It seems that most in the U.S. Congress and Senate are oblivious to the real needs of working people and the insanity of our foreign policy. Ohio Representative, Dennis Kucinich, is one exception to that rule. He was forced out of office by the redistricting scheme of his state’s GOP. He lost last night in a primary election.

Kucinich is one of the few congressman who was actually willing to stand up to presidential administrations and party leaders, both republican and democratic, whether it was against military buildup, the Patriot Act, or the latest defense act which legalizes indefinite detentions. He has pushed to end disastrous trade agreements such as NAFTA. He has been a vocal critic on the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the impending war against Iran. He was one of the few that really stood up for the working man and progressive values.

He has been labeled a Communist, extremist, unpatriotic, and naïve; however, despite all the labels, he is one of the few leaders in Washington who has actually represented the people, not the corporate wealth and militaristic special interests. He will be missed, and I truly hope he finds the way back into the discussion. More, now than ever, the U.S. needs his prophetic voice.

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In recent years, libertarianism has been gaining much support throughout the nation. Many of their objectives are very noble-trying to reduce military spending, ending a needless and bloody war on drugs, reducing the debt, and ending unproductive bureaucracy and waste. However, there is a certain fantasy surrounding libertarianism- that if the government would just get out of the economy everything would be nice and rosy. The problem is that this system has already been tried and found to be wanting.

Now, I know those who support libertarian ideas will say that we never truly had libertarianism, and they might have some truth to this claim. However, we do have a picture of what a libertarian society would look like from the Gilded Age. There are few government regulations in the workplace, so workers get treated like animals. There is no quality public education system; so many children have to go to the factories to work. There are next to no environmental or food regulations, and so the environment and health of the nation suffer greatly as a result.

Another problem with libertarianism is that those who preach it cannot give one solid example of it working in the real world. Those who claim the positives of a more welfare state or socialist system can give the examples of Denmark, Finland, or Norway, which have some of the highest standards of living in the world. What examples can libertarians give? The only examples of societies that were close to libertarianism were not very good places for the majority of the populous. We could give the example of the U.S. in the 1800s or Latin American countries.

Another problem with libertarians is that those who push this economic idea are often led by ideologues and right wing think tanks rather than responsible economists. Why? Because any responsible economist realizes that libertarianism would be disastrous for the masses and ultimately bad for the overall society. After all, it was a lack of government regulation that led us to so much of the current mess we are in. Libertarianism has been pushed by the likes of past ideologues such as Ayn Rand, and modern ideologues like Peter Schiff. Libertarianism may look great on paper, but in reality, it would be disastrous, with a few people controlling everything and the masses struggling to merely  survive.

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Did you know Ancient Israel had a form of welfare, debt cancelation, and a complete redistribution of land? If you find yourself studying the ancient world, you will find that the nation of Israel had a care for the poor and a sense of economic justice far beyond most nations of the day, and I would contend more than most today.

According to the Torah, 1/3 of all the tithes in the country went to help out “the aliens, the fatherless, and the widows.” In a time in history where most poor and needy were left to die or fend for themselves, ancient Israel was commanded to help out the poor and needy among them. Amazing, even by today’s standards, all debts were forgiven every seventh year. Debt was considered a form of slavery, and the idea of people living their whole lives paying off debts to others was not considered congruent with justice. Any collateral “deposit” that needed to be taken for the land was also given back to the original owner whether he had paid back all the debts or not.

All the landowners were required to allow the poor among them to gather some of the crops from their land. The land owners were not allowed to take up all of their own crops; that would have been considered unjust towards the poor and immigrants among them.

The most amazing and revolutionary idea was the concept of Jubilee; every 50 years, all land had to go back to the original family and tribes that originally owned the land when the Israelites had come out of Egypt. No matter what had happened economically, whether you had done very well or very poorly, every 50 years the land would be redistributed so that every family and tribe was a given a fair chance to start again. Can you imagine this happening today? Every 50 years there is a massive redistribution; the rich have land taken from them, and the poor and needy have land given back to their family.

I have been reading this book called Generous Justice by Tim Keller which is really a great read and deals greatly with this subject. Keller states in his book, “The poor man was not to be given merely a token “handout.” Rather, credit and help were to be extended until he was completely out of poverty. The generosity extended to the poor could not be cut off until the poor person’s need was gone and until he reached a level of self-sufficiency. Now we can understand how the passage could say, “There should be no poor among you.” God’s concern for the poor is so strong that he gave Israel a host of laws that, if practiced, would have virtually eliminated any permanent underclass.” Perhaps if our society practiced just a small portion of this we wouldn’t have the disgusting inequality and injustice that so often prevail.

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Ronald Reagan stated towards the end of the Cold War, “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Perhaps during this time with the fear of Communism, I can see where he was coming from. From the 1950’s to the  early 90’s, there was a growing distrust in government. There were domestic issues involved; however, one of the biggest reasons for this fear was the growing Soviet threat and the fear of a totalitarian government. However, let’s skip back to the time of the Great Depression. For the majority of Americans, it was not governmental over involvement they worried about, it was government under involvement. They had seen how destructive the free market and capitalistic system could be without government oversight. Fortunately, Roosevelt came in and made many needed changes to help set up a more stable system.

Today, we find ourselves in an interesting situation. For one, we have just witnessed a great economic disaster, brought on by many factors-but one of them certainly being a continued lack of financial regulation- which started with Reagan until George W. Bush. Hopefully, we have learned the lesson which was learned during the Great Depression- that the free market system is not sufficient to deal with all the issue of our society. We have a society, where contrary to popular opinion; taxes are very low for the rich compared to where they were before the 1980’s. The gap between the rich and poor is even greater and the middle class is shrinking by the day.

However, we still have this Cold War mentality that makes us extremely distrustful of the government, while not nearly as fearful of pure unregulated Capitalism. I am sure if we could bring back the workers from the Industrial Revolution they could tell us how horrendous and terrifying pure Capitalism can be. The problem with holding on to this extreme distrust for the government is that it limits us from really progressing as a society. While other nations have long ago realized the importance of government involvement in the health, environmental, and financial sectors, we still tend to label it with hot button terms like “socialism” and “totalitarianism”. Of course, many of these nations with more government oversight fared much better in the recent economic downturn. However, my question is this. Do we believe in the Democratic system we have in our nation? As imperfect as it is, it still represents the voices of the people. We still have a chance to elect and throw out elected officials. What choice do we have in a purely Capitalistic society? .none. As we have seen, Wall Street Execs and Bank CEOs usually don’t look for the interest of the common person. It truly saddens me when I see the people out shouting about “government totalitarianism” while ignoring the great danger of a lack of government restriction. They are playing right into the hands of the people who want nothing more than to exploit them to make sure that their fortunes are increased.

At the end of the day, we have to move beyond this mindset. We can’t see government as the enemy. Because in the end, we are the government in a democracy. Does there need to be limits? Of course. Does there need to be a balance between Capitalism and Government Intervention? I believe so. However, let us not allow the fears of the past keep us from the needed changes we have for today. I love how FDR put it, “Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country”

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