Empire's security myths deal with the nature of security and how it is achieved. Empire uses fear of threats from domestic and foreign enemies, real or imagined, to justify the development and use of police and military powers to maintain the institutions of domination primarily devoted to securing the power and privilege of a ruling elite. Threats, such as global warming, that can be addressed effectively only by challenging that power and privilege are ignored or denied.

PRIMARY THREATS TO OUR LIBERTY AND SECURITY

EMPIRE STORY: Our security is threatened by criminals, terrorists, and rogue dictators.

EARTH COMMUNITY STORY: The primary threats to our security are global warming, oil dependence, overconsumption, overpopulation, extreme inequality, fiscal irresponsibility, and internal assault on civil liberties by political demagogues. These are all consequences of the material excess, violence, and injustice inherent in the dominator structures that also bear primary responsibility for crime, war, and terrorism. It is within our means to remove the cause of all these threats by turning from the dominator relations of Empire to the partnership relations of Earth Community.

THE NATURAL HUMAN CONDITION

EMPIRE STORY: Competition, crime and war are the natural condition of man. Every nation must compete for economic and military dominance over its neighbors or suffer domination by them.

EARTH COMMUNITY STORY: Ruthless competition, crime, and war are intrinsic to dominator cultures and institutions. They are the natural condition of Empire, but not of humankind. Most humans are cooperative and caring. If this were not so, human societies would have collapsed long ago. It is within our means to create partnership cultures and institutions that nurture these higher order potentials for cooperation, community, and mutual caring.

THE SOURCE OF SECURITY AND SOCIAL ORDER 

EMPIRE STORY: We depend on decisive, righteous rulers with strong police and military powers to secure our liberty and social order from enemies foreign and domestic and extract retribution from those who do us harm as a warning to other miscreants. Those who oppose righteous leaders are also our enemies as they side with our enemies and are also threats to our security and the moral and social order.

EARTH COMMUNITY STORY: Social order, freedom and physical safety are best secured by vital caring communities that build trust, share risks, and create resilience in the face of crisis. Beware the self-righteous who seek positions of absolute power to impose moral order in the name of liberty. They more often use the police and military powers of the state to secure the power and privilege of a ruling class than to secure the rights and well-being of ordinary people. Retribution against wrongdoers perpetuates violence and strengthens Empire. Healing troubled relationships eliminates the cause of violence and strengthens Earth Community.

DEMOCRACY  

EMPIRE STORY: The founding fathers of the United States created the world’s most advanced democracy and gave us a Constitution that secured the rights and freedom of all Americans. Our nation is, and has been, the leader internationally in spreading and securing democracy and the rights and liberty of all people throughout the world.

EARTH COMMUNITY STORY:  The United States is an Empire ruled as a plutocracy by people of wealth. Those who wrote our Constitution were white males of property and it secured their rights over the rights of others. It took many years of struggle in the face of often violent oppression to eliminate slavery and extend the right to vote to women and people of color. We maintain and regularly use the largest military force in the world to advance and protect our interests in disregard of the democratic will of the people involved. Democracy is a very good idea. It is time to bring it to full flower through a deep cultural and institutional transformation and to find a role for ourselves in the world that aligns with our professed ideals.