Democrats: The Constitution Is to be Deliberately Flouted

Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, describes, in his piece "Democrats: The Constitution Is ‘Weird’", how Democrats and leftists are baffled by arguments that the Constitution ought to be relied on in practice. Some examples he brings:

"[T]he federal government can do most anything." --- Rep. Pete Stark (D., Calif.)

"I don’t worry about the Constitution." --- Rep. Phil Hare (D., Ill.)

"There’s nothing in the Constitution that says that the federal government has anything to do with most of the stuff we do." --- Rep. James Clyburn (D., S.C.), saying this approvingly, not as a criticism of the illegality of "the stuff we do."

"Are you serious?" --- Nancy Pelosi, being asked where in the Constitution there is a permission for Obamacare.

"I hope your committee will not permit doubts as to constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislation." - Franklin D. Roosevelet

Frankly, these Democrats (and Neoconservatives) ought to be convicted of sedition. These people took oaths to uphold the Constitution!!! How is this not perjury and sedition?

As I said, however, Neoconservatives are just as guilty, playing the world's sheriff and trying to ban everything the Bible condemns, even though the Constitution provides no warrant for any of this either.

Dr. Stupidhead or: How I Learned About Women and How to Love Them

Deena over at the Habitza dating blog has generously posted an article by me, Michael Makovi’s lesson on women, about how I learned how women think, and how not to offend them and hurt their feelings. See there.

Is the Torah Socialistic? - The Relationship Between the Torah's Agricultural Poverty-Relief Laws, and Social-Democratic Egalitarian Redistribution of Wealth

In ideological support of social-democratic egalitarian redistribution of wealth, many will cite the laws of peah, leket, and shikheha, which are respectively the laws in the Torah mandating that a farmer leave behind the corners of his field, the grain that his hand or sickle missed while harvesting, and the grain which he dropped or forgot to gather up from his field. There is also olelot, immature clusters of grapes that must be left, and peret, the grapes' equivalent of leket. Then, there is ma'aseer `ani, a tithe that must be given on the third and sixth year of the seven-year shemita cycle, and finally, there is the shemita year itself, when all field grain and produce is declared ownerless and free for the taking. According to all these laws, certain amounts of grain and produce must be left for the poor. And of course, there is the general obligation to give tzedaqa.

From all this, many wish to derive that the Torah is socialistic, or at least, that it is social-democratic, and would permit (if not demand) a government-instituted egalitarian redistribution of wealth. But there are two mistakes with this:

According to RambaM's Shemonah Peraqim, all of these agriculture laws that I have listed, are not meant to provide for the poor, but are only meant to incline the individual towards the side of generosity. According to RambaM's general theory of the Mean/Middle, an individual should always be situated between two extremes of character; for example, he should be generous, which is between miserliness and spendthriftiness; he should be kind and friendly and easygoing but stand up for himself when necessary, which is between being rude and brazen and easy to anger, on the one hand, and being so soft that one is walked all over by others, on the other. But, says RambaM, humans are naturally inclined slightly to the side of selfishness, and so they are more likely to be slightly rude or slightly miserly, than they are to be perfectly in the middle. On the other hand, RambaM says, when men try to be pious and righteous, they often overcompensate and incline too much towards the side of selflessness, and become too charitable and too soft and easygoing. Similarly, a person will naturally be slightly gluttonous, while a pious person will usually be too abstentious. The purpose of the ritual mitzvot of the Torah, says the RambaM, is to incline us very slightly towards the side of selflessness, to counteract our natural selfishness. Therefore, for example, a person, who is naturally slightly selfish and unwilling to give tzedaqa, will be corrected by the agricultural laws, and become situated in the perfect middle, the sweet spot between miserliness and spendthriftiness. To counteract the opposite danger, that the pious man will be too selfless and give away too much money to tzedaqa, RambaM says that men must do exactly what the Torah says; he quotes the Yerushalmi's criticism of excessive stringency and piety, saying (as if G-d is speaking), "It was not enough what I forbade you, that you had to forbid yourself more?", and also Hazal's saying, "A man should not say, 'I hate pork', but rather, 'I love pork, but what can I do, for my Father in Heaven has forbidden it.'" That is, a pious person should be content with what the Torah has mandated and forbidden, and not try to innovate new pietistic customs and prohibitions. This way, says the RambaM, a man will be inclined from selfishness towards generosity, but not too far.

What this means for us, now, however, is that the agricultural laws of the Torah are not meant to provide for the poor. They are merely an ethical corrective for the personality of the farmer himself. Actual provision for the poor must be provided from voluntary tzedaqa, entirely aside from the agricultural tithes. In fact, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch agrees completely with the RambaM. Rabbi Hirsch does not get into so involved a philosophical-psychological treatment as does the RambaM, but he briefly states that mathematically, leaving a small corner of one's field could not possibly be sufficient for the welfare of the poor, and therefore, he says, the purpose of these laws is to teach the farmer an object lesson, to demonstrate to him the principle that one must give tzedaqa, and to demonstrate to him that in essence, his farmland belongs to G-d, not to the farmer, and that the farmer must be a charitable and humble person in general. The purpose of the agricultural tithes, he says, is pedagogical and symbolic, not practical.

So the agricultural tithes cannot possibly serve as a justification for egalitarian redistribution of wealth. The Torah's agricultural tithes are symbolic and educational, not practical. They cannot serve as a model for the institution of egalitaritan redistribution of wealth, because such redistribution is meant to actually solve the plight of the poor, whereas the Torah's example is merely symbolic. This does not mean that the egalitarian redistribution of wealth is prohibited by the Torah, but it does mean that one cannot derive warrant for it from the Torah, either. It is floating in the air, without basis, with neither assent nor dissent by the Torah, at least insofar as we have seen yet.

This begs the question, however: is egalitarianism merely not warranted by the Torah, or is it actually prohibited by the Torah. To answer this question, we must consider this: the Torah's laws are explicitly mandated by G-d, and are binding only on the individual. This means two things:
(1)It is the individual's obligation to leave the tithes, not the government's;
(2) We cannot innovate new laws that G-d has not given.
G-d has commanded man precisely which tithes to give. What right does the government have to create new obligations that G-d has not? And even the tithes that G-d did institute, the Torah commands individuals to leave them, not the government. A man can sue his fellow only when he has caused direct harm. If I owe a definite someone a definite amount of money, then he can sue me. But if I have failed to give tzedaqa to the poor in general, then no poor man can sue me, for no individual, specific poor man can claim I have harmed him. So even the tithes G-d has instituted, if one fails to give them, what right does the government have to intervene? Who is going to sue the farmer? All the more so, then, the tithes that the human government invented, the government has no right to punish violators.

