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Fall 2000
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Comments of the President
By Robert J. Loewenberg
Florida
An
American poet once called Florida "venereal soil." Like all poets he hoped it
might mean something after he died; immortal words so to speak. Now we know
what's venereal in Florida: swapping the electoral college, a republic for a
plebiscite, for "democracy." Is there an American unraveling in process?
Four
years ago, as you may recall, we held one of our rare conferences. It was called
"Israel: the Advanced Case of Western Afflictions." In a nutshell, the theme was
Israel was unraveling before our eyes and would, before anyone expected it, be
reduced - as now it is - to defending neighborhoods in Jersualem like Gilo, or
to daylight celebrations of the Arab murders of Jews, soldiers too, in Ramallah
five miles away. Is Israel going to survive? That's a question you need to
consider after reading our website.
Will
America Survive?
But
there's another question. America seems to be catching up with the "advanced
case." Is America going to survive?
Our shorthand word for the "affliction" can be seen in Florida right now.
"Kill the electoral college?"
The word is democracy.
Israel
advertises itself, from the rooftops, as a "democracy." In the Jewish world this
word is next to godliness (which comes after it). Whatever you may think this
word means, say in a dictionary, what it means in practice today is the
unlimited state or, to say it another way: one state - no nations ("Israel," you
get it?)
The
unlimited state - naturally the opposite of what we at IASPS think Israel (and
the U.S.) need to survive or limited government - means no limits on the State.
A plebiscite is unlimited government. For example, the now promised (by Hillary
Clinton, she was the first) U.S. amendment to the Constitution to abandon the
electoral college (they are still calling it the electrical college on the radio
and TV) is the lesson of Florida.
But
before you join that effort won't you consider this? The electoral college is a
limit on the State, on the central government, perhaps among the most majestic
symbols of limited government adopted by the founders. The electoral college
institutionalizes the federal principle of limits on the State in election
itself and, as part of this, the college raised the still higher principle of
limited government (called republicanism, not "democracy," by the framers of the
Constitution).
The
idea behind the electoral college was to install, in the act of voting itself or
the mechanism by which the governed endow rulers, a way to short circuit the
ultimate relationship of tyranny: the solitary individual and the State. The
ultimate relationship of tyranny.
The
plebiscite is the ultimate and defining relationship of tyranny. One man one
vote is tyranny? Well, yes it is. More exactly the slogan "one man one vote" is
the tyrant's shorn sheep. It shaves off the protections of the private realm and
leaves a naked, shorn and solitary individual. This is a man without a last
name; without a place; without a sex, a race, a religion, a history. He/ she/it
is liberated from families, religion, property, law, non-governmental things of
every kind both natural and conventional, all things that limit the State, so
that, in the case under consideration here, the act of voting itself, the
individual votes away his freedom.
Such
a being is not tolerant of others. He is others. This is to say that "freedom"
or limits begins with having a name. (Don't give anyone your first name when
they ask for your name on the phone. It's not friendliness that prompts them to
say "Hi Hillary." It's a misguided bent for tyranny.)
The Electoral College
But
then freedom is only the limits. In this case, the case of voting, the limits
are yet again aspects of personal intervening identities that shore up a man's
otherwise lonely solitariness. In the electoral college these are state
identities, the 50 separate states. Here are more memberships, groups, laws,
institutions of every kind that are not the State: state laws, property,
institutions and so forth that distance the solitary individual yet further from
the State, and in this pertinent but also symbolically effectual way, from
others in their states. The government itself is made an instrument of
limitation of the State. And, to say it again, the states by way of the
electoral college at the occasion of electing national or State officials become
themselves limitations on power.
But
now it seems everyone is ready to give this up. It's not democratic. So let us
be clear. Again, the "affliction" that unraveled Israel and will just as surely
unravel America is, well, just this: democracy. Absolute equality comes with
this price. It confers absolute equality on every person so far as he is
solitary, meaning so far as he is not protected from the State in the natural
and conventional things that limit the State.
So
it comes to this. First, I hope you'll keep those cards and letters coming.
Next, there is quite a little difference between "democracy" such as it now
exists in Israel and the U.S. and the republican order conferred upon Americans
by the framers. It's about the difference as between night and day.
Making
the Point
