First Step Toward ...
By William Westmiller
02/15/99
World government is inevitable and every person of good will should be part of the conspiracy. Creative minds everywhere on earth are daily dissolving the barriers to world communication, trade and travel. There is only one impediment to peace on earth: bad ideas about good government.
The past century has seen the painful self-destruction of two terrible ideas about social organization: Communism and Fascism. Both were variants of authoritarianism, one based on class, the other on ethnicity. The concept that one group should exercise control over all others failed so miserably within their respective nations that world conquest became their only possible solution. Their military ambitions succeeded in destroying millions of lives, but their worst ideas still thrive among the proponents of world government.
The central tenet of bad government is that the ends justify the means. If the objectives are judged worthy, military conquest and coercion against all opponents is both necessary and wise. Communism holds economic equality as the objective worthy of repression, killing at every turn the efforts of every individual to apply themselves to their own well being and earn the benefits of their meritorious efforts. Whatever totalitarian methods are required to attain the objective are both proper and justified. There is no need to review the disastrous consequences of the means. "Some eggs must be broken" to establish the common good.
Fascism is just a barbaric variant of communism. It makes no claim to any philosophic good, only to the enforcement of the will of those who are worthy. The master race will decide what is good and proper. The state will provide the means to ensure the power and privileges of the Aryan legacy. Resistance is futile. You will not be assimilated, you will be destroyed. Any means will be employed to ensure complete subservience to the genetic class. Heil to the leader of the chosen people, who shall certainly dominate the world.
The world will always be driven by the desire to achieve good ends. The common wisdom is that totalitarian regimes of the past were simply unwise in their choice of ends. A variety of pragmatic and methodic faults explain the failure of Communism and Fascism. Perhaps a better set of ends will justify the necessary means. Perhaps there aren't any objectively good ends. Perhaps "might makes right." We beat the scoundrels. We destroyed the Third Reich and the "Evil Empire". Our objectives and goals must be the most praise worthy. We have smitten the demons of Satan. Now, let's get on with the job of spreading our way across the world. Let's use our military might to coerce others to do good, to comply with our moral values and high ideals. We are the last remaining super power. Upright citizens of the world, unite! Victory is ours!
Yes, there are objective rights and wrongs. Yes, there is good and bad. There are worthy and noble ends, just like as there are worthy and noble means. But, it is an admission of grave fault whenever we propose to use coercion, the power of government, to impose our good intentions on others. The good and the right are the best voluntary choices that every individual is capable of making in any given situation. Imposing any choice against the will of another can never make them a moral and just person. Coercion destroys the very essence of good will and moral conduct. The only good and worthy role of government is to banish the initiation of force as a means toward any end.
Wise men have granted the United States a form of government based on the fundamental rights of the individual to be secure in their persons and property from the threat of coercion. When those rights are violated, we focus all our efforts on identifying the perpetrator, applying objective rules to a deliberate judicial process, and occasionally repairing the injury. The principles of repairing individual injury should also apply to the nations of the world. A world government closely confined to identifying, adjudicating and repairing the initiation of force is something that all peace-loving citizens should welcome.
The first step toward repairing the world is to forsake the use of our enormous power to impose any of our worthy objectives on the world. Both our ends and our means must be fully justified by our desire to protect individual rights for every resident of the world. In the pursuit of world peace, our most fearsome weapon is the hope of liberty for oppressed people everywhere around the world.
©1999, William Westmiller
California Coordinator of the Republican Liberty Caucus
Past Candidate for the Republican Nomination for (24 CA) Congress
Former National Secretary, California Chairman, Libertarian Party
repair1.c31 ~760 Words
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