect their governors and legislators for ten years, and
none are eligible for re-election. State judges are
appointed for life by the governors and confirmed by
their legislatures, which consist of one representative
for each one hundred thousand citizens.
72:2.2
There are five different types of metropolitan
government, depending on the size of the city, but no
city is permitted to have more than one million
inhabitants. On the whole, these municipal governing
schemes are very simple, direct, and economical. The few
offices of city administration are keenly sought by the
highest types of citizens.
72:2.3
The federal government embraces three co-ordinate
divisions: executive, legislative, and judicial. The
federal chief executive is elected every six years by
universal territorial suffrage. He is not eligible for
re-election except upon the petition of at least
seventy-five state legislatures concurred in by the
respective state governors, and then but for one term.
He is advised by a supercabinet composed of all living
ex-chief executives.
72:2.4
The legislative division embraces three houses:
72:2.5
1. The upper
house is elected by industrial, professional,
agricultural, and other groups of workers, balloting in
accordance with economic function.
72:2.6
2. The lower
house is elected by certain organizations of society
embracing the social, political, and philosophic groups
not included in industry or the professions. All
citizens in good standing participate in the election of
both classes of representatives, but they are
differently grouped, depending on whether the election
pertains to the upper or lower house.
72:2.7
3. The third
house -- the elder statesmen -- embraces the
veterans of civic service and includes many
distinguished persons nominated by the chief executive,
by the regional (subfederal) executives, by the chief of
the supreme tribunal, and by the presiding officers of
either of the other legislative houses. This group is
limited to one hundred, and its members are elected by
the majority action of the elder statesmen themselves.
Membership is for life, and when vacancies occur, the
person receiving the largest ballot among the list of
nominees is thereby duly elected. The scope of this body
is purely advisory, but it is a mighty regulator of
public opinion and exerts a powerful influence upon all
branches of the government.
72:2.8
Very much of the federal administrative work is carried
on by the ten regional (subfederal) authorities, each
consisting of the association of ten states. These
regional divisions are wholly executive and
administrative, having neither legislative nor judicial
functions. The ten regional executives are the personal
appointees of the federal chief executive, and their
term of office is concurrent with his -- six years. The
federal supreme tribunal approves the appointment of
these ten regional executives, and while they may not be
reappointed, the retiring executive automatically
becomes the associate and adviser of his successor.
Otherwise, these regional chiefs choose their own
cabinets of administrative officials.
72:2.9
This nation is adjudicated by two major court systems --
the law courts and the socioeconomic courts. The law
courts function on the following three levels:
72:2.10
1. Minor courts
of municipal and local jurisdiction, whose decisions may
be appealed to the high state tribunals.
72:2.11
2. State supreme
courts, whose decisions are final in all matters not
involving the federal government or jeopardy of
citizenship rights and liberties. The regional
executives are empowered to bring any case at once to
the bar of the federal supreme court.
72:2.12
3. Federal
supreme court -- the high tribunal for the
adjudication of national contentions and the appellate
cases coming up from the state courts. This supreme
tribunal consists of twelve men over forty and under
seventy-five years of age who have served two or more
years on some state tribunal, and who have been
appointed to this high position by the chief executive
with the majority approval of the supercabinet and the
third house of the legislative assembly. All decisions
of this supreme judicial body are by at least a
two-thirds vote.
72:2.13
The socioeconomic courts function in the following three
divisions:
1. Parental
courts, associated with the legislative and
executive divisions of the home and social system.
2. Educational
courts -- the juridical bodies connected with the
state and regional school systems and associated with
the executive and legislative branches of the
educational administrative mechanism.
3. Industrial
courts -- the jurisdictional tribunals vested with
full authority for the settlement of all economic
misunderstandings.
72:2.14
The federal supreme court does not pass upon
socioeconomic cases except upon the three-quarters vote
of the third legislative branch of the national
government, the house of elder statesmen. Otherwise, all
decisions of the parental, educational, and industrial
high courts are final.
