In Defense of Tax and Spend Liberalism

I harbor no shame in openly admitting to being an unreconstructed tax and spend liberal.

In the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma I am more resolute than ever in my support of tax and spend liberalism that advocates environmental checks on growth and provides assistance from natural disasters. In the financial fallout after the hacking of 143 million accounts from Equifax I am more resolute than ever in my support of government regulations to monitor financial services companies. In the sadness evoked by the deaths of elderly residents of nursing homes in Florida during Irma, I am more resolute than ever that government regulations are vital to the health and welfare of all our citizens, particularly the most vulnerable.

I could go on citing examples of natural and man-made disasters, plus corporate greed, that command government action. We are well beyond the time when we should accept the notion that natural selection would weed out the less fortunate in our society. As the richest country on earth we should not begrudge assistance to those in need because of the vagaries of nature or the capriciousness or malfeasance of their fellow human being.

Assistance does not have to be after the fact, as when FEMA responds to floods, tornadoes or hurricanes. Proactive legislation and regulations can lessen the impact of misfortune. As Gail Collins of The New York Times recently pointed out, there’s irony in the Trump plan to dismantle government regulations.

“You don’t want all that much consistency (in presidential leadership) when you’ve got a chief executive whose recent triumph in regulatory reform was to roll back the requirement that new highways be protected against flooding — 10 days before the first hurricane,” wrote Collins.

Republicans and conservatives favor reducing taxes while spending more on defense. They want to gut regulations and assistance programs. What they fail to appreciate is that America is strongest when government cares for its people. CEO after CEO will tell you, perhaps not from their heart but they’ll tell you anyway, that their corporation’s number one asset is their people. So it stands to reason that investing in people should be the number one priority of our government.

We hear a lot about repairing our infrastructure. Fixing roads, highways, interstates, bridges, tunnels, canals, dams, mass transit systems, seaports and airports. Years of neglect have undermined our transportation network.

Yet it is equally important that we invest in the human side of our infrastructure. We need to designate money for early child care and education. We need to invest in technical schools for those who choose a path that does not include college or university. We need to make college more affordable. We need to reduce the burden of excessive student loans. 

I’m not against appropriate spending to upgrade our military. But defense spending should not be at the expense of programs to feed the hungry, to care for the infirm, to educate the young, to retrain workers whose jobs have been disintermediated or eliminated by new technologies, especially if the rollback of government funding provides tax relief to the wealthy, a cohort that surely does not need more daylight between its opulent lifestyle and those struggling to put food on their family table.

Foreign Aid: A friend wondered if the true face of the base of the Democratic Party was reflected in Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ call for a reassessment of U.S. aid to Israel over its policies towards the Palestinians. In fiscal 2017, Israel received $3.1 billion from Washington (https://www.timesofisrael.com/bernie-sanders-calls-for-rethink-on-us-aid-to-israel-iran-policy/).

I doubt if Sanders reflects more than a slim portion of Democratic opinion on this issue. But I am equally certain there is an impatience with the Netanyahu government, a disappointment intensely felt by all but the most Orthodox Jewish communities. 

“It is an abomination against all Jewish principles and our tragic history to accept an Israeli government that discriminates against its own citizens (both Jewish—in other words, non Orthodox—and Arab) as well as the Palestinians under its control,” I responded to him. 

“Yes, the Palestinians have been guilty of terrorism amplified by their stupidity and greedy leadership. But the failure of Likud and other right-wing parties to recognize the unacceptability of controlling the lives of millions of Palestinians reduces our ethical standing not just around the world but among fellow Jews. 

“I refuse to be part of a Jewish Bund in the diaspora. From what I’ve heard in the past so does Bernie Sanders. But I would hope that Sanders imposes equally strong demands on the Palestinians requiring them to abandon terrorism while recognizing Israel before any funds would be made available to them. And before any recognition of a Palestinian state which would have to be demilitarized and include several early warning Israeli posts.”

Swearing Allegiance: That same friend opined that “Dems just lost 2018 and 2020 elections” because “Middle America has zero sympathy for millionaire athletes” protesting during the recitation of the national anthem before sporting events. My response: 

“If Middle America loses its health care,

“If Middle America keeps seeing no increase in their living conditions including family wealth,

“If Middle America thinks Trump is placing them in physical jeopardy,

“If Middle America sees the environment, including their water supply and air quality, deteriorate,

“Democrats will win regardless of what athletes and entertainment figures say.”

