Truth vs Falsehood (27 page)

Judicial activism evolved over the course of decades, starting with Oliver Wendell Holmes who instituted the concept that the common law should conform to the feelings and demands of the community, “whether right or wrong,” which resulted in politics’ influencing what had previously been the “rule of law” (logic).

Displeasure with the degree to which politics have influenced the judiciary (“legislating from the bench”) was expressed by the move in the U. S. House of Representatives to divide the U. S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco into three courts because the Ninth Circuit represents nine states with rapidly growing populations and has had a burgeoning caseload. The move would create fifty-eight new judgeships (Sherman, 2004). Criticism of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals results from its rulings that are often unconstitutional and constantly overturn rulings of the U. S. Supreme Court. If that is the record, one wonders why breaking up the Court with such a record would be opposed (Fox News, 12/2/04).

Public Service Organizations and Programs

Calibrations in the 200s indicate integrous service, function, and purpose. In the 300s, helpfulness, cordiality, and good will become prominent. These organizations collectively have public respect and support. Although each organization has its own requirements, such requirements stem from their stated intentions, adherence to principles, and the right of assembly and self-determination. Overall, they are humane and benevolent by intention, and membership or participation is restricted by the underlying tenets upon which each organization was formed. Membership is voluntary, and funding is by public support rather than by taxation, which allows them more autonomy than a government agency. Thus, they are simultaneously both private and public, subject to the pressures of political and cultural change. Faith-based institutions often have separate public service programs that are nondenominational and publicly funded, such as Catholic Charities, Jewish Family Services, and several Protestant social agencies. The taxpayer monies do not go to the organizations themselves but solely to their public service functions (a distinction often overlooked by critics).

Several prominent organizations that a decade ago calibrated as integrous have subsequently fallen greatly, and instead of being truly of public service in their policies and functioning, they have now become dedicated to political activism (Flynn, 2004.)

A Survey of America: The Country

The reason why critics fail to accurately describe the truth about America is that, until very recently, it was not possible to accurately identify exactly what truth really is. Unless one suspects that appearance is not essence, social evaluations reflect positionalities, which result from duality. The biases of the ego automatically determine what it perceives. Analogously, prior to the discoveries of X-rays, MRIs, or blood counts, clinicians were often incorrect in their diagnoses for lack of those tools and the availability of modern technology.

America is a very impressive subject to study, and consciousness research is a whole new method of viewing and analyzing, which, like an X-ray, reveals the hidden underpinnings of both weakness and strength. The study can start with some indisputable and statistically verifiable facts with which to pursue the investigation.

America is a democratic meritocracy, a constitutional republic, and currently the world’s most powerful nation. It has high per-capita income, high overall level of health, long life span, low infant mortality rate, high hourly-worker productivity, and high economic output, all of which occur in a free economy, with personal liberty as well as safety nets below the lowest economic level. Its benevolence, both as a country (fifty-nine billion dollars in foreign aid annually) and individually, exceeds that of any other nation and is unequaled in history. (It provides 40 percent of the world’s philanthropy.). U.S. government aid is supplemented by huge contributions from the personal sector as well as almost all major corporations, such as Pfizer, Coca Cola, Exxon, Citigroup, the Gates Foundation Abbott Laboratories, Johnson & Johnson, Nike, General Electric, First Data, PepsiCo, Marriott, Starbucks, and numerous others (Regan, 12/31/04). America is a country that forgives its former enemies and then voluntarily rebuilds their country as the United States citizens sacrifice their work through taxes. America allows for freedom
for
religion and, simultaneously, freedom
from
religion. Every person has an equal vote, and the literary world and the media are free of government censorship.

In addition, there is freedom of speech to an unprecedented degree. The wealth of the average American is beyond even the wildest imagination of other cultures (68 percent of families own their own homes). There are nations that still labor long days for less than a dollar a day. Sixty-seven percent of the world’s population lives on the equivalent of two U. S dollars or less per day. Education is omnipresent, available to everyone, and the taxed citizens support the education of children who are not even their own.

America also has a very high literacy rate, and public education is integrous, free, and widely available, with no requirements. Great libraries, museums, and art galleries abound, as do endless recreational areas, parks, playgrounds, pools, aquariums, and planetariums. Even the poorest citizen has access to the consequences of wealth that were unavailable to even the greatest of previous monarchs.

Technical healthcare is of such an advanced quality that citizens from other countries, including even their rulers, flock to this country for its advanced medical expertise. However, approximately one-third of Americans below age 64 do not have health insurance (82 million as of June 2004), but neither does the same percentage have life insurance, nor do they have legal wills. Because of the rising cost, medical benefits are being dropped by employers who are now in worldwide competition with countries where labor costs are much lower because of not only lower wages but also the absence of employee benefits that inflate costs (the ‘Catch 22’ of current unionization). Medical insurance is usually a financial, not a health decision, and it is notable that even illegal immigrants have access to medical care, as do the poor through a variety of publicly funded programs. The pharmaceuticals developed in the United States spread across a world that is not required to share in the multimillion-dollar cost of developing a new drug (currently $7 million). The foreign countries, sheltered by national borders, then copy the results of this research and undersell the U. S. market.

