By Richard Girard

This is the first of two parts explaining why–like its left-wing counterpart, Marxism–Libertarianism is a Utopian idea that cannot possibly work in the real world, unless that world was populated by James Madison’s angels (Federalist No.51). But like Marxism, it does have some good ideas that we should not ignore. the difficulty is separating the wheat from the chaff.

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John Stuart Mill by Wikipedia commons

“The spirit of our American radicalism is destructive and aimless; it is not loving; it has no ulterior and divine ends; but is destructive only out of hatred and selfishness.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Essays, “Politics” (Second Series, 1844).

It is an untested and utopian system, which historian Michael Lind has described as a “cult,” having no real world example upon which its proponents may base their lofty claims of moral, economic, and political superiority . Robert Locke, in his article in the March 14, 2005 issue of The American Conservative , described it as the “Marxism of the Right .” I am writing of course, about Libertarianism, in particular as practiced by those on the Right.

Modern right-wing Libertarianism has led the conservative movement in its headlong plunge into a form of right-wing anarchy. They have taken the creed of Libertarianism so far to an imagined minarchist or anarchist utopian ideal that HBO talk show host and comedian Bill Maher has disavowed his previous self-identification with Libertarianism, saying that it has become too selfish and self-righteous.

[pullquote] The author presents an interesting and provocative thesis. Our only difference of opinion lies in his equating libertarianism with Marxism. Philosophically they are not in the same class (no pun intended) nor is the utopianism of Communism demonstrated. Also, Marxism, strictly speaking, is a scientific method to understand society’s anatomy, and the motion of history via the interactions of science (technology) and the class struggle, about which Libertarianism has nothing to say. [/pullquote]

Whether it is Robert Nozick’s minarchist ideal from Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), or Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, libertarianism is the ultimate exaltation of the individual over group, in terms of rights, needs, power, and authority. I believe that libertarianism’s growing popularity is the result both a carefully orchestrated plot, as well as a cunningly fashioned trap, created by the plutocrats who wish to make this nation an oligarchy both de facto and de jure.

Believing in the Utopian Self-deception of Libertarianism

As I pointed out one-and-a-half years ago in my December 29, 2011 OpEdNews article, “Let’s Sit This One Out:” “The great lie we have been spoon fed by the One Percent over the last thirty-some years is the one publicly expressed by Margaret Thatcher ( Woman’s Own ; London, October 31, 1987 ), ‘ There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.’ This lie justifies the selfishness and ego which has so nearly destroyed the [political systems of the] Western Democracies–together with their economies and any semblance of the rule of law–in the last decade-and-a-half.” [Words in brackets are amplifications added for clarity–RJG.]

Libertarians cannot see this as a lie or a trap. It fits in so perfectly with their narcissism, their carefully cultivated view of being in control of their lives and the world around them, that it blinds them to what I believe is the reality of minarchist Libertarianism taken reductio ad absurdum to its final conclusion: a state where might makes right, and those with economic power dominate and ultimately control the rest of us, while our few surviving Constitutional boundaries are ground into the dirt by the overweening power of enormous wealth. The reduction in the regulation of corporations since Ronald Reagan became President in 1981, has permitted the growth in the size and the power, both economically and politically, of large corporations in America, giving us a preview of the final form of a minarchist or anarchist libertarian state without any of its supposed benefits: libertarianism in its destructive phase.

Just as the utopian vision of Marxism was overly dependent on the willing cooperation and moral rectitude of individual humans operating as a selfless collective, so too is Libertarianism overly dependent on the moral force of enlightened self-interest and the moral rectitude of individual humans interacting with one another as selfish individuals. The libertarians are depending on human beings to act like James Madison’s angels (The Federalist Papers No. 51), which is something that has never been, nor can ever be.

Magical Thinking in a Modern World

Libertarians speak constantly of “self-reliance” and “responsibility” in much the same way a Christian speaks of Faith and a state of Grace, but they never explain how the majority of humanity is to attain this utopian state. Viewed from the micro level, modern life is far too complex for any individual actually being able to do it all–even to the extent that Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were able to more than two centuries ago–and still live anything other than a hermit’s life, limited to the most basic human necessities.

Viewed at a macro level, libertarianism is found to be just as wanting. Michael Lind pointed out in his June 14, 2013 article on Salon.com, “The Question Libertarians Just Can’t Answer,” ” If libertarians are correct in claiming that they understand how best to organize a modern society, how is it that not a single country in the world in the early twenty-first century is organized along libertarian lines? ” The dogma behind Margaret Thatcher’s above statement, which so limits the scope of human relationships, and does not consider the recognized anthropological realities such as the clan or the tribe, let alone the nation-state, is accepted by many right-wing libertarians as dogmatic fact, even if they have never actually heard Thatcher’s statement.

