SITE INDEX
INDEX TO SYNOPSIS

Meredith Sprunger's Synopsis of The Urantia Book
Synopsis of Paper 72
GOVERNMENT ON A NEIGHBORING PLANET

1. By permission of Lanaforge and with the approval of the Most Highs of Edentia, I am authorized to narrate something of the social, moral, and political life of the most advanced human race living on a not far distant planet belonging to the Satania system.

2.  This planet, like Urantia, was led astray by the disloyalty of its Planetary Prince in connection with the Lucifer rebellion. It received a Material Son shortly after Adam came to Urantia, and this Son also defaulted, leaving the sphere isolated, since a Magisterial Son has never been bestowed upon its mortal races.

3.  Notwithstanding all these planetary handicaps a very superior civilization is evolving on an isolated continent about the size of Australia... Its people are a mixed race, predominantly blue and yellow, having a slightly greater proportion of violet than the so‑called white race of Urantia.

4.  The central government consists of a strong federation of one hundred comparatively free states. These states elect their governors and legislators for ten years, and none are eligible for re‑election.

5.  There are five different types of metropolitan government, depending on the size of the city, but no city is permitted to have more than one million inhabitants.

6.  The federal government embraces three co‑ordinate divisions; executive, legislative, and judicial. The federal chief executive is elected every six years by universal territorial suffrage ...He is advised by a supercabinet composed of all living ex‑chief executives.

7. The legislative division embraces three houses: The upper house ...The lower house...The third house—the elder statesmen...This group is limited to one hundred, and its members are elected by the majority action of the elder statesmen themselves. Membership is for life, and when vacancies occur, the person receiving the largest ballot among the list of nominees is thereby duly elected. The scope of this body is purely advisory.

8.  This nation is adjudicated by two major court systems—the law courts and the socioeconomic courts. The law courts function on the following three levels: 1. Minor courts ...2. State supreme courts...3. Federal supreme court.

9. The socioeconomic courts function in the following three divisions: 1. Parental courts ...2. Educational courts ...3. Industrial courts.

10. On this continent it is against the law for two families to live under the same roof... The smallest homesite permitted must provide fifty thousand square feet of land. All land and. other property used for home purposes are free from taxation up to ten times the minimum homesite allotment.

11. The average number of children in each family is five ...These people regard the home as the basic institution of their civilization...All sex instruction is administered in the home by parents or by legal guardians. Moral instruction is offered by teachers during the rest periods in the school shops, but not so with religious training, which is deemed to be the exclusive privilege of parents, religion being looked upon as an integral part of home life.

12. Children remain legally subject to their parents until they are fifteen, when the first initiation into civic responsibility is held. Thereafter, every five years for five successive periods similar public exercises are held for such age groups at which their obligations to parents are lessened, while new civic and social responsibilities to the state are assumed, Suffrage is conferred at twenty, the right to marry without parental consent is not bestowed until twenty‑five, and children must leave home on reaching the age of thirty.

13. Marriage before twenty ...is not permitted. Permission to marry is only granted after one year's notice of intention, and after both bride and groom present certificates showing that they have been duly instructed in the parental schools regarding the responsibilities of married life.. Notwithstanding their easy divorce laws, the present rate of divorces is only one tenth that of the civilized races of Urantia.

14. The educational system of this nation is compulsory and coeducational in the pre­college schools that the student attends from the ages of five to eighteen ...There are no classrooms, only one study is pursued at a time, and after the first three years all pupils become assistant teachers, instructing those below them. Books are used only to secure information that will assist in solving the problems arising in the school shops and on the school farms.

15. The feeble‑minded are trained only in agriculture and animal husbandry, and are committed for life to special custodial colonies where they are segregated by sex to prevent parenthood, which is denied all subnormals.

16. Everyone takes one month's vacation each year. The precollege schools are conducted for nine months out of the year of ten, the vacation being spent with parents or friends in travel. This travel is a part of the adult‑education program and is continued throughout a lifetime, the funds for meeting such expenses being accumulated by the same methods as those employed in old‑age insurance.

17. One quarter of the school time is devoted to play—competitive athletics—Likewise, the oratorical and musical contests, as well as those in science and philosophy, occupy the attention of students from the lower social divisions on up to the contests for national honors.

18. The school government is a replica of the national government with its three correlated branches, the teaching staff functioning as the third or advisory legislative division. The chief object of education on this continent is to make every pupil a self‑supporting citizen.

19. Every child graduating from the precollege school system at eighteen is a skilled artisan. Then begins the study of books and the pursuit of special knowledge, either in the adult schools or in the colleges.

20. On this unique continent the workers are increasingly becoming shareholders in all industrial concerns; every intelligent laborer is slowly becoming a small capitalist.

21. Social antagonisms are lessening, and good will is growing apace...Some fifty years ago they deported the last of their inferior slaves, and still more recently they are addressing themselves to the task of reducing the numbers of their degenerate and vicious classes.

22. Every ten years the regional executives adjust and decree the lawful hours of daily gainful toil...These people labor six hours each working day...Vacation is usually spent in travel, and new methods of transportation having been so recently developed, the whole nation is travel bent.

23. Among this people public service is rapidly becoming the chief goal of ambition. The richest man on the continent works six hours a day in the office of his machine shop and then hastens over to the local branch of the school of statesmanship, where he seeks to qualify for public service.

