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Chapter 7

PRIVACY AND POLICY

News 339

The  Australian Feb. 28, 2005, ABC News Radio, March 3,

MUSINGS IN UNEXPECTED PLACES

LA was appalled. His early morning musing session was engaged.

He had just read of The Economist article pushing the USA towards having declared homosexual soldiers in their Army, just as the EU pushed England to the same effect, England where they now provide quarters for the purpose. It was such an explicit assault on the God whom they ostensibly revered in the Biblical part of the coronation ceremony, to whom they had appealed so often before, in times of national distress.

How could a nation expect to prosper, when righteousness exalts a nation, and sin is a reproach to any people, if they proceed like that. Proverbs 14:34 was quite clear, and it worked outstandingly in the Earth. USA and Britain had prospered exceedingly in culture, scholarship and territorial dominion, when these things ranked high, in one form or another, in their lands. Superstition, backwardness and ravagement went with the world's religions, whether in the East, where they had ruled, or in the South American and allied parts where Romanism had thrust out its authority and crushed so many whether in Mexico, Peru or other parts in the East of the land.

Knowledge, honest pursuit of truth, knowledge of its basis in the Lord, confirmation continually, these had been things that ennobled man, built up nations and gave continuity. Now this! What falls, and where would integrity be left! The world, like a crashing car, having hit several other vehicles in a multiple impact accident, was now heading straight for a vast oak, by the side of the road. Therefore pity vied with horror as he perceived some of the strictest of nations, in former morals, become leaders in irreverent riot from simple basics.

He had also found on his radio connection for that very day, March 3, 2005, at ABC News Radio, to which he had become an occasional listener through an Australian relative, that there is now a law case arising in Tennessee and Kentucky, in which it is sought that the 10 commandments of the Old Testament should be PROHIBITED from being displayed by the State, since there is some separation of religion and state in view.

There would have to be, he thought sadly, if they are going to allow what Canada and Holland have opted for - legal recognition of same sex pseudo-marital status; or if they are going to make themselves such a mix of tricks, instead of a people of God, that their demise is assured. Out with the conformity, out with the law, remove it far away. How like it was to Psalm 2!

                           Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him."

So had Pilate and Caiaphas and so had Rome in increasing decrees and degrees, sought to exterminate Christ, Christians and the law of His truth, but the Lord laughed. What exquisite joy to make by a resurrection the world a laughing stock: for they could not keep down the One whom they hated, because He was good, inalienable from righteousness, unseducible to recklessness.

The Lord had indeed begotten Christ from the dead in the very face of animated, legislated and tortuous murder, and the time would certainly come when not only from the heart, till He returned as He said, till the Gospel had shrouded the globe like a giant umbrella to shield from the scorching sun of judgment, but from the hearth of truth would come the final assizes.

How weak were the nations, and how horribly perplexed they had become, just as Luke 21 had said, fearful in fantasy, incredulous, trusting in themselves via petty knowledge miscast in its foundations, and constantly misleading them into uselessly aggressive actions, and baseless explorations to find the God or life which was not there, but above it all, as an author beyond the volumes of his book.

Do these Gentile nations not consider what happened to Israel, he mused ? It was not only the covenant they broke, but their closeness to the Lord, which had made them great.

What an outrage, to allow God to be so slighted that people in the Army!  - that was an EU push on England long before of which he had read in Wake Up World ... Ch. 3, as he was versing himself in earthly affairs. England HAD to suffer consorting males or females to act contrary to nature, as Paul made so clear, and it chose to allow them quarters for the purpose in the nation's ARMY! Was this not to provoke God in the very arena of national security!

Currently as The Australian Feb. 28, 2005, p. 1 reported it,   in the USA provision is made for those who so act as to bring their perverted orientation in sight,  and thus come to be named homosexual. That provision ?  apparently when this occurs, as it reportedly has done to the tune of some 10,000 persons in - or formerly in - the Army since 1993, they are removed. That, he thought, is something, some relationship between the USA and the standards and principles of the Creator. There is still some  restraint there, but there is this new urge to break these 'bonds', this purity, this also.