Libertarians, in a poorly considered attempt to sidestep this incongruity, have created a bizarre, hypothetical system of contracts between themselves and those they must deal with for the goods and services that are required to survive in modern society. At the same time, they deny the very existence or necessity of a Social Contract–the system of custom, civil and criminal laws and bureaucratic regulations; under the unifying authority of the U.S. Constitution–by which their system of actual and implied individual contracts for goods and services might become feasible.

The Baby in the Bath Water

Libertarians need to understand, I do not stand unalterably opposed to every aspect of their creed. Fox radio commentator Alan Colmes calls himself a “liberaltarian,” which is a description that is probably close to my own Weltanschauung. I believe that very careful deliberation should be given before the government inflicts laws and regulations on its citizens. At the same time, I consider the objections raised over the violations of the so-called “rights” of corporations to be nothing more than a smoke screen designed to hide the fact that many of the wealthiest Americans receive an additional degree of legal protection from their own illegal and immoral actions through corporations. I agree with the Libertarians that we could probably use fewer laws and regulations. I would also note that too many of the laws passed by Congress–as well as our state legislatures–over the last forty years have had as their primary purpose to provide a benefit to the members of the oligarchic plutocracy, and not the average American. One of the results of these laws is the shifting of the nation’s tax burden to the lowest 90% of our population in terms of income, which was according to the Census Bureau, approximately $144,000 in 2012.

It should also be noted that government–at the Federal, state, and local level–has passed environmental and safety regulations that–as written–are most easily complied with by the largest and wealthiest transnational corporations. These gigantic, inhuman conglomerates propose and often help write these laws and regulations as a means to protect themselves from civil or criminal liability. Smaller firms, who have far fewer available liquid assets and credit to use to ensure compliance, struggle to meet what are generally the most costly and stringent requirements, drafted by the large corporations’ friends (and often times future employees) in the government.

I, like everyone else, would like the government to stay out of my private life, and that of my friends and neighbors, as much as possible. I agree with George Bernard Shaw’s observation, in a speech made in New York City on April 11, 1933, “The ordinary man is an anarchist. He wants to do as he likes. He may want his neighbour to be governed, but he himself doesn’t want to be governed. He is mortally afraid of government officials and policemen.” Laws and regulations are often the result of some individual or special interest group putting their idea of what is good and just ahead of what their neighbors believe is actually required. This can be done through either the vehicle of unthinking indifference, or the calculated action of those promulgating the law. This invariably starts when the individual or group at the heart of these actions turn the people affected into “the other,” making them “things” within the hearts and minds of those who initiate these new rules, and thus unworthy of the same rights and protections that the initiator enjoys. Prohibition and the “Jim Crow laws in the United States were examples of these types of laws and that way of thinking. Thinking of people as “things,” as I first stated in my August 5, 2009 OpEdNews article, The Hope for Audacity , is where–in my humble opinion–human evil truly begins.

With that said, I do want a government that intervenes in cases of child, parental, or spousal abuse, and in any crime involving fraud, coercion, or the use of force. I do believe in public education, at every level, because as countries like Finland and Denmark demonstrate, public education can work; you simply can’t do it on the cheap. I also believe in national defense, not the welfare system for the Military Industrial Complex that we have today. I believe in the ongoing public construction and maintenance of our physical infrastructure, including, but not limited to: roads, bridges, dams, water, sewer, power, communications, harbors, and other transportation systems and services–especially mass transit. This is because government is not run on a profit motive for ever increasing shareholder dividends, and is more responsive to the average citizen’s needs than is private enterprise, which must (at least on an interstate or transnational level) answer to the demands of their shareholders. Any of these systems left to private enterprise must be tightly regulated by the government (as AT&T, the airlines and long haul trucking companies were in the early 1970’s), both in order to prevent abuse of the general public in the name of profits, and to prevent smaller but viable firms from being driven out of business by larger firms wishing to eliminate their competition.

Modern Government is Less the Enemy of Individual Liberty than Corporate Power

I believe that even today, most corporations will subject their workers to unconscionably long hours, at unreasonably low pay, in dangerous and noxious working conditions, producing dangerous products for the consumer, while causing the large-scale destruction of the surrounding ecosystem, all in the name of making a few pennies more per unit of profit. The horror stories of sweat shops and defective products from companies that have off-shored their manufacturing operations proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt. This sort of selfish, short-sighted behavior is regrettably an integral part of human avarice. Only government has the power and ability to counteract the economic power of a corporation on a state-wide, interstate, or multinational level, in a timely fashion.

