[16] Gallup Poll News Service, June 16, 2005.
[17] The Epistemology of Religious Experience (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
[18] American foreign policy has now become ominously and openly pro-Muslim in every respect. Our State Department has manipulated the original intent of the misnamed “Arab Spring” phenomenon as a ruse to overthrow secular governments in Iraq, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and possibly in the near future Syria. Each of these previously secular governments has now been supplanted with radical Islamic regimes, all of which enjoy the complete support of the Washington regime.
[19] Refer to Randolph Rummel’s Understanding Conflict and War, and Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocides and Mass Murders 1917–1987, among many other scholarly works affirming this fact.
[20] From the Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War Website of the University of Hawaii, at www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM.
[21] The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton, vol. 33 (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990), p. 313.
5. GOVERNANCE AND POLICY ISSUES[1]
Quality of Life Issues
Primacy of Quality of Life Issues
The overriding question that any good government or social system needs to ask is: are the people of the nation actually happy? Is there meaning, joy and contentment in the everyday lives of the citizens? Are the people presently living a daily existence of fear and anxiety, or can they breathe freely and without fear? As commonsensical as these questions might seem to some, these actual quality-of-life questions are often the most severely overlooked, and are yet the most crucial, issues in our world today. In Vedic times, these were the sapient questions that any virtuous ruler was obligated to ask himself on a daily basis, and he was held accountable for the answers.
The people today are not happy. In a recent poll conducted by Rasmussen, it was determined that 86% of American parents feel that their children will inherit a world worse than they had.[2] The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that 1 out of every 10 Americans suffers from depression. More Americans die of suicide now in 2012 than die in auto accidents.[3] Tragically, suicide has now become the third leading cause of death among American teenagers.[4] Also disturbingly, suicide has now become prevalent among some of our most productive, educated and law-abiding demographic groups.[5]
In our contemporary materialistic world, we have developed a culture in which every desirable value, acceptable aspiration, aesthetic expression, and measure of success is assessed in purely quantitative terms, to the detriment of the deeper qualitative value of life’s most cherished dimensions. Happiness, in today’s culture, is determined by how much you have, not by how deep your joy is. Our present culture considers the following to be of primary importance:
The amount of money we have, not the good that we can potentially do with our wealth.
The number of material objects we have collected, not whether what we have is of any actual lasting value or importance.
The number of marketable skills, memorized facts, and trivial talents that a person can accumulate and profit from, not the positive inner qualities of human character that a person can cultivate, such as wisdom, courage, strength, compassion, nobility and loyalty.
The score of conquests over others that we can claim, not the degree of self-control and self-mastery that we have attained.
The amount of fleeting sensory pleasure we can enjoy, not the quality and depth of happiness we have experienced.
In every human endeavor today, how much we have is judged in purely numerical terms, and has become more important than how deeply valuable something truly is. As described by the French philosopher René Guénon (1886–1951), modern man is living under a reign of quantity.
Sheer quantity, however, is not synonymous with depth. If I have a four-bedroom home and you have a three-bedroom home, does this fact guarantee that I will therefore be 25% happier than you? Of course not. The quantity of items that we accumulate does not equate to the levels of happiness that we experience. Rather than endlessly increasing the quantity of things in our lives, Natural Law stresses the importance of life’s quality, the cultivation of nobility of the spirit, and the attainment of real and abiding happiness, with accumulative quantity serving only as a secondary, enhancing ingredient to the all-important main ingredient of quality.
The primary goal of any well-functioning government should be to ensure the overall qualitative happiness of its citizens first and foremost. Material accumulation, while also important, must be of a secondary, purely augmentative concern.
Centrality of Spirituality and Religion in Civil Society
Human beings are by nature spiritual beings. The free expression of spirituality in the form of prayer, meditation, ethical behavior, ritual, worship, philosophical inquiry, and so on is as much an organic biological imperative for human beings as are the basic essentials of eating, drinking and sleeping. Any society that does not recognize the central importance of spirituality in the lives of its citizens is not a healthy society, but is reflective of the distorted and psychopathic mindset of its corrupt leaders. Such socially destructive, atheistic societies are functionally anti-civilizational in nature.
In any truly civilized society, spiritual needs take priority over material desires. Indeed, it is spiritual attainment that most securely leads to meaningful material prosperity. The spiritual serves as the basis of the material.