Now, I am not learned in Jewish civil law and criminal. Perhaps, in fact, a man who fails to leave the proper agricultural tithes, with two witnesses present, has in fact performed a crime against society, similar to a Shabbat violator. Perhaps, in fact, the negligent farmer can be brought to court, and given lashings for general disobedience of the Torah, for violating a negative prohibition of the Torah. I am not sure, because I am not sufficiently learned in Jewish civil and criminal law. But even if he can be so punished, it is certainly the case that the government cannot institute new tithes. The specific tithes that G-d instituted, maybe the government can punish one for failure to leave them, or maybe not - I do not know. But it is certain that the government cannot punish one for failing to leave tithes that it, not G-d, innovated.

And it is absolutely, positively certain that the government cannot punish one who merely fails to give tzedaqa in general. At no one moment can any witnesses say that a sin has been committed. The obligation to give tzedaqa is one that applies at all times, in all places. The only sins in the Torah that can be punished by the government, are those that involve some definite and concrete act of commission or omission. For example, if one bows down to an idol, then he has committed a definite sin of commission. If one fails to put on tefillin by sundown, then he has committed a definite sin of omission. But with tzedaqa, one can never point to a specific moment and say to the sinner, "You have sinned right now." All sins in the Torah must have two witnesses and a warning by the witnesses, in order to be punishable. But when can the witnesses warn our miser? At no one specific moment in time can they blame him for anything!

Update: It became clear in the comments section below (specifically, in this and this reader comment), that I did not make clear enough the following: this entire post is arguing whether the Torah can be used as a source for socialism and egalitarian redistribution of wealth. So when I say the government cannot do such-and-such, I mean that it cannot do it if it claims its warrant is the Torah. My point is simply that if one claims the Torah is one's source, then one cannot justify socialism or egalitarian redistribution of wealth. I am not trying to deal with other sources and justifications for that economy. Nevertheless, however, I will note that we should not underestimate the magnitude of the Torah's authority. That is, we should not underestimate how decimitating it would be for socialists if the Torah did not agree with them. When Rabbi Meir Kahane augmented his swearing-in-oath to the Knesset, adding that he would put observance of the Torah above loyalty to the state, he cited Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail":

One may want to ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all"

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality.

Similarly, James Otis, one of the most important and celebrated of the Revolutionary War-era patriots, famous for his agitation against the Stamp Act, wrote, in his "The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved", that

The parliament cannot make 2 and 2, 5; Omnipotency cannot do it. The supreme power in a state, is jus dicere [to declare the law] only;—jus dare [to make new laws], strictly speaking, belongs alone to God. Parliaments are in all cases to declare what is parliament that makes it so: There must be in every instance, a higher authority, viz. GOD. Should an act of parliament be against any of his natural laws, which are immutably true, their declaration would be contrary to eternal truth, equity and justice, and consequently void: and so it would be adjudged by the parliament itself, when convinced of their mistake.

It should be added that Otis's work was extremely influential, and carried significant weight in Revolutionary America. And then James Wilson, one of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, and a deist (so he was the American equivalent of a hiloni!) said, in his law lectures at the College of Philadelphia in 1789 (so the following words were part of lawyer's curriculum at a university),

That law, which God has made for man in his present state; that law, which is communicated to us by reason and conscience, the divine monitors within us, and by the sacred oracles [i.e. Scripture] the divine monitors without [i.e. outside, external to] us...

As promulgated by reason and the moral sense it has been called natural; as promulgated by the holy scriptures, it has been called revealed law.

As addressed to men, it has been denominated the law of nature; as addressed to political societies, it has been denominated the law of nations.

But it should always be remembered, that this law, natural or revealed, made for men or for nations, flows from the same divine source; it is the law of God. ...

Human law must rest its authority, ultimately, upon the authority of that law, which is divine.

So the principle is firmly established: governments are bound by a Higher Law. This has been acknowledged at the Nuremberg trials, it was acknowledged by Martin Luther King, Jr., and it was acknowledged by colonial Americas across the board, even by deists. So if even if it were the Torah alone that posed a challenge to socialism, i.e. even if nothing but the Torah opposed socialism, we should not underestimate how formidible and significant that opposition would be, and how disastrous it ought to be to the socialist cause. Nevertheless, the point of this essay is to argue about the Torah alone, whether or not the Torah alone is a warrant for governments to engage in socialism. Any other sources for socialism are beyond the scope of this essay. (Interestingly, King himself was in favor of a social-democracy. But we learned the desired principles from his letter, that the law of G-d takes precedence over all else. If King did not suitably apply this principle to economics, then that is another matter that does not affect us. The words of his we quoted stand, regardless of whether King himself applied them practically in a way that would satisfy us.)

(In fact, there is yet another reason I am skeptical that the government can punish one for failing to leave tithes. I already said that there is no claimant to sue the farmer. But another reason is found in Mesekhet Makkot. There is a general principle of lo ta`aseh she'yesh bo qum `aseh, a prohibition that contains a positive prescription. What this means is, some negative commandments contain a way to rectify the violation. For example, if you violate the prohibition of taking bird's eggs without shooing away the mother, one can fix this by putting the eggs back. If one repairs his sin, then he cannot be punished. Now, the Gemara has two opinions regarding when one is able to avoid punishment: either he must rectify his sin immediately, post-haste, or face punishment; or else he faces punishment only when his sin is impossible to be fixed anymore. According to the first view, one must return the mother's eggs without delay, or else face punishment. According to the second view, however, one can be punished only when he has not only failed to return the eggs, but furthermore, when the eggs or bird's nest have come into such a state that it is impossible to ever return the eggs, ever again. According to the second view, it is only when the eggs are eaten, for example, making it impossible to return them, that one can be punished. According to this second view, punishing a violator of the agricultural tithes would be very difficult, because Mesekhet Peah contains many prescriptions for what to do if one neglects to leave the tithes. There is almost always a way to rectify one's sin, making it very difficult for the government to punish anyone. Now, maybe the halakhah is like the first view, but my point is that the mere existence of the second view, even if it is not the halakhah, inclines us yet further away from the possibility that the government can institute new tithes and punish violators. If it is so difficult to punish violators of the Torah, G-d's law, surely it must be nearly impossible to punish violators of mere human law!)

Man Makes Plans, and G-d Plans: A Recent Momentous Turn of Events in My Life

As the one or two regular readers of this blog know, I have, on my own, recently been studying Reformed Christian and colonial American political theory, everyone from John Calvin and Heinrich Bullinger to Johannes Althusius and Samuel Rutherford, from William Bradford and John Winthrop to John Witherspoon and James Madison. I was inspired by reading Moshe Feiglin's Where There are No Men, and my original intention was twofold: first, to be able to argue cogently against those who believed that democracy demanded a complete surrender of one's conscience to the state. However, I already believed in the Talmudic aphorism, ein shaliah b'davar `averah (that one cannot say "I was merely following orders"), and knew such a statist belief in the obligation of obedience was innately criminal, irrespective of whether democracy would endorse the Talmud's statement or not. Second, to be able to argue cogently against those who apodictically posited a fundamental contradiction between Judaism and democracy. So I decided to learn just what exactly democracy was.

