Will We Have a Sanhedrin In the Future?

I know I am going to receive a lot of flak for the following, but thankfully, the Chief Rabbinate (who performed - and claims to be able to annul - my conversion) doesn't read my blog, and furthermore, nothing a man does (versus what a woman does) can harm his shiddukh chances. So I figure, go for broke:

It seems to me that the entirety of Mesekhet Horayot - about what to do when the Sanhedrin errs - itself is the eulogy for the Sanhedrin. The Yerushalmi there says that you disobey the Sanhedrin when it says left is right and right is left, and the Bavli there says that there is no kavod ha-rav (honoring a rabbi) in a case of hillul ha-shem (desecration of God's name, including pronouncement of erroneous halakhic views). Furthermore, the principle of ein shaliah b'davar `averah ("there is no [excuse of being someone else's] proxy [as an agent] in the case of [the performance of] sin [at their behest]"), which demands disobedience of everything and anything anyone ever commands anyone else when it violates the Torah, means here would never be a case where you should obey the Sanhedrin if you disagree with it, which results in abolition of the Sanhedrin altogether.

Now, the Sifrei famously disagrees, and say to follow the Sanhedrin even when it says left is right and right is left, but we have already seen that the Bavli and Yerushalmi seem to disagree, as well as the fundamental and axiomatic principle of ein shaliah b'davar `averah. Rabbi D. Z. Hoffman suggests that the Yerushalmi and Sifrei simply disagree, while others suggest that Sifrei and Yerushalmi are talking about two different situations: Sifrei says obey if you are a layman and don't know enough, Yerushalmi says to disobey if you are a hakham and know enough to question authority. Others, however, suggest that the two are talking about different kinds of errors of the Sanhedrin's: Sifrei says obey a minor error (such as a disagreement between you and the Sanhedrin on how to interpret a source), but Yerushalmi says to disobey a major error (such as the Sanhedrin's grossly overlooking an entire critical source). But of those three opinions (one, that Sifrei and Bavli/Yerushalmi disagree; two, that they are directed at different kinds of people; three, that they are speaking of different kinds of errors), the first two of them seem to annul the entire existence of the Sanhedrin; when taken to their logical conclusions, they seem to say that no one should ever obey the Sanhedrin when they disagree with it.

Update: In the comments, here, Larry Lennhoff directed me to here. There, two commentaries are translated, one by the RambaN - summarizing the simple and traditional view of obeying the Sanhedrin - and the other by the Yad ha-Melekh (a commentary on the RambaM), summarizing the view of disobedience which I here, in my blog, am favoring. The RambaM, in Hilkhot Mamrim 1:2, says,

ב כָּל מִי שְׁאֵינוּ עוֹשֶׂה בְּהוֹרָאָתָן--עוֹבֵר בְּלֹא תַעֲשֶׂה, שֶׁנֶּאֱמָר "לֹא תָסוּר, מִכָּל הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר-יַגִּידוּ לְךָ" (ראה דברים יז,יא). וְאֵין לוֹקִין עַל לָאו זֶה, מִפְּנֵי שֶׁנִּתַּן לְאַזְהָרַת מִיתַת בֵּית דִּין: שֶׁכָּל חָכָם שֶׁמּוֹרֶה עַל דִּבְרֵיהֶם--מִיתָתוֹ בְּחָנֵק, שֶׁנֶּאֱמָר "וְהָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר-יַעֲשֶׂה בְזָדוֹן, לְבִלְתִּי שְׁמֹעַ . . ." (דברים יז,יב).

(My translation) Anyone who does not act according to their (the Sanhedrin's) ruling, violates a negative commandment, as it says, "Do not depart from any word which they shall tell you" (cf. Deuteronomy 17:11). And we do not lash (violators) for (violation of) this negative commandment, because it is warned in the Torah as being liable for capital punishment, i.e. death by the court, for every sage who rebels against their (the Sanhedrin's) words (i.e. the zaqen mamre), his death is by strangulation, as it says, "And the man who shall do deliberately, without listening..." (Deuteronomy 17:12).