Libertarians believe that corporations are morally neutral entities with no desire other than to increase their profit as much as they can. It is this “blow-back” from America’s corporations increasing their profits that requires our having a countervailing power in the form of government regulation. Too many libertarians have forgotten the essential truth stated by President Lincoln in his First Annual Message to Congress on December 3, 1861, “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital; Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” Yet libertarians believe that the metaphorical “Invisible Hand” of Adam Smith will take care of any of the problems created by free market capitalism.

In my August 28, 2010 OpEdNews “Street Fighting Man–A Rock-and-Roll Epistle, I wrote of this type of behavior at length. (Words in brackets are again corrections or amplifications.) Quoting Kenneth Lux, “‘ The saving grace [of Smith’s system] was supposed to be the “invisible hand” of competition”[C]ompetition would keep these instincts [to drive competitors out of business] and ‘expensive vanities’…in line. Smith would hardly have been surprised at the motives of Rockefeller, but”would have been chagrined at his success. Smith”overlooked the possi bility that self-interest would work to undermine and eliminate competition and”tie up the invisible hand. It is”unrestrained self-interest that is the fundamental flaw in any absolute policy of laissez-faire.’ (Adam Smith’s Mistake: How a Moral Philosopher Invented Economics and Ended Morality; 1990, pp. 118-9.)

After the Michigan Supreme Court’s 1919 decision in Dodge v. Ford Motor Co. ( 170 N.W. 668; Mich. 1919) –where it was held that a corporation’s primary responsibility was to its shareholders, not to the corporation’s employees or the public–American corporations have became [myopic, sociopathic] beasts who, unless they were very closely watched, [will] commit a multitude of [immoral acts or actual crimes], all in the name of the almighty dollar. Historically, these actions have included [murder, fraud,] theft, bribery, cheating customers [and employees], destroying the environment, permitting unsafe working conditions at their facilities, tax evasion, raiding employee pension and health care funds, and moving their factories across the country or around the world in the eternal quest for [the smallest iota of] additional revenue. Corporations have done all this while beggaring the towns and employees who supported them and depended on those facilities for tax revenue and jobs. As Kenneth Lux put it, ‘ In fact ” economists came to conclude that from the standpoint of self-interest it would be irrational for someone not to cheat if they could be reasonably sure of getting away with it. Honesty is the best policy’ is not an economic doctrine.’ (Lux; op cit., p. 118.) [If you doubt this, let me give you a quote from Joel Bakan’s interview with Milton Friedman for his book, The Corporation:The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, 2004, p.34, ‘A corporation is the property of its stockholders, he told me, ‘its interests are the interests of its stockholders.’…There is but one ‘social responsibility’ for corporate executives: they must make as much money as possible for their shareholders…There is but one instance when corporate social responsibility can be tolerated, according to Friedman–when it is insincere.’]

This was the reason that Senator John Sherman of Ohio proposed the anti-trust act that bears his name in 1890. To quote Kenneth Lux once again, ‘When Senator Sherman spoke on behalf of the first antitrust legislation, ‘The law of selfishness, uncontrolled by competition, compels it to disregard the interest of the consumer.’ Implicit in Sherman’s statement, but seemingly not recognized by him, is the [apprehension] that the law of selfishness also compels it to eliminate competition.’ (Lux; op cit., pp. 118-9.)”

Free-market mavens invoke Adam Smith’s book The Wealth of Nations to justify their belief in an unregulated free market system. These ignorant fools always neglect to take notice that: 1) the free market described in The Wealth of Nations is always on a small scale, e.g. a town or province; 2) the “invisible hand” is a metaphor that Smith states falls apart at the national or international level, or when competition is reduced to a small enough number of businesses that permits them to effectively collude; 3) as Kenneth Lux explained in his book Adam Smith’s Mistake, the failure of Adam Smith to add the word “only” to his famous statement, “It is not [put the word “only” right here] from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self interest,” (The Wealth of Nations, Book I, chapter 2, p. 23); made the author of the Theory of Moral Sentiments appear in his second work to be justifying an amoral system. [See Lux, op cit., p.124.]

