The Use of Force

2000-9-17 12:00:00

Jennifer writes:
"I realize Geoffrey and Larry are tongue in cheek here, but I truly do find an astoundingly arrogant attitude prevalent among Americans, so I enjoyed Geoffrey's little dig. Of course we all know Australia is the real centre of the universe. :-)"

I agree with Adrian here, Jennifer. Right now with the Olympics Australia is the center of our universe. I must congratulate the Aussies for their planning and ingenuity. The Olympics is certainly a great ad for your country. I think you're going to have a big increase in immigration.

And Adrian, you may have told me before, but what part of England do you live in? I was thinking you drive a London cab, but then I notice you said "London-type."

You're right Larry. Parts of Idaho could be considered the armpit of the world also. Overall New Mexico is a beautiful state and my main point was to indicate how important the eye of the beholder is in the discovery of beauty. Obviously Benjamin would discover beauty no matter where he lived.

I've basically lived in Idaho all my life with some short term excursions out of the state. What's funny is that when I was a boy I felt for sure that I lived in the most uninteresting place on the entire planet. Later as I did some traveling I discovered that the more places I visited the better I liked my home and the more beautiful it became. Now I am very happy to live here and can't think of another place on the earth I would rather be until the time of the gathering.

The Question:

So what do you think of his point? Are there times that we must act by force for the good of individuals or groups? If someone is trying to commit suicide should we stop them by force if necessary? Where do we draw the line?

This, and all other judgments where we seek the truth between the two extremes, takes the Wisdom of Solomon.

Visualize yourself hanging onto a giant pendulum as it swings back and forth past the midway point. As you are swinging it seems that the midway point is swinging back and forth and not you. This is, of course, illusion. You, attached to the pendulum, are swinging to extremes while the midway point remains still and the same throughout.

Those who do see the truest and most efficient course of action on the middle path are often seen as being the ones who are oscillating back and forth, whereas the true drifters are those pointing the finger of accusation. Because of their own attachment to swinging from one extreme to another they cannot discern one who is still in the middle. It appears that the enlightened one is moving rather than themselves.

This is the same illusionary mistake made by primitive man. He saw the sun moving through the sky and this led him to believe that the sun was moving around the earth. When the truth was known it was found that it was that the rotation of the earth caused the illusion of the sun moving through the sky. None of the apparent motion of the sun had anything to do with movement from the sun.

Those who discover the middle way are like suns. They appear to be in motion, but in reality they make their stand at the mid-way point. Lightweights move past them and are unaware that the apparent motion is caused by them.

Speaking of Solomon, he uttered a most important key to discovering the mid-way point of truth.

Eccl3:1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
Eccl3:2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
Eccl3:3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
Eccl3:4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
Eccl3:5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
Eccl3:6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
Eccl3:7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
Eccl3:8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

"Never say never" is one of the keynotes of the mid-way point. Because circumstances are always in motion around the one who is in the middle, he must choose a different course of action as the circumstances change. Even though he may stand firm on unchanging principles, the application of those principles will be different as the group or humanity sways back and forth.

Even so it is with the use of force. There are times to use force and times to refrain from force.

It is interesting to remind ourselves that the use of force and the application of the principle of freedom is the core dividing difference between the Brotherhood of Light and the Dark Brothers. The basic difference is to the Brothers of Light the most important principle to empower is freedom of the individual and group. Freedom is more important than any marginal risk of accident or even death on the physical plane. Patrick Henry stated well the thinking of the Brotherhood when he said: "Give me liberty or give me death." Of course, the Brothers realize that physical death is not the end of all things, but is a mere transition and there are many things worse than physical death.

All of the leadership among the Dark Brothers seeks to maintain power within their sphere and fear their power is threatened whenever the principle of freedom abounds in the hearts of mankind. They, therefore, project their objectives as the "good" and seek to accomplish that good by force. Observe the totalitarian regimes around the world which are in harmony with the thinking of the Dark Brothers. The leaders there tell the people what is "good" and use force to make the people do the good. As a result the good as seen in the eyes of the people never gets accomplished. For instance, in the old Soviet Russia the good ideal of equality was taught and the people were forced to pursue it or else. The result was a lack of equality and dismal failure of the system.

Now in the free world all peoples are threatened by the same principle. We are being indoctrinated with the idea that the basic nature of human kind is evil and the only way around it is to force men and women to do good. We must pass laws to force us to wear seat belts, helmets, obey speed limits, and to abstain from harmless and harmful drugs. They force taxes from us to spend on hundreds of give-away projects for our own good whether we agree with them or not.

The Dark Side has no faith in the ultimate goodness and responsibility of human nature, whereas the Brotherhood of Light always bets on mankind's ability to see what is right and eventually follow it through their own free will. When a normal human being sees and understands what is right, he will normally follow it. Thus the Brotherhood of Light seeks to educate whereas the Dark Brothers seek to obscure the truth and apply force.

Now the difficulty in seeing the truth happens when exceptions to the rule occur as pointed out by Solomon.

When should we use force then? It is appropriate to restrain someone from disrupting the freedom and peace of others. Also, force can be justified to restrain a person from harming himself who is in such an emotional state that he is not aware of the results of his action. In this case it would be right to physically restrain a person from suicide.

I have done this on several occasions and felt right within my soul about it. I once tackled a young lady who was shoving pills down her throat and held her nose to force the pills out. I physically restrained my first wife on several occasions from doing herself harm.

I believe that this type of action should only be used in immediate danger; outside of this, we need to allow people to do whatever damage they wish to do to themselves, as long as they are aware of what they are doing. If a person doesn't want to wear seat belts, or wants to smoke, drink or take drugs, he should have this privilege. The drunk driver should not be allowed to endanger others on the freeway, however.

We need to change our system to place emphasis on education rather than enforcement. If we had applied all the billions spent on the war on drugs to education and rehabilitation we would be a much more drug free society than we are now - and our prisons would have a much smaller population.

The basic keynote of the middle way is "use minimum force and allow maximum freedom."

Question:

It is obvious that each group, government and country requires some funds to accomplish group objectives. What should be the guiding principle in obtaining money for group goals? Is it right to tax the people? If so how much tax is appropriate? Is it right to take money by force for a good cause from people who do not support that cause?

"If they look weird, they are weird."
Curtis Harwell