I started some Azure articles on Political Hebraism by Yoram Hazony and Fania Oz Salzberger, and then I moved onto Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau and civil disobedience. This in turn brought me back to John Locke, which in turn brought me back to the Swiss Reformation. I was thus quite successfully able to refute, to my own satisfaction (most of my friends believe I am insane), the assertions that democracy demands making oneself a qorban (holocaust) for the state, as well as that Judaism and democracy contradict. After all, if democracy was satisfactory to the most Tanakh-ic of all Christians, then what difficulty ought Jews have with it? And I have been told - by hearsay - that Hakham Jose Faur has observed - an observation that accords with my own personal understanding - that the First Amendment in America was meant to secure a separation of church and state, not of religion and state. (After all, James Madison explicitly credited Martin Luther's doctrine of the two kingdoms as the source for the American separation, so we can hardly suppose that the American and French revolutions aimed at the same end in this regard.) I might add that Rabbi S. R. Hirsch presents Judaism as holding by ecclesiastical democracy, so I don't see it shouldn't be just as happy with civil democracy. As King James I wisely remarked, "No bishops, no king", meaning that a Puritanistic request to be rid of bishops would inevitably result in a similar demand regarding kingship.

An unintentional result was that I now hold by libertarianism in general, all the way to, for example, F. A. Hayek, and I have a decidedly more negative attitude towards the Israeli Rabbinut than I ever had before. What can I say? - you learn a few basic principles, and they inexorably are applied to one's entire life and thought, whether or not one meant this to be so. Just from reading Swiss Reformed political theory, I have come to hold by a theory of government that my brother has himself arrived at reading books from the Cato Institute and Ludwig Von Mises Institute. So while trying to reconcile Judaism and democracy, I had to redefine democracy, discarding 1789 as mostly irrelevant.

So that's what I've been studying recently, on my own, as a hobby.

A few days ago, I had a meeting with one of the faculty of a prominent political think tank in Israel, to ask him whether it would be worth my while to study any of this in university. We talked about whether it would be worthwhile for me to study political science, with my major question being, would it be profitable as far as earning a livelihood goes? He started to speak, fumbled a bit, stopped and thought, like he wasn't sure how to say what he wanted to say, and finally, he said, "Aww, heck, I'll go for it. You have this quality that I've only ever seen in Holocaust survivors. They find a potato, and wonder whether they should eat it now or save it for later. But you cannot blame them, after what they went through. But what are you worried about? It's not like you're going to starve."

I mentioned how my cousin got a degree in history and didn't know what to do with it, and he said it's because she didn't have any vision of why she was learning history, and nor do most people know why they're learning the humanities, he said. The vast majority of the people in the humanities - including professors, he said - have no idea what the purpose of their research is. So their research turns in on itself, and they'll write dissertations about a two-year period of history, covering every single tedious minute of that period, and they'll have no conception of how to use any of this to benefit society. However, he said, if my intention in studying political science - such as the Calvinists - is to produce tangible benefits for practical society, with a clear conception of how my learning can affect the world, then I should have far less difficulty finding something to do with my degree.

I told him that ever since I was a young child, I have always assumed I would study bioinformatics (i.e. computer science and biology) and he was visibly frustrated with the fact that I'd even consider doing anything other than political science. He told me that there are hundreds of competent people in Israel doing economics, for example (I guess he doesn't hate Keynesian economics as much as I do), but only a handful, at best, of people studying the things I want to study, things that could truly benefit Israel, if conducted by someone who - like me - has a clear conception of their practical import. On top of that, he said, the fact that I'm groping in the dark, and discovering all of this entirely on my own, writing high-level pieces on my blog on these subjects, following only from my own inspiration and desires, without anything more than a high school education, is truly exceptional, he said. Therefore, he said, the combination of someone studying the things I'm studying and someone who has a clear conception of how these studies are practically useful, is incredibly rare. He illustrated this by saying that when Shmuel first heard prophecy, he had no idea it was G-d, and kept running to Eli. He said that G-d has spoken to me, and told me what to learn, but I just don't realize it is Him speaking to me.

When asked him where I ought to study, he told me this: that I should try to find someplace with a professor or professors who would share my interests and be able to advise me. He said the undergraduate curriculum anywhere would be about the same, focusing on Plato and Aristotle and such, and that it didn't really make so much a difference where I studied, unless I found a particular professor somewhere to my liking. He also told me he'd put me in touch with other colleagues of his at his think thank, and that if I ever need a job, I'm always welcome to ask him/them if they have an opening (no promises, of course).

As things stand now, I am being advised by him to go to either the Hebrew University or Tel Aviv University. Apparently, my computer science teacher's advice to go the cheapest university you can find, for your undergraduate, and then spend all your money on the most prestigious graduate program you can find - based on his assertion that once you have a graduate degree, no one cares anymore where you got your undergraduate - doesn't apply to the humanities. He told me that even though he got his PhD decades ago, people still think he must be brilliant merely because he got his undergraduate at Princeton.

I cannot believe this. I am giving up my lifelong dream (since I was in kindergarten) to get a degree in biology and computer science, and follow my mother's footsteps as a scientist, to uncover new, heretofore unknown aspects of ma'aseh bereshit (the works of creation), asher bara eloqim la'asot ("which G-d created to do" - Genesis 2:2, with the sentence incomplete, for mankind to finish), just so that I can prove to the damn stupid world what G-d already told us 3500 years ago. And what do I get for it? I'll have to spend my time with stupid humanities people, who will pretentiously and arrogantly judge you based on which university you went to. A scientist would never stand for such foolishness. I could be helping to discover and as-yet-unknown cure for cancer or Alzheimer's, but no, I have to prove to people that it's wrong to coerce other people into doing things against their wills. Maybe I can publish an article about my newly discovered hiddush (novel innovation), the issur (prohibition) of geneiva (theft - in this case, taxation)? Think of the opportunity costs!

And G-d help me if I lose my inability to write in a technical manner, like the damn humanities people, who are paid for every violation of Orwell's "Politics and the English Language". It's all I have left of the original me.

*Update: My brother responded to this blog entry, saying,

My path was a bit more convoluted than what you suggest.

Perhaps your opportunity cost is allowing some other biologist to profitably (money/time) go about curing diseases without [government] mandates that limit the energies of these folks. But your quandary is one common to the freedom loving individual. I believe I have told you before, my interest in politics goes with my freedom. Something of a zero sum game. The more of one, the less there is of the other. [I.e. his interest in politics is inversely proportional to his possession of liberty, as a zero-sum game.]

