In discussions about policy -- such as weak vs strong government participation in the lives of their citizens -- my natural inclination as a trained scientist (UC Berkeley, 1977) is to ask "what is the evidence?". There is much evidence that a strong, government-imposed safety net helps the working and middle classes in countries such as Germany. As I review the world, I cannot see a single country in which a weak government has been able to keep the rich from riding roughshod over the middle class, until the middle class often simply disappears. It is weak, not strong, governments that end up being taken over by the wealthy.

Perhaps someone here can show us a country in which the middle class has prospered under weak government participation..

--- On Tue, Jan 14, 2014, Bruce Schuman wrote . ---

Dear Nassim --

Thank you for this very well-written and interesting reply. Much appreciated, and very evocative. You have a powerful vision, and there is indeed a lot of overlap in what you say with anything I might hope to do. I'd like to look for those points of overlap, and build on them -- and then look for possible points of difference -- and explore how it might be that "spirit" or religious/ethical attunement in a "diverse" context might help lead us closer to "a world that works" -- indeed, to a world that you and I might agree is working....

"NO LABELS" SPIRITUALITY

This morning, a couple of leading politicians in the USA appeared on the "Morning Joe" television program, a three-hour very-early morning show that often brings together the most talented and influential political leaders in the USA.

They were representing an interesting "transpartisan" political group called "No Labels" -- a leading force in the USA for a new kind of politics that brings together contending points of view. Their purpose was to announce a new eBook on "fixing America" -- which I immediately purchased.

http://www.nolabels.org

I have been involved with the "transpartisan" political movement for maybe 8 years -- looking for a politics or governance system that overcomes the bitter divisive character of most political interaction in the USA today.

Questions and issues, such as those you raise in your comments, tend to evoke high-intensity and rather short-tempered responses from the majority of Americans. Political leaders, within this existing two-party system, with its own self-serving agenda and powerful grip on our national governance, tend to act as "team players" -- where the welfare of their "team" (their political party) tends to take precedence over the national welfare. Of course, this is a complex situation with many factors in play -- but the net result is something like absolute gridlock in Congress -- where "nothing gets done" -- and the nation gets angrier.

"Everybody AT the table -- everything ON the table"

When I first heard about the NoLabels group, I was very attracted to their simple absolutely inclusive motto -- "everybody AT the table -- everything ON the table". My thought as a transpartisan organizer was -- "Yes, let's do exactly this, and frame the process on the internet, so as to make available the huge channel capacity that this absolutely inclusive political vision demands."

The thought was something like -- "Let's get 50,000,000 people in a single interconnected conversation", dealing with absolutely every issue that is worth talking about brought into play -- with issues organized by "location of relevance" -- so that local issues are discussed by local people.

I would say that the "Circle" -- http://circleapp.com -- model I mentioned the other day could grow into a conversation like this.

Let me a take a little more time to absorb your comments, and I will respond in some kind of dialogue.

In the meantime -- maybe we could all think a little bit about the underlying Interspiritual vision -- of a universal spirituality that is -- like the politics of "No Labels" -- beyond all "labels" -- a truly universal model or understanding of how humans are connected to Oneness (pick your term), and to one another through Oneness (pick your model and language) -- and how, in this context, the human community can jointly consider the vast array of interconnected/simultaneous ("holistic and integral") issues that we face today -- in this huge complex spectrum that is the full range of joint considerations, arranged through a cascade of geographic levels descending from global (where we all share absolutely everything), through various "regional" levels (continents, nations, groups of nations, states, provinces) to intimately local levels (cities, towns, villages, neighborhoods, individual families....)

All of this -- could be engineered, in a fundamental "parsing of the space" -- and all of this -- could be organized within the mantle or containing embrace or holistic inclusion of a universal wholeness and "spiritual round table" where indeed -- "everybody was at the table -- and everything was on the table".

Is this what we should be doing?

My guess is -- yes.

I'll come back to respond to the details of your comments, Nassim. Again, thank you so much. You brought a lot of yourself to this elegantly-written statement, and it shows.

--- On Tue, Jan 14, 2014, Nassim Kamdar wrote ---

Hi Bruce.

Despite the risk of becoming a little long winded, I will share with you further my thoughts on this subject.

In the pursuit of true freedom, many ideas we currently hold may have to change. One of these is that we need someone “big” to tell us how to live or there will be chaos in society. The chaos we experience is because of the actions of government and the little peace we have is in spite of all that they do.

Allow me to explain.

If we accept from the outset that no one has any right to force his views upon another, irrespective of what that view is and irrespective of how correct that view may be in his opinion, that view cannot be forced upon anyone else (so the President or Congress/Parliament/Duma etc cannot tell others what to do). If this is accepted, then we agree that should someone choose not to accept my sage counsel, that is his loss, but I cannot force him to follow my advice and I cannot do this under any pretext, including the one that I am acting in his best interest. When we act on behalf of someone else it MUST be with their consent, except in an emergency and on a temporary basis, such as when putting out a fire and the owner is not there to approve.

