Why Jews Should Not Be Liberals Page 11
One effort to try and pull us out of the Depression was the establishment of Social Security, inaugurated in 1935. This program was supposed to establish a minimum form of retirement income and most Jews hailed its passage. No matter that at the time the average mortality age for men was sixty-three and benefits began at age sixty-five. No matter that the tax was only 1% on the first $3,000 of wages, or $30 per year. This would still somehow provide some minimum income at age sixty-five to keep the wolf away from the door. Perhaps it could not have been predicted by anyone at the time that after opening the door to such a system, the politicians of both parties would succeed in expanding that program until in 1999, many Americans pay more in Social Security taxes than they pay in income taxes, and that today the program is seriously in need of oxygen.
What should have alerted Jews to the potential dangers of such a system was their historic experience with granting a centralized government the power to tax and re-distribute income. Jews in Europe were skilled in bargaining with the governments of those countries in which they were permitted to live in order to continue to preserve their very existence. Jews willingly paid taxes to their local governments, as compensation or bribes, to secure their permission to exist in that area. Whatever types of retirement programs they wanted were always set up through their own organizations and were private and voluntary.
Somehow all of that was forgotten when they arrived in the "Goldena Medina," America. We were so enjoying our unprecedented freedom here, to live and work as we chose, that we were willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the New Dealers and the Fair Dealers. But does that excuse the current attitude of most Jews in America towards these government programs that are slowly but surely sliding into black holes? One would think that after two generations of enacting and expanding government programs and observing their results, Jews would begin to question their support of them. This certainly does not show up in their voting. Jews continue to vote Democrat, or liberal, in overwhelming numbers, in the face of almost disastrous results.
The war on poverty, which accelerated in earnest under Lyndon Johnson in 1964-5, has led to the expenditure of over $5 trillion to this date, and still the number of citizens below the poverty level is approximately the same number as when these programs began. The collateral effects of this war have been equally dismal. We have spawned an entire generation of fatherless youth, due to our subsidizing unmarried women when they had children, and continuing that support indefinitely. Now we are reaping the results. Crime, illegitimacy, illegal drug use, and many of our current social ills can be traced to the enormous rise in the birth of babies out of wedlock. All of these unintended results came about from well-meaning politicians, but Jews could have predicted what would happen based on their own prior experiences with governments.
An Irishman, and a future Senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, was amazingly perceptive when he wrote in 1965 in Family and Nation, "There is one unmistakable lesson in American history; a community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future-that community asks for and gets chaos. Crime, violence, unrest, disorder-most particularly the furious, unrestrained lashing out at the whole social structure-that is not only to be expected; it is very near to inevitable. And it is richly deserved." If only this nation had listened to Moynihan then, we would probably not be reading about all of the crime and murders perpetrated by young people today.
As for the granting of great powers to government, we Jews could have hearkened back to Deuteronomy 17:14, which defined the powers that were to be granted to any king. Although God promised His people a king when they entered the Promised Land, that king was to have very limited powers. He was to be one of the people, could not multiply horses to himself, nor order the people back to Egypt. He could not have multiple wives, nor gather to himself inordinate amounts of gold and silver. His main duty was to keep a copy of the law with him, read it all the days of his life, keep the words of the law and the statutes, and do them, so as to prolong his days and the days of the people in the land of Israel. It seems that these words of Deuteronomy 17:15-20 were meant to establish a king from among the people through a prophet's choice, and then have that king serve his people mainly by helping them to live by the words of God. Most importantly, such kings were always to be subordinate to the one God, the invisible God, Yahweh.
One could almost see those thoughts replicated in the part of our own Declaration of Independence which reads: "(A)II men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Thomas Cahill in his recent book, The Gifts of the Jews, writes, "There is a direct link between the ancient Jews and the American Declaration of Independence."
Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration, also wrote that "A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from their mouth of labor the bread it has earned; this is the sum of good government." Thus both the ancient Jews and the eighteenth century Americans appeared to have had a similar fear of what can happen when a king, or a congress, or a president is granted unlimited powers.
As if to prove the truth of what Deuteronomy and the Declaration declare, the history of Jews and powerful, centralized governments is a sorry one. From the time of the Egyptian pharaohs, to the Roman emperors, to the European kings, to the mad dictators of the twentieth century, Jews have been the convenient "sacrificial lamb," on which the problems of the day could be blamed, for all of those tyrannical leaders. It was always the power of a centralized government, by leading the persecution, sanctioning it, or participating in it with other willing allies, that kept the Jews on the run. Now in America, where there has been no government supported discrimination or persecution (other than some early state laws which were soon abandoned), Jews have enjoyed unprecedented political freedom. As a result, it appears that Jews have relaxed their guards and somehow have come to regard government with a kindly, almost benevolent, gaze.