Court: Jerusalem must fund gay center

I just read an absolutely flabbergasting article in Y-Net, Supreme Court: Jerusalem must fund gay community; Judges say municipality discriminating against LGBT community, order it to finance Open House center (Aviad Glickman, 14 September 2010). In short,

After years of tense waiting, Jerusalem's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community will finally receive funding from the city's municipality for its Open House center, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday. The court criticized the municipality for rejecting the Open House's pleas for funds, and ruled that it must hand over a sum of $120,000.

Frankly, this is absolutely insane. Pardon me for being so blunt, but for the moment, let's forget the Torah. Okay, so the Torah prohibits homosexual sex (not homosexuality), fine, yofi. But let's put that on the backburner for a moment, and focus on something else disturbing in this whole affair.

We read,

Justice Hayut added that the gay community should be granted the special status it receives in other cities in Israel, which would guarantee that funding be provided for its activities.

What????!!!! Because other cities fund them, Jerusalem has to too? What ever happened to social contract and fiscal responsibility? It's not within the government's jurisdiction to build community centers for homosexuals, and just because other cities did so, doesn't mean Jerusalem has to join them in their illiberal violation of basic principles of basic justice in politics.

We then read,

Justice Amit stressed that proper behavior towards the gay community was one of the criteria for a democratic state, and what separates Israel from "most of the Mideast states near and far, in which members of the gay community are persecuted by the government and society".

Excuse me????!!!! This is not an issue of Jerusalem discriminating against anyone. Jerusalem is not hurting the homosexuals in any way. The homosexuals do not have any right to any money or any government largesse, and neither does anyone else in society, for that matter. Government funding is *not* a human right. Lest we forget this, we should remind ourselves that government funding comes from taxes, i.e. money that belongs to other people. You do *not* have a right to other people's money. Jerusalem is not discriminating against the homosexuals; it is merely saying that the homosexuals do not have a right to take money from heterosexuals.

It would be one thing if homosexuals were being barred from government office, or something. At least then, the claim could be made that active denial of rights and active discrimination was being carried out. But here, it's that Jerusalem is failing to imitate everyone else, in using taxpayer money to subsidize homosexual recreation. This is absurd. This is *not* part of the government's authority or jurisdiction.

According to the Associated Press's Court: Jerusalem must fund gay center, we read,

The court said the city must help fund the center because it serves a significant chunk of the city's population.

This is ridiculous. The government must fund everything that "serves a significant chunk of the ... population"???!!! One could make a reductio ad absurdum argument that if so, then murderers and wife-beaters must be funded as well, since, after all, they are also a significant chunk of the population. But one could just as well argue, far more moderately, that not every significant chunk of the population, even decent and law-abiding and moral ones, must be funded. Just because one is a significant part of the population, even a legitimate and ethical one, does not give one a right to other people's money.

Okay, so let's take the Torah off the backburner. It turns out that the issue is not of the issur of homosexual sex, but rather, of the issur of stealing. Theft is prohibited, even if you're a homosexual.

In short, the government has no jurisdiction to fund such a community center, or nearly anything else, for that matter. The jurisdiction of the government is to protect life and property. The government is to imprison, fine, or execute thieves and murderers, and furnish an army for the defense of the country. That is it. Nearly anything else is outside the jurisdiction of the government. Perhaps the government can also act in the general welfare, and provide things which benefit everyone equally, such as water, electricity, and use eminent to appropriate property for the construction of structures that will benefit the entire society uniformly. But that is pushing it, and even if that be within the jurisdiction of the government, it is the absolute final frontier of that jurisdiction, already on the distant outskirts of the government's rightful authority.

According to Heinrich Bullinger, a 16th-century Swiss Protestant divine,

For, as no emperors or kings are permitted to grant any privileges contrary to justice, goodness, and honesty; so, if they do grant any such privilege, it ought not be received or taken of good subjects for a good turn or benefit, but to be counted rather (as it is indeed) their utter destruction and clean overthrow.

I hope the homosexual community makes the right choice about what to do with their new government-granted privileges. The same goes for Haredim who accept funding to build kollels.

P. S. For those interested, I present a fuller quotation of Bullinger's, including its original context:

The magistrate therefore is the living law, and the law is the dumb magistrate. By executing and applying the law, the law is made to live and speak; which the princes do not consider that are wont to say, Wir sind das recht, "We are the right, we are the law." For they suppose that they at their pleasure may command what they list, and that all men by and by must take it for law. But that kind of ruling, without all doubt, is extreme tyranny. The saying of the poet is very well known, which representeth the very words of a tyrant:

I say, and it shall be so;
My lust shall be the law.
[Hoc volo, sic jubeo; sit pro ratione voluntas - Juv. Sat. VI. 223. - P.]

The prince, indeed, is the living law, if his mind obey the written laws, and square not from the law of nature. Power and authority, therefore, is subject unto laws; for unless the prince in his heart agree with the law, in his breast do write the law, and in his words and deeds express the law, he is not worthy to be called a good man, much less a prince. Again, a good prince and magistrate hath power over the law, and is master of the laws, not that they may turn, put out, undo, make and unmake, them as they list at their pleasure; but because he may put them in practice among the people, apply them to the necessity of the stae, and attemper their interpretation to the meaning of the maker.

They therefore are deceived as far as heaven is wide, which think for a few privileges, of emperors and kings granted to the magistrate to add, diminish, or change some point of the law, that therefore they may utterly abolish good laws, and live against all law and seemliness. For, as no emperors or kings are permitted to grant any privileges contrary to justice, goodness, and honesty; so, if they do grant any such privilege, it ought not be received or taken of good subjects for a good turn or benefit, but to be counted rather (as it is indeed) their utter destruction and clean overthrow. [Emphasis added] Among all men, at all times and of all ages, the meaning and substance of the laws touching honesty, justice, and public pease is kept inviolable; if change be made, it is in circumstances, and the law is interpreted as the case requireth, according to justice and a good.

(Heinrich Bullinger, The Decades, second decade, seventh sermon, "Of the Office of the Magistrate, Whether the Care of Religion Appertain to Him or No, and Whether He May Make Laws and Ordinances in Cases of Religion", Parker Society translation, pp. 339f.)

Limitation of, and Confidence in, Government

Today on Arutz Sheva, there is an interesting interview with Tzipi Hotovely regarding her opinion of Netanyahu's building freeze: MK Hotovely to INN: If Freeze Continues, I Won't Support Budget. The interview is interesting, so see there.

I wrote the following letter to Hotovely's office, regarding one statement of hers:

Ms. Hotovely,

I wish to speak please regarding "MK Hotovely to INN: If Freeze Continues, I Won't Support Budget" in Arutz Sheva, 15 September, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/139633

I will but briefly note that I completely agree with you regarding such matters as the prospect of peace, the propriety of land for peace, the Jewish people's title to the land of Israel, and other such sundry details. Suffice it to say that as a religious zionist myself, I need not emphasize that I agree with your words on those matters.