The cost of medical care in the United States is the highest in the world and has risen because of the rapid inflation of layers of administrative, bureaucratic, and legal regulatory requirements. Healthcare regulations cost the U. S. $256 billion per year with a cost/benefit ratio of 2 to 1 and price at least seven million Americans out of the healthcare system. The Food and Drug Administration’s regulations cost $49 billion annually but provide only $7 billion in benefits.

The medical liability system costs $114 billion but provides only $33 billion in benefits. Mandated coverage rules cost $15 billion to provide $13 billion in benefits (Arizona Medical Journal, 2004). Malpractice insurance has also escalated the charges for medical services while actual physicians’ fees have primarily merely kept up with inflation and are only 10 percent of the actual cost. It is not the actual cost of medical malpractice insurance itself that escalates medical care expenditure but instead, it is the overall litigious climate in which tort law has resulted in
The Lawsuit Lottery
(Lodmell and Lodmell, 2004), which encourages litigation in a society that is progressively ‘entitled’ and operates progressively in accord with the victim/perpetrator model. This creates the unreal expectancy for only optimal outcomes, and if anybody dies of a fatal illness, it must be somebody’s fault, etc. This results in the practice of defensive medicine, which includes the ordering of endless expensive tests and duplication of procedures (e.g., a $3,000 MRI instead of a $100 X-ray, etc.)

Consciousness research indicates that only about 4.0 percent of the people at the bottom of society calibrate over 200, and that the majority calibrate extremely low—actually well below 100 (i.e., apathy). The really ‘down and out’ are afflicted with drugs, jail, prison, criminality, poverty, brutality, and lack of concern for others. They rely very heavily on blame, excuses, and other self-weakening ego mechanisms.

Approximately 3.0 to 4.0 percent of the overall population is in jail, prison, or on probation, and in this subcultural subgroup, the average level of consciousness is 40 to 50. This recidivist population is characterized by widespread addiction, criminality, and personality disorders, including a sizeable proportion of psychopathic personalities with demonstrable, impaired development of the prefrontal cortex as a genetic factor. Some important characteristics of the problem populations are the inability to control impulses or to delay gratification, the failure to learn from experience, disrespect for authority and the rights of others, and the failure to anticipate consequences. The lack of motivation and the resistance to treatment or re-motivation are due to an intractable core of overinflated, self-centered narcissism.

From previous discussions and data presented, it becomes obvious that social failure of individuals or groups is not ‘caused’ by anything external, such as race, American politics, or society (i.e., the limited Newtonian paradigm), but instead is a consequence of the field effect. The content of the field is the consequence of the quality of the field itself (e.g., the “broken window” principle). Just as the cook’s pot attracts salt and pepper, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, pieces of beef, and leftover chicken, so a low energy field equally attracts drugs, violence, sickness, malnutrition, poverty, violence, prison, drugs, alcohol, and squalor. The ‘cooking pot’ of a negative energy field attracts the ingredients. The carrots do not ‘cause’ the potatoes, nor do the salt and pepper ‘cause’ the scraps of chicken or result in boiling water. The source of the phenomenon is endogenous, intrinsic and innate, and not exogenous as the consequence of externals. Nobody ‘causes’ someone to throw their trash on the street, which is, in and of itself, a very significant, diagnostic telltale sign.

Correlation of Levels of Consciousness and Societal Problems

We can see that the downside is not ‘caused’ by the overall American culture, economy, or nation but is the automatic consequence of the human population itself representing the whole spectrum of the evolution of human consciousness in
all
countries. Whether it seems ‘fair’ or not (see end of this chapter), each element just ‘is that which it is’ as an expression of its own potential in a given context and time.

According to the U. S. Census Bureau (August 2004), poverty is the condition of approximately 12.5%, or 35.9 million Americans (out of a total population of 300 million). The reported poverty level is the consequence of its bureaucratic definition. The percentage increases if the poverty level income is raised and decreases as the poverty level income is defined as occurring at a lower figure. What is designated as ‘poverty level’ in the U. S. would exceed the income of 90 percent of the population of poorer countries.

The median household income for the U. S. is $43,318. The poor in America have the availability of cars or public transportation, refrigeration, radios, plumbing, pure water, electricity, medical assistance, welfare, emergency and police services, etc., all of which are unavailable to the poverty stricken of other cultures. The underlying problems reflect the negative energy inputs that collectively influence the impact of the overall field. Of major sociological importance is the very dramatic major change that takes place below consciousness level 200. Unemployment jumps from just 8.0 to 50 percent; poverty escalates from 1.5 to 22 percent; happiness decreases from 60 to only 15 percent, and criminality skyrockets from 9 to 50 percent.