Back to the Yad la-Melekh, commenting on RambaM, he says,

…It is clear that according to the understanding of Rashi and the Mizrachi the intent of the Sifre [that one must listen to the rabbis even when it apparently involves Torah prohibitions] is against the view of the Babylonian Talmud and also against the Yerushalmi. Furthermore since the Rambam omits mention of this Sifre therefore we have only the halachic view that is explicit in the Bavli and Yerushalmi. Thus all halachic rulings which appear to contradict the words of the Torah e.g., eating prohibited fats or killing an innocent man – irrespective as to the authority of the rabbi giving the ruling they are not to be accepted. It is stated explicitly in the Yerushalmi and also the Bavli that if someone errs in this matter and thinks it is an obligation to listen to these rabbis to eat fat prohibited by the Torah because he thinks it is a mitzva to always obey the rabbis – this individual is obligated to bring a sacrifice as he would be for eating any Torah prohibited food in error.

(End of Update)

All the arguments against Haredi Da'at Torah (see Professor Lawrence Kaplan: (1), (2)) apply to the Sanhedrin too, albeit to a different degree. That is, while Haredi rabbis are very wrong and provide no justifications for their insanity other than "because I said so", by contrast, the Sanhedrin would, hopefully, be only a little bit wrong and actually try to justify itself, but the principle of the Sanhedrin is the same as with Da'at Torah. If we reject one, why not the other?

All this means that the entire institution of zaqen mamre (the rebellious elder wo disobeys the Sanhedrin) is like ben sorer u'moreh (the rebellious child, whom Hazal said was never meant to be punished in real life, with the Torah's treatment of that subject being an educational lesson of an ideal but unrealistic concept).

Update: my friend Michael Berg showed me this, a passage (and commentary thereon) from the Mei ha-Shiloah, the Ishbitzer Rebbe, Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner, discussing Korah. The Mei ha-Shiloah writes,

"The entire congregation is holy, and God is in their midst; why then do you lift yourselves up above the congregation of the Lord." (Num 16:3). Here Korach makes the claim that there is no hierarchy in Israel where one individual ought to be set higher than his fellow man, for God is in the midst of the entire congregation. That is to say that Hashem dwells within everyone equally, as it is written in the midrash (Talmud Bavli, Ta'anit, 31a) "In the future, the Holy One Blessed Be He will make a dance for all the righteous." "Dance" refers to a circle, in which no one is closer [to the center] than his fellow man. And Korach claimed that this vision was already realized at the time!?!

The blogger there, Elli Sacks, comments, saying,

wo weeks ago, in Parashat Be-ha'alotekha, we read about the story of Eldad and Meidad. As you will recall (Numbers: Chapter 11) the 70 elders of Israel had traveled from the Israelite camp to the Tent of Meeting where the Spirit of the LORD descended upon them, endowing them with the power of prophecy. At the same time, the Spirit of the LORD descended upon two additional men -- Eldad and Meidad -- who had remained within the Israelite encampment, and who also began to speak the word of God. Moshe's second-in-command, Yehoshua Bin Nun, feared that this "extra-territorial" prophesying represented a threat to the hierarchical power structure within Israelite society and asked Moshe to forbid them from doing so. But Moshe's reaction towards Eldad and Meidad is not only not hostile, it seems downright giddy. "Would that all of Hashem's people were prophets, and that Hashem had put His Spirit upon them!"

Does not the voice of Moshe in Be-ha'alotekha sound similar to Korach's voice in our parasha? Perhaps Moshe was echoing a sentiment that was popular in the Israelite camp. After all, hadn't the entire congregation achieved the level of prophecy at Sinai, when God spoke directly to each and every person present? If only the Children of Israel could have maintained that level of intimacy, that level of connection, there would have been no need for priests or elders or for political leadership. Moshe could have retired to the quiet of the Beit Midrash, learning Torah all day instead of constantly dealing with the enfuriating complaints of the maddening crowd.

So why is it that Moses was so offended by Korach's challenge? Why wasn't he wooed by the vision Korach proffered from the conclusion to Masekhet Ta'anit:

"Ulla Biraah said in the name of Rabbi Elazar: In the future the Holy One, Blessed be He, will make a dance of all the righteous people, and he will sit among them, in the middle of the circle, in the Garden of Eden; and each and every one will point with his finger toward Him, as it says: He shall say on that day, "Behold! This is our God; we hoped to Him and He saved us; this is Hashem to Whom we hoped; let us exult and be glad in His salvation."