With the sole exception of the artificially imposed atheism of totalitarian Marxist states, as well as several of the more extremely secularized liberal states of Europe, that we have witnessed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, there has been no tribe, no society, no race, no civilization, and no culture in the entirety of human history that did not have some vital form of spiritual expression as a foundation of its civic and social structure.
A society that neglects the crucial spiritual needs of its citizens, and that is incapable of celebrating the transcendent foundation of reality, is a society that is inherently dysfunctional, and that has consequently failed its citizens. A Dharmic government would overtly acknowledge and celebrate the transcendent as the foundation upon which all government and social institutions must be based, and as the primary source of legitimacy of all governmental authority. The twentieth-century Italian philosopher, Julius Evola, expressed the vast significance of spirituality in the state’s proper functioning in the following way:
In the same way that a living body stays alive only when a soul is present to govern it, so every social organization not rooted in a spiritual reality is outward and transitory, unable to remain healthy and retain its identity in the struggle of the various forces; it is not really an organism, but more aptly something thrown together, an aggregate.[6]
It certainly is important to uphold the functional separation of church and state, to not have the state support any one religion, sect or denomination in a manner that would unjustly discriminate against individual citizens’ chosen faiths. While firmly defending every citizen’s right to practice the spiritual path of his choice freely and openly, however, a Dharmic government would also do everything in its authority to encourage its citizens to cultivate their spiritual dimension in any positive way they see fit as individuals, regardless of which legitimate spiritual path such individuals choose to follow.
Conversely, a Dharmic government would discourage the propagation of any overtly atheistic ideology. The principle of the separation of church and state encourages freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. Atheism is not a legitimate option that will be recognized by the government. As Prabhupada stated the essence of this important principle:
The government must take a strong position. Of course, the government should be neutral to all forms of bona fide religion. But it also has a duty to see that
the people are genuinely religious — not that in the name of “secular state” the government should let the people go in hell.[7]
It is especially when we worship exclusively those divinities who our ancient ancestors knew, honored, and worshipped, those divinities who served as a reflection of the collective spirit of our people, that we then thrive. When, on the other hand, we reject the ancient divinities of our people’s ancient heritage, we are then only diminished in spirit, both personally and as a people.
Promoting a Life-Affirming Culture
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…” Upon these inviolable ideals was the United States founded — the foremost of which is life. For without the benefit of life, the pursuit of any other quest would be necessarily negated. Life itself represents the most fundamental and grounding reality of meaningful existence and being. Without life, nothing else matters. A truly healthy nation-state is, thus, one that is grounded upon a life-affirming culture and policies.
A Dharma Nationalist government will be dedicated to encouraging a culture in which life is seen as precious, irreplaceable, and sacred. Thus, all forms of killing — with the natural exception of cases of self-defense, preservation of life, martial defense of the nation’s interests, law enforcement, and capital punishment — will be discouraged to the greatest degree possible.
Individual Character and Accountability
“Be noble minded! Our own heart, and not other men’s opinions of us, forms our true honor.”
Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805)
The sum of societal behavior is created by the personal character and accountability of its myriad individual members. For this reason, we will encourage the highest sense of good character and personal accountability in both the individual persons who make up society, and especially in those who are in a position to lead society. There is no acceptable excuse for lack of good character and accountability in a Dharma Nation.
Meritocracy
“A man attains greatness by his merits, not simply by occupying an exalted seat. Can we call a crow an eagle simply because he sits on the top of a tall building?”
Chanakya Pandita[8]
From among the common laborers may be born a future king; and from among the priestly class may be born the greatest enemy of Dharma. What determines a person’s inner essence is not merely nature and nurture, but the person’s power of will.
Given the natural and non-equivalent diversity of talents, interests, abilities, proclivities, skills, desires and education found among individual human persons, not every person is equally qualified to occupy every profession or station in society. As Vilfredo Pareto wrote, “Society is not homogeneous, and those who do not deliberately close their eyes have to recognize that men differ greatly from one another from the physical, moral, and intellectual viewpoints.”[9] Occupations are different because callings are different; and callings are different because individual persons are different.
Dharma Nationalism seeks to create a society that is purely meritocratic in nature. In such a society, the best-qualified person for any given profession should be provided the opportunity to serve in that capacity. This is the case both in the private sector, as well as in government service. Thus, the wisest people in any given community should be spiritual and political leaders, the bravest should serve in a martial capacity and be soldiers, those who work best with their hands should be laborers, and so on. Neither wealth, nor privilege, nor political favors, nor corruption should determine what one’s profession or station in life should be — but the merit of one’s inherent talent alone should reveal one’s natural profession. In addition, a person’s parentage (i.e., the profession, status or class of one’s parents) should not determine a person’s profession or status. Consequently, any form of hereditary caste system based solely upon a person’s genetic inheritance will be illegal.