3. THE HOME LIFE
72:3.1
On this continent it is against the law for two families
to live under the same roof. And since group dwellings
have been outlawed, most of the tenement type of
buildings have been demolished. But the unmarried still
live in clubs, hotels, and other group dwellings. The
smallest homesite permitted must provide fifty thousand
square feet of land. All land and other property used
for home purposes are free from taxation up to ten times
the minimum homesite allotment.
72:3.2
The home life of this people has greatly improved during
the last century. Attendance of parents, both fathers
and mothers, at the parental schools of child culture is
compulsory. Even the agriculturists who reside in small
country settlements carry on this work by
correspondence, going to the near-by centers for oral
instruction once in ten days -- every two weeks, for
they maintain a five-day week.
72:3.3
The average number of children in each family is five,
and they are under the full control of their parents or,
in case of the demise of one or both, under that of the
guardians designated by the parental courts. It is
considered a great honor for any family to be awarded
the guardianship of a full orphan. Competitive
examinations are held among parents, and the orphan is
awarded to the home of those displaying the best
parental qualifications.
72:3.4
These people regard the home as the basic institution of
their civilization. It is expected that the most
valuable part of a child's education and character
training will be secured from his parents and at home,
and fathers devote almost as much attention to child
culture as do mothers.
72:3.5
All sex instruction is administered in the home by
parents or by legal guardians. Moral instruction is
offered by teachers during the rest periods in the
school shops, but not so with religious training, which
is deemed to be the exclusive privilege of parents,
religion being looked upon as an integral part of home
life. Purely religious instruction is given publicly
only in the temples of philosophy, no such exclusively
religious institutions as the Urantia churches having
developed among this people. In their philosophy,
religion is the striving to know God and to manifest
love for one's fellows through service for them, but
this is not typical of the religious status of the other
nations on this planet. Religion is so entirely a family
matter among these people that there are no public
places devoted exclusively to religious assembly.
Politically, church and state, as Urantians are wont to
say, are entirely separate, but there is a strange
overlapping of religion and philosophy.
72:3.6
Until twenty years ago the spiritual teachers
(comparable to Urantia pastors), who visit each family
periodically to examine the children to ascertain if
they have been properly instructed by their parents,
were under governmental supervision. These spiritual
advisers and examiners are now under the direction of
the newly created Foundation of Spiritual Progress, an
institution supported by voluntary contributions.
Possibly this institution may not further evolve until
after the arrival of a Paradise Magisterial Son.
72:3.7
Children remain legally subject to their parents until
they are fifteen, when the first initiation into civic
responsibility is held. Thereafter, every five years for
five successive periods similar public exercises are
held for such age groups at which their obligations to
parents are lessened, while new civic and social
responsibilities to the state are assumed. Suffrage is
conferred at twenty, the right to marry without parental
consent is not bestowed until twenty-five, and children
must leave home on reaching the age of thirty.
72:3.8
Marriage and divorce laws are uniform throughout the
nation. Marriage before twenty -- the age of civil
enfranchisement -- is not permitted. Permission to marry
is only granted after one year's notice of intention,
and after both bride and groom present certificates
showing that they have been duly instructed in the
parental schools regarding the responsibilities of
married life.
72:3.9
Divorce regulations are somewhat lax, but decrees of
separation, issued by the parental courts, may not be
had until one year after application therefor has been
recorded, and the year on this planet is considerably
longer than on Urantia. Notwithstanding their easy
divorce laws, the present rate of divorces is only one
tenth that of the civilized races of Urantia.
4. THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM
72:4.1
The educational system of this nation is compulsory and
coeducational in the precollege schools that the student
attends from the ages of five to eighteen. These schools
are vastly different from those of Urantia. There are no
classrooms, only one study is pursued at a time, and
after the first three years all pupils become assistant
teachers, instructing those below them. Books are used
only to secure information that will assist in solving
the problems arising in the school shops and on the
school farms. Much of the furniture used on the
continent and the many mechanical contrivances -- this
is a great age of invention and mechanization -- are
produced in these shops. Adjacent to each shop is a
working library where the student may consult the
necessary reference books. Agriculture and horticulture
are also taught throughout the entire educational period
on the extensive farms adjoining every local school.
72:4.2
The feeble-minded are trained only in agriculture and
animal husbandry, and are committed for life to special
custodial colonies where they are segregated by sex to
prevent parenthood, which is denied all subnormals.