The answer according to the Ishbitzer is that Korach was essentially correct in his claim, but, as so often is the case in life, his problem was one of timing. Korach expresses the true egalitarian ideal that will be realized in the End of Days when the righteous will dance around the Holy One in a circle, and everyone will commune in equal proximity to Hashem who will then truly be "in their midst." Nevertheless, it was patently clear to Moshe that this was NOT that time and that no matter the legitimacy of his ideals, Korach was jumping the gun.

It seems to me that we go a bit further: Exodus 20:15 states, "And they said unto Moses: 'Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.' Deuteronomy 5:5 has Moses recalling that event, saying, "I stood between the LORD and you at that time, to declare unto you the word of the LORD; for ye were afraid because of the fire, and went not up into the mount." The people asked God to not speak directly to them anymore, but to use Moses as His intermediary. And what was the result? According to the Kuzari, the Golden Calf was not an attempt to replace God, but to replace Moses; when Moses failed to return from the mountain, the people were terrified at the prospect of losing their intermediary between them and God. In other words, the desire to set up a religious hierarchy to interpose between man and God, resulted in idolatry. And with good reason: how could a desire to interpose something between man and God result in anything but idolatry?(End of Update)

So much for the theoretical aspect; let me ask practically: what need do we have for the Sanhedrin? All of the problems in the Orthodox world today, are not due to disunity and lack of a central authority, but rather due to the ignorance and/or ignoring of the mesorah (tradition) and authentic halakhah. Our problem is not that there are two Torahs in Israel (cf. the houses of Hillel and Shammai), but that some of these Torahs out today, are ridiculous perversions of the true Torah. The reinstitution of the Sanhedrin wouldn't solve any problems. Reinstituting the Sanhedrin would merely provide one party with a monopoly, and political science, game theory, and public choice theory tell us quite amply what happens when a political party gains a monopoly and lacks any competition. In short, they become hideously corrupted; witness: the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. The last thing we need to do is provide any party with a monopoly. At least today, despite all the insanity in the Jewish world, one has the ability to disagree and follow his opinion, the one he believes he is correct. We need to increase the possibility by disbanding the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, not decrease it by turning the Rabbinate into a Sanhedrin.

The only need I would see for the Sanhedrin, is to legislate for the Beit ha-Miqdash (Temple)'s `avodah (sacrificial order), as there is no way to privatize the Temple. But Rabbi Avraham Yitzhaq ha-Qohen Kook and Rabbi Haim David Halevi said that sacrifices will not exist in the future and that they will be annulled, and if so, then there remains no need whatsoever for a Sanhedrin either. The historical institution would merely be like kingship or sacrifices: a concession to primitive, ignorant men of the "God speaks in the language of men" and "every prophet speaks in his own style" sort. Honestly, is my saying the Sanhedrin won't exist, any more extreme than saying qorbanot (sacrifices) won't? But Rav Kook and Rabbi Halevi said qorbanot indeed would not exist in the future! Now, the Torah has merely a few sentences about the Sanhedrin, while the entire book of Vayiqra (Leviticus) wasn't enough for qorbanot, and it had to spill over into Shemot (Exodus)!!! So if we can say that sacrifices - the subject of more than a fifth of the Torah! - will cease, then what is the danger of suggesting the same for the Sanhedrin too, which occupies merely a sentence or two in the Torah? And conceptually, what's the difference between ben sorer u'moreh and zaqen mamre? My point is that I do not believe my proposal is really so radical.

Regarding the Torah making concessions to primitive men, let me quote Rav Kook on this general subject, (Igrot 478, translated in Tzvi Feldman, Rav A. Y. Kook - Selected Letters (Ma'aliot Publications of Yeshivat Birkat Moshe; Ma'aleh Adumim, Israel, 1986), pp. 17f: [] are Feldman's, {} mine):

And if we find in the Torah certain things which other people think were based on the widely accepted notions of the distant past, but which are incompatible with the scientific knowledge of today, indeed, we do not know at all if today's research is absolute truth, and even if it is true, certainly there is also some important and sacred objective for which certain matters [in the Torah] needed to be presented in the commonly accepted description and not the exact one, as is plain in the spiritual concepts and in certain foundations of practice, for "the Torah provided for man's evil passions" {i.e., the Torah made certain laws as concessions to man's nature} or "to make [its words] intelligible {by using human idioms and language usage}," and upon all of them appears the living endearing divine wisdom.

