Draft Share: "Introducing: God"

לק"י

from "The Garden of Delight: An Open Discussion About God's Children and God's People"

Intro. "Introducing: God"

"The foundation of the foundations and the pillar of the wisdom sciences is to be aware that there is an ultimate Reality. It reifies all that is real, and all that is real in heaven and earth and what is between them is only real by virtue of Its reality. If it were considered that It is not real - nothing else could be real. If it were considered that all realities except It were not real - It alone would be real and would not be negated by their nonexistence; for all realities require It and It (be It appreciated!) does not require them, not one of them."

- Maimonides, Restatement of the Law (The Rules of the Foundations of the Law 1:1)

One thing which perhaps all things share is a connection to reality: we share a common source of existence in which we interact, communicating and creating and connecting. We each experience existence on many levels, as composites of elemental arrangements and as passionate savants, as members of families and communities and a species, as individuals and sometimes even as the universe itself. The continuity of our experiences points us to the continuity, the underlying unity, of the common "object" of all our experiences - reality.

Reality is known in a myriad of ways. We "name" our experiences of reality in our own personal languages, according to the particular qualities of every moment of our encountering the truth of reality's ultimate nature - "God," "the Compassionate One," "the Gracious One," "the Patient One," "the Protector," "the Savior," etc. All are "names" of reality, all are concepts of God which are tangibly experienced in the lives of countless human beings. There are ways of relating to reality which all humans have in common, and there are ways of relating to reality which are completely personal and unique to each of us. There are also ways of relating to reality which we create and celebrate in groups, sharing in the common outpouring of the soul, testifying to the reality of our own lives.

The very idea that reality is something which we all share implies that reality is not limited to any one of us. Reality appears to us in many forms and guises from the worlds around us and within us, but reality is never limited to just one (or any number) of those patterns and elements. Our "names" for reality can never capture the truth of what reality is, or what it means to be truly Real - though they help us to meaningfully connect to reality, moment to moment, throughout our lives. The ultimate reality is not a rock, or a bull, or a statue, or a man, or a star, or a being, or an idea, or a thing like any thing which we normally see or hear or consider - but we can see the reflection of reality and we can hear the echo of real events in all those things.

Comments, thoughts, suggestions?

"Deconsumption Versus Dematerialization: How to protect the environment by doing more with less"

Reason's Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey offers a solid analysis of the distinction between Ludditism and ecologically-sound economics:

Markowitz and Bowerman found that Oregonians were, however, happy to cut the consumption of the rich, favoring a 5 percent luxury tax on private yachts, airplanes, and motor homes (61 percent for). In addition, 76 percent are for utility rates structured so that the per unit charge goes up with increased energy consumption; 75 percent approve of making energy efficiency standards on new buildings stricter, and 57 percent favor boosting automobile fuel efficiency standards.

Taking into account the fact that their poll respondents don’t seem much interested in policies aimed at encouraging deconsumption, Markowitz and Bowerman mildly observe that other policy avenues besides taxing consumption might be more fruitfully pursued. They suggest publicity campaigns. “If consuming less of nonessential goods and services is beneficial or necessary for long-term survival of our species, then it seems it would be prudent to publicize the widely held ‘consume less’ disposition,” they write. They hope that if people knew that their neighbors favored deconsumption, a cultural shift in attitudes would lead to lower consumption.

Markowitz and Bowerman define deconsumption simply in terms of making do with less. In other words, deconsumption means becoming materially poorer. They view increased material poverty as necessary to protect the natural world from a rapacious humanity. But if using less somehow protects the environment, wouldn’t using less to produce more do so as well?

Jesse Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University and Paul Waggoner at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, show that the world economy is increasingly using less to produce more. They call this process "dematerialization." By dematerialization, they mean declining consumption of energy or goods per unit of GDP. In a 2008 article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ausubel and Waggoner, using data from 1980 to 2005, show that the world is on a dematerialization binge, wringing ever more value from less material. It turns out that dematerialization achieves many of the same environmental goals as deconsumption.

