Coming Together

This is Steven Petrick Posting.

I live in the United States of America, more I have sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution of my natal land. Like most people anywhere, I love my country.

I do, however, sometimes find myself wishing that there was one government for the whole world.

I wish this because if there was just one government, military spending could be greatly curtailed, leaving more money for research, scientific development, infrastructure maintenance, and "going to the stars". The military would largely be replaced by police forces, and surely there would not need to be as many policemen as there are now soldiers if we had just one government running the whole planet. Coast Guards would be the world's navy, and submarines would mostly be research vessels.

A wonderful world.

But that is an easy thing for me to imagine because I live in a "first world" country rather than a "third world" country, or worse a "failed state".

There may come a time when there is one world government, but it will not grow out of the United Nations, an organization so corrupt and so polarized that its principle accomplishments since the Korean War ceasefire seem to have been fostering the continuance of conflict and division. Its much vaunted success in Cambodia was simply to put a stamp of approval on a stolen election allowing the dictator to have an aura of U.N. supplied legitimacy.

Pulling the world together under one government is not going to happen in my lifetime, and probably not for another couple of centuries (at least). In that time trillions of trillions of dollars (or whatever your currency of choice is) of the economic resources of the planet will be wasted in the rat-holes of conflict. Of keeping petty dictators and corrupt officials in power and enjoying the perks of their offices. Of supporting corruption, indolence, and stupidity.

There is worse in that even if we got a one world government, and more than 90% of the people world wide accepted that government, there would still be fanatics that would operate as terrorists because they either do not like the form of government (certainly I would be one of those fanatics if the world government was an absolute dictatorship or monarchy), or because their "faith" requires them to "kill unbelievers", or simply because someone thinks that he is not getting his fair share of the planet's wealth.

And a single world government would not face competition, and would inevitably drift towards complacency, and "robbing Peter to give largess to Paul". Social welfare systems would spiral out of control and there would be perceived to be less need for the research into new science and technology than for more money to support social programs.

It was the competition between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. that put men, however briefly, on the moon. Without competition there may be no drive to reach the stars, and I for one am not willing to settle for this singular ball of mud no matter how much I like man's home.

There may come a day when we do all come together under one planetary government. But it is not a guaranteed "good thing".