These restrictive measures have been in operation for
seventy-five years; the commitment decrees are handed
down by the parental courts.
72:4.3
Everyone takes one month's vacation each year. The
precollege schools are conducted for nine months out of
the year of ten, the vacation being spent with parents
or friends in travel. This travel is a part of the
adult-education program and is continued throughout a
lifetime, the funds for meeting such expenses being
accumulated by the same methods as those employed in
old-age insurance.
72:4.4
One quarter of the school time is devoted to play --
competitive athletics -- the pupils progressing in these
contests from the local, through the state and regional,
and on to the national trials of skill and prowess.
Likewise, the oratorical and musical contests, as well
as those in science and philosophy, occupy the attention
of students from the lower social divisions on up to the
contests for national honors.
72:4.5
The school government is a replica of the national
government with its three correlated branches, the
teaching staff functioning as the third or advisory
legislative division. The chief object of education on
this continent is to make every pupil a self-supporting
citizen.
72:4.6
Every child graduating from the precollege school system
at eighteen is a skilled artisan. Then begins the study
of books and the pursuit of special knowledge, either in
the adult schools or in the colleges. When a brilliant
student completes his work ahead of schedule, he is
granted an award of time and means wherewith he may
execute some pet project of his own devising. The entire
educational system is designed to adequately train the
individual.
5. INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION
72:5.1
The industrial situation among this people is far from
their ideals; capital and labor still have their
troubles, but both are becoming adjusted to the plan of
sincere co-operation. On this unique continent the
workers are increasingly becoming shareholders in all
industrial concerns; every intelligent laborer is slowly
becoming a small capitalist.
72:5.2
Social antagonisms are lessening, and good will is
growing apace. No grave economic problems have arisen
out of the abolition of slavery (over one hundred years
ago) since this adjustment was effected gradually by the
liberation of two per cent each year. Those slaves who
satisfactorily passed mental, moral, and physical tests
were granted citizenship; many of these superior slaves
were war captives or children of such captives. Some
fifty years ago they deported the last of their inferior
slaves, and still more recently they are addressing
themselves to the task of reducing the numbers of their
degenerate and vicious classes.
72:5.3
These people have recently developed new techniques for
the adjustment of industrial misunderstandings and for
the correction of economic abuses which are marked
improvements over their older methods of settling such
problems. Violence has been outlawed as a procedure in
adjusting either personal or industrial differences.
Wages, profits, and other economic problems are not
rigidly regulated, but they are in general controlled by
the industrial legislatures, while all disputes arising
out of industry are passed upon by the industrial
courts.
72:5.4
The industrial courts are only thirty years old but are
functioning very satisfactorily. The most recent
development provides that hereafter the industrial
courts shall recognize legal compensation as falling in
three divisions:
1. Legal rates of interest on invested capital.
2. Reasonable salary for skill employed in industrial
operations.
3. Fair and equitable wages for labor.
72:5.5
These shall first be met in accordance with contract, or
in the face of decreased earnings they shall share
proportionally in transient reduction. And thereafter
all earnings in excess of these fixed charges shall be
regarded as dividends and shall be prorated to all three
divisions: capital, skill, and labor.
72:5.6
Every ten years the regional executives adjust and
decree the lawful hours of daily gainful toil. Industry
now operates on a five-day week, working four and
playing one. These people labor six hours each working
day and, like students, nine months in the year of ten.
Vacation is usually spent in travel, and new methods of
transportation having been so recently developed, the
whole nation is travel bent. The climate favors travel
about eight months in the year, and they are making the
most of their opportunities.
72:5.7
Two hundred years ago the profit motive was wholly
dominant in industry, but today it is being rapidly
displaced by other and higher driving forces.
Competition is keen on this continent, but much of it
has been transferred from industry to play, skill,
scientific achievement, and intellectual attainment. It
is most active in social service and governmental
loyalty. Among this people public service is rapidly
becoming the chief goal of ambition. The richest man on
the continent works six hours a day in the office of his
machine shop and then hastens over to the local branch
of the school of statesmanship, where he seeks to
qualify for public service.