Similarly, Rav Kook's Eder Hayakar (pp. 42-43, translated in Ben Zion Bokser, The Essential Writings of Abraham Isaac Kook (Amity House: Amity, New York, 1988.), p. 48, "Assyriology and the Bible"):

As to the similarities in teaching [between the Torah and the Code of Hammurabi], it was already made clear in the days of Maimonides, and before him in the teachings of the Talmudic sages, that prophecy reckons with man's nature, for it is its mission to raise his nature and his disposition by divine guidance, as is implied in the statement that "the commandments were only given so as to refine the nature of people" (Genesis Rabbah 44:1). Hence, whatever educational elements there were in before the giving of the Torah, which gained a following among the [Jewish] people and the world, if they only had a basis in morality and it was possible to raise them up to a high moral level - the Torah retained them.

According to the Midrash Rabbah on Devarim and Rabbi Yitzhaq Abarbanel, and the simplest interpretation of the book of Samuel, all this applied to kingship in the Torah (an opinion in the Talmud says that no, kingship is not a concession as these other sources believe but rather an ideal); why not to the Sanhedrin too? Why not say that like sacrifices and kingship, the Sanhedrin too was a concession to primitive man who needed an authority to compel him?

Furthermore, to quote Professor Marc Shapiro here, Rav Kook also says (to pastiche several disparate statements of his):

ואם תפול שאלה על איזה משפט שבתורה, שלפי מושגי המוסר יהיה נראה שצריך להיות מובן באופן אחר, אז אם באמת ע"פ ב"ד הגדול יוחלט שזה המשפט לא נאמר כ"א באותם התנאים שכבר אינם, ודאי ימצא ע"ז מקור בתורה.

כשהמוסר הטבעי מתגבר בעולם, באיזה צורה שתהיה, חייב כל אדם לקבל לתוכו אותו מממקורו, דהיינו מהתגלותו בעולם, ואת פרטיו יפלס על פי ארחות התורה. אז יעלה בידו המוסר הטהור אמיץ ומזוקק.

כל התורה הזאת של מלחמת רשות לא נאמרה כ"א לאנושיות שלא נגמרה בחינוך.

כל לב יבין על נקלה כי רק לאומה שלא באה לתכלית חינוך האנושי, או יחידים מהם, יהיה הכרח לדבר כנגד יצר הרע ע"י לקיחת יפת תואר בשביה באופן המדובר. ומזה נלמד שכשם שעלינו להתרומם מדין יפת תואר, כן נזכה להתרומם מעיקר החינוך של מלחמת רשות, ונכיר שכל כלי זיין אינו אלא לגנאי.

To translate myself:

And if a question arises about any law of the Torah, that according to ethical notions it will need to be understood in another manner, then if indeed the Sanhedrin decides that this law was made only for conditions that are no longer extant, then indeed a source for this [ethical notion] will be found in the Torah.

When natural[-law] morality strengthens in the world, in whatever form it will, every man is obligated to incorporate it into his own ethos from its source - namely its manifestation in the world - and its details will be explicated according to the way of the Torah. Then pure morality will arise into his grasp, strong and purified.

This entire teaching of milhemet reshut [voluntary wars of aggression, which the Torah permits] was said only for a mankind that had not yet completed its education.

Every heart will understand easily that only for a nation that had not come to its humanistic-educational conclusion - or individuals thereof - could need a concessionary law for the selfish human inclination via the taking of a beautiful woman (yafet toar) captive [in war] in the manner spoken of [in the Torah]. And from this we will learn that just as it is incumbent upon to rise beyond the law of taking a woman captive in war, so too we will merit to rise beyond the educational principle of voluntary wars (milhemet reshut), and we will recognize that every vessel of war is disgraceful.

Rav Kook is saying that we must reinterpret the Torah in accordance with new ethical notions. The Talmud itself already says that the law of taking a woman captive in war, is not an ideal but merely a concession, and Rav Kook extends this to the law of voluntary wars of aggression, which the Torah also permits. Rav Kook even says that any new ethical notion in the world must be incorporated by everyone, with the Torah explicating its details. I believe individual liberty and freedom to be one such new principle; to quote Ralph Waldo Emerson's Politics:

The tendencies of the times favour the idea of self-government, and leave the individual, for all code, to the rewards and penalties of his own constitution, which work with more energy than we believe, whilst we depend on artificial restraints. The movement in this direction has been very marked in modern history. Much has been blind and discreditable, but the nature of the revolution is not affected by the vices of the revolters; for this is a purely moral force. It was never adopted by any party in history, neither can be. It separates the individual from all party, and unites him, at the same time, to the race.

