The Temple and the Diaspora Suffer Identical Problems

 

At first glance, these two problems appear to be as separate as any problems plaguing the planet. The reality, once ones digs deeper, is the two share quite a number of similarities. The similarities are all in the excuses which was driven home to us by this article dealing with excuses for not making Aliyah immediately. This is where the lights started to come on until everything was ablaze washed in bright light. The Jews, especially those living in presumed comfort in the United States; reveal the full spectrum of excuses. We must credit them with one excuse which has no equal when discussing the Temple. So, let’s get this one out of the way first and then continue digging. There are those Jews who have decided that Israel is a nation under siege while the United States is the Promised Land. There can be no building which could replace the Temple as the resting place for Hashem on Earth. Not even the elegant and wondrous structure that is the Chrysler Building. We will add a few pictures below before continuing. Just for additional information, the Chrysler Building was the one Will Smith jumped from in Men in Black III to make his “time jump.”

 

Chrysler Building Montage

 

So, as long as the basic inspiration came from the above link, why not just take things in order. The first reason they cover for when a person will finally be willing to make Aliyah is once they have left the mortal coil and are being buried. The corollary for building the Temple is that it will not be built in my lifetime. When either person using such an argument is pressed to further explain, their answer is often a restatement of their original argument and it is because that is just how it will be, period. Their entirety on the subject is emotional and their way of simply putting the problem off on the next generation or the one after that or whenever in the distant future. About the only thing we can say in their favor is that at least they are willing to allow that eventually the Temple will be built, and by built we obviously are saying rebuilt. The only people who have an even lower expectation are those who claim that the Temple will never be built. These people will claim that the Islamic and Christian structures make building the Temple impossible and the world will never permit our building the Temple. They will claim that even attempting to build the Temple would start a World War with everyone attacking Israel and destroying Jerusalem in order to prevent the building of the Temple. These people are akin to Jews buried in foreign lands.

 

The next argument is a variant on the former argument that the Temple will not be built in my lifetime except they now place the blame on the Mashiach not coming during their lifetime. They may not actually state this because nobody knows when the Mashiach will be sent and arrive to right the world through their bringing of Hashem’s judgement. This is simple procrastination placing an event beyond our control as the point at which we are to begin to build the Temple. One could ask them exactly where the Mashiach is supposed to stay if the Temple is not yet built. If we remember correctly, the Mashiach is supposed to enter Jerusalem and proceed directly to the Temple where the fireworks begin. This would be somewhat difficult if the Temple has not been built. We realize that the Mashiach could construct the Temple through a miracle and having it simply appear revealed by the waving of the Mashiach’s arm, but that is taking the wrong approach, as it demands nothing of us. Of course, the having any demands that we ourselves actually become proactive and actually do something is the problem for many of these people. They simply do not care to be responsible for the accomplishing of building the Temple as their lives are already filled with important tasks that they need to give their full attention and building the Temple, well, that is a really big and difficult item to place on one’s to-do list.

 

The next plan covered is waiting for retirement which all but precludes being much help in building the Temple. Basically, this is a route where you are waiting until the performance of building the Temple will fall on a younger generation. The only credit we can give this group is that at least they desire the Temple be built during their lives, or at least is begun to be built during their lifetime. Still, this is not being all that proactive which we can attest to as we are retired without making any attempt to build the Temple thusfar in our lifetime. To be honest, if given an opportunity to assist with the construction of the Temple, we would jump at the opportunity to learn how to move many tens and hundreds of thousands of tons of stone blocks using nothing more than sound, and in particular, a group of people singing notes in specific harmonics slightly changing pitch in order to direct the huge block of stone into place. And if the method for moving these stone blocks were different, we would still love to learn the secret, as even with modern equipment these stone blocks would present a monumental problem in placement. Even being retired, my singing voice is still as flat and my ears as tone deaf as they ever were, so sonic movement of stones might have not even been my cup of tea.