But what if the USA acts as The Economist keenly urged, and allowed free entry of those sexually perverted without negative response in the Army ? What of England indeed ? and according to The Australian, this incineration of biblical values in the case, is just the same in most European countries. England is conforming to what the Spanish Armada could not force her to conform: outrageous morals from Europe, export of the EU! Is the USA to follow ? The Californian State fiasco in such persons avidly and speedily seeking documentation for 'marriages' of this kind, suggests the pressure that is building.

LA pondered the polllution.

In that case, he reasoned, you are saying to God, either 1) we do not believe in you or 2) we do not believe the Bible in the Old and New Testaments or 3) the matter is indifferent entirely to our nation as such or 4) we are at war with the God of the Bile.

If it is unbelief as a nation that is involved, so that the opposite to this creation law on sexuality is enshrined with authority: it is then that it is also provocation to the Lord, made as a nation. If it is indifferent, then just as faith without works is dead, so here faith is nationally dead. If it be said, there is room for all in our land, what has this to do with it ? It is not a question of persecuting any by preventing their belief in what they hold, or worshipping as they will, but rather it is a question of principles on which the nation moves.

	If it desires to be unprincipled, then it is an unprincipled people,
	and the moral outcome is not hard to pick.
	If it has certain principles, such as this - Whatever is desired will be done, without limit except by the will of man as supreme and final arbiter, then what COULD be done ?
	Then, for instance, there could be removal of minorities, accomplished by force. There ARE principles, and of course there is a Constitution which in the Australian case has reference to being under Almighty God. WHICH name however is being used ?

Satan likes to be thought of as a god! His aspirations are noted in Revelation 12, LA considered.
 

It is clear from the nature of the law when the Constitution was made, who is the God who is almighty; but if all this is shuffled away, and virtually when it is, at the national level, should Australia become a Republic: then what is in this way made clear, readily surfaces to become what will be done. Thus new first options are ready to be taken, in the contest -

depravity or gravity,

force or favour,

corruption or kindness - and a new last option in the duo,

what is reasonable or what is irrational.  

As the nation is, so it becomes; and as it becomes, so it proceeds to the outcome relevant.

If a nation has principles, and if the 10 commandments are not among them, then it is a nation alien to those concepts and laws. To be sure, he mused, if you look at it, those commandments bind you to ONE GOD and it is a REVEALED GOD and it is the God of the Bible; but so be it, in Australia at least you do not have to BELIEVE if you do not want to. You do not have to go to worship services of that type, nor do you have to say you agree with it. You can write and speak against it with furore, so long as you do not incite violence in physical manners. Victoria, yes, it is failing here, he pondered sadly, but that was the limit so far as he had read in News 156, a storm which indeed did not fail to assail that State.

If then, religion is free, does this not mean that there are NO STANDARDS ? Not at all, for there are many standards in the Constitution. There are indeed MANY standards in the UN DECLARATION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF INTOLERANCE AND OF DISCRIMINATION BASED ON RELIGION OR BELIEF, adopted by the Commonwealth, however varied they are in value! The Government IMPOSED those standards, whether wry and wrong, or sound and savoury, alike, with starkly religious concepts included!

No one has declared it illegal or unconstitutional because of its religious ideas or imposed standards, which by no means all follow from anything shown in the document! This speaks.

Does it mean then that there can be no freedom in making laws that industry will be governed, say, by honesty and conciliation; for these are standards, and some might prefer it to be governed by strikes! Scarcely. They are allowed to say such things concerning strikes as they please,  or to reason for them irrespective of stated government policy; and it is not unconstitutional to disallow such PROCEDURE as strike for example, as the national mean, or to view it with OFFICIAL disfavour, by means of law, relative to conciliation.