Most of us never learned in our high school or freshman college American History class that the underlying cause of the American Revolution was the British government’s open support of what was then the most powerful corporation in the world: the British East India Company, whose excesses were also in part responsible for Smith writing his book. The tea, opium, cloth, spices, and other monopolies held by this lucrative creation of the British mercantile system, payed out millions of pounds in dividends to the King, nobility, and prominent members of parliament every year. This was done at the cost of making the average British citizen, both in the home islands and the colonies, seek out black market sources or do without.

Ambrose Bierce nailed the real problem with corporations and their dangers to the nation’s commonwealth in The Devil’s Dictionary: ” Corporation. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.”

High Finance and the Golden Delusion of the Past

Right-wing Libertarians, as well as many conservatives, seem to be very enamored with concept of the “Gold Standard.” They neglect to remember that it was the return to the Gold Standard in 1873 that triggered the bank panic of that year. The United States didn’t recover from that panic until the discovery of gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1875-76. There were further panics in 1884, 1890, 1893, 1907, 1930, and 1931. Those first three panics were resolved by the discovery of gold in the United States and its territories that inflated the amount of gold available, creating an inflation of sorts, although gold maintained its set value of $20 per ounce. The panic of 1907 was resolved only because J.P. Morgan convinced his fellow investment bankers to sell enough gold to the U.S. Treasury in exchange for government bonds to alleviate the crisis. In 1930 and 1931, there was no one as wise as J.P Morgan around to fix the problem, and the Austrian School of Economics–then touted as the most advanced (and only scientific) economic theory available–was followed by the Federal Reserve as if it were Gospel. The problem of rampant deflation and bank closures in the United States was not resolved until FDR took the U.S, off the gold standard, declared a bank holiday, and ordered that all privately held gold coinage be returned to the Federal Government.

There are some economists and historians (John Kenneth Galbraith in his book The Great Crash 1929, is one) who trace the cause of the Great Depression to Great Britain’s return to the gold Standard in 1926. Winston Churchill, when he became Chancellor of the Exchequer, attempted to return Great Britain to the gold Standard, at the pre-World War I exchange rate of one British Pound Sterling equaling $4.86 American.

This action by Great Britain vastly overvalued the British Pound and undervalued the American Dollar in comparison to their actual economic strength and value on the world markets. This overvaluation of the British Pound caused European (and some American) investors to withdraw funds from the American stock, commodities, and other markets–including bursting the Florida real estate bubble–destabilizing the American and other economies. This in turn caused first a stagnation, then a decline of wages among American workers. By 1927, money began to be hoarded in the form of gold and silver specie, as well as cash, straining the liquidity of most smaller American banks. Because of the shortage of available cash, the abuse of workers by the capitalist class had grown so extreme that by 1928, American workers were seeing their wages decline from their height of a decade earlier–during World War I–to a point where an estimated fifty percent of the American people lived in poverty (having an income of less than $1000 annually if you were married) in the year before the Great Crash. (This information is derived from Internal Revenue Service data cited in Donald Barlett’s and James Steele’s 1994 book, America: Who Really Pays the Taxes; Simon & Schuster, New York; chapter 2 in general, pp. 61 and 66-7 in particular; as well as John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Great Crash 1929 ; 1954, Houghton Mifflin Co.; Boston; pp. 14-5 )

On the Way to Making Karl Marx a Prophet

As Gary Anderson stated in his article “Karl Marx Predicted Libertarian/Ron Paul Foolishness,” published in Business Insider, October 18, 2011, ” Here is the bottom line Dr Paul: The money at the top will not spur the economy. The money at the top will not help small business. The money at the top will start another ponzi lending scheme. You don’t want Glass-Steagall (as you said in 2010) even though you voted not to repeal it. You don’t want the speculation stopped. Karl Marx predicted you. You will help destroy capitalism and prove Marx right.”

The two primary underlying ideals of modern Libertarianism, according to both Murray Rothbard And Robert Nozick, consists of non-aggression against other people, and the sanctity of private property and its transference. (Murray N. Rothbard: For a New Liberty, Macmillan, New York, 1973; and The Ethics of Liberty, New York University Press, New York, 1982,1988. Robert Nozick: Anarchy, State, Utopia, Basic Books, New York, 1974.) While these may seem like reasonable and even desirable ideas, the first is an unreal utopian ideal, while the second has no basis in the underlying history of English Common Law, or American jurisprudence.

The very nature of capitalism and its initial inherent competition is aggressiveness; and the elimination of your competition, as Kenneth Lux pointed out in Adam Smith’s Mistake, is the laissez-faire capitalist’s ultimate goal. All laissez-faire capitalism requires the undercutting and elimination of competition until some sort of meta-stable oligopoly is achieved by two or three colluding competitors, or a complete monopoly comes into existence.

