This Obama Supporter has his own list of concerns.

Letter to Obama campaign solicitor sent via email on Friday, December 30, 2011 (edited here in part to make the blog entry read well).

Dear Sir:

Rufus. Assuming you are not a computer generated solicitor, perhaps you can forward my email to a real live regurgitator of public comment.

Who am I?   I supported Barack Obama by taking on more credit card debt as I had no other way to assure for my part the end of eight years of Bush-Cheney conduct.  Let Wall Street and the Finance Industry know I will do it again.  What do I want in return?  Well, I have a list (see below). 

I want someone in the campaign to see and react to my list (not a machine but a machine politician).  I do not expect my list will become the platform of the Democratic Convention in 2012.  I just want the world to know that Obama supporters are united solely and principally because the Republican party has no moderate wing and is the lackey of the wealthy and powerful who have the most to lose from government regulation (i.e. Wall Street and Big Business) and federal taxation to pay as we go.

President Obama deserves my vote not because of his right of center and open mindedness to include the minority Republican legislators, but because he actually does care to make government work while the naysayers in Congress glee fully cheer each other on with the power of "NO."

So here's the list:

 I want someone to really reinvent government, not just talk about it.

(1) I want the return of the U.S. Postal Service by the nationalization of the internet for use by the public at limited expense. Benjamin Franklin was not just a founding father, he was thee founding father. He would not have let the entire playing field be subverted to private ownership at the expense of the public good. The Constitution does not prohibit public takings by eminent domain, so this time let it be a public taking of the really fat cats who want to control the playing field including Google. Let these private vendors have the use of the public highway but pay the fare.

(2) I want the war debt financed by sale of bonds to Red China to be retired expressly by a surtax without exception on all the wealth of this country.  Slowly and over time so as not to hobble the economy.  Why? Because the effect of not raising taxes to pay for two foreign wars was to create a flat tax on everyone, but the revenue did not go to the U.S. Government, it went to privately held corporations which had the no bid contracts for war munitions and related expenses of war, including private contractors for black opps and prisons and internment camps and violence to prisoners (denominated torture).   I believe that a trillion dollars appeared in our government debt during the Bush/Cheney years due to the transfer of wealth to the military/industrial complex and that the transfer had nothing to do with prosecuting the criminals that wrecked havoc on September 11, 2001.  In hindsight, the money was used to alienate the Moslem world and rid this country of a government surplus that was actually money that was owed the Social Security System when past revenues of the payroll income tax were used in fighting the Cold War and the Gulf War.

(3) I want the draft reinstituted again without exception with those medically unfit having to do alternative public service.   Why?  Because our Gulf War Vets and our Iraq War Vets and our Afghanistan Vets and their families know that their lives nobly supplied by them provided the war mongers with the fodder for senseless wars that left this country morally and financially bankrupt.  The little guy war criminals were prosecuted but the bigwigs in the Administration that wanted war and wanted the munitions industry and private contractor industry to prosper needed it to assuage those who had seen to the election of the Bush Administration.  The "tax" on our noble soldiers and their families should mean a pox on the rich and powerful that made up a pretext for the Iraq War (there were no weapons of mass destruction except the gas which the U.S. government gave to Saddam Hussein to use on the Iranians during the Iraq-Iran War and which Saddam, the dastardly rogue, used on his own Kurdish citizens).  The Pentagon has adapted to the all volunteer army all too well.  There is no push back from Congress because the volunteer army is premised on the paycheck, not on the draft.  There are no Vietnam era protest movements because there is no draft.  In a democracy that is a failure of will of the governed to control their own government.

(4) I want the hobling of young people who pursue educational advancement post secondary to stop, and to stop now.  The education industry like the medical industry (especially the medical insurance industry) needs to suffer a little along with the rest of us in this economy.  The money is being spent by the wealthy and well fixed in this country while huge numbers of people are being left behind, but no more sadly than the generation in their 20s and early 30s educationed and then reduced to economic shambles by their government, their schools, and Wall Street.  Gosh, the fig leaf was to allow these young people to stay on their parents health insurance policies certain conditions being met.  The dirty little secret is that private industry still takes the best of other country's young educated with special visas to work in this country while our young educated go begging, and that includes the children of immigrants born in this country (see number 6 below).  Good for innovative progress in America, yes; but impoverishing of a third world country that needs medical doctors and innovators to compete in a world economy.

(5) I want the federal government to stop the support of cookie cutter public education. Why? Not every child is a math/science end product for the war, industry, and finance industries. The Pentagon and Wall Street will always have the cream of the math/science crop because of the nature of human greed. Public education was always about educating the child, the future citizen of a democracy, who has the tools to exploit their natural gifts whatever they may be, including music and the arts.

(6) Immigrants are the future of this country and having them adapt to American democracy is the most important preparation for a truly American future. We can not preserve our way of life, our freedom, and our standard of living, without exploiting the immigrant and the chidren of immigrants. The world is at our footsteps but in no way is that metaphor more graphic than when you see the boot that is placed upon the throat of children of immigrants as if they were foreign to our system of laws and government. We want them and need them. I say that as a soon to be 62 year old who has to live for the most part on my social security income.  We spend enormous resources trouncing the little  immigrant for fear he may take a fellow citizen's job.  Yah, right?  Garbage hauling or shingling or child care.  So to the rich of this country hire the citizen and make sure the payroll taxes are made by you.  The hiring of illegal immigrants is the crime and the consequence should be a really harsh fine.  The illegal immigrant is not a criminal.  He or she is a person who like all Americans wants an economic future.

