In short, both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a genuine peace and in halting the arms race. Agreements to this end are in the interests of the Soviet Union as well as ours.
So, let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved. For our most common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal." (The full American University Speech )
Like Badshah Khan, JFK knew colonialism must end. In an exchange with Indian Prime Minister Nehru he explained the understanding was handed down from his own family's brutal 400 year experience with empire in Ireland as the first colony of the British. That explains why both Khan and JFK connected to the same intuitive wisdom about creating an enduring World Peace movement. It requires this commitment, we the people must give up the use of violence from within ourselves first.
-Chapter 7: To turn from War to Peace, the Hegelian Dialectic must be dismantled
"William Roper: "So, now you give
the Devil the benefit of law!"
Sir Thomas More: "Yes! What would you
do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?"
William Roper: "Yes, I'd cut down
every law in England to do that!"
Sir Thomas More: "Oh? And when the
last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide,
Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from
coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're
just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds
that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own
safety's sake!" -- A Man for All Seasons
Today's American empire was established in the post-WWII era with the U.S. acting as "receiver" for British mercantile interests. Along with its corporate elites and imperial mandate, the U.S. inherited a 19th century European worldview referred to as the Hegelian Dialectic, which is based on the belief that conflict creates history. The dialectic derived from German philosopher Georg Hegel's critique of natural law, written in 1825, in which he posited a theory of social and historical evolution. Hegel's new manner of thinking with its Thesis - Antithesis - Synthesis revolutionized thought and served as a tool for a new breed of social engineer eager to overthrow the old world order. Hegel's dialectics acted as the foundation for the communist economic theories of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. In essence, Hegel disputed the theory of universal natural rights espoused by other philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, thereby laying the foundations for totalitarianism. According to Hegel, human society could only achieve its highest state and mankind its highest spiritual consciousness through endless self-perpetuating ideological struggles and conflicts between bipolar extremes. This conflict of opposites when applied to social, political and economic systems would result in the synthesizing of opposites which would inevitably lead mankind to final perfection.
Evidence of the invisible dialectic controlling the daily narrative can be found everywhere: Environmentalists against private property owners, democrats against republicans, communists against capitalists, pro-choice versus pro-life, Christians against Muslims. No matter what the issue, the invisible dialectic controls both the conflict and the resolution yet it now seems that Hegel's progress toward perfection has led only to new and more deadly cycles of conflict. The Hegelian dialectic works as a powerful tool for legitimizing whatever dialogue advances the global elite's interest and looking back over the past 100 years, it is almost impossible not to see how its deliberate use has created a corrupted synthesis of state power. At a micro-level, this phenomenon can be observed now taking over America's politics.
Today's Hegelians claim that their objective is to create a more egalitarian society. But in practice they merely manipulate and subvert the existing order with the ultimate goal of a utopian world government i.e. "New World Order" which they themselves will rule. The system of designed social conflict to break down individual rights was spelled out by Hegel himself when he said: "'...the State' has the supreme right against the individual, whose supreme duty is to be a member of the State... for the right of the world spirit is above all special privileges."'
By this definition, state power requires the rule of law, minimal corruption, judicial independence and state monopoly over the means of coercion; as well as a political culture of some trust and compromise rather than distrust and conflict. But when the state's monopoly on coercion ultimately leads to distrust and conflict, then Hegel's method has reached a contradiction which it cannot escape. When democracies cling to legitimacy based solely on the use of coercion on its own citizens, they are no longer democracies but a fascist/totalitarian state.
Economist and historian Antony Sutton belittled the Hegelian method by writing that at its best, "the Hegelian doctrine simply replaces the divine right of kings with the divine right of states." So, based on America's failures in Afghanistan and Iraq, the tumult in the Greater Middle East and now in Eastern Europe, has the Hegelian dialectic run its course? The American empire is at a turning point politically, economically and socially. The Hegelian dialectic of endless conflict and competition has proved ruinous to the health of Western civilization. Will its course lead to a synthesis of its best elements or into a further disintegration of what has traditionally been known of as society?
The only way to defeat the downward progression of Hegel's hypothesis is to step outside the dialectic and free ourselves from the limitations of controlled and guided thought. By moving away from a reliance on the monopoly of coercion and reaffirming our belief in the natural rights of all humans, we will return the foundations of legitimacy to the American government. Sutton frames the Hegelian dialectic as against the spirit and letter of the Constitution of the United States by stating how "We the people" grant the state some powers and reserve all others to the people and not self-appointed elites running the State.
If Americans truly believe the rights of the state are always subordinate and subject to the will of the people and consent of the governed, and truly believe that all people are endowed with inalienable rights and are created equal, then the time has come to reevaluate the dialectic and return to our time-worn natural rights.
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