Similarly, Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience":

The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual. Even the Chinese philosopher was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis of the empire. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.

So at most, we'll have a Beit ha-Miqdash that functions as nothing more than a beit ha-knesset (synagogue) for tefilah (prayer), and a Sanhedrin that does nothing more than decide which siddurim (prayerbooks) to buy and which building maintenance and janitorial staff to hire. Update: I forgot that according to Rav Kook, while the sacrifices cease, there will still be flour (minhah) offerings, according to him. So perhaps we will still have a Sanhedrin to decide the laws of flour offerings. But my point is the same: we will, at most, have a very tiny, minimalistic Sanhedrin with almost no responsibilities or authority.

Thus, in my view: in the future, we will no longer have a Sanhedrin. There is simply no need for it.

Oh Vilken Härlig Dag: I Am Now an Anarcho-Capitalist

For the past while, I have considered myself a minarchist, a limited-government libertarian, as opposed to an anarcho-capitalist. I have been sympathetic to the anarcho-capitalist viewpoint, because according to minarchism, government is merely a necessary evil, and so all one has to do is prove it unnecessary, and show that private markets can perform the same tasks as the government, and voila, the government ceases to be a necessary evil, and it becomes simply evil. Most of my reading has been about 16th-18th-century Reformed Christian political thought (including Colonial and Revolutionary America), so most of my reading has been minarchist, not anarchist. But the moral philosophies of the two are the same; both regard government as evil, only one sees government as a necessary evil, and the other as not. So the moral philosophy of the two is the same, so even reading minarchist writings is a fine gateway drug to anarchism. So while I have considered myself a minarchist, I have been open to the anarchist perspective, and I thought, as soon as someone proves to me that anarchism will "work", then I'll have no reason to avoid becoming an anarchist. So I was completely and totally receptive to that viewpoint. It is just that I have not yet had the time to read anything from Murray Rothbard or the like; having read only Reformed Christian minarchism and not any anarchism, I have not yet had any reason to become anarchist.

But for the past few weeks, I have been pondering something, a certain thought experiment, which today has finally convinced me to officially consider myself an anarcho-capitalist. My thoughts of the past few weeks were finally crystalized by a passage in an article my friend Cam Nedland showed me, here, quoting David Friedman, Law as a Private Good:

Imagine a society with no government. Individuals purchase law enforcement from private firms. Each such firm faces possible conflicts with other firms. Private policemen working for the enforcement agency that I employ may track down the burglar who stole my property only to discover, when they try to arrest him, that he too employs an enforcement agency.

There are three ways in which such conflicts might be dealt with. The most obvious and least likely is direct violence-a mini-war between my agency, attempting to arrest the burglar, and his agency attempting to defend him from arrest. A somewhat more plausible scenario is negotiation. Since warfare is expensive, agencies might include in the contracts they offer their customers a provision under which they are not obliged to defend customers against legitimate punishment for their actual crimes. When a conflict occurred, it would then be up to the two agencies to determine whether the accused customer of one would or would not be deemed guilty and turned over to the other.

A still more attractive and more likely solution is advance contracting between the agencies. Under this scenario, any two agencies that faced a significant probability of such clashes would agree on an arbitration agency to settle them-a private court. Implicit or explicit in their agreement would be the legal rules under which such disputes were to be settled.

Under these circumstances, both law enforcement and law are private goods produced on a private market. Law enforcement is produced by enforcement agencies and sold directly to their customers. Law is produced by arbitration agencies and sold to the enforcement agencies, who resell it to their customers as one characteristic of the bundle of services they provide.

This passage finally crystalized two thoughts I had been having for the past few weeks, about private security agencies replacing government:

1. First, it seemed to me, violent war among competing private security agencies seemed unlikely. Market forces would dictate that out of parochial self-interest, each agency would form implicit (unwritten) mutual understandings and explicit (written) treaties, among each other, to prevent violence as much as possible, just as Friedman says.
   