THESE, they are standards of one kind or another. These then, in religion and in industrial ethics, they are principles stated, like them or not. They are read into law.

We have them, standards and principles. If then we have them, is there a law to prevent a democratically elected government from applying them ? or even making those that seem best for the regulation of any government enterprise! An interesting case came up recently in which one of the largest companies in Australia EXPLICITLY excluded a contract - one already sent and drawn up - BECAUSE of a religious issue. In this land, that is against the law. Ad hoc rejection on religious grounds is illegal.

PRIVACY AND INTRUSION,
ANGELICALLY WITHOUT CONFUSION
 

JA had by this time arisen. He was listening in to LA's thoughts in precisely that way which, had he been less sanctified, LA found intrusive. Nevertheless, JA merely continued the thoughts of LA.

Thus, said JA,  is it also against the law to exclude soldiers of a homosexual idea and practice, from the Army ? It would seem not, unless you classify the grounds for this,  as 'religion or belief'. Is a sexual preference of this kind, a 'belief' ? It would seem rather a personal desire. If however it were dressed up in a religion or belief system which made it GOOD to have this sort of thing, what then ?

Would it be said that they had a belief system and this was a part of it, and since the Army membership was a value, they could not be excluded from it ? It would seem so, if anyone bought the idea that it really was a belief system. If the belief system were that nothing really matters, and that man is master, however, then that does not mean that this particular sort of man's idea is master. After all, 'nothing matters', so how can anything be master!

Yet if the belief system were this, that nothing matters, and man is free to be what he will, so long as he does not inflict physical violence or harm on others, it still could be reasoned that this, in view of modes of Aids transference, was a physical peril and hence, without being excluded from private life, could not be acknowledged in public life. That would leave you at what is apparently (The Australian ), the current USA mode: do not say anything, and nothing will be done. If however it becomes the case that you so identify in the Army, then that is different, and you may be excluded.

Further, it could be urged, that if the belief system says that nothing really matters, then it would not really matter if those of homosexual orientation were excluded from the Army, and it could be said that it was deemed against the national interest to have it so, since it could deter more people from joining the Army, than it would include. How could that be ? It could happen if the majority - being liable to reject the idea of being part of a body with such major power over life as the Army undoubtedly has, with officer authority and frequent action beyond proper bounds - would therefore not join where such things were officially permitted.

In that case, the outcome is not sure; and homosexual parties could still be excluded.

Certainly, said LA, withholding anger with as much difficulty as one holds back a lunging dog who has just found a specially interesting cat, it could be so urged. The issue really is this. What is the place of morals in a society which is democratic, and believes in freedom of religion and belief, provided it does not induce intrusive harm, at the mere will of some ?

Do you HAVE to allow anything - perhaps you could have special quarters in the Army, mirroring the British case for same sex accommodation, but this time make them for those who prefer incest too, or animal sex ?

You see, there ARE limits to what is to be officially recognised. The question is this, WHAT limits can constitutionally be imposed at the official level ? and the other equally important question is no less, WHAT limits can constitutionally be excluded at the official level ?

As in industrial relations, you can deem this or that principle or standard best for the nation, and if these be given by democratic governmental power to impose this by law, and to require it in terms of the organisational structure and the principles, then so also in moral issues more generally, you can do this. It all involves morality concerning what is right, why it is right, whether it works, what it works, what its result may be, what is the best design for man, and so on.

IF it involves a requirement for someone to be saying he believes something he does not believe, in what he does; or that he does hold what in fact he rejects, then this is excluded in terms of freedom of religion or belief. If it involves someone being forced to hear lectures in which it is ASSUMED that the truth is this or that, without actual demonstration, and this is contrary to someone's religion or belief, then this makes a division, that some receive what they believe, and some the opposite in instruction, and hence there is discrimination. If however, the lectures present the view logically, and are open to refutation, or the matter is construed  in terms of productivity, and the evidence is presented aptly, this too being open to refutation; and if what is presented indicates that this is background to what is actually to be done in procedure, although it is realised that not all will agree, why then this is mere democratic resultant, and does not damage a belief system.