Ausubel and Waggoner demonstrate that the global economy dematerialized (got more outputs from fewer inputs) steadily in the production of crops, use of fertilizer and wood, and carbon dioxide emissions. For example, while global per capita income rose by 40 percent between 1980 and 2005, farmers around the world raised crop yields 57 percent. Had farming productivity remained stuck at the 1980 level, farmers would have had to plow down an additional 1 billion hectares (about half the land area of the U.S. and six times current U.S. cropland) to produce the amount of food grown in 2005. Instead cropland expanded by less than 100 million hectares and farmers so boosted their productivity that they could produce the same amount of crops on only 60 percent of the amount of land they used in 1980.

The world economy emitted more carbon dioxide in 2005 than it did in 1980, but nearly 30 percent less than it would have had emissions grown at the same rate as the world economy grew. Using European Carbon Exchange prices per ton of carbon dioxide, Ausubel and Waggoner calculate that this dematerialized carbon would be worth nearly $400 billion dollars per year.

How far might dematerialization go? In earlier work, Ausubel and Waggoner calculated that if the average productivity of the world’s farmers were raised to the current level of productivity of a corn farmer in Iowa, a world of 10 billion people could be fed an American diet on about half the farmland being used now. This means that an area the size of Amazonia could revert to nature. Similarly, energy production could dematerialize as well. Ausubel and Waggoner show that between 1980 and 2005 a French consumer enjoyed 50 percent more affluence but used only 20 percent more energy. In addition, switching electricity production from coal to nuclear power dematerialized each French consumer’s annual carbon emissions by a ton.

Not all trends are toward dematerialization. For example, between 1980 and 2005, China used a lot more cement per capita as its citizens increasingly could afford and then demanded better housing. But this is a one-time building boom that will subside as Chinese housing stock and infrastructure reaches modern standards.

Oddly, many ideological environmentalists favor highly material-intensive ways to produce food and fuel. For example, organic agriculture uses more crop land than conventional farming, and current versions of solar and wind power production occupy a lot of land and take more material to build than do conventional power plants.

(full article)

From Ukraine to Egypt: Don't Betray the Revolution

Yuliya Timoshenko, former prime minister of Ukraine, gives the Egyptian revolutionaries sage advice on the importance of inner spirit and personal commitment in every revolutionary's heart:

From snowy Kiev, I have watched the revolutions in Cairo and Tunis with joy and admiration. Egyptians and Tunisians are right to be proud of their desire to peacefully overthrow despotic governments. But, as someone who led a peaceful revolution, I hope that their pride is tempered by pragmatism - because a change of regime is only the first step in establishing a democracy backed by the rule of law. Indeed, as my country, Ukraine, is now demonstrating, after revolutionary euphoria fades and normality returns, democratic revolutions can be betrayed and reversed.

The first of Ukraine’s lessons for Egyptian and Tunisian democrats is that elections do not a democracy make. After all, what if the enemies of freedom use elections to entrench their anti-democratic agendas? What if elements of the old regime, or the cadres of militant minorities, only pretend to embrace democratic norms in order to hijack the new democracy? 

In Ukraine today, these are not abstract questions. Six years after our Orange Revolution, not only is my country’s democracy under threat - but the rule of law is being systematically perverted and our national independence bartered away. Indeed, the hybrid presidential/parliamentary system that Ukraine established as part of the settlement which brought a peaceful end to our revolution is being hollowed out in order to concentrate all political power in the hands of a supposedly democratically elected president. 

Of course, Ukraine’s plight does not mean that the people of Egypt and Tunisia should spurn the call for free elections. Determining the will of the people does require expression through the ballot box. But elections alone cannot solve the fundamental political problems confronting Egypt and Tunisia. In particular, they cannot create a liberal order and open society. 

To be effective, elections must be preceded by an extensive debate, in which political arguments are made, attacked, defended - and, ultimately, embodied in ideologically coherent party organisations. Democratic consent can truly be given only when voters know what they are consenting to. Whoever refuses to make a public case for what he or she intends to do when in power, or lies about it – as Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovich, did during his campaign against me last year – is no supporter of the democracy that citizens risked their lives to establish. 

Moreover, democracy must be rooted in the rule of law. There must be accepted rules that are binding on everyone in politics, so that whoever does not accept or obey them is disqualified. Yanukovich’s naked attempt to hijack the election that precipitated the Orange Revolution should have caused him to be banned from running in future elections. Yet he was not. 