24. These people are also beginning to foster a new form of social disgust—disgust for both idleness and unearned wealth

.25. This nation is making a determined effort to replace the self‑respect‑destroying type of charity by dignified government‑insurance guarantees of security in old age ...Among this people all persons must retire from gainful pursuit at sixty‑five unless they secure a permit from the state labor commissioner which will entitle them to remain at work until the age of seventy. This age limit does not apply to government servants or philosophers.

26. The funds for old‑age pensions are derived from four sources:

1. One day's earnings each month are requisitioned by the federal government for this purpose…

2. Bequests—many wealthy citizens leave funds for this purpose.

3. The earnings of compulsory labor in the state mines...

4. The income from natural resources. All natural wealth on the continent is held as a social trust by the federal government ...One half of the income from natural resources goes to the old‑age pension fund.

27. The federal government is paternalistic only in the administration of old‑age pensions and in the fostering of genius and creative originality...In medicine, as in all other purely personal matters; it is increasingly the plan of government to refrain from interfering.

28. Cities have no taxing power, neither can they go in debt. They receive per capita allowances from the state treasury and must supplement such revenue from the earnings of their socialistic enterprises and by licensing various commercial activities.

29. There are no municipally appointed peace officers; the police forces are maintained by the state governments...Most of the states assess a rather heavy bachelor tax, which is remitted to all men joining the state police.

30. Every state has ten basic constitutional provisions which cannot be modified except by consent of the federal supreme court, and one of these articles prevents levying a tax of more than one per cent on the value of any property in any one year, homesites, whether in city or country, being exempted.

31. The federal government cannot go in debt, and a three‑fourths referendum is required before any state can borrow except for purposes of war ...no debt may run for more than twenty‑five years.

32. Income to support the federal government is derived from the following five sources: 1. Import duties ...2. Royalties ...the government takes one half the profits realized from all... inventions and creations ...3. Inheritance tax ...4. Military equipment ...5. Natural resources.

33. In addition to the basic compulsory education program extending from the ages of five to eighteen, special schools are maintained as follows: 1. Statesmanship schools ...2. Schools of philosophy ...3. Institutions of science... 4. Professional training schools ...5. Military and naval schools.

34.. Although candidates for all public offices are restricted to graduates of the state, regional, or federal schools of statesmanship, the progressive leaders of this nation discovered a serious weakness in their plan of universal suffrage and about fifty years ago made constitutional provision for a modified scheme of voting which embraces the following features:

1. Every man and woman of twenty years and over has one vote ...

2. Upon nomination by the state governors or by the regional executives ...individuals who have rendered great service to society ...may have, additional votes ...The maximum suffrage of any multiple voter is ten...

3. All individuals sentenced to compulsory labor in the mines and all governmental servants supported by tax funds are, for the periods of such services, disenfranchised…

4. There are five brackets of suffrage reflecting the average yearly taxes paid for each half‑decade period. Heavy taxpayers are permitted extra votes up to five ...

5. At the time this franchise plan was adopted, the territorial method of voting was abandoned in favor of the economic or functional system.

35. These people recognize that, when fifty per cent of a nation is inferior or defective and possesses the ballot, such a nation is doomed. They believe the dominance of mediocrity spells the downfall of any nation. Voting is compulsory, heavy fines being assessed against all who fail to cast their ballots.

36. Ordinary criminals and the defectives are placed, by sexes, in different agricultural colonies and are more than self‑supporting. The more serious habitual criminals and the incurably insane are sentenced to death in the lethal gas chambers by the courts... There are no prisons or hospitals for the insane.

37. The courses pursued by such commissioned officers are four years in length and are invariably correlated with the mastery of some trade or profession... In this way the creation of a professional military class is avoided by providing this opportunity for a large number of men to support themselves while securing the first half of a technical or professional training.

38. When at peace with the world, all mobile defense mechanisms are quite fully employed in trade, commerce, and recreation. When war is declared, the entire nation is mobilized. Throughout the period of hostilities military pay obtains in all industries

39. Just now this superior government is planning to establish ambassadorial relations with the inferior peoples, and for the first time a great religious leader has arisen who advocates the sending of missionaries to these surrounding nations. We fear they are about to make the mistake that so many others have made when they have endeavored to force a superior culture and religion upon other races. What a wonderful thing could be done on this world if this continental nation of advanced culture would only go out and bring to itself the best of the neighboring peoples and then, after educating them, send them back as emissaries of culture to their benighted brethren

40. Urantians should ...take note that their sister sphere in the Satania family has benefited by neither magisterial nor bestowal missions of the Paradise Sons. Neither are the various peoples of Urantia set off from each other by such disparity of culture as separates the continental nation from its planetary fellows.

Discussion Questions

1. Besides having similar backgrounds, why are we told of this nation’s government?

2. Would it be wise to limit the size of our cities?

3. Would a house of elder statesmen serving in an advisory capacity be helpful in our nation?

4. Would a program of periodic instruction on civic responsibilities along with graduation ceremonies be helpful for your youth?

5. Should we require the bride and groom to take a parental instruction class before marriage?

6. Should income from natural resources be used for social purposes?

7. Should we strive to adopt a weighted vote privilege in our society?


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