If the belief system is that everybody should do what he or she wants, then this is not possible. If some did, others could not, and the result would depend on power.

I agree, a stirred JA concurred. Hence, LA,  belief must be separated from action, first, or nothing can be done. What you believe remains your affair, and your freedom to practice is  yours too; but when it comes to democratic majorities electing government of this or that type, then with the policy and program given, this is authorised.

If it elects a government making it clear that while you can believe and practice what you will with the noted exceptions, the Government is elected to believe and practice what it states before the election, and so it is enabled to perform this, so long as it does not impose or presume its beliefs in such a way as to imply that you agree: then so be it. It will then argue that it is not imposing its belief system on yours, for you are entirely free to have yours just as it is free to have its own; but that it is imposing a RESULT of this, their elected pledges for action, and your freedom of belief does not annul democratic liberty to act on election.

What then of the UN point, that you must not be excluded from advantages on account of religion or belief ? It would be countered that this was on account of ELECTION AGENDA and that this was the ground of exclusion, not your religion or belief. Democracy is not removed by someone believing this or that: the belief is protected, and exclusion BECAUSE of it is protected, but NOT exclusion because of elected standards of operation, whether specifically or generically expressed.

LA mused on his woes of being overheard even in his thoughts, but with intense self-control proceeded with his thoughts,  in the now open conversation.

SOME practical standards will certainly operate in the law, he responded, and often they will be legislated because of the principles back of them. WHICH ones ? this is is always in such a democracy, a matter of election undertaking. Your belief remains free, and your non-exclusion on account of it remains free, but NOT your non-exclusion on account of election pledges about standards.

Could then a Government be elected which pledged to keep homosexuals from the army ? interrogated JA.

Certainly it could, LA asseverated. IF it made it an issue of its discerned desire for the national standards, of course it could do this, for otherwise it would be sheer hypocrisy, allowing all sorts of principles and procedures, but not those to which current cultural mode of objection might be placed. Similarly with the Church situation. IF it is maintained in an election situation, that the 10 commandments should be displayable in the case of those governments which being so elected, are making clear generically or specifically their approach, then this does not make people believe them.

It merely shows people what the government said it favoured in principial terms, and is making this the more readily realisable. You can still write against it, and make it abundantly clear that you think it is wrong, as you might think strike action is wrong - or right, whatever the government is elected to do.

It is no part of freedom to make others unfree to show what they believe, when in a democracy this is part of their program, cried LA, with no uncertain flapping of the wings, flashing of the angelic eyes, and lilt to the angelic tongue .

The issue of exclusion is the sensitive one, indeed, replied JA; but again, if the elected government has made it clear where it stands, then exclusion because of its platform can indeed be effected. It is the platform which in the first instance must appeal to the majority to the point that it still elects the government desiring it. Platform for the majority is not exclusion BECAUSE of someone's belief. If however that belief can be shown to be logically valid and even correct, NOTHING but liberty to lasso truth can permit the law to stand. In this case, a special one, the government would have to admit that one of its standards was not truth and that the irrational has free play.

If so, the issue would certainly arise whether it had first made clear such a preposterous assertion BEFORE the election, since it was a pattern of religion or belief that otherwise had NOT been endorsed!

Take the case of creationism and evolutionism in schools. If the government makes it clear that it is NOT going to allow creationism to be so much as presented as an option, in so-called academic instruction, and it is elected, then this is something that it can do. If the people do not mind this exclusion in the academic liberty, then it is enabled to do this as in the other case of the 10 commandments being exhibited, or not.

However, in this case, there is instruction of the YOUNG. In this case, it is not merely a question of not agreeing, and having it noted and accepted that you do not agree with what it is deemed best to present, as in the manner of action in a Government Department; but it is more.