(7) I do not understand how the President and Democratic Congress can support the curtailing of payroll tax to pay for future payments for medicare and social security recipients. I get it that in providing more dollars in the pockets of little people the economy is more likely to recover sooner.  The reality is that the money siphoned off from the "social security trust fund" to pay for foreign wars has to be returned by a tax on the wealthy.   Why?  Capitalism is most effective when government is its servant. Government speeds the pooling of capital for the rich which it has done consistently over my lifetime. I have paid for the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Afghanistan War, and the Iraq War plus dozens of little Reaganesque adventures in foreign policy (the kid stuff). All of these wars impoverished our economy and the planet when better wiser governance would have avoided them all. It's a dirty rotten shame that the war monger's attack the patriotism of those who question their motives whom they shouted down and whom they beat up with jingoism, rant, and cant with  their chanting to start a war.  The little people always pay for war, while the rich get richer.  The wealthy have the means to protect their income stream (i.e. ask me why I detest "Obama Care" sometime and I will tell you that the compromises were about providing a continuing stream of revenue into the medical and medical insurance industries).

(8) Tax sanity is needed.  The graduated income tax is the fairest tax when it is regulated to provide the stream of income to pay as we go (and prevent deficits).  The Republicans and Democrats too have undermined this tax for myriads of reasons (which is way of politicians).  The hypocrisy of the Republic Party today is that it attacks this tax as if it were the cause of retardation of investment and job growth.  Congress should spend more time being sure the funds are honestly, accurately, and effectively well spent then designing loop holes and curtailments of the revenues of the graduation income tax.  Also, the estate tax (called the "death tax") is a separation tax on the wealth of the decedent before the heirs and assigns take the remainder (here one is not talking about surviving spouses who have their own protections in the law) and we are not talking about family businesses in which the owner did not fail to provide for a handoff to his children in his lifetime due to control issues and timely relinquishment of power.  If you do not want to pay the estate tax, then divest yourself in your lifetime.  Try a family trust, or for God's sake why not a charitable trust.  I say to the extremely wealthy of this country whose estates are subject to this tax upon their death:  "You have the means to provide a different outcome and so do it!"  To those whose inheritance or bequest is reduced by the tax, I will say the solution is to have all wealth over a certain dollar amount revert to the state.  Period.  End of story.  Too bad.  You will have to go to work now, like the rest of us poor blokes!

(9)  Lastly, but certainly foremost in this list, is let's watch out for the future.  By this I mean our children and grandchildren who will look back and say of us gluttons of natural resources, "Why did you not do the effective thing to save the planet when there was yet time on the clock?"   And now the federal government is allowing the hydralic fracturing of the oil basins putting at risk the contamination of artesian wells and polluting the aquifers of the American West. We permitted the damaging of the Gulf of Mexico and now we are going to do the same to our precious watersupply and aquatic wildlife of our rivers and streams all over again. 

Richard Hilber
This list originally appeared in a slighter version in an email to

Rufus Gifford, BarackObama.com

info@barackobama.com

after Mr. Gifford solicited for campaign funds.

The email I sent was dated Friday, December 30, 2011.

Critical Obsession Requires of Critic a Higher Standard

"Judging a person does not define who they are; it does define who you are."

Quote/paraphrase provided by Sobriety is Sexy.

Not sure who said it originally. The comment below is tangential but inspired by the quote.

I see this quote is part of Sober is Sexy, but sobriety for a critic (as opposed to the alcoholic or chemical abuser) is looking the other way. I would say that the axiom is true enough. Pointing the finger at another means four fingers are pointing back at you the critic.

Objectivity though is required. Why? Because beauty is in the eye of the beholder but then so is evil, especially if we look away. As observers do we look away or do we report the cold hard facts of human failures of ourselves and our fellow citizens of this planet.

I thank those who disclosed wrong doing and did so at great personal expense. I am thinking of Wikileaks and its sources. The critic though is required to have judgment, not just courage and to hold oneself to a higher standard (being of sound mind and good judgment).

Sad thing is that we are so numb from looking in the other direction as we strive to pay our bills and keep afloat, that we all become part of the system. Hope? Yes, but only by looking at the cold hard facts and seeing what is our part in moving past our wrongs and making things right in this country and the world. This works on the micro and macro level.

Those who will prosecute the sources of disclosures of government wrong doing are answerable to we the people. I hope they remember that as they go about the dirty work of protecting government secrets, secrets which are actually cover ups of international crime and malfeasance by those in power in the world.

I know this comment is a tangential one for those who honor their sobriety. As citizens in a democracy though we have no place to hide on being critical of those with wealth and power who abuse the privileges of rank and wealth.

 In closing then a reminder to we of the critical mind:

The end of courage and good judgment is to die with hope that we have left the world a better place than we found it!

Comment originally appeared on my facebook page entitled:

Holding oneself to a higher standard as a critic of the conduct of others.

by Rick Hilber on Friday, December 30, 2011 at 8:51pm

Christmas Came Early This Year and Stayed Late

Recently, I submitted a poem for inclusion in my home church's advent meditation reader.  The reader is entitled Deeper Joy and was published by Fairmount Avenue United Methodist Church and edited by our pastor,  Rev. Michelle M. Hargrave.  Intended to be an advent devotional, I wrote the poem specifically for the group effort by our congregation.  When my poem was selected and published as the devotion for December 1, 2011, I felt deeper joy than maybe I am entitled to feel.  As I reread the poem I realized the persona in the poem was for me my mother who was grandmother to over fifty grandchildren and godmother and patron of many more.  The poem starts out in my voice but by the end of the poem my mom is talking.  Way cool!  I will channel that woman any time.  As my brother Tony commented on facebook:  "That lady knew the pathway to heaven."  Reproduced below is my gift to all my readers this advent season here on my blog.  Merry Christmas.

