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The
Story of Everything
An
abridged edition of The Urantia Book
Paper
72: Government on a Neighboring Planet
While it is most unusual for the system rulers to divulge information to one planet about the affairs of another, the revelators were granted permission to reveal something of the social, moral, and political life of a neighboring planet in the Satania system. This world, like Urantia, suffered from the disloyalty of the Lucifer rebellion and the default of its Material Son and Daughter.
On this neighboring planet, a superior civilization of one hundred and forty million people is evolving on an isolated continent about the size of Australia. The people are a mixture the blue, yellow, and violet races. Due to favorable climatic factors, natural resources, and advances in science, the society has become self‑sustaining.
Cities are limited to one million inhabitants and are administered by the most advanced citizens. Their representative central government is divided into executive, judicial, and legislative branches. The central government oversees a federation of one hundred states. The federal chief executive is elected by the people and is advised by a team comprised of every living former chief executive.
This nation has two major court systems. Law courts decide cases on local, state and federal levels, while socioeconomic courts enforce laws affecting home, school, and economics. People regard the home as the basic institution of civilization. The smallest home site permitted is fifty thousand square feet. Families have an average of five children, and attendance of parents at parental schools is compulsory.
Instruction in sex and religion is done at home, although some moral instruction is provided by teachers at school. There are no churches. Religion is thought of as the striving to know God and to manifest love for one's fellows through service.
Children remain legally subject to their parents until they are fifteen. They can marry with parental consent and vote when they are twenty, and marry without parental consent at twenty-five. Permission to marry is granted after one year's notice and completion of training for the responsibilities of married life. All children must leave home by their thirtieth year.
Education is compulsory from ages five to eighteen. All students become assistant teachers, instructing those behind them. There are no classrooms; books are used only to find information to solve problems in the school shops and farms. The feeble‑minded are trained only for agriculture and are segregated by sex to prevent parenthood. Students spend a quarter of the school day participating in competitive athletics. At the age of eighteen, each child graduates as a skilled artisan and self‑supporting citizen; only then do they begin the study of books and pursuit of specialized knowledge. Special schools after compulsory education include those for statesmanship, philosophy, science, professions, and military training.
Industry operates on a thirty-hour week. Everyone takes vacation for one month of the ten‑month year. The profit motive is being displaced by higher ideals; public service is becoming the chief goal of ambition. People must retire at sixty-five. Slavery has been abolished for over one hundred years, and the nation has turned its attention to reducing the number of degenerates.
The federal government cannot go into debt except in the case of war. Federal income is derived from five sources: import duties, royalties, inheritance taxes, leasing of military equipment, and natural resources. Every person over twenty years old has one vote. Those who have rendered great service to society and those who pay heavy taxes can have additional votes conferred upon them. Prisoners and government employees are not allowed to vote.
These people are passing from the negative to the positive era of law. Ordinary criminals and defectives are segregated by sex and placed in self‑supporting agricultural colonies. Serious habitual offenders and the incurably insane are swiftly sentenced to death. Efforts to prevent breeding of criminals and defectives have been successful; there are no prisons or hospitals for the insane.
Courses pursued in the military schools include military training and professional mastery. During industrial slumps, unemployed people build military defenses; during periods of peace the mobile defense mechanisms are fully employed in trade, commerce, and recreation. This nation has not launched an offensive war in more than one hundred years, but has defended itself nine times in that period against the less advanced surrounding nations.
While in some ways this nation's society is superior to that of Urantia nations, it has not benefited by magisterial or bestowal missions of the Paradise Sons. Since Urantia has been blessed with the Spirit of Truth, it is better prepared for the more immediate realization of a planetary government.