72:5.8
Labor is becoming more honorable on this continent, and
all able-bodied citizens over eighteen work either at
home and on farms, at some recognized industry, on the
public works where the temporarily unemployed are
absorbed, or else in the corps of compulsory laborers in
the mines.
72:5.9
These people are also beginning to foster a new form of
social disgust -- disgust for both idleness and unearned
wealth. Slowly but certainly they are conquering their
machines. Once they, too, struggled for political
liberty and subsequently for economic freedom. Now are
they entering upon the enjoyment of both while in
addition they are beginning to appreciate their
well-earned leisure, which can be devoted to increased
self-realization.
6. OLD-AGE INSURANCE
72:6.1
This nation is making a determined effort to replace the
self-respect-destroying type of charity by dignified
government-insurance guarantees of security in old age.
This nation provides every child an education and every
man a job; therefore can it successfully carry out such
an insurance scheme for the protection of the infirm and
aged.
72:6.2
Among this people all persons must retire from gainful
pursuit at sixty-five unless they secure a permit from
the state labor commissioner which will entitle them to
remain at work until the age of seventy. This age limit
does not apply to government servants or philosophers.
The physically disabled or permanently crippled can be
placed on the retired list at any age by court order
countersigned by the pension commissioner of the
regional government.
72:6.3
The funds for old-age pensions are derived from four
sources:
72:6.4
1. One day's earnings each month are requisitioned by
the federal government for this purpose, and in this
country everybody works.
72:6.5
2. Bequests -- many wealthy citizens leave funds for
this purpose.
72:6.6
3. The earnings of compulsory labor in the state mines.
After the conscript workers support themselves and set
aside their own retirement contributions, all excess
profits on their labor are turned over to this pension
fund.
72:6.7
4. The income from natural resources. All natural wealth
on the continent is held as a social trust by the
federal government, and the income therefrom is utilized
for social purposes, such as disease prevention,
education of geniuses, and expenses of especially
promising individuals in the statesmanship schools. One
half of the income from natural resources goes to the
old-age pension fund.
72:6.8
Although state and regional actuarial foundations supply
many forms of protective insurance, old-age pensions are
solely administered by the federal government through
the ten regional departments.
72:6.9
These government funds have long been honestly
administered. Next to treason and murder, the heaviest
penalties meted out by the courts are attached to
betrayal of public trust. Social and political
disloyalty are now looked upon as being the most heinous
of all crimes.
7. TAXATION
72:7.1
The federal government is paternalistic only in the
administration of old-age pensions and in the fostering
of genius and creative originality; the state
governments are slightly more concerned with the
individual citizen, while the local governments are much
more paternalistic or socialistic. The city (or some
subdivision thereof) concerns itself with such matters
as health, sanitation, building regulations,
beautification, water supply, lighting, heating,
recreation, music, and communication.
72:7.2
In all industry first attention is paid to health;
certain phases of physical well-being are regarded as
industrial and community prerogatives, but individual
and family health problems are matters of personal
concern only. In medicine, as in all other purely
personal matters, it is increasingly the plan of
government to refrain from interfering.
72:7.3
Cities have no taxing power, neither can they go in
debt. They receive per capita allowances from the state
treasury and must supplement such revenue from the
earnings of their socialistic enterprises and by
licensing various commercial activities.
72:7.4
The rapid-transit facilities, which make it practical
greatly to extend the city boundaries, are under
municipal control. The city fire departments are
supported by the fire-prevention and insurance
foundations, and all buildings, in city or country, are
fireproof -- have been for over seventy-five years.
72:7.5
There are no municipally appointed peace officers; the
police forces are maintained by the state governments.
This department is recruited almost entirely from the
unmarried men between twenty-five and fifty. Most of the
states assess a rather heavy bachelor tax, which is
remitted to all men joining the state police. In the
average state the police force is now only one tenth as
large as it was fifty years ago.
72:7.6
There is little or no uniformity among the taxation
schemes of the one hundred comparatively free and
sovereign states as economic and other conditions vary
greatly in different sections of the continent. Every
state has ten basic constitutional provisions which
cannot be modified except by consent of the federal
supreme court, and one of these articles prevents
levying a tax of more than one per cent on the value of
any property in any one year, homesites, whether in city
or country, being exempted.
