Kook Jin Moon
July 27, 2012
Kook Jin nim gave his Freedom Society presentation in eight cities across the United States. These extracts are from what he said in Seattle:
As a result of the Fall, we have lived under dictators and tyrants throughout most of our existence. Nonetheless, God has worked throughout the providence to restore and bring humankind back to his original position and restore the family of Adam and Eve back to the Garden of Eden. He desires to bring all of us back into the Garden, and that is where we all seek to go.
As a result, despite the terrible tragedy and suffering throughout history, despite the thousands of years of living under tyrants as slaves, humanity has always maintained a memory of the freedom that it had in the Garden of Eden. As a result, in brief periods throughout history, we saw glimpses of that freedom expressed.
We saw freedom arise briefly in ancient Greece. We saw the rise of the Roman Republic, where freedom flourished for a few hundred years. But, nonetheless, as we look at history, freedom is not sustained and invariably dies. Aristotle wrote, "Republics decline into democracies, and democracies into despotisms."...
Initially, Rome was governed with wisdom. But toward the end of the republic, you saw many popularistic policies arise. Power-hungry leaders used welfare policies to gain popular support and rise to power. Does this sound familiar to you? We're kind of seeing it every day here in our democracy. Europe's got a big problem with that, too.
You can see modern examples of populism, such as Peron in Argentina. At the time, Peron was elected president, Argentina was one of the ten wealthiest nations on earth. But he came to power, promised free stuff to the poor -- popularism. And by promising free stuff and squandering the state's resources, he made himself a dictator. As a result, Argentina became one of the poorer nations on earth. He destroyed the country.
You saw the same thing with the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany. Hitler expanded the state. He militarized the country, built up its arms, got everybody to work. He "saved" the people from the Great Depression, and in the process he made himself the dictator. He started killing minorities, killing the physically impaired, gypsies, Jews, eliminating freedoms and civil rights. And, of course, he started World War II, promising Germans they would be masters of the world and all the world would be their slaves. He led the country into ruin; and led the world into hell.
We see Hugo Chavez in Venezuela -- again, through popularism -- rising to power and becoming a dictator. You can see the collapse of modern Greece today because of the popularistic policies pursued, the vast expansion of the welfare state in Greece, the expansion of government employment that has led to the collapse of that state, and now Greece is being ruled by the dictates of Europe.
The audience in New York City, the final stop of Kook Jin nim's tour
Out of control social welfare spending in southern Europe is destroying the European Union and is leading those countries into collapse.... Popularism does not bode well for freedom....
As we know from studying the Principle, God prepares the age in order to make it appropriate for the return of the Lord at the Second Advent. He brings the age back to a period similar to the time when Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, just prior to the Fall, and we call this the top of the growth stage. In many ways the world has been prepared to receive the Lord at the Second Advent. The world in many ways has been brought back up to the top of the growth stage. As a result, when we look around the world we see that democracies and relative freedom has spread wider and broader than a. any other time in history.
But, when we look at the world, we see that this freedom is not secure, that we have come to a point of decision, we have come to a crossroads where humanity must choose its fate. Will we unite with the Lord at the Second Advent, unite with his teachings and his direction, and join him in creating the kingdom of heaven on earth and receive God's blessing? Or will we, as societies and democracies and nations, reject the guidance of the Lord at the Second Advent, and in doing so, take the path that leads to hell and judgment?
In Jin nim and Jin-sung nim and other members of their family were among the large group of members who came. Kook Jin nim's wife Ji Yea nim is at his side.
This is the choice that lies before us today, not just as members of the Unification Church, but as societies that have been blessed by the age with freedom. Where will we go? This is the question....
Popularism is the Fall. It is the process by which the government goes from being servant to being master, to becoming a dictator, a tyrant. And in doing so, Adam and Eve go from being the children of God and the owners of society to being the slaves of the archangel. And they lose their ability to choose. They lose their freedom. And they lose their responsibility.
And in creating that situation for God's children, God is rejected and excluded. Isn't that what we are seeing in today's society, to a T?' And in other democracies around the world, isn't that exactly what we see? We are seeing the Fall in progress. Take a look: This is the hell we are creating for ourselves... because we want free stuff. But the sad reality of free stuff is that free stuff has a price: It's called, "your freedom." That's the price to travel the road to hell.
