Having posted a number of articles over the past two months regarding the oppressive and suppressive digressions of our current Church of Scientology leadership - it behooves me to take another perspective now and to provide a different slant to the subject - one that takes a future look at Scientology leadership.

While we can acknowledge that Mr. Miscavige has derailed over the years, and is unfortunately taking Scientology with him, it is just a matter of time before he steps down or is forced from that position of power.

The real question is twofold:
1)  How did he get in power and stay there?
2)  How do we avoid this in the future so that Scientology is not repeatedly left in the hands of oppressive management?

In his defense, I must say this - if we left a President in office running America for 25 years straight - it would eventually wear on him - and if he was initially steeled to corruption, compromise and other lesser impulses that can assault leaders - then he certainly would became prone to them as the years went on. It is said that power begets corruption - and certainly in this case with Mr Miscavige - that is true.

So how do we deal with it?  We can and will of course continue to campaign to have him divested of his power because he has demonstrably abused it. But that won't solve the whole problem - because it could happen again. Maybe we put the Church back on the rails again, get it sailing right along, and then some other top dog decides it is time to play dictator and moves into the role and away we go again. We can say that we would never let that happen again - but WE won't necessarily be around in the future when it happens - and WE do want Scientology here when we come back for round two, three etc.

It seems unlikely to me, having worked under LRH's watch, that he wouldn't have predicted this problem already and laid out a solution. Maybe he did - and maybe Mr Miscavige has conveniently made sure that those notes never saw the light of day. However, that is theoretical at this point.

The situation we are up against is that we have a leadership that should not be in power. In any political system the options are twofold - re-election by the general population to put a new leader in place, which is democracy or a republic at work, or in the face of tyranny and dictatorships - revolution.

The founding men of America, the men who fathered the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights for the new America, recognized this factor as an inherent problem with monarchy's or dictatorial regimes which were prevalent in Europe at the time. Kings and Queens remained in power until they died, and then someone else took over - but it had nothing to do with the will or wants of the people. To solve this they limited a Presidential term to four years and then the matter went back to the American people to decide if that party and President would stay in office or not. This effectively handled oppressive regimes, dictators and goofballs (like George W Bush) from continuing to run the country.

No such system exists in Scientology. If a bad leader gets into power, and no one goes up against him, then apparently we're all supposed to live with him despite the fact that he is destroying OUR religion. Given no options it drives us to rebel, declare independence and to become "dissidents". But we're really not dissidents - unless one considers Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and the other men who decided that the era of oppression was over in America and they established a new order. Their "dissidence" lead to our freedoms and actually helped to quell oppression across the world, demonstrating that a truly republican form of government could operate in lieu of a bunch of whacked out power hungry aristocrats jaunting around treating everyone else as underlings.

With that said, possibly it is time for Scientology to morph or advance with the times. Possibly we should consider demanding the right to elect our leader.  If Scientology is going to be the sharp stick or the tool to help make a better world, then certainly we have the right to elect our leader. If we are not happy with him or her, we should have a right to vote them in or out of office, much the same as most western cultures now do.

Scientology should not exist under the mentality of Papal-rule or a fascist system where we have no right to elect our leadership.  Leadership in Scientology, at its top level, should not be a "given". It should be demonstrated, earned and vested as a right to serve - not as a dictatorial monopoly.

Failing that, there is NO system that can ever be implemented that will safeguard Scientology against future dictators who could act to destroy it. David Miscavige is but one man, one generation of leaders. He is not a permanent fixture. We must have a way of challenging our leaders and electing better ones if we consider they are failing in their duties. That system is a republican system (not democratic by the way - there is a HUGE difference), and gives the power to the people to ensure that their government does not become oppressive. We need that right in Scientology too. To assume otherwise is to agree to being slaves and victims - because that is precisely what will happen. People will be victimized and their rights will be abused within the very religion that is supposed to do the exact opposite.

I wish it were different. I wish we could say that Scientology would never fall prey to such things, but the fact of the matter is that it has, and very seriously so. While we campaign for change, while we open people's eyes to the truth of the bigger picture, we must also start looking into the future and setting matters straight for the long haul. We need Scientology, AS Scientology, here for the future generations without Mr Miscavige's spin on it, or any other dictatorial spin for that matter. If this could happen on OUR watch, in our lives, it can and WILL happen again in the future - unless we start the wheels in motion to bring about reform.

We need to be responsible for making sure that the show goes on for generations to come - and that means taking responsibility for setting up the system so that every future generation of Scientologists is empowered with the right and the ability to ensure that the Church doesn't fall prey to the same issues we are fighting today.

Written by Outside the Box