What Child Is This One I Cradle Tonight

by Rick Hilber

What do you say about God's being?
Is it restricted to existence
An existence such that science can analyze God
Like a fly under the microscope?

If God is in being, is he also not in being?
Does the phrase "Supreme Being"
Denote God's existence only?

What if God is also, not in being,
But Creator of being?
What if God chose and choses to enter into being?

Would he come as an infant?
Would he be born into a loving home?
Would he go hungry?
Would he be put to death for his ethnicity,
Or his gender?

Where would this child find comfort
When he was wet, hungry, or cold,
Or wanted simply to be held?

It is no small wonder,
A human child cradled into this life,
An everyday event,
Which is Christmas.

Angels Make Due With Emissary Role and No Sizable IRA or 401K

To my delight I had a brush with death today.  I'd had a rough night and ended up at 2:30 PM on my knees saying my prayers.  The bad thoughts dispersed and I was able to fall into a deep sleep, only  awakened by my cellphone alarm at 5 AM.

    I was leaving early from rural Osceola, Wisconsin, so as to make it home to St. Paul and Sunday morning services at Fairmount Avenue United Methodist Church with adult education at the 9 o'clock hour.   The topic was going to be angels with angels in art collection to follow.

   But before that class, I had to travel down 35E into St. Paul.  I was about to veer right onto the St. Clair Avenue exit when all of a sudden a police car was bearing down on me at high speed lights flashing and siren wailing.  I hoped it was headed south down the freeway, but I was wrong.  My thought was illogical as the police sedan was right behind me.  I do not remember veering further right on the exit lane but the squad car screamed by on a single lane exit with me nudged right.  It occurred to me that I had not time to steer right to make room for him, but there was room for him to race by my vehicle.

   At the top and on St. Clair I had to pull to the right and let other squad cars speed by to stop just two blocks past the city park and recreation center.  I turned north on Victoria to avoid the blockade I could see ahead of me on St. Clair.

   Later at adult education when the program had finished I had a friend approach me to say she had not really figured out angels yet.  I told her there was nothing to figure out.  You only had to accept the presence of angels and there was no other way of experiencing the angel beings.

   I had told another friend already about the nudge that sent me to the side of the single lane exit to save my life.   I feel like I knew of what I spoke when it came to angels, especially guardian angels.

   I was especially glad of the art show that followed the Bible lesson about angels because it reminded me of the horned moon which shows up in Christian art in three modes: first as the wings of angels, second as the horns of the fallen angel Satan with the horns protruding from his head, and finally with the Mary, Mother of the Messiah, as she stands atop the horned moon with her slippered foot atop the slithering snake.   For example, I think of the image of our Our Lady of Guadaloupe (which is central to the Mexican celebration of the Immaculate Conception).  In the cape of Juan who saw the apparition the image of Our Lady stands atop the horned moon.

   The symbolism of the horned moon can be understood by the position of the horns to being depicted.  With Satan who placed himself equal of God the horns protrude from his head for his thinking so.  The other angels the wings set them apart as immortals and spiritual essences.  No human has wings.  The human can be like the angels through salvation.  The prime example of this is Our Lady who by her humble acceptance of her role is raised higher than the angels as indicated by her standing on the horned moon.

   Angels of course bespeak of the glory of a God who interacts in our lives and in our history through his intermediaries who not being mortal are not to worry but be like the birds of the air who fret not over their lot or next meal, or God forbid 401ks or IRAs.

   I know too that the moon is quite a screen for apparitions.  I recall December 1995 traveling down from Fargo to Pelican Rapids to visit with my typically oppositional father who was dealing yet with the loneliness of life without his now deceased wife (my mother had died that Autumn).  A full moon glistened above the eastern horizon across the snow and the clouds draped over it as it moved in and out of the broken cloudscape.  Ground fog and vapors above the horizon also help distort the moon into an image that to me was Our Lady of Guadaloupe.  It happened to be the feast of Our Lady of Guadaloupe, a fact I would have occasion to dwell on later that evening.  I thereafter dwelt on how my mother and I now shared something that prior to this only she of the two of us had personally experienced.  She had grown wary and weary of my father's oppositional conduct before she had left him the last month of her life to die in peace in Fargo, that after fifty-five years of marriage plus.

   In Pelican Rapids, I went to Saturday evening mass which turned out to be for the Spanish congregants.  The congregants invited me down to the parish hall and an evening supper.  I do not speak Spanish but the children spoke some English so I did okay.  I helped with wiping tables and helped washing dishes.  It was a special evening what with the apparition and all.
    The following day, my father and I had a pleasant Sunday and attended St. Leonard's together.  He told me he was ready to give up his car.  He'd had a scare traveling on the highway and had taken the ditch.  I had expected him to be especially oppositional about giving up his car and his independence, but he really did it on his own.  He had me follow him in my car as he drove over to Vergas, Minnesota, and a used car lot where the owner he knew took the car on consignment.

   Someone was moving my father behind the scenes as he himself was not capable of this grace and lucidity, at least not prospectively, just ask any of my siblings.  I should mention my mother never lived with any doubt of the wherewithall of the angels and Our Lady in doing the will of our Father in heaven.