Now, as president, Yanukovich’s crude instinct is to treat the law and constitution as Karl Marx thought of them: as a mixture of sentimentality, superstition - and the unconscious rationalisation of private interests. Stealing elections, suppressing the vote, and behaving in contempt of the rule of law are negations of democracy. Those who engage in them must be seen as democracy’s enemies - and treated as such. 

A second lesson follows from this. The fact that a government has been democratically elected does not mean that the cause of freedom has prevailed. The rest of the world must not turn a blind eye to authoritarian backsliding. Yet today, not only are many of Ukraine’s neighbours silent about Yanukovich’s strangulation of Ukraine’s democracy - but some openly celebrate the supposed “stability” that his regime has imposed. For decades, Egyptians and Tunisians paid a high a price in freedom for the stability of others. They must never be asked, or forced, to pay it again. 

The need for strong civil society 

One way to help prevent a democratic revolution from being betrayed from within is by building a genuine civil society. We in Ukraine learned this truth from harsh experience in the communist era. Although communism could, every now and then, coexist with private property - and sometimes with private enterprise - it could never coexist with civil society. The most fateful attack to accompany the installation of any dictatorship is an attack on civil society. 

In Ukraine, freedom of speech was, on communism’s fall, restored overnight. But reviving civil society – the many mutually complementary ways in which citizens participate in public life – is a complicated task, as the peoples of Egypt and Tunisia will soon find out. The reason is self-evident: civil society is an intricate, fragile, even mysterious entity that evolves over decades, if not centuries. Its pillars – private, voluntary associations, decentralisation of the state, and delegation of political power to independent bodies – must be nurtured patiently and from below. 

Where civil society remains underdeveloped, every problem filters up to the “Big Man” squatting at the top. So the more power is concentrated at the center, the more it becomes possible for anti-democratic forces to gain – or regain – control over a country. 

As people around the world encourage the coming of democracy to Tunisia – and, one hopes, to Egypt – let us not be beguiled by its formal trappings. Let us celebrate the arrival in North Africa of the spirit of liberty and of solidarity, which brought Ukraine its liberty once and will do so again. And let us pledge that our solidarity does not end at the borders of our nations. Freedom – true freedom – is indivisible.

(full article)

The Commerce Clause and Congress in the 20th Century

Reason.com columnist Jacob Sullum brings a bit of historical analysis of congressional activity to light:

The main advantage of drawing a line between activity and inactivity is that it does not require overturning any of the Supreme Court's Commerce Clause precedents. That is also its main disadvantage.

As the historical section of Vinson's ruling reminds us, the Court has strayed far from the original understanding of the Commerce Clause, which was aimed at eliminating interstate trade barriers. At the time the clause was written and for many years afterward, "commerce" was understood to mean the exchange of goods (as opposed to manufacturing or agriculture), while "regulate" meant "make regular" by removing obstacles. And believe it or not, "among…the several states" meant "among the several states," as opposed to the purely intrastate activities that Congress routinely regulates (or bans) nowadays.

This narrow understanding of the Commerce Clause prevailed well into the 20th century. It explains why the Supreme Court in 1918 overturned a federal ban on the interstate transportation of goods whose production violated child labor laws, concluding that the power to regulate commerce "is directly the contrary of the assumed right to forbid commerce from moving." It explains why the dry activists who achieved National Alcohol Prohibition in 1920 had to do so by amending the Constitution. It explains why the Court, as late as 1935, rejected federal regulation of employee hours and wages at businesses that were not engaged in interstate commerce.

But as Vinson notes, "everything changed in 1937," when the Court held that Congress can regulate purely intrastate activities if they have a "substantial effect" on interstate commerce. That doctrine has led the Court to uphold federal regulation of activities, including the cultivation of wheat andmarijuana for personal consumption, that are only remotely and hypothetically related to interstate commerce.

Since 1937, the Court has rejected just two provisions of federal law on Commerce Clause grounds: a ban on gun possession in or near schools, which it overturned in 1995, and a civil remedy for victims of gender-motivated violence, which it overturned in 2000. Those decisions were based on the Court's reluctance to "pile inference upon inference" in a way that would leave no activity beyond the reach of the Commerce Clause, thereby erasing the constitutional distinction between state and federal powers.

(full article)

An Egyptian Opportunity: "Why Not Freedom of All Persons Everywhere Now?"

