The Torah: American veterans cannot be helped by a god-like government

In the USA, we are taking these days about a new scandal – failure of the government to take care of the military veterans. Almost everybody is blaming the government for the failure and demanding from the government bold actions to resolve the problem. Here is an excerpt from one of those demands at

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/05/23/va-scandal-spotlights-obamas-inaction/

“You pick: Benghazi, IRS, ObamaCare, the VA…President Obama’s ineffectual leadership and mismanagement of the administration’s scandals paints the same picture: a surprised, reactionary White House that didn’t know, quick with rhetorical outrage and meek in response and accountability. The current scandal has understandably provoked an outcry for swift and decisive action by the president over the mistreatment of veterans at VA hospitals. Don’t hold your breath. The studious go-slow Obama approach is once again onscreen. For Republicans looking to gain control of the Senate the president’s inaction paints a perfect target on Democrats, especially vulnerable incumbent Senators. Truly, the GOP couldn’t ask for a better scenario to drive home its point that government is too big and poorly run by this group. What Speaker John Boehnercalls “systemic failure” is becoming a common phrase heard from Republicans. A point they will no doubt be driving home when it comes to the midterm contests.”

However, we are trying to force the government to do what it is not capable to do “by design”. It is not capable to help the veterans as it has been trying to do for a long time because – in violation of the First Commandment – the government has created out of itself a god and is dealing with the veterans as a god. This statement may sound crazy but let me prove it.

The First Commandment says: “You shall not have any gods before me”.

Oxford dictionary says: “God is the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority”.

Not only an imperial president Obama but the majority of senators and congressmen believe they are creators and rulers of the USA universe and they are source of all moral authority in our country and beyond. In this respect the two ruling parties, Democrats and Republicans, are not too far from each other and they use “checks and balances” for strengthening their power – not for limiting their power to avoid becoming a “god”.

Many people are asking a reasonable question – why should we be scared of a god-like human government which is helping us to build a better society, to improve our personal lives, to enforce our moral rules …Unfortunately that is impossible, and it is impossible since the True God and a human god are similar only in the name – the purpose of their existence is completely different.

The True God is all-mighty by definition and doesn’t need to convince anybody of the humans in His power – He created general rules for the humans for building a God’s “better world” and let all humans compete in this endeavor.

A human god, or a god-like government in this capacity, needs to convince everybody in its sphere of influence that it is indeed all-mighty. And the most effective tool in this “convincing” is eliminating the dissent and human competition in building a “better world”. In democratic societies the elimination of competitors is being done by creating a voting majority which depends on “freebies” from the god-like government – “freebies” on everything including food, housing, health, clean environment … and everything else one can imagine. Rewards for being a member of god-like governments are immense – they have power and material wealth that are much greater than an ordinary person outside a god-like-government circle has. And those rewards are so corrupting that even an honest person entering the circle with a goal of changing it may be easily corrupted.

That’s why the Bible-obeying founders of our country limited the power of government to a bare minimum – mostly to securing the ability of people to compete with each other in building a “better world”. This limitation was a practical implementation of the First Commandment aimed at preventing a government from becoming a god. Unfortunately this limitation is no longer being enforced, and the problem with poor treatment of veterans is the result of it.

In a Torah/Bible-based way, the best approach to veterans’ care would be to provide certain amount of money for each veteran which the nation consider reasonable and affordable and let each veteran to find in a competitive health market a treatment he/she needs. The competition would provide a best available treatment for a lowest possible cost – that’s how the free-market system works. To provide best available treatment at lowest possible cost a private provider has to be inventive and take risks.

The god-like government system works in a completely different way. A god-like-government bureaucrat may be dismissed not for not providing best possible service for a lowest possible cost by rather for failures. So the chief goal in his/her work is to avoid failures – that means to avoid any innovations and risks. And that’s what the managers of Veterans Affairs Administration of the US god-like government have been doing – they were not doing innovations and taking risks to improve the veteran’s care – they were not doing all that to protect their salaries, bonuses, perks …

That’s a heavy price the nation is paying for violating the First Commandment and creating a god-like government. Unfortunately, most of our rabbis and Christian religious leaders don’t connect the First Commandment to our real political life.