The Path of the Four
Chapter 16: The Alpha Covenant

We, Roger Brantley, Jacques Jolliet, Sir Niles Gladstone, Leonardo D’Andrea, Prince Ivan Glinka, Pierre Berteau, Fritz Gutenschwager, and Juan Hernandez, the Board of Governors of the Better World Foundation, do hereby swear that we will do everything in our power to see that the following laws, social policies, national priorities, or their reasonable approximations, hereafter known as the Twelve Steps, are enacted in each of our countries within the next five years:

1. A national program of sexual education, equally promoting the advantages of both abstinence and/or birth control.

2. The incident of any citizen under eighteen years of age who is not adequately fed, housed, and educated will become, in each of our nations, a federal crime, with a responsible party identified, charged, and prosecuted.

3. Every man and woman, upon reaching eighteen years of age, will be required to perform one year of national service.

4. Every citizen who is qualified to vote will be fined one thousand dollars (or the equivalent) every time he or she doesn’t vote.

5. Every tax-paying citizen will become stockholders in government-run, national recycling corporations.

6. The private ownership of any handgun manufactured in the last ten years will be illegal.

7. The most advanced methods of behavior modification will be used on all citizens convicted of violent felonies.

8. An efficient, affordable public transportation system for every large city will be created.

9. An affordable, efficient, electric car to be developed.

10. Quality health care to be affordable.

11. The legalization, albeit with regulation and taxation, of all control substances.

12. A crash program to cure the diseases of Alzheimer’s and senile dementia, and using the resulting experienced wisdom of our senior citizens.

Most importantly, and in conclusion, we acknowledge that all of Humanity’s previous efforts to achieve a Perfect World have failed. They have required the broad, sweeping powers of tyrants -- or the complex negotiations, and resulting compromises of democracies. We propose a radical, third choice, which must be established and maintained with all dedication and secrecy, since it violates the general public’s limited idea of the common good.

We propose that interested members of the Universal Resistance League form “the Paladins of the Promise,” a secret army of executioners who will simply remove from this Physical Life all parties who in any substantial way oppose the Twelve Steps. Being reasonable and just men, we ask not only the dedication of the Paladins of the Promise, but also give our assurance that they will be awarded with financial comfort, our unswerving loyalty, and enshrined in the history texts of a Distant Epoch for helping to establish the International Modern Utopia.