A Delusion of “Private” Property

“Private” property is, with regards to real estate (including mineral, timber, and water rights, as well as their transference), a misnomer. The disposition of private real estate has always been limited by the needs of the sovereign, even if that sovereign is the nation’s people as a whole, i.e., “We the People.” This is the legal and factual basis for eminent domain, zoning laws, and property taxes: land is granted by the sovereign people to the individual/business for his/its long-term use and conditional “ownership.” Those conditions include zoning laws and payment of property taxes, as well as “good behavior” in its use. Transference is limited by inheritance and other laws. Property taxes are in reality nothing more than the ongoing payments of rental to the government. Eminent domain represents the government power to break the “lease.” To look at real estate ownership any other way is simply deluding one’s self.

Libertarians and conservatives do not like this fact, and object strenuously to being reminded of this fact by denying it. Look at what Rothbard and Nozick say above: Libertarianism’s ideals are ” non-aggression against other people, and the sanctity of private property and its transference.” These Utopian concepts are every bit as unrealistic as Karl Marx’s stateless, classless, moneyless, wageless society. So the very foundation of Rothbard and Nozick’s ideal of Libertarianism is founded on a pair of false premises.

Libertarians (and most conservatives) believe that somehow land, and its continued ownership, is some sort of absolute right, like Freedom of Speech, of the Press, of Conscience, and of being secure in our possessions and our papers, as long as we do not abuse that right. But like most of the unpleasant truths in life under America’s Constitution, they always forget those important conditional clauses in the Fifth Amendment, “without just compensation,” and “without due process of law.” Those two clauses maintain the People’s sovereign right to violate the privacy or take back the land from the “owner,” whenever the People’s representatives (the government) have determined it to be in the People’s best interest.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Richard Girard is an increasingly radical representative of the disabled and disenfranchised members of America’s downtrodden, who suffers from bipolar disorder (type II or type III, the professionals do not agree). He has put together a team to prosecute Bush, Cheney, et al., but has given up waiting for his credentials, and fully expects either the United Nations or Spain to beat him to it. An autodidact, he has read more than 3000 books over the last 35 years, on subjects including history, mathematics, political science, economics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, philosophy, women’s studies, physics, martial arts, science fiction, and art. He is still editing Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, trying to make it comprehensible to someone who is not a Rhodes Scholar. It surprisingly calms the worst effects of his bipolar disorder, acting both as a sleep aid, and helping to keep him out of the funny farm.  

Freethought of the Day PAUL DIRAC August 8  |  Presented by the Freedom From Religion Foundation On this date in 1902, Paul Dirac, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, was born in Bristol, England. Dirac received his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering in 1921 and his Master’s in mathematics in 1923, both from the University of Bristol. He went on to earn his Ph.D from the University of Cambridge in 1926, studying quantum mechanics and the theory of general relativity. He introduced an equation in 1928 which became known as the Dirac Equation. His equation, along with many other advances, implied the existence of antimatter. Dirac and Erwin Shrodinger won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1933 for “the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory.” Dirac married Margit Wigner in 1937, and they had four children. He was known for being extremely modest — he tended to name his discoveries after others instead of himself. He chose to give all of the proceeds from his book Directions in Physics (1978), to create a lecture series at the University of New South Wales. He was a faculty member at the University of Cambridge, where he held the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics, at the University of Miami, and at Florida State University. A memorial for Dirac was unveiled in 1995 in Westminster Abbey. The Dean of Westminster, Edward Carpenter, had initially refused to allow the memorial to be created, calling Dirac “anti-Christian,” but relented after five years. Along with receiving the Nobel Prize, he also won the Copley Medal in 1952, and the Max Planck Medal in 1952, and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1930. Many awards have been named after Dirac, including the Paul Dirac Medal and Prize awarded by the Institute of Physics, of which Stephen Hawking has been a recipient. Paul Dirac has been remembered as one of the world’s greatest physicists. D. 1984. “If we are honest — and scientists have to be — we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination. If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet.” —Excerpt of Dirac’s criticism of the political purposes of religion at the Oct. 1927 Fifth Solvay International Conference Compiled by Sarah Eucalano

Blitz Editorials—

By taking the best specimens from the gene pool, hunters, contrary to their propaganda, weaken their targeted species. And never mind the incomprehensible vanity and moral turpitude that underscores such acts.