That being settled I will address some of the points raised

Communities form when people come together for their mutual benefit, usually because they reason that their liberty and freedom will be protected against assault from outsiders. They will not remain within the group if it becomes a source of aggression against their own freedom, and people WILL migrate unless they are kept prisoner by passport and emigration impositions. That is why these impositions do not serve freedom but are the walls of our prisons and must be removed. That is why the US was supposed to be made up of independent States, so that people could remain free by migrating without any hindrance if they so chose, and not to become a monolith that imposed equal subjugation upon everyone

Ones relationship to others in the group depends upon ones own conscience, values and beliefs, hence birds of a feather will flock together. No one has any right to impose his values and force its compliance by others. No one has any duty to others in the group except in terms of his own conscience and beliefs. When forced to act against ones own values, it is an abomination. No “group” can claim the right to impose obedience upon its members, unless this was a condition of membership which they had agreed to in advance. In the absence of consent, this action is an imposition and a gross violation of their right and freedom. Neither can their wealth be confiscated for the benefit of others against their will.

By the nature of things, if one group becomes too successful at the expense of others, the starving will organize and crush the wealthy because they will outnumber the wealthy by a large margin. What we have today is suppression of the poor by the wealthy who control government, and hence the poor cannot obtain relief. Their plight is not because of a weak government but because of a government that is too powerful and controlled by those that need to be deposed, and worse still, the wealth of the poor is confiscated in taxes by the wealthy to serve themselves and they do it in terms of laws they fashion and impose for their own benefit. The masses of “society” are slaves and any thought of them “acting in the interest of the community” is superfluous when one has no control over ones own destiny.

If I am homeless or sick I will perish unless I use my God given talents to make a difference for my self. Survival of the fittest forces man to become fit. Our systems encourage laziness and dependency and that serves no ones interest. We will learn very quickly how to be productive and successful because there is no “easy way out” such as unemployment benefits etc. And these will not be needed if people are left alone to exercise their talents. The red tape and government restriction we are subject to makes it impossible for people to get on their own feet, and it is not because we are incapable, it is because government controls are there to protect the interest of the huge conglomerates (military –industrial complex) and will not allow us to be free of their clutches (how else do we describe social benefits). The people of the world are becoming destitute because those in power know that is how they will retain the power they now wield.

Does the public land belong to anyone in particular? So why should I not park my car where I want as I want, and you can do the same if you so wish. The result, people may voluntarily choose to make use of or create transport systems that obviate the need to park cars. We solve the problem without anyone having to force upon me some arbitrary rule as to where I can park and for how long; until a stage is reached where every opportunity is taken to turn legitimate action into acts of misdemeanor and we are punished, not because we are bad or wrong, but because it is another tax that we the poor will be forced to pay to the rich (parking fines for trivial violations of unreasonable conditions).

The banks own us because the laws they have made allow them to make money out of fresh air and we must pay a fee to use that money. Blow the laws away and we will come up with alternatives that promote our wealth and freedom, not the confiscation of our wealth by the banks.

I like to believe that the system you advocate is the one that I am advocating also, because it will allow people to come together and live as they want to without imposition from others, so those who want to live amongst people who put others first may do so and others who feel their own interests come first will act likewise, without either feeling obliged or harassed to conform to the values of the other.

Our task is not to decide what the values should be by which people live, but on the means on how to bring about a framework within which each person may live by his own values, and he may do so as long as nothing he does violates any rights of mine.

Our mistake is that we become preoccupied with the values we expect people to live by ( who can emigrate, what people should pay their hired help, what is an accepted gender orientation, should one abort ones child, what you may or may not do on your land or property etc) and in the process encroach upon their private domain, and at that point we become part of the problem, and no longer a part of the solution.

Let me give an extreme example. My neighbour abuses his dog. I am offended. I call the law to intervene. If there was no “law” that forced the neighbor to keep his dog on a leash, the dog would have run away and ended the abuse. Two wrongs do not make a right (we make laws that keep the dog in detention then insist on forcing the neighbour to act contrary to his nature).

Why do we need to worry our little heads about whether people will be responsible in how they park their cars when most people cannot even afford one?

Let us stop telling people what their values and duties and obligations should be, and worse still, imposing these values, duties and obligations upon them. Instead, let us become ambassadors for our own values by living out our values. If people are attracted by what they see, they will be driven to adopt our values as their own. No coercion needed. If they find no merit in it, they will avoid it, and that is their right.

Governments of today believe it is their duty to tell us how to live our lives. I think this puts in clear perspective where a large part of the problem lay.

The purpose of the circle in my view is to make it possible for all shapes to find a place of their own within its encompassing borders; to make it possible for everyone to explore his and her own full potential knowing that the common criterion we share as a part of that “circle”, is that we end where we began, from dust unto dust, and so too the circle ends where it began, and that is what makes the circle complete, but being a circle it repeats itself, and only a system that protects our freedom to be who we wish to be and in the manner that we wish it to be is worth recycling generation after generation.

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