72:7.7
The federal government cannot go in debt, and a
three-fourths referendum is required before any state
can borrow except for purposes of war. Since the federal
government cannot incur debt, in the event of war the
National Council of Defense is empowered to assess the
states for money, as well as for men and materials, as
it may be required. But no debt may run for more than
twenty-five years.
72:7.8
Income to support the federal government is derived from
the following five sources:
72:7.9
1. Import duties.
All imports are subject to a tariff designed to protect
the standard of living on this continent, which is far
above that of any other nation on the planet. These
tariffs are set by the highest industrial court after
both houses of the industrial congress have ratified the
recommendations of the chief executive of economic
affairs, who is the joint appointee of these two
legislative bodies. The upper industrial house is
elected by labor, the lower by capital.
72:7.10
2. Royalties.
The federal government encourages invention and original
creations in the ten regional laboratories, assisting
all types of geniuses -- artists, authors, and
scientists -- and protecting their patents. In return
the government takes one half the profits realized from
all such inventions and creations, whether pertaining to
machines, books, artistry, plants, or animals.
72:7.11
3. Inheritance
tax. The federal government levies a graduated
inheritance tax ranging from one to fifty per cent,
depending on the size of an estate as well as on other
conditions.
72:7.12
4. Military
equipment. The government earns a considerable sum
from the leasing of military and naval equipment for
commercial and recreational usages.
72:7.13
5. Natural
resources. The income from natural resources, when
not fully required for the specific purposes designated
in the charter of federal statehood, is turned into the
national treasury.
72:7.14
Federal appropriations, except war funds assessed by the
National Council of Defense, are originated in the upper
legislative house, concurred in by the lower house,
approved by the chief executive, and finally validated
by the federal budget commission of one hundred. The
members of this commission are nominated by the state
governors and elected by the state legislatures to serve
for twenty-four years, one quarter being elected every
six years. Every six years this body, by a three-fourths
ballot, chooses one of its number as chief, and he
thereby becomes director-controller of the federal
treasury.
8. THE SPECIAL COLLEGES
72:8.1
In addition to the basic compulsory education program
extending from the ages of five to eighteen, special
schools are maintained as follows:
72:8.2
1. Statesmanship
schools. These schools are of three classes:
national, regional, and state. The public offices of the
nation are grouped in four divisions. The first division
of public trust pertains principally to the national
administration, and all officeholders of this group must
be graduates of both regional and national schools of
statesmanship. Individuals may accept political,
elective, or appointive office in the second division
upon graduating from any one of the ten regional schools
of statesmanship; their trusts concern responsibilities
in the regional administration and the state
governments. Division three includes state
responsibilities, and such officials are only required
to have state degrees of statesmanship. The fourth and
last division of officeholders are not required to hold
statesmanship degrees, such offices being wholly
appointive. They represent minor positions of
assistantship, secretaryships, and technical trusts
which are discharged by the various learned professions
functioning in governmental administrative capacities.
72:8.3
Judges of the minor and state courts hold degrees from
the state schools of statesmanship. Judges of the
jurisdictional tribunals of social, educational, and
industrial matters hold degrees from the regional
schools. Judges of the federal supreme court must hold
degrees from all these schools of statesmanship.
72:8.4
2. Schools of
philosophy. These schools are affiliated with the
temples of philosophy and are more or less associated
with religion as a public function.
72:8.5
3. Institutions
of science. These technical schools are co-ordinated
with industry rather than with the educational system
and are administered under fifteen divisions.
72:8.6
4. Professional
training schools. These special institutions provide
the technical training for the various learned
professions, twelve in number.
72:8.7
5. Military and
naval schools. Near the national headquarters and at
the twenty-five coastal military centers are maintained
those institutions devoted to the military training of
volunteer citizens from eighteen to thirty years of age.
Parental consent is required before twenty-five in order
to gain entrance to these schools.