NO WISDOM in killing…
Prefatory Note: The following is a brief discussion between two dedicated animal liberationists, Kristal Parks and Ruth Eisenbud, on the intent of religious teachings in connection with animals. The exchange focuses on the doctrines of “dominionist religions” (i.e., the Judeo-Christian-Islamic faiths), which consign animals to the whims of man.—PG

“It is the essential characteristic of a wise person that he/she does not kill any living being.
One should know that non-killing and equality of all living beings are the main principles of religion”
—Jain sutra

“I have always felt responsible to act on what I know.” —Kristal Parks

Dear Kristal,

It was noted in the Greanville Post item on your protest of chinese consumption of ivory that:
‘She credits her spiritual training that draws on “the wisdom traditions, East and West. I’m most drawn to the contemplative Christian tradition and Zen Buddhism.”

She spent time meditating at St. Benedict’s monastery in Snowmass before and after every action. And she studied extensively with exiled Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. “I used to say for however much time you spend in jail, you should spend an equal amount of time in a monastery, purifying your motives, taking down barriers that separate you from others.’

ALERT: Hunger strike to protest Chinese consumption of ivory

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There is no doubt that you are a remarkable, courageous person, capable of understanding the implications of violence in its various forms to animals and humans. This is exactly why I was concerned to learn that you credit your spiritual training to “the wisdom traditions, East and West. I’m most drawn to the contemplative Christian tradition and Zen Buddhism.”

Cow murdered for religious celebration purposes. What did this animal do to deserve this fate? Only the dumbing down of our conscience through habit can blind us to this horror. ALL traditions must be examined, and probably most of them overthrown as they reflect backward stages of human consciousness.

Given that you understand that the suffering of animals is no different than the suffering of humans, how is it possible for you to reconcile your values with the belief system of the semitic religions: judaism, christianity and islam?  Dominion, the very foundation of this tradition is based on a hierarchy that subjugates animals to slaughter and exploitation in the name of human supremacy. This premise is endorsed by the St Benedictine Monastery, where you sought spiritual healing from exposure to the brutality of prison. The accepted diet for a St Benedictine Monastery includes:

FOOD AND DRINK AT A BENEDICTINE MONASTERY
Though the Rule of St. Benedict proscribes the eating of meat, fish is eaten at all Benedictine houses, and some inmates partake of lard and the flesh of birds as well. Child novices may be allowed the full range of meat dishes, and the head of a house may well have the flesh of pigs, deer, or other animals at his or her table. Obedientiaries frequently eat whatever they wish while travelling, and even when they are within the conventual walls, they may take their meals with the guests of the house and indulge in foods not found in the refectory [70].

Though their diets are more restricted, cloistered monks and nuns also enjoy a variety of dishes in many Benedictine communities. Quantities are often generous, and pittances are common additions to the daily meals. Feast days feature elaborate banquets, with ten or more courses served in the refectories of the wealthiest houses on important holidays. Ale is the usual beverage, or wine if the community can afford it. Meat may be served on special occasions [71]. The customary drink in the refectory in the afternoon during the summer and in the evening in winter sometimes includes light bread or cakes [72].http://www.aedificium.org/MonasticLife/BenedictineOrder.html

[pullquote] The lovely image of a shepherd guarding his sheep, fails to portray the reality. The shepherd is protecting his sheep from harm by other predators, so that the owner of the sheep may shear them and slit their throats for a feast. This is the intention and meaning of dominion. [/pullquote]

In other words, the higher one is in the religious hierarchy, the more likely one is to consume the flesh of many animals. While A Benedictine Monastery is likely in a scenic location, since most of the best land was appropriated from the peasantry, it is hardly a suitable venue for contemplating compassion, peace and justice for all.

Are you familiar with the Jain tradition of India. It is a religious- based community that has embraced the tenets of non-violence, known as ahimsa, for thousands of years by prohibiting meat, leather, fur and silk. Though a small percent of the population, jains have had significant influence on implementing compassion for animals. Jains were historically the first to set up shelters, where injured animals were treated and released, as confining animals violates their right to freedom. To this very day, Jains exert their influence on Indian animal law, which is broad-based, comprehensive and compassionate. If you are familiar with the writings and work of Mahatma Gandhi, then you have an idea of the influence of ahimsa on politics. Prior to embarking on the campaign to liberate India from British occupation, Gandhiji conferred with Jain scholar, Shrimad Rajchandra, to better understand Jain doctrine as a basis for protest.