 

The next argument is absolutely wonderful as it is waiting until the necessary funds are available and will remain untouched except to be used to building the Temple. This is something which should be really easy to accomplish. All that would be required is for the Knesset to set aside a black box funding where the funds are taken aside and placed in the black box which is set aside solely for the construction of the Temple. The politicians would be trusted to never ever, no matter how dire the need, dip their hands into the black box and divert the funds for something which would be popular and buy their party votes. That never happens that politicians divert funds from their intended project into their pet project or to some popular project which has the support or even demand of the populace. The truth is that politicians have a history of spending every shekel available and thus there is seldom if ever an unspent shekel. This is why within a single year of any budget excess the excess simply disappears and new projects appear out of the smoke. The most famous example is from the United States and the lock-box for Social Security. Social Security is currently paid from the General Fund of tax and government revenue. This also has resulted in Social Security FICA payments from people’s paychecks going directly into this General Fund. Reality is waiting for funds to be adequate and set aside for completion of the project is simply another way of pushing the responsibility off onto future generations or even to never being built.

 

We are going to jump ahead a couple of reasons as the next two actually do not fit as well as the rest. The next argument is waiting until Israel is safe so that there is no threat to the Temple. Really, you want to wait until Israel is completely safe with no chance that there might be a threat to building the Temple. We are willing to posit that even were Israel to make peace, a warm and friendly peace, with every nation on the planet; even then, building the Temple would become the target of choice for virtually every terrorist or mentally unstable person’s designs. Such a structure would become the central point for contentions to develop simply because of the great importance the Temple being built would become. Further, the religious implications of the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem and the home-place for Hashem on Earth would cause many religious fanatics to very possibly decide that it was their religious responsibility and their being the chosen from Heaven to prevent the completion of the Temple, especially with it being built by the Jewish State. Just building the Temple would bring instability and threats towards Israel thus making Israel guaranteed to have a level of threat simply because the Temple is being built by the Jewish State. Reality is that Israel will never be completely free of threats from both the outside as well as from within.

 

The next would be waiting until Israel meets some religious level such that Israel is deserving of building the Temple. Such target levels would tend to slowly rise as Israel became more religious until the expectation would become that Israel reach a level of religious observance which would place the people on a level so high as to be all but unattainable. This could result in exactly the same expectation as waiting for the Mashiach to arrive and one could even set this as the measure of religiosity. Further, there is and will likely continue to be a fairly significant secular portion of the community which would never meet any religious standard. Demanding a high level of religious observance is not only similar to waiting for the Mashiach, but also is close to the waiting for the funds to be set aside and ready to go being ample for purchasing all the necessary equipment and supplies. Whenever people tend to set a specific level of some measure of nature, funding, religiosity, coming of the Mashiach or any other measure are more often than not done so as to place the event or project beyond their lifetime such that they no longer were to be held responsible for doing anything to even begin the project. They serve as a more polite version of a procrastination than simply actually wearing the T-shirt which states, “Why put off to tomorrow that which you can delay forever?”

 

The conclusion is that the majority of Jews and Israelis building the Temple is a project for some time in the future at least distant enough to remove any responsibility on themselves. Are there what can only be described as mammoth challenges which would require solving before construction of the Temple could even be considered? Yes, but that can be said about any megalithic construction project. Many will claim that the Temple cannot be placed upon the current Temple Mount, as it would require the removal of other religious sites which will never be permitted. We took measurements of the Temple Mount and of the Second Temple and found that a Temple of similar size could be placed on existing open areas of the Temple Mount without causing any damage or requiring the moving or destruction of any existing structures (see images below). What, then, is preventing starting to build the Temple? Political will is what it comes down to; Israeli politicians lack the political will. This is the problem Israel faces in all too many areas. The IDF could easily sweep through Gaza and drive out or kill every Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists, the criminal elements who support the terrorists, and other terror related individuals and place an emphasis on the decapitation of the terror structures which have driven all the destruction caused by the Gaza terror forces. What prevents them is the politicians and the politicized generals who all fear that the European Union and individual European nations would condemn them and threaten them with arrest should they ever land on their soil. Then there is the favorite reason given at every turn by Prime Minister Netanyahu, the Americans do not want us to change things right now because the time is not right and it would cause them problems. Truth be told, if Israel had been afflicted with this attitude in 1948 there would be no State of Israel today.

