Lecture: Groups (1950)

We look over a national government in the light of these tenets now, just as we’ve looked over the Foundation, and we find out what it offers and what it doesn’t offer. We find that a national government is taking far more in contribution than it is giving back in service, by means of the income tax and so forth. For instance, it is taking contribution on the pretext–or the fraud if you want to call it that–that it will protect the personal property and the persons of the individuals who are dedicated to it. Supposedly, 36.6 percent of the United States tax dollar is dedicated to protecting the person and property of individuals from incursion by other elements, groups or individuals.

The only trouble is the weapon of today cannot be so defended against. The moment the atom bomb was delivered onto the national stage, nations ceased to be able to fulfill their full functions as groups. Individuals have’ more or less sensed this to some degree. They have become rather lackadaisical right now about war, infantry and so forth. They are waiting for the big punch.

In other words, the United States has got this tremendous budget which is supposed to protect the citizens from the incursion of other nations. Why then do we find civil defense motions? People are suddenly very interested in civil defense. I was in New York City about a year ago, and all of a sudden I got completely roped off in the traffic. The American Red Cross, the Boy Scouts and several doctors were practicing evacuation of an atom-bombed area. They had permission from the government of the city of New York to do this.

One small organization outside of Philadelphia issued a little notice in the paper and said they were holding a meeting to discuss civil defense– and the place was crammed! A place which was to accommodate a couple of hundred people received a couple of   thousand. People are very serious and practical about the whole thing.

The government has taken the attitude that we are very tender-minded, that we must be protected from these shocking horrors and so forth, but nobody knows better than the authorities themselves that there is no protection against this thing to amount to anything, and they are in a complete state of apathy about it!

For instance, we found out that the city government of Los Angeles had put one man, part time, and a couple of secretaries under the Parks and Memorials Commission, and this was the atom-bomb civil defense program. The newspapers are having a holiday with this.

The officially designated groups to which we are dedicated are suddenly not only not protecting property but are actually in a state of apathy about their ability to do so. But the citizens aren’t. People study, study, study. One of the best sellers on the market right now is a little pocket book about what to do in case an atom bomb drops.

I am afraid that the government hasn’t an element in it which can be supported by the people at this time. There must be something missing; the idea is decaying but the people aren’t. Here we have an elective type of government. Certainly, if there was a solution being offered by the government, we would be putting it into effect. The people themselves are evidently trying to work under a new cooperative idea, and you get the first germs of its evolution in the fact that you get public meetings without government sponsorship, and public interest in a governmental function–the protection of the person and the property against foreign invasion. That is the first germ of a new idea.Anybody could come along and start pushing this idea–it’s right there waiting to be pushed. In the ordinary course of human affairs, if left alone, it would evolve very easily into a new kind of a government. If it weren’t hit from abroad, if missiles didn’t hit it, it could evolve into a new idea.

We are in a period of change, but it is not going to get a chance. The second that this country suffers an onslaught from a foreign source, an atom-bombing or something like that, it will be a shock, and it is going to be an engram laid against the federal government which will practically nullify it. We’re not interested in the horror tale of whether it will kill off half the people all at once. (I notice Japan is very much of a going concern.) The point is that there is no defense against it, and it will catalyze. There will be something else. One of the main reasons is that the center of the federal government probably will cease to exist.

It is interesting what ripe, ripe ground this is for a revolutionary. The people and the whole group idea at that time will be down into the tone 1 band¹ Somebody could hit this country on an authoritarian line and actually do remarkable things on this line. It could happen that some general of forces will find himself in possession of an untouched army corps somewhere in the continental limits of the United States.

I’m not just writing science fiction now. I’m showing you what the score is with regard to something like this.²

Notes