Be Ethical and Advocate for Social Justice

I found this quote in a BBC News article on the partial shutdown of the U.S. government rather amusing and disturbing:

“Paul Broun of Georgia, who is currently running for a Senate seat, said he would not vote for legislation that ‘does not fit the Judeo-Christian biblical principles that our country was founded on’.”

Among the 84 votes that the Republican congressman has cast against the wishes of his party’s leadership was a vote last January to deny disaster aid to Hurricane Sandy victims. 

Christian charity!?! Harrumph!!!

I wonder, just which biblical principles do Broun and his fellow travelers agree with? Do they include polygamy? Or slavery? Or perhaps he’s in favor of, according to Jewish law, land redistribution to original owners every 50 years when the jubilee comes around? There are lots more inconsistencies between Broun’s and the Bible’s views on the way one’s life should be conducted, but perhaps the deepest chasm is between the latter’s exhortation to care for the needy and the former’s indifference to the plight of his fellow man, woman and child.

As the fight over Obamacare has shown, the world is living in increasingly doctrinaire times. Dogma for dogma’s sake. Fie on good will and fellowship. Principles and partisanship over peace and probity. 

Even Pope Francis is feeling the heat from those within the Catholic Church who wonder what happened to their ecclesiastical leader. Why is he emphasizing serving the people and not the papacy with its crimson-robed functionaries? 

No religion is immune to internecine bickering, though Islam seems to be more bent on warfare from within than dialogue. How disrespectful of another point of view are the repeated bombings of mosques and funerals by those not sharing the attacker’s version of Islam. Hundreds of years ago Christianity—Catholics, Protestants, Russian Orthodox—fought its share of wars of intolerance. Two thousand years ago Jewish factions killed those who didn’t agree with their visions of Mosaic law. 

With few exceptions, today’s Jews don’t kill one another, even when the debate is over their existence in Israel and the lands conquered in the Six Day War in 1967. There are, however, ongoing battles for the soul of the Jewish state in Israel and for the soul of Jews in the Diaspora. In Israel, the debate has many levels. One is over territory and security. Neither side wants to undermine the security of Israelis, but those who would relinquish total control of the West Bank see nothing secure about continued control of more than a million Palestinians. It would be state suicide to confer citizenship on the Palestinians; it would destroy the Jewish soul to retain the Palestinians in their current stateless condition. 

On another level, the secular foundations of Israel are under assault. Ultra-Orthodox Jews are pressuring for a more rigidly religious state, one that increasingly separates women from men. They haven’t blown anybody up, but they have exhibited behaviors abhorrent to Western sensibilities. 

The soul of the Jewish Diaspora, particularly in America, is in play, as well, as highlighted by this week’s release of a survey of U.S. Jews by the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project. In a nutshell, the study found fewer American Jews identify with their religion’s rules or religious institutions, though they continue “to feel pride in being Jewish and have a strong sense of belong to the greater Jewish community.” As the Associated Press reported, their connection is based mostly on culture and ancestry. “A large majority said remembering the Holocaust, being ethical and advocating for social justice formed the core of their Jewish identity.”

Being ethical and advocating for social justice. Nothing restrictive about those values. Be ethical to all. Advocate for social justice for all. Yes, remember the Holocaust, but also remember that other religions and people have their tragedies to commemorate. That’s also a part of being ethical and advocating for social justice.  

Kosher Style

Interesting article in the Dining section of the NY Times Wednesday on how the kitchen inside the White House was koshered in advance of the Obama administration’s annual Hanukkah party for some 550 guests (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/dining/making-the-white-house-kitchen-kosher-for-a-party.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=kurpradit&st=cse).

Now, I won’t go into how arcane and puzzling some of these preparations must appear to non-Jews, and even to many Jews. After all, to non-believers most religions have practices that seem outlandish, if not downright pagan. It’s hard getting around built-in biases that our own beliefs are sane while others are zany.

One of the main tenets of strictly kosher food is that meat and dairy products must not be co-mingled, neither in their preparation nor consumption. There are a mind-boggling set of rules, codified in the Shulchan Aruch, a mid-16th century compilation by Joseph Caro, that serves as a roadmap for observant Jews to follow in all aspects of their lives. (FYI, the literal translation of the term Shulchan Aruch is “set table.”)