Same Sex Marriage as a Sacrament

Minnesota should not amend its State Constitution to prohibit marriage of two individuals of the same gender. 

This is not to say it should permit or allow marriage of two persons not of the opposite gender.

The discussion covers some related points in my opinion.

1. Marriage should be banned as a state function and all tax advantage or penalty in favor of the married or for that matter the unmarried ( if the marriage is the determinant of the tax advantage or  disadvantage).  

2. A child deserves a support system and no state gets the power or right to decide what that support system looks like, which is not to be confused with child abuse or neglect which should be a matter of grave state concern. 

3. The same is not true though of this silliness over state sanctioned sexual relations which has nothing to do with the welfare of children and when there is only  that "statism" position that procreation needs to be encouraged or discouraged by state action.

4. Government can stay out of the bedroom as far as I'm concerned unless for non-consentual assault or rape or sexual servitude or slavery. 

5. The real issue for Christians is the sacrament of marriage and fidelity to marriage vows and abstinence of human sexual relations outside of marriage. 

6. The purpose of Christian marriage is to provide Jesus Christ as the third partner in making a married life together.  This is about not making the morality of Christian marriage a matter of imposition, rather about preserving the sacrament of marriage. 

7. As a Christian in favor of the sacrament of marriage, I am in favor of it for everyone who freely chooses it. 

8. I do not see how a covenant made with God can be limited to those capable of procreation. 

9. The sexual consumation of two people married to one another that is not open to procreation has to be offensive to no one but the couple themselves. 

10. It's certainly not the province of organized religion to decree what is and is not sanctioned sexual relations, or is that Church sponsored sexual relations? 

11. The sad reality is that many will not conceive a child.  I just do not want to make that miracle of life a determinant of whether or not God in fact blesses those who enter into covenant with God to sanctify their union. 

12. An adopted child who is loved and cared for by two in a covenanted relation with God has to claim that their union has been blessed (even should their marriage ultimately fail). 

13. The human condition is about brokenness and only in God do we ever experience wholeness of purpose and result.

Who Is Dr. Stephen Miles and Why Should We Care?

Dr. Stephen Miles is author of the 2006 book Oath Betrayed.  He is an expert on medical ethics during wartime.  His book provides a gloss on Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo as centers of the torture conducted on prisoners of war or merely persons termed detainees.  In the news today is that the U.S. sponsored regime in Afghanistan has been torturing its prisoners and detainees as well.

See this link for more on Dr. Miles and his writings and professional work as a medical ethicist:

http://www.ahc.umn.edu/bioethics/facstaff/miles_s/home.html

Anniversary of Essay "Reflections on the Water"

One year ago, October 1, 2010, I wrote for this blog an essay entitled "Reflections on the Water."  In this essay as author of the The Search for Completion, I wanted to assert the primacy of the scientific method which is the basis of knowledge of the physical universe (including negative matter). 

     Again, I applaud those who rigorously apply principles of research, logical thinking, and honesty about what is real as opposed to imagined.  I however know that the truths of the human psyche are also the seeds of what should become of us as a species. 

     If you should read my blog entries, you shall see that our ways of knowing are also in part felt and intuited.  It really matters to me when I say to a student, "But what do you think?"  So oddly enough even my scientist friends, at least the creative ones, leap to a useful hypothesis to explain the derivation or behavior of identifiable singularities (i.e. the set of all fish who have lost gills and can be said to have lungs). 

     Our public policy makers who believe that the Theory of Evolution should not be taught to school children as in conflict with the creation story of the Bible are plainly policy makers, not educators.  They would decree reality is a product of officialdom.  That's just plain stupidity in high places!   How does one reduce a religious explanation of relevance to the human psyche (which is true of the creation story) to a scientific theory.  This shows a profound ignorance of the spiritual domain (which domain is definitely not reducible to science or even successfully to be treated as the object of scientific study). 

Call for Condemnation of Those Who Condoned Water Boarding

     This is a call for comment here on your personal condemnation of waterboarding and other forms of torture used to procure our "safety" from harm that our enemies would do us.  If we condone waterboarding in our name and supposedly to procure our safety, we offend the noblest of principles for which we could ever ask our soldiers to fight and die, the sanctity of an individual human life.  What point is there in pursuing the enemy when the enemy is us, a nation that appears to have condoned waterboarding to procure its national retribution for the terrorism of extremists.  Let it not be said that you condon the use of torture.

     Has the public discourse on enhanced interrogation techniques informed or confused the public? Both. Is the public really only concerned with the safety of law abiding citizens? Seems like it.  (See the previous blog entry for a review of some of the public discourse and the machinations of some who would foster the use of torture as useful, as in useful on the War on Terror.)

     What about when the individual, me or you, is accused of not being loyal or law abiding? Well then, no. Should we be afforded protection from unlawful torture by our own government? Yes.

     In this representative democracy, can the electorate ever trust again the adoption of enhanced interrogation techniques by the military and intelligence agencies of the federal government?  Looks like we are trusting them to do so.  Can we ever again leave certain individuals in office when they condone and justify the use of torture?  Well, some of us can claim we did vote the bums's surrogates out of office by electing other guys and gals.  Must we be prepared to call for impeachment of any official who condones torture or justifies it in a public forum?  Yes.