9. THE PLAN OF UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE
72:9.1
Although candidates for all public offices are
restricted to graduates of the state, regional, or
federal schools of statesmanship, the progressive
leaders of this nation discovered a serious weakness in
their plan of universal suffrage and about fifty years
ago made constitutional provision for a modified scheme
of voting which embraces the following features:
72:9.2
1. Every man and woman of twenty years and over has one
vote. Upon attaining this age, all citizens must accept
membership in two voting groups: They will join the
first in accordance with their economic function --
industrial, professional, agricultural, or trade; they
will enter the second group according to their
political, philosophic, and social inclinations. All
workers thus belong to some economic franchise group,
and these guilds, like the noneconomic associations, are
regulated much as is the national government with its
threefold division of powers. Registration in these
groups cannot be changed for twelve years.
72:9.3
2. Upon nomination by the state governors or by the
regional executives and by the mandate of the regional
supreme councils, individuals who have rendered great
service to society, or who have demonstrated
extraordinary wisdom in government service, may have
additional votes conferred upon them not oftener than
every five years and not to exceed nine such
superfranchises. The maximum suffrage of any multiple
voter is ten. Scientists, inventors, teachers,
philosophers, and spiritual leaders are also thus
recognized and honored with augmented political power.
These advanced civic privileges are conferred by the
state and regional supreme councils much as degrees are
bestowed by the special colleges, and the recipients are
proud to attach the symbols of such civic recognition,
along with their other degrees, to their lists of
personal achievements.
72:9.4
3. All individuals sentenced to compulsory labor in the
mines and all governmental servants supported by tax
funds are, for the periods of such services,
disenfranchised. This does not apply to aged persons who
may be retired on pensions at sixty-five.
72:9.5
4. There are five brackets of suffrage reflecting the
average yearly taxes paid for each half-decade period.
Heavy taxpayers are permitted extra votes up to five.
This grant is independent of all other recognition, but
in no case can any person cast over ten ballots.
72:9.6
5. At the time this franchise plan was adopted, the
territorial method of voting was abandoned in favor of
the economic or functional system. All citizens now vote
as members of industrial, social, or professional
groups, regardless of their residence. Thus the
electorate consists of solidified, unified, and
intelligent groups who elect only their best members to
positions of governmental trust and responsibility.
There is one exception to this scheme of functional or
group suffrage: The election of a federal chief
executive every six years is by nation-wide ballot, and
no citizen casts over one vote.
72:9.7
Thus, except in the election of the chief executive,
suffrage is exercised by economic, professional,
intellectual, and social groupings of the citizenry. The
ideal state is organic, and every free and intelligent
group of citizens represents a vital and functioning
organ within the larger governmental organism.
72:9.8
The schools of statesmanship have power to start
proceedings in the state courts looking toward the
disenfranchisement of any defective, idle, indifferent,
or criminal individual. These people recognize that,
when fifty per cent of a nation is inferior or defective
and possesses the ballot, such a nation is doomed. They
believe the dominance of mediocrity spells the downfall
of any nation. Voting is compulsory, heavy fines being
assessed against all who fail to cast their ballots.
10. DEALING WITH CRIME
72:10.1
The methods of this people in dealing with crime,
insanity, and degeneracy, while in some ways pleasing,
will, no doubt, in others prove shocking to most
Urantians. Ordinary criminals and the defectives are
placed, by sexes, in different agricultural colonies and
are more than self-supporting. The more serious habitual
criminals and the incurably insane are sentenced to
death in the lethal gas chambers by the courts. Numerous
crimes aside from murder, including betrayal of
governmental trust, also carry the death penalty, and
the visitation of justice is sure and swift.
72:10.2
These people are passing out of the negative into the
positive era of law. Recently they have gone so far as
to attempt the prevention of crime by sentencing those
who are believed to be potential murderers and major
criminals to life service in the detention colonies. If
such convicts subsequently demonstrate that they have
become more normal, they may be either paroled or
pardoned. The homicide rate on this continent is only
one per cent of that among the other nations.
72:10.3
Efforts to prevent the breeding of criminals and
defectives were begun over one hundred years ago and
have already yielded gratifying results. There are no
prisons or hospitals for the insane. For one reason,
there are only about ten per cent as many of these
groups as are found on Urantia.