Economist Michael Rozeff sees in the recent events in Egypt an opportunity for citizens to secure real freedom for themselves, by recognizing that they do not need a state.  Surely a significant approach to take to bringing Zionism into the next century, as well!

(h/t Lew Rockwell)

Why don’t Egyptians seize the moment and create freedom for themselves – their Persons – now? By freedom for Persons, I don’t mean democracy or a so-called free society or a society under some government, be it democratic or democratic-socialist or theocratic or autocratic or whatever. I don’t mean elections, coalitions, parties, votes, leaders, taxes, and so on. I mean freedom of each and every person.

And I do not mean to single out Egyptians. I raise the same question for Americans. Why not freedom for all Americans now? Why not freedom for any People anywhere now?

As Egyptians start to have their voices heard throughout the world, we are hearing what individual persons are thinking and assuming. We are given help in discovering why Egyptians and Americans and Chinese and Russians and all Peoples in the world are not creating freedom for their Persons now.

Suppose that the following Reuters report has some grains of accuracy to it:

"Initially unorganized, the protests against Mubarak are gradually coalescing into a loose reformist movement encompassing many sections of Egyptian society."

The words "reformist movement" mean that the idea that is spreading or forming among "many sections" is to reform the government. They would keep the State but alter it. This won’t produce freedom of all Persons.

I’m not denigrating what Egyptians are doing. Not at all. I’m not criticizing or judging them. They want to get rid of Mubarak. I am certain they will succeed. I am taking the opportunity provided by what they are doing to understand better, if I can, why, even if Mubarak goes, choices are flowing in some directions, toward maintenance of the State, and not others, to freedom of Persons. There are lessons to be learned here that are widely applicable throughout the world.

My concern is broader. The possibility of eliminating the State is present in every land. The masses can accomplish this at any time. We the People can accomplish this whenever enough of us decide to. Enough of us haven’t. Since Egyptians and any People are always on the cusp of eliminating the State altogether, we have to ask why they don’t do so. Why don’t Americans get rid of their State?

The same Reuters article quotes one person:

"‘We are calling for the overthrow of the regime. We have one goal, and that is to remove Hosni, nothing else. Our politicians need to step in and form coalitions and committees to propose a new administration,’ said Ahmed Abdelmoneim, 25, a computer engineer."

This opinion may or may not be typical of many other persons in Egypt. It sounds as if it could be typical. This is, after all, the same kind of thinking that goes on in America at every election and in between elections. Most everyone is after changing the government or changing its policies. They’re not after eliminating the government and State altogether.

We then hear in this article about another group, one which may form a type of voluntary society within Egypt, namely, the Muslim Brotherhood. I do not know for sure if it is entirely independent of the State or if it has links to the government, but we read that Mubarak banned it from politics. The important thing, from my perspective here, is the political view that Reuters attributes to this group:

"What will come after Mubarak if he steps down is not so clear. Egypt's opposition has been fragmented and weakened under Mubarak. The Muslim Brotherhood has the biggest grassroots network with its health and other social charity projects.

"The group, banned from politics under Mubarak, says it wants an Islamic, pluralistic and democratic state."

This is probably reasonably accurate. It is probably the case that the Muslim Brotherhood is not after freedom of all Persons. It is after a "pluralistic and democratic state." It is after politics as usual, i.e., a State. This is despite the fact that it is a "grassroots network" that carries out some functions ordinarily associated with democratic (or democratic/socialist) governments.

Confirming this conclusion is a quote from a person who is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood:

"‘The revolution won't accept Omar Suleiman, even for a transitional period. We went a new democratic leader,’ said Mohamed Saber, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood."

We then hear from another voice, namely, a lawyer:

"‘Our country has many people capable of being president,’ said Essam Kamel, 48, a lawyer, although he said he did not want Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, who has said he was ready to take on a role in the transition.

"But Kamel added: ‘We are Muslims, but we don't need an Islamic government.’"

This again underscores the same assumption: There is to be a State. There will be a transition to a different kind of State perhaps, but a State nonetheless. Kamel alludes to those who may want an Islamic government, such as in Iran. That group also wants a State.

One person who comments on this article speaks up for the pro-Mubarak contingent:

"They are not the majority! The majority approves Mubarak but their voices are not heard! The protesters are just more vocal activists, that is it."