     To my knowledge, President Barach Obama and Senator John McCain have not endorsed holding any persons responsible for the adoption of policies permitting the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, but rather look to the present and future in which the values of this country pertaining to the dignity and respect afforded the individual are not and shall not be compromised by the use of torture.  See note 1 below for restraint of both our President and an eloquent stance of a former prisoner of war himself, McCain.

     Of late the phrase "American exceptionalism" has been framed as one of high regard for the rights of individuals, even those persons perceived as guilty of heinous offense, to be free from torture inflicted by those agents of our government purportedly acting in our behalf.  See note 2 below for a specific example of true note worthiness.

     Do we Americans embrace moral turpitude? Do we want the historical record to one day say that we as a people looked the other way on torture of prisoners under the control and dominion of our government and its agents (which would include other countries who would conduct torture at our behest and in our behalf to gain intelligence valuable to procuring the national security of our country)?  No, we do not. 

     Our Senate Armed Services Committee, among others, did obtain evidence and testimony of the torture and abuse of prisoners during the War on Terror and did report to the American people its findings of unlawfulness in the conduct of interrogation of prisoners and otherwise as means of subjugation and punishment of captives.

      Do we want this record to say that the practices of our government in the execution of this recent war on terror were, even if immoral, necessary to procure our safety?   No, we do not!

     Let all who are charged with our Nation's security know that we the American people do not endorse torture, especially in its adoption as utiliterarian, a usefulness which argues that enhanced interrogation techniques, however denominated, are to be morally condoned because effective in procuring accurate information.   In this blog see the previous article on the issue of flawed scientific acceptance of enhanced interrogation techniques.   Furthermore, grounds for removal from public office, by impeachment or other legal means, shall always and forever be inclusive of authorizing, condoning, and utilizing torture as in the national interest as a means to procure public safety and the nation's security.

     In those instances in which enhanced interrogation techniques induce learned helplessness the techniques shall not include torture even if the Red Chinese were able to extract confessions from captured American pilots due to the use of torture.  That if speed is of the essence in obtaining information, that short cuts to obtain that information by means of torture can never be permitted nor condoned.  Let all know that we the American people embracing our heritage of individual right, and governmental limitation in the face of that right, shall pay the personal price and embrace the sacrifice inherent in perserving our values and cherished way of life.  We will not be stampeded into forsaking our values enshrining human dignity and decency in the treatment of individuals.

     Former Vice-President Richard Cheney and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey are hereby, by we the American people, censured for misleading, inaccurate, and harmful defense of immoral techniques, specifically water boarding among other methods used for enhance interrogation techniques which are categorically torture.  We condemn these persons and others who deem the utilitarian outcome as moral justification of immoral means to procure our safety.  We shall not permit a denigration of the sacred duty to defend our country by the use of torture, at least not while perserving our way of life and the sanctity of human life.  We can not allow either of these two men to in effect argue that we as a nation had to torture a person held captive in order to save the life or lives of others without our censure of them for doing so.

          Please join others in signing this condemnation of former Vice-President Richard Cheney and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey for endorsing enhanced interrogation techniques which include acts of torture such as waterboarding.  Please forward to all your friends who share this view of our country's respect for individual human life.


Notes.

1.  See Executive Order entitled Ensuring Lawful Interrogations issued by President Obama on January 22, 2009 shortly upon taking his oath of office. Also, see "America should not be a nation of torture," John McCain, Star Tribune, Friday, May 13, 2011, at A ll,
(The Star Tribune reprinted this article from the Washington Post).

2.  See especially McCain's position: "America should not be a nation of torture," John McCain, Star Tribune, Friday, May 13, 2011, at A ll, (The Star Tribune reprinted this article from the Washington Post).

Justification for Torturing Prisoners is not in the Effectiveness of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques

We need to be informed on the uses of torture, not just the immorality of torture itself, but also that information is not to be morally obtained by any social scientist/torturer who argues the effectiveness of enhanced interrogation techniques.

     Senator John McCain, May 13, 2011, in a Washington Post op ed has enunciated for the United States that torture must be prohibited by both our laws and our societal values, a moral imperative, with prospective benefit to our identity in the world as exceptional in our regard for individual rights as superior to the wishes of the majority which governs our nation:

    "Individuals might forfeit their life as punishment for breaking laws, but evern then, as recognized in our Constitution's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, they are still entitled to respect for their basic human dignity, even if they have denied that respect to others."

      McCain states with certainty that "waterboarding," which he defines as mock execution, is an exquisite form of torture. 

      However, Senator McCain also took the position that those in our recent past who used these techniques should not be prosecuted. Does he also wish to protect from prosecution those officials who advised of the legality of waterboarding, authorized it, or condoned it?  Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey may well endorse McCain's posture on prosecution, and for his own insularity from public condemnation for having condoned water boarding (although presumably there has to be some immunity available to this former judge and attorney general who has condoned and excused waterboarding).  A former judge, the honorable Mukasey specifically has cited to the success however of waterboarding in unloosening the tongue of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

     McCain concerned with Judge Mukasey's conduct checked the facts.  He reports in his op ed that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times. The revelation of the name of a trusted courier of Bin Laden's by Khalid as valuable disclosure due to the effectiveness of waterboarding as an intelligence necessity was tied by Mukasey to the effort to capture or kill Bin Laden. McCain having checked his facts with the Central Intelligence Agency underscores that there is no such connection between the waterboarding of Khalid and the actual kill of Bin Laden by Navy Seals this spring of 2011. The good judge apparently in an effort to again condone waterboarding has been revealed as loose with his facts. His reputation for his brand of patriotism, my country right or wrong, appears to exceed his judicial review capacity for truth and veracity.