But what did concern me was the following: regarding Netanyahu, you said, "I trust him enough. He knows he must be accountable to the public and I am sure he will keep doing what he promised. Governments are tested on what they promise."

Now, of what little I know of you, I do trust you, and I will continue to trust you until you give me reason to do otherwise. So I am optimistic, and I believe that in all likelihood, I can trust you know when it is a time to stand by Netanyahu and when it is a time to disagree with him. I have confidence that you are not his sycophant, and that you will do what is proper when it is proper.

Nevertheless, your words do still alarm me, and I wish to comment on them. Perhaps my words are unnecessary, but better that they be said unnecessarily, than that necessary words be omitted.

The last thing we should do is to trust the government. "The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." (Thomas Jefferson. Of course, Israel has no constitution, and it baffles me that Israel can be considered a democracy without one. Constitutionalism is the bedrock of democracy, for you cannot have rule of the people when the people do not stipulate contractual terms to their servant, the government. Would any businessman ever employ an employee without a contract? If any man were ever so foolish to do so, then he would be hiring his own slavemaster. Lacking a constitution, even relatively free Britain was able to shame itself with the declaration that it could bind America "in all cases whatsoever.")

"This may serve to teach us the danger of allowing to any mortal man an inordinate measure of power to speak great things: to allow to any man uncontrollableness of speech; you see the desperate danger of it. Let all the world learn to give mortal men no greater power than they are content they shall use--for use it they will. And unless they be better taught of God, they will use it ever and anon: it may be, make it the passage of their proceeding to speak what they will. And they that have liberty to speak great things, you will find It to be true, they will speak great blasphemies. ... It is necessary, therefore, that all power that is on earth be limited, church-power or other. If there be power given to speak great things, then look for great blasphemies, look for a licentious abuse of it. It is counted a matter of danger to the state to limit prerogatives; but it is a further danger not to have them limited: they will be like a tempest if they be not limited. A prince himself cannot tell where he will confine himself, nor can the people tell; but if he have liberty to speak great things, then he will make and unmake, say and unsay, and undertake such things as are neither for his own honor nor for the safety of the state. ... And so for children and servants, or any others you are to deal with: give them the liberty and authority you would have them use, and beyond that stretch not the tether; it will not tend to their good nor yours." (John Cotton, "Limitation on Government")

"It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." (James Madison, Federalist no. 51)

Jefferson, Cotton, and Madison all spoke from a pious, Reformed Christian, libertarian perspective, the perspective that served as the foundation of American politics for over two-hundred years. And yet, even so, we see that America is tending towards the way of social-democracy. But to quote Norman Thomas, "The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened." If this be true - and we today see empirical evidence of its veracity - then how much more true must this be in Israel, where no libertarian tradition of human rights and liberties exist, where socialism has been held as the benchmark? (I truly believe that libertarianism is a prerequisite to proper observance of the Noahide law that mandates the establishment of courts of justice, and that the laws of Mishpatim and Shofetim cannot be fulfilled except when libertarianism is adhered to. Where libertarianism is lacking, so is appreciation for the sovereignty of the individual man, created in G-d's image. In fact, in Hilkhot Geziela v'Aveida 5:18, RambaM offers a social-contract theory for legitimate taxation. But I digress.)

The last thing Israel needs is to trust its government, G-d forbid. Man should never trust his government, but all the more so, he should never do so in a place such as Israel, where democracy is scoffed at and scorned. (Compare Ehud Barak's statement that democracy means the government's authority to impose martial law.) "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." (Thomas Jefferson) "Let us take care of our rights, and we therein take care of our prosperity. "SLAVERY IS EVER PRECEDED BY SLEEP." (John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, no. 12)

Personally, I believe Netanyahu to be a scoundrel without the slightest bit of moral integrity. After all, the man promised the "settlers" that the freeze would be merely temporary and that then all would be back to normal, and then he turned right around and told the world that the freeze was a first step towards an independent Palestianian state. Surely both cannot be true, unless Netanyahu's words are graced with the properties of quantum physics! But I shall not begrudge your trusting him. I have a friend who despises Rabbi S. R. Hirsch (my hero) for what he perceives as his unfair attacks on Zecharias Frankel, but this man remains my friend nevertheless. So I will not begrudge your trust in Netanyahu. All I ask is that you please remember your principles, and that you put them before Netanyahu or any other man. And please, for the love of G-d, do not ask us to trust the government. The government must ever remain on probation, under our watchful surveillance, lest it extend itself beyond its lawful limits without our notice. It is easier to hold the flood waters back, then to return them after the dam has burst.

You indeed criticize Netanyahu's building freeze, and his willingness to countenance a Palestinian state, and his negligence in asserting red lines, and your criticism gives me hope. In short, I trust you, but I please request that you do not betray my trust.

Thank you, and sincerely,
Michael Makovi
Jerusalem; formerly of Silver Spring, MD, USA

P. S. Note that John Cotton spoke not only of civil government, but of ecclesiastical government as well. We should not be surprised, for the same principles apply to both. The same Protestants who assailed the Catholic Church as tyrannical and authoritarian, invented modern constitutional democracy (which is to be distinguished from French Enlightenment's social-democracy; Alexander Hamilton considered "the French Revolution to be no more akin to the American Revolution than the faithless wife in a French novel is like the Puritan matron in New England", according to Abraham Kuyper's book Calvinism). King James I told the Protestants that they agreed with kingship as much as G-d did with the Devil, and that a request to get rid of Anglican bishops would soon enough turn into a rejection of monarchy as well. The following passage from Rabbi S. R. Hirsch is thus enlightening; I quote The Character of the Jewish Community", in Collected Writings, pp. 23f., 47:

