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FTAA.soc/civ/147
June 14, 2005


Original: Portuguese
Translation: FTAA Secretariat

FTAA - COMMITTEE OF GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVES ON THE PARTICIPATION OF
CIVIL SOCIETY

CONTRIBUTION IN RESPONSE TO THE OPEN AND ONGOING INVITATION
 


Names(s) Paulo Augusto Antunes Lacaz
Organization(s) Free Lancer - on Religion (Cult - Dogma and Regimen), Politics and Philosophy, based on the Positivism Doctrine)
Country Brazil
FTAA Entities addressed
in the contribution
FTAA Process

MIAMI 1994 – FTAA PROCESS – PLAN OF ACTION I – PRESERVING AND STRENGTHENING THE
COMMUNITY OF DEMOCRACIES OF THE AMERICAS.

THE FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION

The problem of corruption is drawing a great deal of attention not only in this Hemisphere, but all over the world. Corruption, in both the public and the private sector, weakens democracy (as well as any other kind of regime) and undermines the legitimacy of governments and institutions.

In the broadest sense of the term, corruption implies the progressive disintegration of a being. This moral corruption is always a slow process, a progressive depravation of customs and precepts, in which the individual is incapable of adhering to some moral principles by which certain precepts must be held. Instead, corrupt individuals ignore all the values belonging to the culture of their homeland and end up constructing their own personal principles according to their erroneous parameters and their personal experience and use them as valid norms for behavior. They lose their sense of duty completely and are increasingly seduced and comforted by the supposed benefits they obtain from their criminal activities.

Without a moral prophylaxis, such individuals can find their ability to keep their instincts and their whims under control dwindling and end up losing all their moral scruples and any regard they may have had for the rights of others. They become worms of destruction.

The capitalist system nowadays teaches that it does not matter how you make your money, what matters is that you make it: an attitude that has been inducing current leaders in both the government and the private sector to become corrupt.

The issue of moral capital needs to be analyzed and addressed, but not by using methods applicable to material capital.

The solutions to moral problems need to be pursued through moral methods. This may be slower but it is certainly highly effective. The best way to fight corruption is by firstly instilling children with a fear of losing their self-respect. They need to be ashamed of certain actions or behavior. Nowadays psychologists, marketing specialists, economists and the media in general preach the opposite. Punishment and reprimands have been banished from schools; before, students who cut classes were singled out in front of their peers, in front of the whole class, to instill a sense of shame in them that would simultaneously cultivate self-respect because all the students would develop a fear of doing something immoral.

The State can reprimand or punish when it detects a crime. In this case, a wrongful act that is the consequence of an immoral action is what is punished. But education to minimize inappropriate behavior, in other words, immoral conduct, needs to start in the home and be imparted from the pulpits of religious temples if it is to have a tangible effect in the medium or long term.

The death penalty should be analyzed as a possible alternative form of State-imposed punishment, mainly for civilian and military public officials. It would certainly intimidate some and would substantially reduce this kind of crime.

We are not talking about human rights, but duties towards humanity.

Modernization, the fiscal controls imposed by the State, including deregulation, privatization, and the streamlining of government procedures do not always reduce opportunities for corruption. The corrupt always find a way to get away with what they do. They need to be banished from society.

All aspects of public administration in a democracy and a sociocracy or any kind of regime must be transparent and open to public examination. Reduce the lying – Live in the light.

Not so long ago, twenty years, Brazil became a country in which lying and stealing rather than power prevailed. Nowadays nobody answers for anything, nobody gives any feedback, hardly anyone thinks about anyone else.
How can a society operating at this level ever really progress?

This is the basic reason why we never achieve any positive results. Our morals are sorely lacking! The pursuits of our intellectuals lack scientific basis and character (courage, prudence and perseverance). The power brokers in Brazil, outside the political parties, operate mostly at this level.

This is why there must be a regime change: to ensure that an elite of excellence reaches power, one that has been trained, through the Internet, in a national college for statesmen and women, one that can overcome the current weakness afflicting developing countries, and some first-world ones as well. Such a course would be taken by the governments of each of the 34 countries, upon suggestions made by the FTAA, but not with the FTAA’s participation. The core subjects would be moral education and civics. In Brazil, the test would be written and graded by the Brazilian armed forces as the only body in the country that still possesses a high level of morality (Superior War School) and monitored by the trade unions of the proletariat and employers.

The test would be given via the Internet and consist of multiple choice questions. If you wish, I will provide details at a later date. Security and rigid norms would be adopted.

An administration that does not fulfill its essential mission to serve the public creates widespread dissatisfaction that can be easily mobilized by a revolutionary movement.

Let us take advantage of economic globalization to introduce positive moral globalization. Otherwise, we will not attain social well-being here on mother Earth.

It may be upopist, but not chimerical.

The governments: no coment.


 
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