Security stories 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 that are in reality 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.

The following are Empire and Earth Community versions of key elements of contrasting Security Stories.

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. …see also “The Meta-Story.”

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. Modern communications technologies give those who bear the burdens of imperial domination to unite across all the many lines of geography, race, and religion that have long divided us engage a cooperative global effort to build the cooperative cultures and institutions of a new Era of Earth Community. 

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 the righteous rulers who protect us from our enemies are also our enemies as they threaten the moral and social order.

EARTH COMMUNITY STORY: Beware the self-righteous who seek positions of absolute power to impose their personal version of the moral order in the name of liberty. They are prone to use the police and military powers of the state to secure their own power and privilege in disregard of the rights and well-being of others. Retribution against those who challenge them perpetuates violence and strengthens Empire. 

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. 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 secures 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 who crafted it to secure 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 peoples of other nations. 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 the United States in the world that fully aligns with our professed ideals.