"It is not the rabbinate or the board of trustees but the community itself that is the focal point of all Jewish communal life. It is from the community that all religious authority must emanate. The office and functions of the board of trustees have meaning only to the extent that they represent the community and carry out its will. Only by virtue of the trust placed in him by the community does the חכם, that expert in the Law, become מומחה לרבים, the public authority, the rabbi in the true sense of the word. Judaism has no "hierarchical authority" that can impose regulations on the community, or appoint religious functionaries, against the community's will or even without consulting the community. Our Sages teach us that אין מעמידין פרנס על הצבור אלא אם כן נמלכין בצבור "one does not appoint a trustee for the community without having first obtained the free-willed consent of the community" (ברכות נה). They cite the example of the appointment of Bezalel, who was first introduced to Moses by the Almighty Himself with the words ראה קראתי בשם בצלאל וגו, and then by Moses to the Children of Israel with these words: ראו קרא ה בדם בצלאל וגו. "See for yourselves" that God has made him worthy of this calling by endowing him with outstanding talent (Cf. Exodus 31,2; 35,30). The Sages further teach us that כל גזירה שבית דין גוזרין על הצבור ולא קבלו רוב הצבור עליהן אינה גזירה "any ordinance enacted by the religious authorities but not accepted by the majority of the community has no binding authority under the Law" (ירושלמי שבת פ"א הל"ד). Even the supreme authorities of religious law, men like Daniel and his council, Shammai and Hillel and their assembly, made the binding, legal authority of their own religious ordinances dependent on their acceptance by the majority of the Jewish community (שבת יד, חולין ו). This is the intent of the unchangeable basic law of Jewish religious communal life as sanctioned in advance by the Supreme Lawgiver, God Himself, when He proclaimed His Law at the time of מתן תורה on Mount Sinai. God offered His holy Law to the entire community for their free-willed acceptance; the eternal binding authority of the Torah is based on a covenant made without coercion. Even with regard to the מצות העתידות להתחדש, religious obligations that were added subsequently, we are taught קימו וקבלו, קימו מה קבלו כבר, the Jewish people carried out only that which they had previously accepted as their obligation of their own free will (שבועות לט). ... We have already seen that the Jewish religious community should be autonomous, that it should be willing and able to direct on its own the functions of all its parts in every aspect of Jewish communal life. The center of power and authority in the Jewish community is not the board of trustees, nor even the rabbinate, but the community itself. The board of trustsees and the rabbi derive their functions only from the election or authorization by the community. The board of trustees can act only by order of the community, and the rabbi is a rabbi solely by virtue of the fact that the community has accepted him as such. Even after the community has delegated part of its authority to the trustees and the rabbi, the community itself must continue to make certain at all times that its authority is being implemented solely for the purpose of helping the community attain its sacred objectives. Indeed, as we have seen, the autonomy of the Jewish religious community has been safeguarded to such an extent that even the Jewish nations' highest religious authorities made the binding force of their own ordinances conditional on whether they were accepted by the nation as a whole."

Rabbi Hirsch goes on to say that a primary reason for every layman to study Torah, is so that he'll know when to reject the rulings of his rabbi as false. In other words, Rabbi Hirsch bases the mitzvah of limud torah on the fallibility and sinfulness of man; all rabbis are human, and are liable to speak falsehood, whether accidentally or deliberately. Therefore, Rabbi Hirsch says, a man's trust in his rabbi must always be conditional and probational. In the same essay, Rabbi Hirsch rejects that the civil government has any right whatsoever to involve itself in religious affairs, and that both the Reform and the Orthodox in Germany must be censured for turning to the German civil authorities for assistance. I believe Rabbi Hirsch's stance has much to say about the rabbinate in Israel.

Minhag ha-Maqom and Taxation: Utilitarianism and Deontology

I believe the contemporary Israeli Rabbinut epitomizes the contemporary breakdown of minhag ha-maqom (communal custom). Without kehillot (communities) with minhagei meqomot (plural: customs of communities), the Israeli Rabbinut is just a vast leviathan that must cater to every minhag (custom) around. There is no longer such a thing as a local communal beit din (Rabbinical court) that can oversee matters especially for the local community. This is just the way things are, and I don't see them changing anytime soon.

Minhag ha-maqom began to break down with the Spanish Expulsion, when Sephardim found themselves in Ottoman lands with Romaniote (Byzantine, Judeo-Greek) Jews, and sometimes in Ashkenazi lands. Traditional geographic-based communities were broken up, and people from different communities found themselves suddenly to be geographic neighbors. (This also happened within the Sephardim, when Sephardim from different cities in Spain suddenly found themselves living in the same area in Turkey.)

With the Spanish Expulsion, the question arose: does one follow the original minhag ha-maqom even when the immigrants outnumber the natives, or does one follow the new minhag ha-maqom being imposed by the more numerous immigrants? For example, if the incoming Sephardi immigrants outnumber the native Romaniotes, does one follow Spanish or Byzantine minhag? But everyone agreed that one minhag ha-maqom was to prevail, because the concept of minhag avot (ancestral custom of ones genetic forefathers) had not yet been invented.

Minhag avot was not invented until Ashkenazim, after WWII, found themselves in Western European countries, all mixed together, and also in Israel, living alongside Sephardim. This had already happened a little bit in previous centuries, such as when the disciples of the Vilna Gaon and Baal Shem Tov made `aliyah to a Sephardi-dominated Israel, for example, but the Holocaust provided the most extreme case of destroying communities.

From this, minhag avot was invented. The reasoning seems to have been that when the Torah concept of minhag ha-maqom (i.e. following your community's customs) no longer suffices - because when no geographically self-contained kehillot exist, no minhag ha-maqom can either - that in such a case, we are permitted to flout the Torah and engage in Reform-style violation of bal tosif (the prohibition of adding onto the Torah). In this case, when minhag ha-maqom no longer "works", we can invent minhag avot, whole-cloth, and tell people to follow the customs of their ancestors, even though there is no support for this notion in the Torah or Talmud. I speak of obligations; that is, the Torah and Talmud speak of an obligation to follow the customs of one's neighbors, not of one's ancestors.

Similarly, when I express my libertarian politics, people often complain that without government welfare, the poor will starve. I doubt this is true (have you heard of a little thing called tzedaqa?), but even if it were, the problem with these people is that they believe a worthy goal (viz. helping the poor) legitimates a crime (viz. government theft, otherwise known as "taxes"). I'm sorry if the poor will starve, but this doesn't make it alright to violate the Torah prohibitions of geneiva and gezeila (stealthy theft and armed robbery).

In short, people usually think in a utilitarian fashion (i.e. based on results), while I think in an deontological fashion (i.e. based on absolute morality). In other words, other people think only of the ends, while I work to ensure the means are justified as well. When faced with the breakdown of kehillot, or the the starvation of the poor, people think in a utilitarian fashion, and are concerned only with the desired end. They find ways to salvage the situation, by inventing minhag avot out of thin air, and by taxing people without their consent. By contrast, I think deontologically, based on means that are justified: does the breakdown of kehillot or the situation of the poor legitimate my violating the Torah, or not? In short, I reject using unjust means to accomplish a just end. Tzedeq tzedeq tirdof: "justice justice shall you seek", meaning your pursuit of justice must itself be just. So again, I don't care how much the poor are starving, for theft is theft, period.

Furthermore, I believe that if the government got out of the welfare business, then private individuals would step up. When the government is involved, people stop caring. You can have a poor widow starving next-door, but you won't ever even see her face, because you'll tell yourself that welfare is covering her needs. Welfare breeds complacency not merely for the recipients, but even for their neighbors. If the government were not involved, then citizens would realize they must take matters into their own hands, and actually take the time to bake a casserole for that poor widow next-door. The Israeli Rabbinut today causes the same problem. Because the Rabbinut builds all the synagogues and provides all the rabbis, there is no sense of communal solidarity in Israel. There are no kehillot. In America, synagogues must be built and rabbis hired by the willingness and work of the members. Thus, the communities are much more alive. It is also much easier for a single, unmarried individual to find a Shabbat meal, for example, because there is an entire communal framework set up. But in Israel, no one belongs to a community. The synagogues and rabbis exist without anyone's having to be involved, and so no one feels any loyalty or responsibility, either to the synagogue or to the surrounding community. Everything is fluid and anarchic, and so a single person has nowhere to go to ask for a Shabbat meal.

