[Newspoetry] SEVEN PRECEPTS FOR A BETTER MILLENIUM

[Paul Kotheimer]

SEVEN PRECEPTS FOR A BETTER MILLENIUM

****************************part one***********************

FULL EQUALITY - The Enlightenment, that philosophical fire in which were
forged the democratic states of the present day, gives us this single
great idea:  People are, by birth and by their very humanity, equal.  It
is pernicious nonsense to believe that any person may rightly be born
either monarch or slave.

Yet history shows that the Enlightenment democracies have, systematically
and consistently, negated full equality for indigenous tribes, slaves,
peasants, women, illiterates, cultural minority groups, and the poor.
Stop-gap legislation in this country and elsewhere has resulted in a
prohibative litany of regardless-of's and on-the-basis-of's.  Such lists,
it seems, are always incomplete.--Not to mention the fact that hereditary
aristocracies on the one hand and mass enslavements on the other, both de
facto and de jure, still persist.

For these reasons, communities and individuals must demand that
governments recognize the absolute equality of all persons, period.  

**********************************part two*************************

NON-VIOLENCE - Violence (defined as "the use of physical force to injure
or abuse" others) and the threat of violence make utter nonsense out of
any ethical form of government.  The use of violence subverts any idea of
human or civil rights.  Long-term incarceration and grievous economic
inequities are both founded upon the threat of imminent violence.  Every
community that wants a true democracy (and beyond) must, first and
foremost, be vigilant against the use of violence (on the part of usurpers
of power) and the fear of violence (on the part of victims).

Any other system--political or philosophical--is insane.     


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