 

Temple Mount with Proposed
Options to include Third Temple
Without Destroying or Interfering
Other Religious Structures

 

Yes, President Truman did instruct the American Ambassador to the United Nations to support UNGA Res. 181 which suggested splitting the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea into an Arab and Jewish States. The Arabs refused this deal and instead began a war to eliminate the Jewish presence and the ending result was Jordan holding the Shomron and Egypt holding Gaza, both of these were occupations of Israeli lands. When the Arab League refused to accept UNGA Res 181, all the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea became what they had been promised as under numerous international treaties from just after World War I all of which described the Arab State as Jordan, the lands east of the Jordan River to Iraq and the remaining lands of the British Mandate west of the Jordan River as the Jewish State. There was never any plan for another Arab State until the United Nations decided that they had no reason to obey their Charter and in particular Article 80 which held them to enforce the International Laws established by the Mandate Systems. So, Truman’s directive to support UNGA Res. 181 became meaningless once the Arab League rejected the offer. When Israel declared their independence, they claimed the lands legally theirs from the Jordan River and westward. These are still all Israel today. The thing is 1948 in May the United States State Department, Defense Department and the vast majority of politicians in the United States and most European nations all were against the declaration of a Jewish State and all desired to settle the Arab-Jewish conflict before the formation of a Jewish State that the Arabs would accept. The Arabs would not have ever accepted the formations of Israel as a Jewish State, only if Israel were a Muslim State ruled by Arabs with the Jews as Dhimmi until something more permanent could be worked out to address the existence of the Jews. This is still the Arab position today and none of the Arab states have recognized Israel. Egypt and Jordan did sign peace treaties and hold a cold peace but they did this in order to allow the establishing of the Palestinian Arab claim to Israel, all of Israel. The Arab League realized that the world saw the Arab-Jewish conflict as the Goliath Arab world against tiny little David of Israel. Now they have reversed the role by having the David being the Palestinians against the all-powerful Goliath of Israel despite the fact that the entirety of the Arab world plus Iran supports the different Palestinian terror groups for the destruction of Israel. They just hide their support sending it through NGO’s and United Nations programs as well as having Europe and the rest of the free world send billions over the years to the different Arab terrorists who work towards the destruction of Israel.

 

This should make Israel all the more determined to construct the Temple and claim all the lands which belong to her by International Law. This would include the clearing of Gaza of all those who would work to destroy Israel. The same need be done to the Shomron along with removing those unwilling to live in peace with Israel. There is a historic manner by which the Jewish People are to decide whether others should be permitted to remain within our borders. Everyone is given three choices. The first alternative is that they accept the Noahic Code, the seven laws given to Noah to use for rebuilding the world after the flood using these basic rules for establishing a workable and functioning government and society. In addition, they are willing to accept all Israeli laws when interacting within Israel. These people would be permitted to rule themselves holding elections within their own areas where they are the vast majority but would not be permitted to vote in Israeli national elections, as they would be resident aliens. The next alternative is to leave Israel and not return starting their lives elsewhere. These individuals will be permitted to sell their property or it will be purchased at a fair market price and we will do nothing to interfere with their departure. It might even be possible to allow these individuals to be aided in their relocation. The final group would necessarily include the leadership and ranking people of the Arab terror political and structural hierarchy. This would include the leadership of every arm of the PLO, Palestinian Authority, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, criminal elements, and other specific problem people. These would be the people whose desire is to wage war with Israel in any manner be it terror war, political war, economic war or any other means of attempting to destroy the Jewish State. These people, if they are fortunate and choose wisely, will be outside the reach of the IDF and other Israeli enforcement arms. Those who remain after Israel announces her intent to claim all her legal lands and provide the Arab and other non-Jewish populations with these three choices will be considered to be waging war upon Israel and all necessary force will be brought to bear. These people will be targets which the IDF will target directly and all the land which belongs to Israel including the Shomron and Gaza will be brought back within Israeli control. The Temple will be built and Israel will then remain at peace with all who desire peace and will respond to any form of violence with whatever is required to return the society to peace. Anyone committing acts of terrorism will either be expelled from Israel and never permitted return or eliminated dependent on whether they surrender and leave peaceably or resist and force dire actions. Once Israel has regained control over the lands promised the Jews, these will be the final borders for the Jewish State and will be defended. From this point forward, Israel will remain in peace as long as peace is maintained along our borders.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Jewish Divide Over Trump Very Telling

 

Here’s a news flash that the media thus far has refused to mention, there are many Jews who support President Donald Trump. The media has been quite vocal of those Jews who are vehemently protesting the Trump Presidency. Probably the most telling example has been the Senate hearings to approve his Ambassador to Israel, David M. Friedman. We will gladly grant the media that President Trump’s choice for Ambassador to Israel of David M. Friedman is a novel appointment when compared to previous appointments made by all the previous Presidents throughout Israeli history. There have been Ambassadors, Middle East Special Councils, Palestinian Israeli Peace Ambassadors and all sorts of other appointments made concerning Israel and her Arab neighbors plus the fact that American Ambassadors to the United Nations often have to interdict in matters concerning Israel, especially in United Nations sanctions against Israel often brought by Arab and European nations at the behest of the PLO or Palestinian Authority (PA) which have more often than not been vetoed by the United States Ambassador.