     To make his case clear, McCain proceeds to point out that the information in fact obtained from Khalid was false and misleading. As a victim of torture himself, McCain has a clear picture of what disclosures might be made by a prisoner to bring an end to the torture experience. He makes it clear that the taint on the reliability of information which is the byproduct of torture is premised on relief from torture.

     In effect, the victim of torture tells his tormentors what they want to hear if the victim can provide it and, if competent of subterfuge, will while doing so (if loyal to his cause, a patriot) provide misleading information or patently false information, especially if he or she can manage to do so. One has to believe that even a surcease of torture for a brief period of time is worth lying to your tormentors. I think it safe to say that an important aspect of torture is that the victim of it would do anything to have it stop (it being so psychologically harsh, a result of the type, nature, and duration of the pain inflicted). Waterboarding fits this aspect of the definition of torture.

     McCain also makes clear that humane treatment of prisoners is ultimately a protection for our own who defend us in peace and war who may be taken prisoner, albeit not all enemies of the United States would reciprocate. At least, the U.S. known to the world as value centered could expect the humane treatment of its citizens as it treats its prisoners humanely.

     Finally, McCain frames his position as a moral, not utilitarian one, and he would like for this country to decide from this time forward to be true to its values as the foundation of American exceptionalism. "Through the violence, chaos and heartache of war, through deprivation and cruelty and loss, we are always Americans, and different, stronger and better than those who would destroy us."

      President Obama likewise appears to be genuinely concerned that this basis of American exceptionalism be perpetuated. Both President Obama and Senator McCain also seem resolved not to hold officials to account for conduct which during the Republican Administration of President George W. Bush so discredited and besmirched our reputation for upholding the dignity and respect of the individual captive who is under our control and dominion. Note that much of the harm that was done in the War on Terrorism was done to prisoners under the control and dominion of another nation, while the U.S. stood by holding the figurative robe of the torturer. Not just nasty, immoral!

     Peter Dross, Center for Victims of Torture, rightly takes to task Jay Ambrose, an apologist for waterboarding as of limited use, i.e. three admitted cases of waterboarding individuals. Dross is very clear that Ambrose's attempt to relegate the humanitarian concern that this country not stoop to torture its prisoners as a ploy of the political left is a misrepresentation of the institutional disregard of the use of torture by leaders of the military, national security, and foreign affairs of this country, who supported President Obama's executive order banning torture back in 2009 shortly after he took office.

      The potential efficacy of what proponent's call enhanced interrogation techniques is arguable if one listens to the recent public debate on such techniques.  See Note 4 below for an example of Gregg Bloche's recent stance on the issue of public debate enhanced interrogation.  Bloche points out that the case for enhanced interrogation remains unproven and unprovable since the utilitarian justification of immorality requires the practice of immoral torture be condoned long enough to document its effectiveness in procuring the public safety.  Indeed, anyone acting in an official capacity, policemen or operative of intelligence agency, who tortures one to obtain information should be removed from office and prevented in the future from holding any office of public trust. That would include anyone condoning a study to scientifically establish that the use of torture is effective in obtaining vital national security information from a captive.

Notes:

1. "America should not be a nation of torture," John McCain, Star Tribune, Friday, May 13, 2011, at All,
(The Star Tribune reprinted this article from the Washington Post).

2. Ibid.

3. "A Silly debate? What a senseless argument," Peter Dross, Star Tribune, May 13, 2011, at A11 (Peter Dross is director of policy and development for the Center for Victims of Torture).


4.  See for example "Torture is bad - but it might work," Gregg Bloche, Star Tribune, June 5, 2011, Op 2-3 (in which the author reports on the science of interrogation in conjunction with learned helplessness and the benefits of torture in inducing learned helplessness and disclosure of vital information by a captive) (originally published by the Washington Post).

5. Bloche at Op 3 makes this argument in his op ed piece as well.

Elementary School Bus Ride - Journey to the Future.

       I have this penchant for trying to understand my personal history as a lens on the future.  What is actually to happen that is in front of me is really not to be known by a mere mortal such as myself.  I do suspect given a natural lifespan that the trajectory of my life at age 61 is essentially and relentlessly downhill.  In a non-Narcissistic manner, that outcome is categorically not true for me on one level.  In large measure, I have taken on a concern for the future of humankind, the people I will leave behind, when it is time for my life to end.  My purpose is to see into a future for my children, my society, and the world at large by staying present, and I might add calm.  If not adding anything to the mix, at least brokering for my part a healthy resolution to live in peace with a regard for justice and opportunity for all (especially the children).

     This past Tuesday morning in the already sweltering heat as driver on an elementary school bus, my lifetime of trying to benefit from life's lessons would mean that I gratefully was agile and fluent and compassionate, but also dutiful.  Due to a seemingly minor incident, my employer (the bus contractor) in the aftermath of this incident would want a discipline report and would want it turned into him as soon as possible (ASAP)!  On  this particular Tuesday morning after the incident on the school route, I shared my concerns with a school's assistant principal.  Due to a parent's upset, the report of the incident reached my employer (and the school's district transportation department) before I would make out any incident report (and honestly had even considered not doing a report).  As events further unfolded, it turned out that the time I had taken to understand what had happened on my bus that Tuesday morning was important, not just to that upset parent either, but to all of us involved with this public school (and society at large I believe). 