Kook Jin nim joins Seattle members for a meal and a more intimate discussion
We know from the previous slide that there is a road to hell, and we are on it. But, what is the kingdom of heaven? Where should we go? What does Father say the kingdom of heaven looks like? When we look to what Father has said, he mentions some key concepts. He talks over and over about these things in dozens of speeches. He talks about the Peace Militia and the Peace Police. In addition to that, he talks about a society, a society of conscience, where people live in accordance with their conscience, where there are no lawyers, no prosecutors, no judges, no policemen, a society without the need for law....
We can actually think of a society that closely approximates the society of conscience that True Parents have described. The closest approximation we can come up with is what you call a "self-regulating society." A self-regulating society actually doesn't require very many ingredients. You need to able to register private property, you need free markets, and you need competition. If you have these three ingredients, you can create a self-regulating society. This requires a very small government to establish private property rights, and you need law and order.
He took questions from the floor in each city; Here, Joshua Cotter reads out an audience member's question after the July 27 speech in Seattle.
A very good example of this is the free market system, which you live in today -- the areas that haven't been regulated by the government. You know it's not government regulation that produces your iPhone; it's free market competition to make a better product for the customer. And in order to win in the marketplace, the firms who want to gain market share regulate themselves. They make their own rules, and they make their own designs to produce products that make you happy. And when they bring you joy, the firm makes profit.
Companies do not make profit by exploiting people. All the money in their bank represents peoples' happiness. And it works. This self-regulating system doesn't have to be just for electronics. It can be applied everywhere. It can be applied to education. There's no reason the government needs to monopolize education. The only thing we get from a monopoly, whether it's a government or a private monopoly, is a lower quality product at a higher price. And that's exactly what we've gotten for the education taxes we pay. After the founding of the Department of Education, real spending per pupil during thirty years has grown 100 percent. But our ranking in international test scores in math and reading have declined dramatically. We have paid more money for an inferior product because we are no longer free to choose. Our freedom to choose has been taken from us. Our freedom and our responsibility have been taken from us. We have become a slave to government and the education market.
Rev. Joshua Cotter, who was master of ceremonies for the tour, introduced Kook Jin nim
Now the government plans to take over health care, take your freedom to choose your medical plan away from you. There is no reason why health care, medical insurance -- not just the health insurance, but also the operation of hospitals --. can't be driven by the free market, can't be driven by pricing. If it were open to free market competition, if we could see the prices of all the procedures, we would see the cost of those procedures come down and the quality increase. The problem is that we don't have this freedom of choice anymore. And every time the government passes a law, our freedom to choose is eroded.
It is clear from what Father has said that a self-regulating society is possible. And you know, it existed here in America for two hundred years. We had a self-regulating society from the nation's founding until the early 1900s. During that two hundred years, federal spending was less than 5 percent of GDP. What is it today? Twenty-five percent of GDP. Did we get anything for our money?
Special assistant Timothy Elder presented on Kook Jin nim's work, including the effort to expose and curtail the kidnapping of church members in Japan.
You know, during the golden days of this country, when we had freedom, when the government wasn't involved in these sectors, education got done, healthcare got done. You got what you needed. You paid for what you wanted. Not only that, welfare was done by private citizens and private organizations. Compassion was acted upon by individuals. We didn't need the government in order to care for each other. Why does the government have to monopolize welfare? Does it provide us with a better product?
The only thing that has happened with the government injecting itself into the provision of social welfare products and the social security net is that there is now a middleman between our caring for each other. In the past, if I wanted to help you, I helped you. I looked into your eyes head-on, and I asked you what you needed. I knew you as a person, knew your character, and if I felt you were in a difficult situation, not because of your own fault, I helped you get back on your feet.
But now, I can't help you if I want to because the government takes all my money. Because they say they'll do it. They have become an intermediary for compassion. And as a result, we have not become more compassionate as a people; we have become fragmented and separated from each other. And we are no longer free to care. This is a great tragedy. It's very sad because Americans are a compassionate people. But we have created a system that destroys and corrupts our compassion.
As I mentioned, in history we had the Freedom Society in America, but in the twentieth century we've lost a lot of it -- not all of it, but a lot of it. Yet societies with economic freedom still exist today. They exist in Singapore and Hong Kong. The GNP per capita of those countries is among the highest in the world. And they have the freest economies in the world. You don't need to get the government's permission to export or import, or to start a bank or a financial institution, or to make a transaction. They have the lowest tax rates in the world. They don't even have capital gains tax. And as a result they have freedom and prosperity. But if you go to those countries you'll see they have very good law and order; it's not anarchy. It's freedom, real freedom. Not this mess we've created within our own country.