 

All of these past officials have more often than not been career Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) with the remainder have been political appointees. There have been more than a few of the most recent Israeli Ambassadors and Special Appointees who have been Jewish and thus touted as being most obviously as pro-Israeli. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. Some in particular, Thomas R. Pickering, Martin Indyk and Denis Ross have been some of the most antagonistic to the Israeli cause. Both Martin Indyk and Denis Ross were said to be very much favorable to Israel because of their being Jewish which is like claiming that someone had to be favorable to illegal immigration across the southern border because they were Hispanic, an insult and very likely false. Indyk and Ross attempted to force Israel to make concessions in exchange for empty promises which had been given by the PA before and never acted upon or immediately broken often with an in-your-face attitude. David M. Friedman is a different Jew, he is also a Zionist. This is a first for an Ambassador to Israel and many Israelis are expecting great things if only our leaders can be bold, even brash for a change. Some here in Israel have placed David M. Friedman as being to the right and more Zionist than Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu or most of the other Ministers of the Knesset. Additionally, Israelis have begun to believe that President Trump will be good for Israel providing Israel acts good for Israel.

 

Additionally, Orthodox Jews mostly voted for President Trump over Hillary Clinton while Democrat Jews voted almost universally for Hillary Clinton and are extremely upset by her loss and screaming mad over President Trump. During the hearings for Ambassador David M. Friedman there were Jews disrupting the hearings blowing Shofars. Traditionally the sounding of the Shofar other than as part of religious observance has been used as a warning sign often used as an alarm that enemies were advancing or other calamity. Sounding the Shofar at the hearings for the new Israeli Ambassador they were meaning that a calamity was occurring threatening Jewish lives. Their actions were over the top as no lives were being endangered and no emergency was coming for Jews and if anything this appointment was going to be good for Israel, a new page in appointments of advisors to Israel.

 

This brings us to what for us is one of the saddest things we will ever discuss, Israel and the American Jewish left. Often at demonstrations denouncing Israel some of the most virulent demonstrators will come from leftist, liberal Jews. These Jews are more attached to their leftist principles than they are to Torah and Israel. These are Jews who will never consider making Aliyah and were the members of our Synagogue who when we made Aliyah asked us why in the world we would want to go live in Israel of all places. They were stunned that somebody they knew would do something which was such an anathema to them. These were the same members of the Synagogue who had to get past the horror that we might actually be Republicans as we had admitted. Many initially thought we were joking and trying to be funny and some when they realized we actually were Republicans never spoke with us again. Israel has actually become a divisive issue in the American Jewish community.

 

For Jewish Democrats it is a serious problem. There are still a goodly number of friends to Israel remaining in the Democrat Party but their numbers are diminishing and some have actually needed to go underground in their support. Pro-Israel Jews in Reform Synagogues have to act like the Marranos during the Inquisition where they practice their Judaism silently and with little visible evidence at home and were good Catholics in public even to going to church daily and every action including rosaries and confession to avoid the Inquisition and the tortures and death sentences which would be their punishment if their being a Jew was ever rooted out. These new Marranos support Israel but must do so while in conversations in Synagogue or at Temple functions, as most Reform Synagogues refer to themselves as Temples; something less Jewish in its identity, these Jews either remain silent on issues Israel or denounce those sensitive issues such as Bibi Netanyahu, the greatest force of evil in the Middle East.

 

 

For far too many American Liberal Leftist Jews, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has been the reason why President Obama was unable to make peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis and had Netanyahu simply followed the instruction, the orders from on high at the Oval Office, then Israel would have peace. There are no arguments which they would ever accept and they honestly believe that the Arabs would be happy if only Israel would surrender everything to the Green Line and half of Jerusalem and all the terrorism and demands would end. Never mind that Mahmoud Abbas refuses to even say, let alone guarantee, that the terror and violence would end with such an agreement, he has instead stated that any agreement would be but the initial step to the removal of the Zionist entity and that all resistance, that would be terrorism, would continue until the Zionist entity has been eradicated and the Jews defeated completely. Never mind that in Gaza there is Hamas which has promised to murder every Jew on Earth which includes these American Leftist Jews who happily claim that Hamas can be reasoned with. One would think with the history of the Jewish People, especially their recent history, specifically since the last century, that when some group of extremists claim they have designs for the complete annihilation of the Jewish People they would take things like that very seriously.