     After a whole day of reflection about Tuesday morning's incident, I finally did write up a student for precipitating racial enmity by loudly and bombastically calling out the child of another racially identifiable group for calling her girl friend "that brown girl."  This girl was pronouncing the speaker of this phrase a rascist!  Several other African-American students joined in taunting the child who had spoken the phrase.  The child's older brother had also verbally escalated in defense of his little brother from being called a rascist but he was under control (an admirable trait). 

      The descriptive phrase was used first by a kindergarten age brother who did not know the girl's name ("a brown girl").  At the time I'd pulled my bus over, the best I could do was ask the students to visit with a principal when we reached school.  As a result of my proposition and my calm, I believe things did settle down.   At school, I asked the students not to take bad feelings about others into the school and to stay on the bus to visit with the principal if they had thoughts of taking any animosity into their school day.  Three students were asked to stay behind to have a word with the principal.

     I did not accuse the girl of anything when I wrote her up for deportment.  I merely described her conduct.  I had offered her words of encouragement before writing her up that she could have behaved differently in not exploiting the phrase and tinging her antipathy for the younger boy with charges of rascism.   I do not believe the girl I wrote up would even know what the phrase "race baiting" would mean.  I just know that the school these children attend is a peace site and dedicated to helping children live in a diverse school community.

     By Friday,  the concern for living in peace seemed to have a new foothold as the week ended with an afternoon school bus trip home the third last day of the school year with the children's spirits higher than kites, as it were, because the school year was ending in just two more class days. 

     The event of  that Tuesday morning was a distant memory  for most of the children the next week as I drove them home from school the last day of the school year.  The sun shown brightly and a breeze blew comfortably through the bus windows.  I felt elated that I had stood my ground through the school year.  This last day was a day of tranquility for my children and we celebrated it with hugs, handshakes, toots on the horn, and waves goodbye for the summer.  On the radio I heard another driver report one of his students had tossed a coke bottle and hit the windshield of a passing car.  I said a prayer of gratitude that my last day driving this school year was not touched with a similar act of indifference and disrespect.  Hopefully, I had had something to do with ending well a fine school year driving bus for the children.

American Indian Magnate Pow Wow

Last night I was a guest of the American Indian Magnate School (Mounds Park Elementary) and its End of School Year Pow Wow - evening session. The highlight of the evening is that the school principal, Brenda Peltier, was honored and celebrated for her service to the school community. Unforeseen was that two blue heron would fly over the opening prayer and ceremony at the zenith of the sky. Brenda's Indian name is Blue Heron Woman. The regalia of Indian dancers was absolutely stunning and the Indian drummers into their art form as well. I took pictures and clapped and shared in the community spirit. Two teachers walked over to me at one point and offered me a tee shirt for having come out to celebrate with them. I wore it with pride the rest of the evening. I was bus driver this year to this school and its companion World Cultures Magnate. The children are well cared for in this village. The Lakota language specialist Thomas Draskovic worked especially hard coordinating the event. The evening was charmed and charming. It was a blessing to me to be included as a spectator.

Osama Bin Laden and Little Crow and the Consequence of Violent Dissent

     Recently, I read an excellent history of Minnesota titled North Country by Mary Wingert, University of Minnesota Press, 2010.  She writes of the pre-inception, inception, and infancy of Minnesota beginning with frontier and territorial days when its first inhabitants did as yet not think of themselves as Minnesotans.  As I read this history I began to realize the focus on one seminal character in the basic conflict between aboriginal populations and the European settlers who would supplant them in the State. 

This character was not one of the first to find himself in conflict with the Europeans who came into tribal regions to take possession and to remove native populations.  He just happened to be a chief of the Mdewauketon band of Dakota people, a chief who was manipulated by the agents of the United States who wanted concessions of his band during the pre-Civil War period.

     With time and consequence of unfulfilled treaty obligations, Little Crow learned by experience the betrayal of his own people by his own hand because he had furthered relations with the United States and its agents.  Faced with a crisis in his band for leadership of his people, he resolved to die if die he must.  He took up a forsaken role as warrior and accepted that death was his lot as the leader of consequence of his people.  He is remembered by history as the person who started the Dakota War of 1862, sometimes referred to as Little Crow's War.

     I find that Little Crow is an important exemplar of the "lightness of being" I find in those who take responsibility for the community and its welfare.  They expend all energies in doing what they regard as right for them to do in support of that community, and then when they realize the futility of their efforts resolve to trust in God to finish the unfinished work or in other words trust in the work being finished by other hands than his or her own hands. 

     As I have written earlier in this blog, the best example of this is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Because Little Crow trusted in his earlier conditioning as a warrior, he wanted to die fighting the military forces that he had come to believe were about the work of a race war against his Dakota people by ouster, starvation, and slaughter.  The higher order conduct of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., is of course the true change agent, but not all leaders have seen this pathway to justice and progress nor a modern media to publicize the racism and injustice of the oppressor.

     The purity of the warrior is that in killing another warrior one accepts the groundrules that his opponent is bound by the same code of kill or be killed.  Viewed in this light warriors are locked not only in mortal combat but in acceptance of the outcome as not determined by one's personal fate, but rather one is open to the outcome of trial by combat by putting oneself at risk of death by the sword.

     In the course of human conduct, the course of warfare is that non-combatants are victimized by warriors who fail to live by chivalry's higher course of conduct.  Because Little Crow in starting the Dakota War in Minnesota in 1852 (not causing it just starting it) can not wash his hands of either the fate of his own people or the fate of innocents in a time of war, he has to be viewed as a tragic character (by which I mean both noble and flawed).