[1] Even though these policy statements are generally focused on the specific sociopolitical conditions of the American cultural milieu, much of the information in this chapter can be very easily applied to the particular circumstances of any Indo-European nation. Each individual nation will, of course, have its own particular concerns arising from its own history, cultural differences, volksgeist, etc., that the ideology of Dharma Nationalism will also be capable of shedding an illuminating light upon.
[2] Rasmussen Reports, July 29, 2012.
[3] American Journal of Public Health, September 20, 2012. In addition, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention has estimated that almost one million Americans attempt suicide every year.
[4] American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
[5] “Though suicides happen among all age groups, middle-age white males now have the highest rate of suicide nationally, surpassing the elderly. Geographically, rural areas tend to have the highest rates, partly because of less access to mental health services.” (Jesse Bogan, “Behind a Rising Suicide Rate, a Struggle for Answers,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 7, 2012.)
[6] From Heathen Imperialism, quoted in Julius Evola, Men Among the Ruins (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2002), p. 39.
[7] “The ‘Secular State’,” in Back to Godhead (April 1, 1979).
[8] Chanakya Niti Shastra, chapter 16, verse 6.
[9] Manual of Political Economy (New York: A. M. Kelley, 1971), p. 281.
Governance Policy
Minimal Government
“The state should be allowed to grow so long as growth is compatible with unity, but no further.”
Plato, The Republic
As Dharmic philosophical anthropological insights have demonstrated, there is a natural tendency for those with the greatest amount of ethically-debilitating ego to gravitate toward any institution of power. Individuals of a sociopathic nature are attracted to wielding undeserved authority in direct proportion to the complexity and control present in any given governmental bureaucracy. Natural Law teaches us that the larger, more complex, and more impersonal the state and bureaucratic apparatus become, the more likely will the state be used by those opposed to Dharma in order to repress freedom, rather than foster liberty.[1] As Jefferson famously wrote, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.”[2] With the wielding of great power comes the unfortunate, but inevitable, desire and concomitant attempt to misuse that power. Perfect government ensures the people’s welfare without hampering the people’s freedom. The welfare and the freedom of the people should be inseparable, and not falsely opposed to one another.
In order to ensure the protection of all individual liberties, as well as the proper and smooth functioning of the state government itself, Natural Law calls for the absolute minimal amount of government necessary to ensure that the citizens are protected and secure and that the laws are maintained by all, as well as ensuring that basic infrastructure is maintained. The basic responsibilities of government include: national defense, crime prevention and law enforcement, maintaining judiciary services, and maintenance of such infrastructural sectors as roads, highways and common public areas. The further government ventures from these basic mandates, the more pronounced becomes the possibility of the government’s abuse of the rights of its citizens.
Large-scale Reduction of all Government Bureaucracy
“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.”
Thomas Jefferson[3]
Over the course of the last 80 years (commencing with the catastrophic Franklin Delano Roosevelt “New Deal” regime), the resources and power of the federal, state, county and municipal governments have grown to alarming proportions, with federal growth exhibiting by far the most alarmingly exponential escalation of increase. Rather than helping to foster the well-being of our people, this bloated bureaucracy has, instead, led
to an unhealthy creation of extra-Constitutional “entitlements,” dependency on government welfare institutions, dependence upon government handouts extending from generation to generation, massive wasting of the taxpayer’s hard-earned money, and an increase in poverty, laziness, inner city decay, and subsequent lack of quality of life. Moreover, this system of over-bloated government has produced an elite class of spoiled and privileged bureaucrats who wield a disproportionate and increasingly tyrannical power over the interests of the people they claim to serve.
The people pay taxes in order to have government maintain the roads, pick up the trash, and protect them from bodily harm, not to dictate the parameters of their lives to them or to steal their money in the form of taxes in order to then redistribute that same money to those who did not earn it, and thus do not deserve it. Whenever government misuses taxpayers’ money for any program that is extraneous to the minimal essential services outlined in the previous section, that government is engaging in direct theft from the people. Social and economic “entitlements” in the form of welfare redistribution, social-engineering schemes, and government meddling designed to alter the social, class, gender and racial make-up of society represent theft from the taxpayer and must be treated as a crime.
The Dharma Manifesto Page 13