In sum, no one is quoted as wanting no State at all. The different groups cited here are all talking about an Egyptian government. It will be perhaps a different government, or if the pro-Mubarak contingent wins out, generally the same kind of government, but it will still be a government.

If there are anti-State voices, they have not made it into this press release.

Why do people think only of maintaining the State in one form or another? Why is it that after such a poor experience with their State, they don’t assign it to the trash heap of history? What is holding back the concept that people can live without the State and live better without it?

If I raise the possibility of living without a State to anyone, American or Egyptian, the odds strongly favor that they will look upon it as a crazy idea. I may elicit a condescending smile while they think to themselves that Michael’s a nice guy but he has a screw or two loose when it comes to politics.

I believe that most people cannot see beyond the status quo. They have been taught to accept it. It is very possible to accept slavery or various degrees of enslavement and not even know it. People accept death and taxes.

If we push them further in their thinking, they raise many objections. Who will make the laws? Who will run the army? Who will be our leader? Who will aid the old, the disabled, the sick, and the widows? Who will help in emergencies? Who will take care that our neighbors across the border do not invade us? Who will negotiate with them? Who will police us and stop the bad guys from looting the good guys? Who will protect us?

I strongly suspect that if we push Egyptians, Brazilians, Russians, Chinese, Americans, or any People, we will run up against the same kinds of questions. Who is going to do what the governments now do? Even if they do these things unbelievably badly or not at all, we are going to meet with the firmly-held assumption that the State is a necessary thing.

Why do people accept the status quo of poor government? The masses vastly outnumber those in government. Egyptians could dismantle government entirely if they chose to. They are in a position today to do exactly that, but they won’t. Why not?

Apprehension.

Apprehension does not exhaust the reactions to life without government. There are many other reactions, including those who think that an elite exists who are better equipped to rule the many, and those who want a State for pecuniary reasons, and those who like to rule, and those who want a powerful State that we can hail and that will rule the Seven Seas.

But I believe that most folks are simply apprehensive. My guess is that most people have an uneasy feeling about an uncertain future without government. Not fear, but apprehension. In finance, the concept akin to this is risk-aversion. This apprehension includes distrust of other people.

To raise one’s comfort level so as to conquer that apprehension takes education and familiarity, so that one can well-imagine a different future. This reduces the risk. One eliminates from one’s mind the possibility of the unrealistically bad outcomes that one at first imagines.

To gain familiarity with living without the State, one may look at the many examples where we live without the State very nicely and comfortably. Alternatively, one may consider the logical aspects of life with and without a State so as to become persuaded that life without a State is not only feasible but a worthwhile goal and better than life with a State.

Apprehension is rational, or at least it is a normal reaction. Apprehension is conquerable, however. As people learn to supply for themselves the things that government provides, the apprehension will diminish. Building up private self-help networks, the private economy, and private means of security is what is meant by supplying things for ourselves.

If people possess irrational and deep-seated desires to be ruled or led by leaders who tell them what to do, this is not the same as apprehension. This, if it is the reason why people demand government, is much more difficult to overcome than apprehension. I don’t believe this, however. I’ve never met large numbers of people that willingly would let themselves be pushed around by me or anyone else. If government pushes us around and people take it, it’s for other reasons. I am saying that they see no alternative that carries a low enough risk.

Once a government has a foothold and a place among a people, it has many tools to maintain itself and grow its power. It can use economic and other inducements. It can use force and repression. It can use spying and propaganda. After awhile, even if people believe that they’d be better off without the State, they can’t see a way to rid themselves of it. When that happens and the State becomes a Gordian knot, it has to be cut. The people in the Soviet Union cut the knot. The people in Egypt are doing some cutting of their own. The existing reality of life under these States becomes so bad that at least some of the apprehensions pale in significance compared to the potential gains. When one is starving and unemployed, these take priority. However, they don’t usually lead so far as to eliminate the government entirely.

After apprehension as an explanation for people’s political conservatism, I suspect that lack of imagination is an important reason. Most people simply do not think outside the box they are in. Before one can have apprehensions of life without a State, one must think about that alternative. Most people don’t even get that far. They simply accept some version of the status quo. But like apprehension of life without a State, the failure even to imagine life without a State can be overcome. Education and exposure to the ideas helps accomplish that. It introduces the possibilities.