To better understand the doctrine as a basis for animal compassion consider the following sutras:

“All things breathing, all things existing, all living beings whatever, whould not be slain or treated with violence, or insulted, or tortured or drven away. This is the pure unchanging eternal law, which the wise ones who know the world have proclaimed…” —Jain Acharanga Sutra

“If thinking to gain praise, honor or respect,…a man who sins against earth or causes or permits others to do so…he will not gain joy or wisdom…tyrany to the earth is like striking , cutting or maiming a blind man…Knowing this a man should not sin agaonst earth or cause or permit others to do so. He who understands the nature of sin against earth is called a Sage.” —Jain Acharanga Sutra

“All beings with two, three, four or five senses in fact, all creation know individually pleasure and displeasure, pain, terror and sorrow. ALL are full of fears which come from all directions. And yet there exist people who would cause greater pain to them…Some kill animals for sacrifice, some for their skin, flesh, blood, feathers, teeth or tusks;…Some kill them intentionally and some unintentionally. Some kill because they have been previously injured by them…and some because they expect to be injured. He who harms animals has not understood or renounced deeds of sin…He who understands the nature of sin against animals is called a Sage.”  —Jain Acharanga Sutra

If these sutras are consistent with your beliefs, then is it possible to state that the mandate of genesis is similar in intention? As you are well aware the ravages to animals seen daily in Judeo.Christian Muslim nations are a direct result of religious doctrine that excuses animal abuse as a right granted to man as follows:

“Genesis 9:1-3 is the most significant Biblical text supporting the Christian tradition of eating meat: “God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.’ “

Having been born into one of the semtic religions, based on what I know of the cruelty of that tradition,  I opted out of dominon. All faiths are not equal.Acting on what I know  I left my birth religion of Judaism to free myself from the brutality of dominonist doctrine. If I were Christian I would do the same. Compassion for animals is not possible in a tradition that sanctifies their subjugation to man.

Living in a dominion-rooted culture takes its toll on one’s spirit. In an effort to undo this harm and heal from it, I have found spiritual peace as part of a Jain community, where I attend pujas and other observances, away from the violence of  the semitic religious tradition. To the best of my knowledge Jainism is the only religion that has maintained a successful effort to live free from violence to both animals and humans.

While it is not necessary to be a Jain to live by ahimsa, it is impossible to remain in or praise a semitic religion and then expect compassion for animals.

Respectfully,
Ruth Eisenbud

REPLY

Dear Ruth, 

Thank you for your email and for taking the time to send me the important information you have included in your several emails.

 

I agree with you, Ruth.  It is absolutely appalling what is done to animals [with the consent of]  the religious community.  It is total blasphemy and is a source of deep pain and agony for me.  

 

It seems  that followers of great spiritual leaders often desecrate the original teachings of those teachers.  But I will not allow those followers to pressure me to reject the teachers because of the heresy and hypocrisy of the followers.   Rather, I wish to represent another interpretation of those teachings through my life and actions.  So, I am a very vocal and loud voice for animals within those communities and I must say, Ruth, it is no easy task.  But I do it gladly for the sake of animals.

 

Best wishes to you.

Kristal

Kristal Parks, M.A.

Director, Pachyderm Power! Love in Action for Elephants

www.PachydermPower.org

www.ElephantEcoTours.com

KristalParks2@gmail.com

1-303-571-0801

 

COUNTER REPLY

THE MYTH OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD

The Good Shepherd protects his sheep from harm, so that they
may be sheared and slaughtered by their master. The sheep are
being protected as property to be used or discarded at will.

The lovely image of a shepherd guarding his sheep, fails to portray the reality. The shepherd is protecting his sheep from harm by other predators, so that the owner of the sheep may shear them and slit their throats for a feast. This is the intention and meaning of dominion:

“The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.’” Genesis

Dear Kristal,

Thank you for responding to my concerns of characterizing dominion religions and even Buddhism as holders of the wisdom of compassion. The holiest of the holy, including the monks at the Benedictine Monastery where you sought refuge care little about your concern for animals, as they indulge in various meats with great piety. Even the dalai lama has been known to eat meat, although his indiscretion pales when compared to the meat orgies of semitic religious feasts.

It is irresponsible to promote the pillars of these religious institutions. They will take the opportunity to capitalize on your compassion and generosity of spirit as evidence that their blood drenched religions are enlightened. The semitic religions have no reason to change their view of animals while they receive support from individuals devoted to compassion (and respect and privileges from the state]. They will hold you up as proof that their cruel values are actually kind. They are anything but. Your praise of these religions insures that they will be able to preserve and perpetuate their cruel doctrine, along with a thin veneer of compassion. Gandhi understood the harm with such collaboration when he stated:

“As you do good, non-cooperation with evil is essential”  

While you portray christianity as potentially helpful for animals, you are aiding and abetting their view of animals which allows them to be slaughtered with ease. You are inadvertently cooperating with the evil of dominion. Please do not allow yourself to be exploited by those who would harm animals.