American Democracy is Not Majoritarian

I find that often, people are mistaken about what the basis of (American) democracy is, because they confuse (American) democracy with the principles of the French Enlightenment. In short, the American Revolution was a "Presbyterian Rebellion" (as the British described it), fought for the sake of "self-evident...truths...that all men are created equal...[and] endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." By contrast, the French Revolution was fought for the sake of Rousseau-ian collectivist majoritarianism, that rights are endowed by the government and may be revoked when the interests of the government or the collective contradict the rights of the individuals.

In other words, the American Revolution was fought for the sake of G-d given rights, rights that all individuals are endowed with, and which no government may revoke, while the French Revolution was fought for the sake of the government's ability to tyrannize individuals for the sake of the collective. We should not be surprised that only the latter resulted in a Reign of Terror, in a heresy-hunt against dissidents. For only in France - where the collective took precedence over the individual - was dissidence a threat.

So when people say that democracy means majoritarian rule according to the will of the people, they are really following Athenian tyranny, in which Socrates could be executed for heresy, with Plato justifying Socrates's death, saying that the state and society are one's god, that one owes everything he has to the collective, and must bow to its will. But this Platonic/Rousseau-ian tyranny really has nothing to do with "Democracy in America", about which Thomas Paine says,

But where says some is the king of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is.

An excellent description of this is found in Benjamin Hart's book, Faith & Freedom: The Christian Roots of American Liberty. I quote at length from chapter 20, "Different Gods, Different Revolutions". Italics are Hart's, but I have added bold emphasis in a few places.

Another major enterprise of liberal historians has been to recast the American Revolution in the image of the French Revolution. The tendency of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin toward deism is often cited as evidence of America's trend toward "enlightened rational humanism" during the period of America's founding. Whatever still remained of the Christian faith in America was merely a fading remnant - or so we are told.

It is very instructive, therefore, to turn for a moment to the revolution in France, whose announced aim was to duplicate the American Revolution, which had been such an obvious success. In fact, Thomas Jefferson traveled to Paris in order to assist Lafayette and his associates to draft their own Declaration of Rights. "Everyone here is trying their hands at forming a declaration of rights," Jefferson wrote in a letter to Madison, and included in his correspondence several drafts. "As you will see," Jefferson observed, "it contains the essential principles of ours accommodated as much as could be to the actual state of things here." Article Four of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, drafted in August of 1789, for example, states that "liberty consists in the ability to do whatever does not harm another." France's Declaration abolished slavery, titles of nobility, and the remnants of feudalism and serfdom. In many respects, the French Declaration appeared superior to Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. But whereas the American Revolution ended in the establishment of a constitutional democracy, a government under law, the French Revolution ended in tyranny and government by the guillotine, followed by the rise of Napoleon. The obvious question is: What went wrong in France?

The French Declaration did not acknowledge that the source of man's rights is man's "Creator," as Jefferson had affirmed in America's Declaration of Independence. The French Declaration did not even state that rights are inherent, in-alienable, or derived from any transcendent authority. Rights for the Frenchman were granted by an "enlightened" government. Tocqueville noted the striking contrast when he explained to his countiymen a half century later that America's experiment in liberty was firmly rooted in the fact that "in the United States the sovereign authority is religious." The French Revolution was explicitly anti-religious, and could not replicate the American example on a secular humanist foundation. Moreover, the prevailing sentiment in the American colonies was to preserve liberties they already enjoyed, to prevent the British monarchy from taking over their churches and subverting their colonial ways of life. But the driving force behind the French Revolution was a fanatical determination to tear down established ways and institutions, which the disciples of Rousseau saw as responsible for corrupting human nature.

Rousseau did not believe in original sin or private property. He hated European civilization precisely because he saw it as a product of Christianity. Rousseau stated flatly that "our souls are corrupted in proportion to the advance of arts and sciences. His society rejected all forms of Christianity, and put in its place the gospel of the "General Will." Against it no individual rights would stand, because, in Rousseau's view, the protection of individual rights stood in opposition to the sovereignty of the people. Following Rousseau's doctrines, the French executed their king, even after he had accepted their constitution. From here, conditions rapidly degenerated into anarchy, with the outbreak of internal ideological war and, in the words of historian Henry May, the subsequent "executions of deviants, the lukewarm and the suspect," culminating in the Reign of Terror presided over by Robespierre. In just two years 20,000 people-considered allies of the Old Regime-were executed. France's complete break with the past and with Christianity was symbolized by the introduction of a new calendar that took 1792 as the year One, the first year of the Republic.

The revolution finally turned against itself and began to devour its own. Robespierre denounced the Encyclopedists, even though they were a symbol of Enlightenment thinking, for their compromises with the monarchy. Robespierre was himself guillotined in the summer of 1794. The French Revolution was a grim example of how people behave when they are unchecked by a sense of religious obligation.

The British statesman Edmund Burke, a Whig, saw this point clearly. After making a trip to Paris and talking with the French philosophes, he told Parliament as early as 1773 that their political theories could only produce tyranny. "The most horrid and cruel blow that can be offered to civil society is through atheism," Burke predicted. After the fall of the Bastille in 1789, he wrote his most famous work, Reflections on the Revolution in France. Burke placed the blame for France's miseries on a philosophy that denied God. Remarking on the beheading of the beautiful Marie Antoinette in 1793, Burke wrote: "The age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever."

Burke, by contrast, called the American Revolution a "glorious revolution." In his speech on conciliation with the American colonies, delivered on the floor of the House of Commons on March 22, 1775, he made the case for Britain leaving America alone: "England, Sir, is a nation which I hope respects, and, formerly adored, her freedom. The colonists emigrated from you when this part of your character was most predominant; and they took this bias and direction the moment they parted from your hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideals, and on English principles." Moreover, said Burke, "the people are Protestants; and of that kind which is most adverse to all implicit subjection of mind and opinion. This is a persuasion not only favorable to liberty, but built upon it." William Penn agreed: "If man is not governed by God," he wrote, "then he must be governed by tyrants."

Thomas Paine failed to make a distinction between the revolution in America and the one in France. He was a political agitator and ideologue, pure and simple, and was not disposed to looking closely at the facts. Paine traveled to France to help topple the monarchy there, and published The Rights of Man. Paine's behavior in France was rebuked by John Quincy Adams, who challenged Paine's latest political tract designed to throw fuel on the flames of the French Revolution. Adams objected principally to Paine's main premise that "whatever a whole nation chooses to do, it has the right to do," echoing Rousseau. Adams replied: "Nations, no less than individuals, are subject to the eternal and immutable laws ofjustice and morality." Paine's "doctrine," said Adams, "annihilated the security of every man for his inalienable rights, and would lead in practice to a hideous despotism, concealed under the party-colored garments of democracy."