   
2. Second, it seemed to me the only real, substantive difference between anarchism, and minarchism/statism (i.e. some sort of government), is the ability to opt-out of paying taxes to the police and military. You'll still be jailed, but you won't have to pay your own jailer, proverbially speaking. (I say "proverbially" because jails are not the only possible form of punishment for criminals.) I repeat: the only real core, substantive difference between statism (including minarchism) and anarchism is this: the ability to opt-out of paying dues to the police, not one's liability to punishment at the hands of the police. After all, today, a country is liable to "punishment" at the hands of a foreign, invading army, even though the invaded country never paid money to the invading army. It would be likewise with an anarchist society: the thief would be punished by the police all the same, but he wouldn't have to pay money to the police.
   
   We might have all sorts of moral philosophical notions of which laws are good laws, and what the laws ought to be, but these disputes are besides the point. A coercive government can have either good or bad laws, as can a private security agency. A coercive government might punish only murderers and thieves, while a private security agency might go out killing people who worship the wrong god. So the quality of the laws themselves, is not relevant here. I am not saying there is no avoiding bad laws under an anarchist society. I am saying there is no guarantee of avoiding bad laws and instead having good laws under an anarchist society, just as there is no guarantee of avoiding good laws and instead having only bad laws under a statist regime. One can envision a coercive government that obeys morality and a private security agency that violates morality. Market forces will affect which one is more likely to do which (more on which below), but that is only a likelihood. A coercive government of saints will be moral, while a private security agency of devils will be immoral, with their private moral inclinations overpowering those market forces. After all, charity (tzedaqa) itself is nothing other than morality overpowering markets. Economically, I have no reason whatsoever to help a poor man on the street. So why do I help him? Because my conscience overpowers market forces and parochial self-interest. (Actually, it would be more correct and precise to say, as my friend Rocco Stanzione pointed out, that really, giving charity and helping the poor is merely one more selfish desire. If I am a charitable person, then for me, helping the poor gives me the same sort of satisfaction as another person might get from buying a car. In that sense, my desire to give to charity is subject to market forces just as much as the purchase of any other good. The same way, one could classify anti-Jewish pogroms or black lynchings as a selfish, market-driven desire, with the deaths of Jews and blacks being a market-driven commodity no different than anything else.)
   
   And either way, whether with anarchism or statism, you are going to be coerced against your will. Even if we limit ourselves to good laws against murder and theft, even then, whether a murderer or thief is punished by the government or by someone else's private security agency, it makes no difference to the murderer or thief. Like I said, the jail will still exist and you'll still be jailed (proverbially).
   
   The only difference is, who pays for the government or private security agency - everyone, or only the subscribers. Does the murderer or thief also have to pay dues, or only the murdered('s family) and the stolen-from who hires the agency to exact his revenge?
   
   Now, this will have important consequences, according to market forces. If you specifically have to pay for every action of your hired agency, then you'll be unlikely to expend precious money hiring an agency to prosecute people smoking marijuana or worshiping the wrong god, i.e. things that do you no harm; whereas, if everyone must pay equally, then the diffusion of costs versus the concentration of benefits implicit in government, means that a few people will hire the government to outlaw marijuana at the expense of everyone else. With coercive government, everyone must pay the costs of your decisions, so you will make decisions that benefit only you yourself, knowing everyone else will pay. But with anarchism, you yourself must individually pay for everything you do, meaning you will be more likely, according to market forces, to hire a private security agency only to exact revenge on those who actually hurt you, and not for "sins" that do you no harm (like smoking marijuana). But putting aside these market consequences, the fact remains that in essence, the only real, substantive, core difference between anarchism and statism is whether you can opt-out of paying the government/security agency, not whether you'll be liable for prosecution at the government's/agency's hands. As I indicated, private moral inclination can overpower market forces and self-interest; we can envision, for example, a private security agency of rabidly fervent religious folk prosecuting their neighbors who are peacefully worshiping false gods, and we can envision a coercive government that punishes only murderers and thieves. Market forces incline statism and anarchism in different directions, but only in terms of likelihoods and probabilities.
   
   Also, if justice is defined as a marketable commodity, then the same market forces that make capitalism superior to socialism or central planning for producing televisions or cars, ought to make capitalism superior in producing justice as well. And if the majority of people are evil or unjust, making their selfish and evil desires a marketable commodity for them, well, then the same evil people would use the government for evil too. Human nature will not change. The hope is simply that all things being equal, capitalism will make goods and services (including justice) more plentiful, higher in quality, and less expensive.
   