Maybe it was that the people elected to public office seemed to he so brilliant. The prevailing thought seemed to be that they must know what is right and best for our country since they came from all those prestigious schools in the East. During the period when it was difficult for Jews to enter those schools, and when the local city colleges were the most open avenue to obtaining a higher education, it may have been only natural for American Jews to swallow the propaganda coming out of the East that the federal government had all the answers to our social ills. After all, socialism by another name wasn't too bad. Were not many of our people prominent in the American socialist and communist movements'? And were not the government programs being advanced simply a milder form of that socialism?
An observer can perhaps rationalize those views as occurring back in the 1930s and 1940s. But to still believe that government contains such magical powers today at the beginning of the twenty-first century when we have two generations of dismal results from those federal programs to examine, stretches the bounds of reason. For Jews to still so overwhelmingly continue to be strong supporters of federal programs to cure all of our social and economic ills is truly astounding. For our captains of industry, the arts, the media, the professions, who by their own talents and skills have created vast empires of business, who have created thousands of jobs without any federal aid, to still tread the path of disguised socialism, and march in lockstep with the liberal Democratic Party, defies rational explanation. To do anything that does not strengthen this wonderful free market system of capitalism is to defy Jewish roots, Jewish traditions, and their own experience.
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p; In the book, The Jewish World, edited by Elie Kedourie in 1979, the author writes that all through the Bible is the Jews' mistrust of merely political authority. They were skeptical about the ability of rulers to act justly. The body politic being only human and subject to decay and failure, is not one that gives meaning and coherence to human life. Only God's judgment as revealed through the prophets and Moses should be our guiding lights. As God's "chosen people," the Jews believed they had the right to political freedom and to worship the one God, thus renouncing all other gods.
Even when it came to the kings of Israel, as the notes to Deuteronomy in Soncino Pentateuch relate, it is God who is the real king and the sole supreme authority. The king is only the agent of the Divine King, and serves as the leader of the people under the law to "respect the life, honor and possessions of his people." It was not the king who had sovereign rights; those belonged to the people and they were free to impose new restrictions on each new king. The essence of our Biblical history is that our ancestors had a wonderful capacity for self-government. The late Justice Mayor Sulzberger is quoted in those pages as writing, "the Jewish people at large had as keen an outlook and as wide a vision in political as in religious affairs ... and that the modern conception of a rational, democratic, representative government owes its origin to the same (Jewish) ancestry." The Old Testament provided inspiration and guidance to the founders of this country, and it is sad that our modern Jews have strayed so far from their roots.
In spite of this glorious history, there remains still imbedded a myth that is difficult to eradicate from the American Jewish psyche. That is the notion that the people we elect to send to Washington, DC are somehow endowed with a magic power that gives them a far-seeing wisdom with which to solve our national problems. No matter that in their previous lives in California, or New York, or wherever, these bright folks may have had trouble making an honest living, or raising a decent family, or doing a commendable job in the local government position many held prior to going to Washington. Now these same folk would be magically transformed into all-knowing, all-seeing wizards. Perhaps one out of fifty, or at best one out of twenty, could fit the description of being a truly enlightened person with honor and integrity, who had studied the issues and had developed a formidable, reliable, personal philosophy of government and what the true role of government should be. I don't know how others feel, but I want people that I vote for to have that type of honor, integrity, and knowledge.
In my personal dealings with our elected representatives, and in listening to them over the past half-century, I can count on perhaps both hands and feet, the number of men and women whom I would acknowledge fit that description when it came to analyzing and dealing with the complex issues they face. The biggest problem, of course, is that government, particularly at the federal level, gets involved in so many facets of our lives, they cannot do a decent job in any of them. That, I believe, is at the root of the problem. If we would insist that our Congress limit its efforts to maintaining a sound currency, reducing to minimum the intrusion of government into our private lives, providing for a strong national defense, ensuring the integrity of our judicial system, and eliminating as much as possible the rules and regulations that restrict our individual freedoms, perhaps then these folk could do a decent job and really earn their salaries and perks.
In fairness to our elected representatives, both state and federal, one can see how easily they become seduced into believing that only they can make decisions that will solve our most pressing social and economic problems. When you visit Washington, DC and wander into the magnificent museums, memorials, and capital buildings, it is natural to begin to assume that you too, the newly elected representative, can also exhibit the wisdom and courage that those men and women of past years did in the service of this country.