In fact, there now arises a matter of undertaking a course in education which is supposedly to make you aware of what is there, with whatever modes of emphasis. If it does not do this, then it would of course have to cease to be CALLED education. It would be dishonest to pretend; and no part of liberty in a free society is that to deceive.

Why not ? It is because in that case, at the governmental level, you do not know what you are electing, and this is not liberty at all. Further, the criterion of making your special beliefs apparent before election would apply, lest you merely injure and intrude into a belief system irresponsibly and in effect, at the private level, for all whom you so afflict!

Yes, I entirely agree, LA concluded the thought with some relish, since now he could gain interplay with JA's ideas as the latter had with his at the outset. It would therefore have to be called the Department of Slanted Dissemination or the Department of Indoctrination; and in that case, it would of course have to be supplemented by a Department of Education, the task of which would be to educate. You would have both of these, and each would perform its own stated task.

So we conclude, do we not, said JA, that the 10 commandments can freely and properly be exhibited by a government in a democratic country, if this is part of its explicit or even implicit policy as stated before election; but that it cannot impart one idea about the institution of things, and exclude others in science, when there is simply no logical ability to do so. That becomes indoctrination and can only be done in something so titled that it reflects that fact: Department of Propaganda, instead of Department of Education.

Yet, LA persisted, would it be proper to REQUIRE anyone  to relate to such a Department, by attending its schools ? If it is not education, is there an ability to propagate propaganda, and make people listen as part of their growing up process ?

Of course not, I think, JA concluded. The Government would first have to sell the idea before election that more propaganda was necessary as well as education, and that young people MUST therefore have it put into their heads in a systematic way.

He smiled seraphically, not difficult for such a being. Who would buy that ? Even Hitler had to get control before some of his crazy ideas could be imposed, and in any case, the essence of democracy contains this, that minorities must always be ABLE to vote anything out, in the way of the last election or its developments, and so they cannot be openly conditioned to prevent thought or impede it in this way, and have that called freedom. This working is in the direction of moulding and modelling man, which is neither education nor liberty.

EVEN IF they did buy it, before an election, JA developed the thought of LA, they still could not IMPOSE it, since this becomes a belief system itself being required as if true, and alone taught in terms of evidential and inferential claims, when it is not so demonstrated, or able to gain clearance at all on such grounds; and that is contrary to freedom of belief directly, whereas the UN document which Australia adopted INSISTS there must be this freedom.

This, in other words is not merely more than procedural, and intrusive into the field of education and so manipulative, but it is a direct assault on a belief system by another belief system, and if deemed educational, it is imposed on pain of having otherwise to pay large sums of money to other private schools.

Even if they make it that this is the ONLY belief system allowed in scientific education, and is not imposed but merely the only one exposed, it is just the same. The effect is this, propaganda, the intention is this, propaganda; for if it could be proved, why is this not done; and since this is not done, then it cannot be imposed. It is pure belief inculcation. Exclusion, in education, of defensible approaches of academic standing CANNOT be wrought in the name of that commodity. It must be in another name, and the other name becomes offensive at once to freedom of belief as such, for propaganda is an enemy of education justly exposed as such in logic courses.

But what, mused LA, if they said, Yes this is not necessarily true, but we like it and support it, and we want you to know all about it, and not about other things which have standing, because we think it is best for you to be specialised in this and not at all instructed in that: it is just the way we are, or lots of us think this, and less the other ? What then ?

THEN, affirmed JA, then it is making USE of the young in order to advance a system of thought, in a Government School, and the election would have first to make it clear that this manipulative desire was what was driving them. Could they however in their Propaganda Department, Division of Youth, make it mandatory for people to attend, granted that it could not really qualify as education ? What you want others to have simply because you find it cosy with others to think this way: it is still propaganda when repeatedly presented minus the case against it, and this the more so, as say in organic evolution, when in terms of scientific method these arguments are quite decisive. It then becomes not only inculcation in propaganda, but in lie. In fact, it concurs with the scriptural dictum, that those in the end who refuse the love of the truth, become deluded into believing THE LIE.