11. MILITARY PREPAREDNESS
72:11.1
Graduates of the federal military schools may be
commissioned as "guardians of civilization" in seven
ranks, in accordance with ability and experience, by the
president of the National Council of Defense. This
council consists of twenty-five members, nominated by
the highest parental, educational, and industrial
tribunals, confirmed by the federal supreme court, and
presided over ex officio by the chief of staff of
co-ordinated military affairs. Such members serve until
they are seventy years of age.
72:11.2
The courses pursued by such commissioned officers are
four years in length and are invariably correlated with
the mastery of some trade or profession. Military
training is never given without this associated
industrial, scientific, or professional schooling. When
military training is finished, the individual has,
during his four years' course, received one half of the
education imparted in any of the special schools where
the courses are likewise four years in length. In this
way the creation of a professional military class is
avoided by providing this opportunity for a large number
of men to support themselves while securing the first
half of a technical or professional training.
72:11.3
Military service during peacetime is purely voluntary,
and the enlistments in all branches of the service are
for four years, during which every man pursues some
special line of study in addition to the mastery of
military tactics. Training in music is one of the chief
pursuits of the central military schools and of the
twenty-five training camps distributed about the
periphery of the continent. During periods of industrial
slackness many thousands of unemployed are automatically
utilized in upbuilding the military defenses of the
continent on land and sea and in the air.
72:11.4
Although these people maintain a powerful war
establishment as a defense against invasion by the
surrounding hostile peoples, it may be recorded to their
credit that they have not in over one hundred years
employed these military resources in an offensive war.
They have become civilized to that point where they can
vigorously defend civilization without yielding to the
temptation to utilize their war powers in aggression.
There have been no civil wars since the establishment of
the united continental state, but during the last two
centuries these people have been called upon to wage
nine fierce defensive conflicts, three of which were
against mighty confederations of world powers. Although
this nation maintains adequate defense against attack by
hostile neighbors, it pays far more attention to the
training of statesmen, scientists, and philosophers.
72:11.5
When at peace with the world, all mobile defense
mechanisms are quite fully employed in trade, commerce,
and recreation. When war is declared, the entire nation
is mobilized. Throughout the period of hostilities
military pay obtains in all industries, and the chiefs
of all military departments become members of the chief
executive's cabinet.
12. THE OTHER NATIONS
72:12.1
Although the society and government of this unique
people are in many respects superior to those of the
Urantia nations, it should be stated that on the other
continents (there are eleven on this planet) the
governments are decidedly inferior to the more advanced
nations of Urantia.
72:12.2
Just now this superior government is planning to
establish ambassadorial relations with the inferior
peoples, and for the first time a great religious leader
has arisen who advocates the sending of missionaries to
these surrounding nations. We fear they are about to
make the mistake that so many others have made when they
have endeavored to force a superior culture and religion
upon other races. What a wonderful thing could be done
on this world if this continental nation of advanced
culture would only go out and bring to itself the best
of the neighboring peoples and then, after educating
them, send them back as emissaries of culture to their
benighted brethren! Of course, if a Magisterial Son
should soon come to this advanced nation, great things
could quickly happen on this world.
72:12.3
This recital of the affairs of a neighboring planet is
made by special permission with the intent of advancing
civilization and augmenting governmental evolution on
Urantia. Much more could be narrated that would no doubt
interest and intrigue Urantians, but this disclosure
covers the limits of our permissive mandate.
72:12.4
Urantians should, however, take note that their sister
sphere in the Satania family has benefited by neither
magisterial nor bestowal missions of the Paradise Sons.
Neither are the various peoples of Urantia set off from
each other by such disparity of culture as separates the
continental nation from its planetary fellows.
72:12.5
The pouring out of the Spirit of Truth provides the
spiritual foundation for the realization of great
achievements in the interests of the human race of the
bestowal world. Urantia is therefore far better prepared
for the more immediate realization of a planetary
government with its laws, mechanisms, symbols,
conventions, and language -- all of which could
contribute so mightily to the establishment of
world-wide peace under law and could lead to the
sometime dawning of a real age of spiritual striving;
and such an age is the planetary threshold to the
utopian ages of light and life.
72:12.6
Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.
*
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