The rules and precepts about kosher food, by the way, are mostly not from the Bible. They were formulated by rabbis and sages who lived before and after the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 and the resulting Diaspora. They chose, for example, to interpret the Torah’s admonishment not to cook a baby goat (a kid) in its mother’s milk as a blanket prohibition on mixing and eating dairy and meat products at the same time. They also opted to place fowl into the meat category while keeping fish parve (a Jewish term signifying a food is neutral and can be eaten with either milk or meat).

Today’s observant Jewish family generally has several sets of dishes, flatware and cookware, as only glass utensils may be interchanged for meat and dairy use after proper washing. Crockery, china, even stainless steel, are thought to retain traces of food, so observant Jews have separate meat and dairy utensils. But two millennia ago, even less than 600 years ago when Caro compiled his seminal work, it was hardly common for households to be wealthy enough to afford multiple sets of dishes and cookware. Back then, it was sufficient to simply clean utensils after any use. With rising economic status, household possessions and customs changed, but Caro’s text did not.

Which brings me to a tale I heard several years ago from a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary that puts in context the shifting laws about kashrut. As the story was told, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik (1903-1993), a renowned Orthodox scholar considered to be a leading arbiter of religious issues, was left to his own devices by his wife for about a week as she visited family in a different city. When she returned she was appalled to find her kosher kitchen compromised, with dishes, pots and pans used for both dairy and meat meals. How could the learned rabbi been so careless?, she demanded to know. Rabbi Soloveitchik replied he had consulted the Shulchan Aruch, which in 1565 made no mention of separate dishes, requiring only that utensils be cleaned after each meal.

So much for relying on centuries-old texts. And for being a typical male (at least of his generation), who paid no attention to what went on in the kitchen.

Sinat Chinam

Today, according to the Jewish calendar, is the 17th of Tammuz, historically significant because 1,941 years ago the Roman army breached the walls of Jerusalem, effectively presaging the end of the Jewish revolt and Jewish government in Israel for nearly 2,000 years. Three weeks later the siege of the city concluded with the destruction of the Second Temple, on the ninth of Ab, Tisha B’Av.

The 17th of Tammuz is considered a minor fast day by observant Jews. Minor meaning the fast lasts from sunrise to sunset, unlike the fast of a major day, such as the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) or Tisha B’Av, which lasts sunset to sunset. Most Jews, I’d confidently venture to say, don’t know much about the 17th of Tammuz, aren’t aware it is today, and, even if they did, wouldn’t pay it much heed. I, myself, only became cognizant of this year’s commemoration because of a reference to it by one of our rabbis this past Saturday (for those curious, no, I am not fasting).

I bring this bit of Jewish religious lore to your attention because of its applicability to modern times. You see, the fall of the Jewish revolt in 70 CE, according to our sages, was not so much a triumph of Roman military superiority but rather the result of infighting among Jewish sects, not to the level of a brutal civil war, but sufficient to command God’s attention and determination to punish his chosen people. The sages characterized the misbehavior endemic to the sects of first century Judea as a sin of “baseless hatred,” known in Hebrew as sinat chinam.

Increasingly, I find the actions of leaders in both Israel and the United States today rife with sinat chinam.

In Israel, coalition governments have given religious-right parties power beyond their numbers. In wielding their influence, these ultra-orthodox parties have or have tried to impose religious practices anathema to a majority of Jews living within Israel and the Diaspora. Their ideas include proposals to amend regulations governing conversions, marriages, and the definition of who is a Jew. Rather than instill universal support for Israel, these devilish designs have fractured Jewish solidarity.

Here in America, we are experiencing a profound period of intellectual intolerance. Nasty does not come close to describing the tenor of political discourse. The lack of respect both for the person and for the office held by the opposition is palpable.

We are, in short, wallowing in the sin of baseless hatred. You don’t have to be Jewish to acknowledge sinat chinam; Christians believe in it, as well: http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Holidays/Summer_Holidays/Tishah_B_Av/Sinat_Chinam/sinat_chinam.html.

There are too few democracies in the world. It would be tragic if sinat chinam led to their reduced ability to contribute to another Jewish concept, tikkun olam (repairing the world, often through social action, community service and social justice).