The main retort, LA interpolated, even if they dared to expose their intention before election, and to spend money on a new department, as well as the Department of Education, that of Propaganda, is that they are removing the freedom of the young by so doing, and hence directly assailing their belief liberty, which is protected.

The idea is that if you want to believe something against educative purity, then that is your liberty; but it is entirely another thing to have it that you are being manipulated to believe something against educative purity, because some people would like you to believe that.

That is belief assault and democratically and indeed legally prohibited in Australia in Government, by Commonwealth Law. NO institution of belief by the Federal Government is permitted, and the Federal  Government has adopted legislation that people must not lose opportunity because of religion of belief, and here it is NOT so legislated and if it were, it would still be propaganda, deception or both. It is merely done! Perhaps we should have to consider the Department of Deception, depending on the case, this as well as or instead of the Department of Propaganda ?

What then, JA pursued the issue, is the application to the homosexual case in the Army ? There you could have a declared preference for principles of OPERATION, on national grounds, duly received by the people at election. This does not tend to assail a belief system, but limit its application in certain national areas; just as the exhibition of the 10 commandments tends to expose what is deemed preferable, though it may be attacked in writing quite freely. The exclusion in this case would be on national grounds, of standards imposed in its interest, as popularly agreed. That is one case, but this is another.

Returning to education, then, we have more than that. It becomes the INCLUSION of students in courses which do not merely limit their open practice in government areas and arenas, but are directed to changing their NATURES, and this is an assault not only on a belief system, but directly on those who believe. It is not defensible to urge that the people wanted it so, or that this policy was edifying for the nation, if such a government were ever to be elected, following the spiritual death of a nation.

Possible legal legitimacy could extend only so far as to limit PRACTICE, on grounds of national standards at government level. It is not to be imposed on your mind, but imposed in procedure. Belief is not the criterion, but practice and standards whether for security or health or numbers in the Army or whatever.

In the educative field, said LA, who had a concern for the young, it is BELIEF which is the objective, and if not, it is belief which is the obvious outcome, as to likely resultant. Hence this is not only an exclusion (of comprehensive teaching) of value from the student, and inclusion of (social) stigma for not belonging to the preferred mode, but it is movement to INCLUDE the student in that mode from within. Make it purpose, make it result, it is all one: this is the warrantable outcome, and intelligence requires its recognition, and honesty its removal where such laws apply.

Now, he continued,  if it were held that it would be in the national interest to have more people believe in  the striving for survival of the fittest as a means of excellence, though in historical fact it is often a matter of ugly dishonesty helping scurrilous and deceitful rogues: then policies of this kind by a government is one thing, but compulsion to attend classes, it is another. There, the direct inculcation of the view in a teaching framework, where it is not only non-defensible logically for it to have such a singularity of presentation, but it is likely to twist part-informed resultants, called growing people, in their belief system: this is not liberty.

It is not only denial of privilege to some (in order to follow a desired norm, rejected by them), which is nevertheless open to the students who agree, but it is abuse of privilege on the part of Government, since it acts in such a way as to inculcate those norms. This is the opposite of freedom of belief, which the law upholds, whereas nationally devised Army regulations, or public exhibits do nothing to act in this way, and can be overturned at the next election by determined people aroused by the actions, and putting the case for the opposite to the people freely.

It may be, he concluded, in no small degree harder to overturn the prejudices of ill-informed teaching in the conformist modelling play wrought on the often defenceless young. Indeed, the failure, in scientific method's time-honoured verification procedures, of gradualism, the clash of inadequate alternatives, and the success of the Biblical propositions in these terms, as we saw earlier, only makes it the greater imposition of propaganda, to pretend that the one is what the other is, and vice versa.