The dominion religions are quite clear, “the exploitation and slaughter of animals has been granted to man by divine intervention.”  Though sometimes cloaked in gentler language, the intention remains the same. Once this parameter is set into place, it is possible to quibble about the extent of exploitation or the type of slaughter, or which animal may be violated, which not, but it is never possible to end the violence. It is a sacred right.

You state:’ It seems  that followers of great spiritual leaders often desecrate the original teachings of those teachers.’

The doctrine which grants man dominion over animals is cruel by definition. There are some who use softer language and substitute the term stewardship for dominion. This is a clever manipulation of language designed to promote the same vision of animals. Stewardship implies management of one’s resources. This definition designates animals as human property. Once viewed as property it is possible to trivialize the value of their lives to allow for every manner of exploitation. In sum, it’s nothing but a euphemism. Politicians use it all the time; advertising is often built on euphemisms. The military uses it all the time, too, as when they speak blandly of, “collateral damage.”

The false imagery of dominion is as ruthless as its intention – the victimization of animals by their human masters. Dominion, aka stewardship, was never benevolent, nor is not now. as it sanctifies  violence to animals for human advantage.

While it is comforting to hold on to the illusions of the semitic religions we learned as children: that they represent love and are filled with compassion, for the sake of the animals we must let go of this deception. By promoting a Benedictine Monastery as a refuge from violence, you are supporting the very system and institutions that have caused you so much distress…

Better to speak the truth.…  
The dominion religions have resulted in ever escalating animal abuse, as they are based on a premise of tolerated violence to animals. Once such violence is sanctified, there is no going back. It is not possible to build compassion on a a foundation justifiable murder. It is not possible to reinterpret endorsed slaughter and exploitation as compassionate, for at the core this value is so intrinsically cruel it cannot be redeemed, even by dedicated and compassionate individuals such as you.

Your actions are not re-interpreting the teachings of the semitic religions. Dominion by its very nature must allow for slaughter and violence to animals. When you speak of reverence for life you are representing the viewpoint of a very different religious tradition.

When in need of refuge I do not seek out those who caused my distress with their cruel policies. Instead, I turn to those who have always understood that violence to animals is inexcusable. Are you familiar with the Jain tradition? These Jain sutras are a genuine expression of reverence for life.

"For there is nothing inaccessible for death.
All beings are fond of life, hate pain, like pleasure,
shun destruction, like life, long to live. To all life
is dear." Jain Acharanga Sutra.

"All things breathing, all things existing, all living beings whatever, would not be slain or treated with violence, or insulted, or tortured or driven away. This is the pure unchanging eternal law, which the wise ones who know the world have proclaimed..." 
Jain Acharanga Sutra.

"Whatever living beings may have had pain or torment caused by me:
...Whoever I may have separated from life and made lifeless; 
May all that be forgiven and may all the suffering I caused, knowingly or unknowingly, cease. May the ignorance in me that caused pain in other living beings come to an end, and may they all forgive me.
Jain Prayer of Atonement

These sutras are a far cry from Genesis. The monks at the Benedictine Monastery, or for that matter any other institutions of dominion religions, express entitlement not remorse for their meat laden diet.

Ahimsa
“Don’t kill any living beings. Don’t try to rule them.” —Mahavira (Jain Acaranga, 4/23)

In theory and in practice ahimsa has resulted in a greater protection for animals. Though Jains are a small minority in India, the concept of ahimsa has permeated the mainstream consciousness, so that the following  laws and protections for animals have been implemented. These same benefits are not possible for animals in dominion oriented cultures. In India:

• ALL use of animals is banned for testing of cosmetic products.
  
• It is always against the law to confine or harm a monkey
  
• The capture and confinement of sea mammals for exhibition or performance is banned

•   

In India where ahimsa is the foundation for compassion, broad based protective legislation is possible. This is not the case where the semitic religions reign supreme.

Ahimsa is quite explicit. It does not make deals for political power and wealth. It does not objectify victims as possessions to be submitted to the will of man. It is clear and direct and does not apologize for compassion. The intention is to elevate the human condition by encouraging non-violence for ALL who live.

—RE