 

That Israel, and even additionally President Trump to the point of violence and lost friendships, have become the two most divisive issues in the Jewish community is the saddest commentary one could imagine. Israel, the hope and the prayers of Jews for thousands of years now a matter for derision and splitting the community is beyond sadness. Israel and Jerusalem, the final desire of every Seder is, “Next year in Jerusalem” and Psalms 137, Song of Babylon, which demands that as a member of the Jewish People, Jerusalem must be our first love and, allow me to quote, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill (strength). (And) May my tongue cling to my palate, if I do not remember you, if I do not bring up Jerusalem at the beginning of my (chief and most important) joy.” Yet somehow Israel, and even the surrender of the Old City of Jerusalem and the surrendering of the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives Cemetery, has become a sticking point, an issue for debate and for too many simply something too trivial to be bothered with when supporting those for whom Israel is a bother is the real issue. How can Jews unfriend other Jews or shun them in the Synagogue because they support Israel. They demand, ‘how can one support Israel’ which is simply just for those other Jews, those religious Jews, those Jews who are just too Jewish and the ones the anti-Semites hate. They believe that because they support the right causes and they rub elbows with the right people that should the anti-Semites ever get their dream again and Jews are hunted down that they will be granted exceptions because they are those good Jews. They do not realize that to an anti-Semite the only good Jew is a dead Jew. But these Jews would gladly sacrifice those Zionist crazies if it would advance their standing at the club, or even sadly their Synagogue. We hold some truths to be very troubling and beyond our ability to accept. How can there be an ingathering when so many Jews refuse to even accept the concept of a Jewish State, a Jewish People or of Hashem and instead view their Synagogue as just another social club. This makes one remember that a minority of slaves left Egypt with Moses and a similarly percentage returned after they were liberated from Babylonia by Cyrus the Great and the majority either remained in Babylon or migrated to the major cities of Persia.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

One Single Change Would Wipe Out 90% Congressional Corruption

 

If you spend any time on social media you can only come to one conclusion, graft is everywhere except with the less that powerful. The wealthy get away with everything up to and even including murder, though murder is the toughest one to escape. Congress has far too many members who spend three terms, or even two, and if one is astute, one term and walk away as multimillionaires. Many people ask as to how this can be. Many understand and know why this can be and often is. Senators and Representatives are covered by laws which exempt them from insider trading. So if there is a defense bill coming to a vote and the members of Congress know that in six weeks it will pass, it will easily give company XYZ a multi-billion dollar contract which is hundreds of times more than their budget for the previous five years combined. XYZ stock is selling at $1.23 a share six weeks out, so many, but not all as they take turns according to seniority, buy a thousand shares. The bill passes and Wall Street lights up and within two days that stock now sells for $327.77 a share. The Congress members sell their stock at this point making over $325,000.00 for a six week and two day investment in a stock because they cannot be charged with insider trading. This simple trick goes for much more than defense legislation and at every level of government. In the little township, county, city or borough where you live they repair roads, bridges and build parking garages and hire companies to manage all kinds of government projects. Going into such contracts these are often small family businesses with under twenty-five employees and just initially making stock options. That places their stock initially on the volatile IPO (Initial Public Offering) market which is usually the home for high risk, high reward investors and not for the faint of heart. But when you know that a small operation is about to receive a multi-million dollar, multi-year contract that market becomes far less risky and investing becomes a sure bet. This is the sleight of hand, crooked investing which can be found throughout government at all levels. Often those who would prosecute such criminal acts are also clued in on investments when the opportunity is great enough to allow a broad group to make huge benefits without actually raising too much attention. This is why you find so much money going into governmental elections and influencing because the returns are far beyond the pittance invested. Giving a number of city electors a hundred thousand dollars into their election funding and then after they defeat their opponent who received one fifth the amount they will receive multi-million dollar contracts and the city electors investing wisely become millionaires within a few years and move to Tahiti if they are smart, or buy their own newly charted island and refuse extradition to the United States.