We think that somehow our Founding Fathers, who wrote our Constitution and established our nation are somehow out of date. But it is they who are wiser than we are, because they made a great society, a free society. We've done nothing but revert to a more primitive type of social organization that had existed for thousands of years -- it's called tyranny. We've traded freedom for tyranny....
Members of the audience at the July 29 event in Chicago
The function of government would be reduced and narrowed to the absolute minimum required. It would take care of the defense, law and order, and the operation of the courts. It would be a limited government.
If we think about what transpired in the Garden, we can see clearly what God's vision of the ideal world is versus Satan's vision of the "ideal world." In the Garden of Eden, the Bible and the Principle instruct us very clearly that being God's children, God desired to bequeath all things to Adam and Eve but that in the Garden of Eden the archangel was there as a servant to support his masters, Adam and Eve.
So God's vision of the ideal world is what we would call the "Freedom Society." It is a society where the people, the citizens of that society, own 90 to 95 percent of everything in that society. Government's share of the economy would be reduced to less than 10 percent of GDP.
A prayer to conclude the meeting
In the same story about the Garden of Eden, we can see what Satan's vision is of the "ideal world," what Satan's vision is of his paradise and his utopia. Satan made himself the owner of everything, including Adam and Eve. That is why we call communism the satanically inspired "ideal" society. With communism, the government owns everything. The archangel owns everything, right? In God's vision, His children own everything. In Satan's vision, Satan owns everything. It's not too hard to understand.
So, what is socialism? It's 70 percent government ownership? That's 70 percent Satan's society. What is social-welfare democracy? That's 50 percent Satan's society. And, lo and behold, when we come to the top of the growth stage, where we have to choose between God's society and Satan's society, we see a world full of social-welfare democracies. That is why we stand today, brothers and sisters, at the point of decision, a point of decision to go toward God's vision of the ideal world and inherit His blessing or fall into Satan's vision and inherit hell. The question is, Which will you choose?...
You know, as we study the Principle, and we study the coming of Jesus Christ as the Messiah, we're taught and we understand that God's purpose for Christ's coming was not so he could be crucified. God's desire was that Christ be received and become the king of glory. But because the people at that time were not able to receive Christ, Christ had to go the way of the cross. And because he had gone the way of the cross, Satan took his body, his flesh and his blood, and killed him.
But his spirit was taken by God. Subsequently, and as a result, although the body on earth suffered under tyranny and slavery, through Christ, man now had the freedom to inherit spiritual salvation and to go to God. But because Christ's body was taken, the structure and organization of religions was not able to develop spiritually and theologically to an extent that could sustain and preserve the kingdom of heaven on earth.
Kook Jin nim greets Dr. Werner Fasslabend, president of the Austrian Institute for European Security Policy, who shared views that coincided closely with Kook Jin nim's Strong Korea message. BBC World Affairs correspondent Humphrey Hawksley also attended, and said that he found Kook Jin nim's statistical evidence convincing, adding, "Everyone thinks that South Korea is very strong, but Dr. Moon's presentation has caused me to seriously review that assumption."
This is the fundamental problem and the reason American democracy was not sustained. Unfortunately, it was religion that pushed for the growth of the social welfare system and for the growth of the state in the name of compassion, which brought us to the very state that we find ourselves in today. So if we are, as a people, going to inherit the eternal kingdom of heaven on the earth, a world of freedom that lasts for generation after generation, for thousands and tens of thousands of years, we are going to need a new understanding of God and His providence, His will on the earth, a new theology, a new religion that can sustain the Freedom Society. And that, my brothers and sisters, is the Unification Church.
Kook Jin nim spoke at an event on Peace and Security in Northeast Asia held in a Houses of Parliament committee room in London on July 2
It is our teaching of the Divine Principle, and our understanding of God's will, and an understanding of God's ideal for the kingdom of heaven on earth that will enable us to teach the generations that follow. What is God's will for human society? What is the ideal world? What is it that we must do to preserve the kingdom of heaven on earth? What is it that we must develop into to become people who will never surrender our freedom?
My brothers and sisters, we, the Unification Church, we stand for freedom!