This becomes not only vicious teaching, but the inculcation of vice: distortion and name-calling, in place of logic. Whatever the intention, we must always look at the outcome. IF it is not desired, then change must be made, reading backwards, in the methods of income or input, of what is being presented and how it is imparted.

EXCURSIONS AND EXPLANATIONS

By the way LA asked, turning to another point, JA HOW did you know just what I was thinking at the start of our discussion ?

Oh that ? responded JA, you see, this is a dream.

How do YOU know that ? queried LA, who felt quite strongly enough about intrusion into private thoughts, as his discussion shows.

Isn't it clear ? I am PART of your dream and not conditioned by normal exclusion techniques, just as the students in evolutionary institutions, Departments of Propaganda WITHOUT election voting, are unable to exclude the intrusion of indoctrinating teachers, ex-logic and pro-cultural conditioning or the like. Even if with it, even if the people voted such a mode of indoctrination IN, it would still be lacking any way out of being described as confrontation with basic liberty of belief or religion.

You dislike my eavesdropping your thoughts, but this is because you want to be able to think them without such systematic intrusion. Just so students may want to think their thoughts with educative background, say in a school, rather than having philosophic peeping Toms pushing their way into the private sanctum of life with misplaced zeal and slanted curricula.

In any case, said a wilting LA, who was slowly awakening, if a nation does not freely and without compulsion find in a vast number of its citizens, the God of their creation, all this liberty will be lost in the lust for exclusion of GOD, which while involving the exercise of a freedom, has results so appalling ...

That world history as it now is, represents merely an experimental illustration of it ? asked LA.

He smiled to himself. It was only a dream. His own thoughts were QUITE private.

Been dreaming again ? asked JA.

Yes, said LA, and feeling now intensely friendly, since he had been almost thinking himself part of an appalling intrusion, and finding he was not, he wished to be warm-in hearted to the one who had NOT offended by eavesdropping on his thoughts; and it is good to have some dreams, he privately pondered. They are really instructive. Other people's dreams, however, in the name of education, can be a harassment as appalling as that of Hitler youth.

I suppose you were dreaming about being in Israel ? JA asked.

LA did three spritely circles around JA's head - for he was in angelic terms, a little and hence in that sense, a youngish angel, and said, No, I haven't. I have been thinking about Australia and England and the USA, and Holland, and Departments of Education and having new Departments, alongside these, called quite explicitly, Departments of Propaganda, or such things as Departments of Deviousness;  and wondering, if an elected government in a land like Australia should have this, to what extent they could force children to attend, in terms of their current law, and we - that is I, that is my dream decided that they couldn't.

Privacy in policy can be a vast mistake for a government, if it be honest, since then it is limited in some democracies as to what it can do, and relapses to alien pressures from minorities in supposed interest of freedom, but actually of oppression. It is better to be honest at the outset, and declare openly what you are about. What is of the light, comes into it.

However, since I do not have to be elected, I like to feel I can think my own thoughts, and isn’t it wonderful that we can!

A fine preparation for Israel ...

Yes of course, for if a change is as good as a holiday, I have been on vacation, all in one night, and how fresh I now feel. Besides, you know, there has been much question in Israel, about precisely how free religious groups can be! in expressing their religion in any public way; and some feel afraid, for example to be baptised, lest they should annoy or upset their families, in view of the cultural milieu and all that.

You sound as if you might almost have sympathy for cowardice ?

Not at all, but you have to see it their way, in order to correct them. What you say, it is the resultant and it is correct; but what I have in mind, is the cause, and how to reach it. It is just a question of the point of the incision, though the result is the same.

Do you think Sam will have courage for an open baptism ?

Of course, he is a man of heart. Since they are only circumcised, he has had no baptism, and this means action.

Do you think we should visit him ?

I have been recalled for extensive consultations with my senior, and possible appearance before the Lord, so it will take a time.