 

This is nothing new as it has been how the Senators in Rome maintained their wealth and how the Caesars ruled over these Senators distributing government monies to those who supported them and not the others. The first Caesar, Julius Caesar made a single mistake, he kept the money with the people and refused to feed the graft machine which was the Senate and the commanders of the legions. This resulted in his big day on the Senate steps where he was made into a pincushion using tens of knives as the pins with the final pin, some claim the fifty-first knife, plunged into Caesar’s back by Brutus, “Et tu Brutus?” Wars were fought throughout antiquity to steal the wealth and enrich the King and their closest advisors and generals who commanded the troops protecting the King and winning their wars. Eventually rulers figured out they could simply tax their subjects and by taking a small to modest amount from each subject reap great wealth. Some rulers made the fatal mistake of figuring that if a modest amount granted great wealth, then doubling the tax would double their wealth. That failed as once you cross a critical point draining from the economy the economy becomes unstable and the gravy train dries up and the people revolt. So many greedy kings found their people to be revolting right before they met the guillotine, the sword or other form of execution, some far less noble at the hands of the rabble. Governmental systems have changed, governing has not. Governing is still how to provide the people with sufficient services and comfort while stealing as much as the market will bear enriching the governing. Can this poisoning of government be rooted out and extinguished? Probably not for as Campaign Finance Reform should have taught the people of the United States is that no matter how you rig the game and what you do to take the money from the hands and supporting structures of the elected public servants, they will simply invent some way around the laws, appear not to actually control what they are forbidden, have an indirect but close knot control of these funds and will make away with the wealth in the end. What is more diabolical and evil are those high government employees who are just below the appointed position who are civil servants, thus presumably untouchable by those in power, gaining wealth through careful investing and manipulation of portfolios to take advantage of information which comes across their desks as part of enacting the particulars of legislations. This has gotten far more prevalent as the legislation leaves the entirety of the building and enacting the structures to fulfill the demands of vague legislations thus allowing much of the distribution of contracts and such to these civil servants. There is little chance that these civil servants are all so clean as to not make investments or find other means of enriching themselves. There are far too many very wealthy government employees whose salaries are less than twenty-five thousand dollars a year, how did they become wealthy? Little problem in figuring that out, is there.

 

Shine a Light on Corruption

 

Money is the grease which oils the wheels of government. That remains true to this day and will likely remain true far into the future. The opportunities to become wealthy from being in the right place to hear the next outlay of millions of dollars by government cannot be eliminated until the government is trusted to machines, and then the question will be who monitors and runs the machines. All we can do is alter where the weakest links are placed and thus who gains from inside information. The history of mankind has in part been the history of seeking perfect governance and the failure at virtually every juncture. There was once a governance which was as close to that perfection people seek but is unwieldy as the people must have the faith to trust their safety and protection from other nations and their invasions or other entreaties to an entity they cannot know and claim daily their inability to understand their ruling entity trusting the messengers who claim to be the sole recipients of that wisdom. This was the ruling by Hashem over the initial Israelite Tribes through the prophets and judges. There was not government largess to benefit from its wealth and how it was distributed as all was in the hands of Hashem and there were no government programs. Roads were made by people traveling between locations using the same route which eventually packs the ground making a clear and obvious path, not what you would desire to drive your brand new Lexus across but perfectly fine for your donkey. Even the advances far, far back around 1100 BCE forced the Israelites to demand to have a King like the neighboring nations to lead their army and protect them from the threats emerging around them and Torah records that Hashem told the Judges and Prophets that should the Israelites demand some form of governance to provide them security, then they should be permitted such governance. This resulted in their taking a king asking the leading prophet to anoint their king leading to King Saul. Saul was not the worst of kings or the best, but his reign led directly through some odd circumstance to King David and then King Solomon which was the shining period where the tribes of Israel were united into a singular nation which conquered lands up to the Euphrates River (see maps below showing Twelve Tribes, King David and Solomon conquest and the promised lands for Israel according to treaties from World War I). Following Kings were less successful with the eventual downfall which coincided with a king who was an idolater and placed idols inside Solomon’s Temple, a low point for the Tribes of Israel. Over the next centuries the Israelites managed to throw off tyrants or be granted autonomy under the sovereignty of a greater power. The Israelites were even permitted to build the Second Temple which included Herod building what is today the Western Wall, built over six hundred years before the founding of Islam and about a century before the birth of Jesus. Herod made himself great amounts of wealth, sufficient to build himself a mountain with a castle and burial crypt in the Northern Negev and live a lavish life of opulence simply by giving the people what they demanded, the Temple Complex, and collect taxes in order to provide the people their desires while fulfilling his own. This has been the formula of effective governance for centuries both before and since, especially since. Many of the iconic public works projects, if investigated and audited meticulously would reveal that many within the government and closely tied to people in the governance and especially with the planning of public works gained great wealth. Be the works be a huge clock in the middle of London, a great dock providing thousands of new jobs in Amsterdam or almost any public work one could mention.