   In short, human nature will remain the same, regardless. The same people who staff the government today, will staff the private security agencies. There are consequences related to market forces, but in essence, the only real, core, substantive difference between statism and anarchism, is who pays the dues, which results in market-related consequences. In other words: the only real difference between anarchism and statism is: who pays the dues. That's it. The ability to opt-out of paying money to the police and army, is the only difference. You will still be liable for punishment at the army's and police's hands regardless.
   
   When you put it this way, the difference seems mighty small, doesn't it? It is so small, that I can now comfortably consider myself an anarcho-capitalist. Until now, I have not wanted to consider myself an anarcho-capitalist, because while I was very strongly sympathetic to that viewpoint, I had not done enough reading or thinking about it to be entirely confident. I didn't want to be a hypocrite and claim to be something I was not. I did not want to announce myself to be something unless I was really, truly indeed so, and unless I really, truly understood what I was saying. I didn't want to utter empty, vain, hypocritical words. But now, thanks to this thought experiment, I feel confident enough in the concept of anarchism, that I feel my declaration is not empty and vain. When a gentile asked Hillel to describe Judaism on one foot, Hillel said, "Love your neighbor as yourself; the rest is commentary." So too now: I have my one-sentence-long summary of anarcho-capitalism (viz.: the ability to opt-out of paying for the police and army), and now I merely need to go read through everything Murray Rothbard has ever written.

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Other than that, I spent the day today, not only deciding that I am now anarcho-capitalist, but also gleefully listening to a song by one of my favorite artists, Swedish country singer Jill Johnson. This song, which I discovered today and cannot get enough of, is "Oh Vilken Härlig Dag":

According to a Google Translate translation of the song, it is apparently about a person seeing a naked person at the lake and proclaiming, "Oh what a lovely day!" (the English translation of the Swedish title of the song). It occurred to me that this would be excellent material for a Ladino romance, the often sexually-risque ballads traditionally sung by Judeo-Spanish Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire. My friend Evan Gadol (who is himself (unlike me) a Judeo-Spanish Sephardi and who, like me, considers Judeo-Spanish Sephardi rabbi, Rabbi Dr. Marc D. Angel, to be his rabbi) opined that while this song is a bit more risque than the usual Ladino romance, it is not by much. This song is therefore, it seems to me, on the outer boundaries of what could pass for a traditional Ladino romance (if it weren't in Swedish, of course).

As an example of such a traditional romance, Vítor André Ferreira Monteiro provided this (here):

If you're wondering how on earth a traditional Sephardi Jew could sing risque ballads, Rabbi Angel explains that for a traditional Sephardi, there was no contradiction between being a Torah-observant Jew, and being an ordinary human being. The risque romances, he says, merely represented ordinary human emotions and feelings about sexuality, which a Jew, no differently than a gentile, also felt need to express. The Sephardim, he says, had a joie de vivre which permitted such an attitude. On page 125 of his book, Foundations of Sephardic Spirituality: The Inner Life of the Jews of the Ottoman Empire, (quoted in my article, "A New Hearing on Kol Ishah", commissioned and published by none other than Rabbi Angel himself) he adds,

Although there were religious pietists who objected to singing love songs, the romances were very popular throughout all strata of Sephardic society. Men and women often sang these songs together. It was not unusual for women to sing solo parts in the presence of men. People participated in the singing and enjoyed the songs in a natural, easygoing way.

So here we go, the original Swedish lyrics and a draft Ladino translation:

Original lyrics to Jill Johnson, "Oh Vilken Härlig Dag" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDAd5Ub7Kkk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv391EE_1q4

Draft Ladino lyrics by Vítor André Ferreira Monteiro at https://www.facebook.com/home.php? sk=group_164893083528659 &view=permalink &id=202374523113848