The problem is that the best decisions of those revered figures were almost always the ones that enhanced the freedoms of the citizens of this country to maximize their own individual lives, and not the ones that expanded the powers of government. The swing to thinking that government laws and the concentration of power in Washington and in state capitals is somehow in harmony with the principles of our founding fathers is one of the great myths of our time. Again to quote Thomas Jefferson, "If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy." One would think that based on our historically bad experiences with the powers of centralized governments, Jews would know better!
Yet our prominent Jews, both in the business and religious worlds, continue to call for ever-increasing federal regulation on how we live. Whatever popular cause of the moment grabs the fancy of the media and the TV-watching public, I don't hear many Jewish leaders speak up for the defendants of the day. When the tobacco hysteria came along, with the mostly successful financial pillage of the tobacco companies, where were our Jewish leaders to protest this invasion of privately owned companies? The only voice I heard was that of Dennis Prager.
In a special issue of Prager Perspective written in May 1998, Prager made a convincing case that the anti-tobacco campaign was due to several factors, none of which are directly tied to Judaism, but were still relevant to our subject. One factor Prager stated was that activists are often totalitarians. This should be an alarm call to Jews.
The way he explained it is that those who seek to control the behavior of others, by definition, are often totalitarians. Also the argument that only the anti-smoking crusaders in school can be the moderating influence over children takes away and reduces the parental influence over their children. Prager writes, "If anti-smoking activists are sure of anything it is their moral superiority. And the combination of moral superiority, an ability to coerce, the means and will to indoctrinate the young, and almost unlimited resources for media propaganda comprises what is known as totalitarianism."
In my opinion, Prager's analysis of the tobacco matter is equally applicable to most of the other liberal sponsored laws that attempt to regulate peoples' behavior. If there is a problem in our society-from smoking, to drinking, to using too much water when we flush our toilets, to being too fat or too lean-then let us pass a law to punish, control, regulate, and change that behavior. We tried to eliminate the "sin" of drinking alcohol with prohibition in the 1920s, and although that failed miserably, the liberals continue to try and try and try. Give them credit for their persistence, but it is at our expense.
We Jews, especially the Anti-Defamation League, respond quickly whenever there is the faintest smell of Jews being discriminated against or when some effort is made to introduce prayer in schools. When however, any movement seeks to control our individual behavior for the sake of some preconceived benefit, ADL and the other Jewish organizations fail to make the connection between loss of individual rights and our traditions of Judaism. What comes to mind here is probably the counterargument about conservatives and abortion, which requires a section all of its own. Suffice for now, the point is that American Jewish leaders apparently do not have a clue that when they sit by and watch individual freedoms erode, that somehow this is not in the Jewish tradition of protecting individual freedom. They seem to disregard what George Washington wrote: "(G)overnment is not reason, it is not eloquence-it is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearsome master."
This reminds me of the story my former boss told me many years ago when he worked as a gas station attendant. In those days, he preferred to wait in the station's office until he saw a car drive up for service. The result was he frequently did not respond to a customer as swiftly as the manager desired. His boss told him that whenever he heard the bell sound when a car drove over the cord that sounded the bell, that was the instant he should leap out of the office to start his duties. My boss replied that he frequently did not hear that bell. After a warning that he better tune his ears to hear that bell at all times or else he could find another job (this was during the Depression), he somehow became very
alert to the slightest bell sound.
That is the instinct I would like to see our Jewish leaders develop. Whenever and wherever our individual liberties are attacked here in these United States of America, whether or not it is a cause that they are in favor of, that they respond to this bell and speak up on behalf of American Jewry because as Jews, we must be ever vigilant to protect our individual freedoms. In The World of the Talmud by Morris Adler, the author cites the Talmud's preference for democratic politics and limits on the power of kings. The rabbis were concerned that all too easily could a government impose on its subjects a heavy yoke of its unrestrained passion for power. The State could be subverted to the service of the few at the expense of the many. (How prescient they were.) Although we needed some government, loyalty to government always was to be subservient to loyalty to God. Absolute power was never to be wielded by any government, and the law of Torah for Jews was to be the paramount guide of right policy and action. When we are in doubt as to the position to take on a particular issue, it is these Talmudic principles that should guide our thinking and our actions.
Why are most Jews afraid to stand out from the crowd of other Jews who have voted the liberal line these past two generations? There is within all of us that certain quality that makes marketing people happy. That is the "monkey see, monkey do" syndrome. The big thing in selling your merchandise or ideas is to attract a sufficient number of buyers and then the masses seem to follow along. This is known as achieving your critical mass. So once an idea takes over, or a product becomes a household name, the purveyors of those ideas or merchandise can count on a prolonged life of prosperity and acceptance, at least until a better idea or product emerges or until the successful company commits grievous mistakes and ignores the desires of its customers.