 

 

So, how can the vast majority of this corruption, this theft of the public treasure be prevented? The quickest would be to subject politicians and public servants (government workers) to the same laws as the public and demand an accounting of their incomes and investments as well as careful auditing of all contracts. Make all government bids by law be the final price charged with no cost overruns, no additional surprises, and no adjustments or new demands during production that allow for fudging numbers and hiding payouts. Adding that whatever the estimated date of delivery be set such that any time overrun resulting in a percentage of the initial payments budgeted being returned to government as a means of compensating the public for these delays. This would force defense contractors to make realistic and exacting bids instead of making a lowball bid knowing they can increase the cost through delays and cost overrun demands after the initial bid is accepted. The F-35 JSF is a prime example with it coming to delivery a good part of a decade late with cost overruns and technical problems resulting in the price of each fighter costing a good deal closer to double the expected and quoted price. Had these costs been included in the initial bid it is quite possible that the bid might have gone to a competitor. The current development and bidding system used by government contractors, especially in the defense industry, is to guess at what it might cost and to make a bid at three-quarters of that estimate completely confident that the remainder and more sufficient to make the profit desired as well as cover any difficulties along the way. This is a legalized form for guaranteeing theft. If, on the other hand, contractors were made to provide what they promised for the price they bid, and not a plug nickel over, then the bids would be far more realistic and shades higher to cover the expected of the unexpected, or should we simply call it the unplanned snags and other complications. This would allow the government and the voting public, should they be interested, to understand, and know ahead of time, exactly what projects will cost. Currently the public knows that the quoted bids are a ruse and perhaps if they were guaranteed these bids would be the exact delivery price the public might take a real interest. As things are, why bother with the bidding when one really need wait as long as a decade to find out the actual delivery price because there is little or no actual oversight.

 

Government needs to become a business, not a joke, a poke in the dark where truth is a rare commodity and concealed misappropriation the rule of thumb. If a butcher ran his store as governments are run his scale would be off by 10% and he would often have his thumb on the scale as well. Nothing would be as it appears and the rule of buyer be wary would be most necessary. Governments, when designed in democratic based nations, are presumed to be open and to be overseen by the people who by being informed can make solid and reasoned votes for their representatives. Oh, if only this were true. The reality is we elect our candidates or parties, pending on whether we have a representative democracy or a parliamentary system, according to elaborate shows designed to thrill and titillate the public with elaborate deceptions designed to sell the product making it appear more responsible than the governance’s results. The entire production is very Hollywood and just as much a fantasy. This all results in a governance just as deceptive as are the campaigns and the people depicted therein. There is an easy way which we can attest from our experience in running a campaign for the United States House of Representatives where we spent at most $10,000 and received more voted per dollar than either of our high priced opponents despite not quite garnering 3% of the vote (still the record for third party candidates where we ran). Now we feel it is important to point out that this was a campaign for a job which pays $174,000 per year (current salary) for two years for a total of $348,000 total before having to run again. Our two opponents each spent very close to the same amount on their campaigns which was estimated to have been that one spent $1,200,000 and the other spent $2,200,000. These figures for our opponents do not include PAC and Party funds and advertising. Please explain how that explains spending for a job paying $348,000 which only one of us had even a dream of showing a profit unless something else was going on. And Americans complain they cannot figure out what is wrong with their governance. Of course this is not something peculiar to the United States but exists in every government across the world. Democratic nations probably suffer the least from such deception as they do kind of have to answer to the people and when the people get upset, that distress trumps all else. In dictatorial regimes the difference is far more marked as the ruling elite get the best of what is available, that is when there is a best of available to be had. In those places suffering the worst governances imaginable, such as North Korea and Venezuela, eating and having even the necessities can be considered an extravagance. Until we return to Hashem ruling the people or machines keeping humans as their pets, there will be those people using the government for self-enrichment. Always has been and always will be, or so it appears.

 

Beyond the Cusp