Steg upp på morgonen Innan min dag var riktigt vaken Oh vilken härlig dag Smög mig på knä till sjön För att få se dig bada naken Oh vilken härlig dag Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala Såg du mig? Såg du vem det var? Jag hade satt mig ner När du tog av dig dina kläder Oh vilken härlig dag Fick syn på svalorna Dom kunde lova vackert väder Oh vilken härlig dag Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala Såg du mig? Såg du att det var jag? Du låg på rygg o sög ut saften från ett strå Och du hade ingen annan Än dig själv att tänka på Men trodde du att Du var ensam i det blå Jag satt bakom och såg på Aahh.. Jag vet att jag blev smått generad mmmm Men jag tror även att även du var intresserad Såg du mig? Såg du att det var jag? Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala Såg du mig? Såg du att det var jag? Jag tror du hörde mig när du Försvann in under kjolen Oh vilken härlig dag Så jag fick fly iväg och Jag sprang naken bort mot solen Oh vilken härlig dag Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala

LLevantome en la mañana Antes de mi diya estar realmente akordado Oh kue diya adoravle Se arrastró ella de rodillas hasta el lago Para te ver nadar desnudado Oh kue diya adoravle Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala Me haz visto? Tu haz visto kuién fué? Yó me habia sentado Kuando kuitaste tus ropas Oh kue diya adoravle Dé mirada de las golondrinas Podrian prometer bueno tiempo Oh kue diya adoravle Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala Me haz visto? Tu haz visto que fué ió? Te dektas sobre sus espaldas scgando fuera el suco por una E no tenia ninguno otro Sinó tu mismo en kue pensar Pero pensaste Kue vosotros estaban solos en el azul Me sentaba atraz i miraba Aahh .. Sé que torno algo envergonzada mmmm Pero también kreo kue estabas interesado en mi. Me haz visto? Tu haz visto que fué ió? Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala Me haz visto? Tu haz visto que fué ió? Kreo que me hoyisté kuando tu Sumiste sobre su skirt Oh que diya adoravle Así tube que voar lejos i Estaba korriendo desnuda lejos del sól Oh kue diya adoravle Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala Lalalala lalalalalalala

Prohibition on Guns, Alcohol, Drugs, and Prostitution

I will be blunt: remember Prohibition in America? All it did was create an organized criminal black market. Same with drug criminalization; the only reason drug dealers have guns is that drugs are illegal. That's why you don't see Holland exploding with violence over marijuana. If drugs were legal, then no one would use violence to secure them, the same as you don't see sellers of chocolates and doughnuts using guns. Banning guns means that only those who are willing to violate the gun laws will have guns - the same people who are willing to murder and steal in the first place - and law-abiding citizens will have nothing with which to defend themselves. That's why shootings occur in gun-free zones like schools and malls, because in those places, the criminals know that they will have a monopoly on force. Think of Prohibition, and apply all the same lessons to bans on drugs, guns, and prostitution.

There is more to be said about prostitution; a friend of mine said it should be banned to protect women. Besides the fact that this is false, simply because a prohibition would be unsuccessful and create a black market - see above - there is a further consideration: how do such prohibitions protect women even if they did work?? On the one hand (hypothetically), if a woman wants - and I meant truly wants - to be a prostitute - then any law banning prostitution is oppression, denying her her own free will.

On the other hand, if she does not want to be a prostitute, then the only reason she will become one, is that she literally has no other choice. And if she has no other choice, and she chooses prostitution as being superior to whatever other choice she has (if any), then banning her prostitution actually does her harm. Perhaps she had the choice between prostitution and starvation from destitution. Banning prostitution condemns her to starvation. How is that protecting her? She did not want to be a prostitute in the first place, and she became one out of necessity. So banning prostitution denies her what is necessary for her welfare. If people really cared about her welfare, then they wouldn't ban prostitution, but they would instead help her gain some other, superior livelihood. And banning prostitution would not be necessary, because as soon as superior livelihood was available, she would freely cease to prostitute herself, as she never wanted to be a prostitute in the first place.

Therefore, banning prostitution either denies a prostitute's free will and liberty, or else it denies her her livelihood. Either way, it does not protect her.

Furthermore, banning prostitution means that if she does have some trouble requiring legal assistance, she cannot seek it. If her pimp beats her, for example, she cannot go to the police, because they will arrest her. So instead of getting redress for violence done her, she must instead passively accept all the injustices done to her. That is what banning prostitution does, turning it into a black market, the same as with drug and alcohol criminalization. All these do is drive the activity underground, and make its customers afraid to turn to the police when they need help. That is why drug dealers must use violence: to defend themselves both from the police, as well as from each other. If drugs were decriminalized, then there would be no reason for sales to occur in dark alleys filled with gun-toting thugs.