Very well, said JA, it is good to see you in high places. This earth is a very grubby place, and they argue intensively about things that ought to be clear beyond all this; but it is unbelief which leads to their deep problems, trying to solve things without the truth as governor and guide, and hence walking in a darkness where stumbling is de rigueur. Liberty is better than tyranny, but God is better than both, since your liberty can be to ruin your talents or murder the truth. However, on Earth, it is liberty time, and its prime time is coming to judgment as a jet whines down, about to land. Yes, I read frank5.html, which you noted a while back. But you're going aloft ?

Only as a lowly LA, though.

Still, it uplifts, inspires, fires.

At this, LA unceremoniously WAS uplifted, and found himself in heaven.

This temporary assignment meant that JA could continue his researches on earth, and in so doing he became much better informed, while for LA … but we cannot peer into private places.

Meanwhile, JA concerned himself with the issues in private schools, which - rather like a government stating openly and honestly before its election just WHAT principles and codes it had in mind, declared them before people chose to come. Educative criteria of course still applied, since honesty and education mean that reality is conveyed, but the cultural abnormalities of government obsessions are excluded where freedom is included.

JA was impressed with this option, but considering separately the issues of students who might not wish to choose such a school, unlike their parents, he conceived matters carefully.

Would not parents make many moral choices from infancy, concerning the child ? Why is their responsibility to be conceived as suddenly that of the State in which they chose to live, but not to adopt as pastor! If a State SAID, of course, if a government declared, before an election, WE are to be your Pastor, then of course people could leave it before damage was done.

Where however they say something close to the opposite of this, then it is question of the risks of parental error and State error, and since the parents choose to HAVE the children, not the State, and pay for them, and pay for their schooling, sometimes twice over, supporting State school and private alike, it seems clear that except for radical irrationality or obvious harm, beyond mere prejudice and self-assertion, their decisions stand.

Elements of State religion - whether as in  the UN DECLARATION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF INTOLERANCE AND OF DISCRIMINATION BASED ON RELIGION OR BELIEF or other, are not an option where liberty has any rule, unless firstly, the State is both able and willing to declare itself pastor BEFORE election, constitutionally, and secondly, minorities are unable to be forced to honour or unwillingly imbibe the religious precepts involved. Where of course, as in Australia, the Commonwealth is constitutionally UNABLE to enforce a religion, that part of any religious law enacted or imported, which amounts to this, becomes and is invalid and inapplicable.

What is more, if a nation should freely choose to inhibit the rational realities, say as seen in creation, by insisting on a dream world of preference never verified and often anti-verified, as is often the case via its various agencies, and such as is the case with organic evolution, ignoring its internal clashes and the verifications of creation alike: then its sheer intellectual dishonesty will bring inhibition, confusion and hence stress, elements of just ruin or ennui, or dysfunction. You see some of these facts in Delusive Drift ... Ch   7,   3, Beauty for Ashes Ch.   3, Earth Spasm Chs.    1,   7, Deliverance from Disorientation Ch.   7,  Secular Myth or Sacred Truth Ch.      7  Cascade ... Ch.   3,       SMR pp. 140-151 and so on.

If on the other hand, a nation allows realities to speak uninhibited (Swift Witness   6, SMR Ch. 1), and even elects that summit of validity, godliness in terms of Jesus Christ, as England too formally but nevertheless in some mode tried to do, in the days of the British Empire, it always remains true that righteousness exalts a nation. There is simply no substitute for truth in your own soul and heart and mind, integrity therefore, reliability, transcending petty thrusts and lusts and finding peace where reality shines in its sheer magnificence. Plates of dog fare are no substitute for feasts of righteousness and the music of inspiration.

You have of course to avoid that pit, giving mere positional preference as a general rule to those who hold the State's preferred position; but the direction the nation chooses charts a course, and the ocean teems with rocks.

Such was the direction of research of JA.

Some months therefore pass, but in our next chapter, we find them together, and visiting Samuel.