Paine, Adams pointed out, had missed the entire point of the American Revolution, which was the assertion of rights that cannot be deprived from an individual even by a majority. Adams rejected Paine's contention that the people of Great Britain should follow the example of France and "topple down headlong" their present government on the grounds that the Anglican Church did not allow religious freedom: "Happy, thrice happy the people of America!" said Adams, "whose principles of religious liberty did not result from an indiscriminate contempt of all religion whatever, and whose equal representation in their legislative councils was founded upon equality really existing among them, and not among the metaphysical speculations of fanciful politicians, vainly contending against the unalterable course of events, and the established order of nature [emphasis added]."

Rejection of Libertarian Due to (Alleged) Inability of Private Citizens to Govern Themselves

"If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action."--Ludwig von Mises

Indeed, I've often remarked that if you one doesn't trust libertarianism and capitalism because one does not trust human nature and does not optimistically believe that men will act virtuously, then why, pray tell, I will ask, does one trust the government, which, after all, is composed of men as well? If men are virtuous, then they don't need government. If they are evil and sinful, then the government will be as evil and sinful as the governed, and you may as well have evil liberty rather than evil tyranny. That is, if you are going to have evil anyway, either which way, then at least choose evil compounded with liberty and freedom rather than with tyranny and absolutism. One bad thing (evil) combined with a good thing (liberty), is better than two bad things combined (evil and tyranny).

This is all the more so, given that the first rule of medicine is, do no harm. If the government won't be able to restrain human evil, then it's better to simply leave things in their default state of nature. The default is liberty, and matters should stay there, unless you can improve them. Sinful men living in liberty is thus superior to sinful men living in tyranny. If men will do evil either way, we may as well at least give them liberty.

Alternatively, let us follow the Reformed Christian/Puritan and colonial American model. That model was to have a separation of powers not only horizontally, within the government, but also vertically, between the governed and the government. Man is sinful, and therefore needs a government to check him, but then again, the men manning the government are also sinful men, and need the lay citizens to check them. So give the government enough power to thwart evil by individual citizens, but give the citizens enough power to thwart evil by the government. Hopefully, the result will be a government that protects life, liberty, and property and punishes any who would trespass thereon, but that is limited by the citizens and thwarted the moment it tries to do anything beyond this.

As the Talmudic sages said, "Pray for the welfare of the government, for without it, man would swallow his neighbor alive." But of course, the implication is that we should only have just enough government to prevent men from eating each other, and not one iota more. It is very strange and inscrutable to me that Hobbes advocates a leviathan on account of man's sinful nature. Man may be sinful, but how will a leviathan help, if that leviathan is staffed by men too? After all, the government is also filled with men who themselves desire to swallow their neighbors.

"If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action."--Ludwig von Mises

Socialism: Contra Human Nature

Speaking of Ze'ev Jabotinsky's opposition to socialism and Labor Zionism, someone said,

Jabotinsky was not antisocialist, nor in the true sense anticommunist. He, like most of his contemporaries, was antibolshevik, and since the bolsheviks had taken over the communist party, he and his contemporaries were considered anticommunist. He objected to the political oppression, not the economic restructuring.

So, he sounds like George Orwell, whose Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four criticized not the economic systems of communism and socialism, but only the authoritarian aspects of those specific regimes which had attempted to practically implement socialism and communism. Thus, Orwell himself could be a social-democrat despite what he had written in those books.

Personally, however, I'd say communism and socialism inexorably rely on authoritarianism for two reasons:

1. The rich will almost never willingly submit to the system, but only the poor will. Therefore, the rich will have to be coerced.
2. Communism and socialism remove all incentive to work, and so coercion will be required, much as with slavery, in which the slaves have no incentive to produce except insofar as their working will save themselves from corporal punishment.

Barring any heretofore unwitnessed fundamental changes in human nature, socialism and communism simply cannot exist without authoritarianism. Therefore, speaking of such systems, William Bradford wrote in his Journal,

If it [viz. the socialistic economic system forced upon the Pilgrims in their contract] did not cut relations God established among men, it did at least diminish and take mutual respect that should be preserved among them. Seeing all men have corruption in them, God in His wisdom saw another course fitter for them.

(Because of this, the Plymouth colony initially did very poorly, as no one had any incentive to do any work and produce anything to pay their employer. Bradford and the Plymouth colony therefore proceeded to unilaterally violate their contract, figuring that the colony would do better economically under a capitalistic system, and that they'd be able to pay back their employer sooner under a capitalistic system than under the stipulated socialistic one. As it turned out, they were correct, and so their employer did not mind that technically, they violated their contract, as, after all, they paid him back sooner than they would have under the terms he had stipulated.)

The "other course fitter for them" which "God in His wisdom saw ... fitter for them" of which Bradford speaks, is illustrated by John Winthrop's "A Model of Christian Charity":

GOD ALMIGHTY in His most holy and wise providence, hath so disposed of the condition of mankind, as in all times some must be rich, some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity; others mean and in submission. ... that every man might have need of others, and from hence they might be all knit more nearly together in the bonds of brotherly affection.

In other words: seeing that man is corrupt and unlikely to properly deal with proper charity towards his fellow, God saw fit to create different men with different abilities, in order to compel men to form social relationships. This follows the Althusian theory of federalism (found in Johannes Althusius's Politica), in which man is a symbiotic (i.e. social) creature, whose entire nature and essence is bound up with federalism (Latin for "covenantalism"), i.e. contractual (covenantal) relationships. The Liberty Fund edition of Politica describes Althusius's theory as this:

Drawing deeply from Aristotle and biblical teaching, Politica presents a unique vision of the commonwealth as a harmonious ordering of natural associations. According to Althusius, the purpose of the state is to protect and encourage social life. The family is the most natural of human associations, and all other unions derive from it. Power and authority properly grow from more local to more general associations. Of particular interest to the modern reader is Althusius’s theory of federalism. It does not refer merely to a division of powers between central and state governments, but to an ascending scale of authority in which higher institutions rely on the consent of local and voluntary associations.

Cf. McCoy and Baker's Fountainhead of Federalism: Heinrich Bullinger and the Covenantal Tradition, for a similar (but far more detailed) analysis of Althusius's theory.

So according to the Reformed Christian (Puritan) understanding, God created man's nature so as to fundamentally comport with capitalism. As for Judaism, I'll just say that a sevara is m'd'oraita (the Talmud's way of saying that clear and irrefutable logic is as authoritative as if it were a Torah commandment), and that nature and history are also a revelation of G-d's (as Rav Kook held). So, as far as I am concerned, Bradford's and Winthrop's words are Torah.