     The really fine point on this is made by Dee Brown in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.  Metaphorically, Black Kettle wrapped himself in the American Flag.  He trusted in the Great White Father in Washington and he and his wife were slaughtered by the U.S. Cavalry at Washita Massacre.  Had Little Crow the same fate as Black Kettle, then it really did not matter what posture the Native American took, the Europeans were about removal and destruction of Native Peoples.

     These European Americans spoke of Manifest Destiny and the white man's civilization as the wave of the future for world domination.  It's a terrible, terrible legacy for this country, and it lives with us yet as the imperial mindset which is capable of "justice" for others, but lastly for itself and its own criminal acts.

      Today, the day I learned of the death of Osama Bin Laden, I fear my own country's capacity to hunt down and kill the dissenter's to capitalism and neo-colonialism as a new world order.  If Osama had been brought to trial for his misdeeds on which evidence substantiated his criminality, it would have at least tracked a civilized response to terrorism by an extremist.

     The War on Terror is ultimately about our own practices of terrorism by smart bombs and satellite imagery and interrogation by torture.  War is not pretty.  Little Crow oddly stands a little taller  in my perceptions today not because he chose like Osama to take the war to his enemies, but because his dissent was premised on nobility, not hatred of his enemies.  I do not agree with the perceptions of Little Crow or Osama, I just believe that the U.S. is no different than these two who can be termed paranoid, or realists, depending on one's point of view.  The United States in its War on Terrorism can never prevail when its internal compass is predicated on paranoia, specifically fear of the victims of capitalism and neo-colonialism.
 
      Without an adequate system of justice, victims, driven by the anger of the victim, take the law into their own hands (which is what Osama, and Little Crow, and the U.S. did in seeking military retribution).   Osama started the War on Terror its true, but we can not be so glib as to conclude that he caused it!  Our demand for oil has made the strangest of bedfellows: western democracies in bed with oligarch's and dictators!  As long as these do our bidding we label them friend, and when they dissent we label them evil!  Go figure. 

    In a truly ordered society a trial would have put Osama's conduct up for examination as well as the conduct of those who claimed clean hands before prosecuting him for his misdeeds.  The reason trial by the sword works for us is that we won.  Osama is dead!  Osama is ennobled because he had to know that in taking up the sword he would die by the sword.  We have made a hero for the disenfranchised Muslims of the world.  Again, go figure!   But now we stare in the face the Muslim world across Asia and Africa in which our "friends" are dictators, oligarchs, and butchers.  The causes of Osama taking up the sword and having martyre supporters is with us yet. 

Note on preferred use of Dakota: Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota people are known to most of America as the Sioux people but that name Sioux is used by competitors of of the woodland Dakota peoples, the Chippewa, to whom Sioux means "enemy."

Good Friday Observance

Today Friday, April 22, 2011.  I will hopefully be at an evening service as a guest of another congregation than my own at Fairmount Avenue United Methodist (FAUMC) here in St. Paul, Minnesota.  FAUMC is marking the holy day today with a labyrinth for meditation at our church (see announcement below) and then an exchange visit to our fellow St. Paul church, St. Albans Church of God located at 678 Aurora Ave, St Paul, MN 55104.
Good Friday Observance by FAUMC:

On Good Friday a labyrinth will be available to walk in the Fellowship Hall from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Come walk this meditative path as you reflect on the events of the day. Playing with prayer coloring materials, including labyrinths, will be available as well. We join St. Alban�s Church of God in Christ at 678 Aurora Avenue in St. Paul for worship at 7 p.m. as we have done for about 17 years, followed by a fellowship meal.

A Letter to My Atheist and Theist Friends

Today I publish a letter written in the aftermath of my efforts in composing the just recently blog published The Quest for Completion. This letter was a way for me to deal with my own agnosticism as I clocked between the faith of my parents and the opposites theism and atheism. I hope it will be a resource for those who want to bridge gaps in their understanding of the human condition. The Author.



An Epistle to Non-Believers I Deem My Brothers and Sisters in Ultimate Reality

My Dear Brothers and Sisters:

No one gets a free pass on doing the right thing because of how one answers the faith question. The moral complexity of this world is not reducible by answering the faith question. To the contrary, one who is absolved by society of wrongdoing is not to be absolved by one's own standard of high moral conduct. If I wish to have the courage necessary to live a life guided by a standard of high moral conduct, I have to accept the consequences of my conduct or failure to act if acting was required.

Likewise, I argue that the faith question when answered in the affirmative increases moral complexity because it necessarily results in the predicaments created by the highest standard of moral conduct, a standard that could be voided by disbelief. So how does one get one's arms around the threefold question which is from a limited human vantage point better avoided then intelligently answered: (1) Is there god: (2) is there a personhood in this god; and (3) is this God compassionate? I know the answer to these questions is personal.

I have taken a position on the faith question and act as one who has faith. I do not berate you for your disbelief in a loving God, or more especially your disbelief in God. More strongly, I have fellow feeling for atheists and deists who struggle with right conduct and commiserate with them. Likewise, I abhor true believers who do not struggle with doing the right thing but absolve themselves of personal responsibility for their conduct (hand-washing of a different order than nihilists hand-washing).

As a human I arrive at my faith through an appreciation of my human condition. My position is clear: I am incomplete by design and completed only by design by my acceptance and reliance on a loving and compassionate God for all that is lacking in my human condition. I realize that my posture is not universally accepted by others. I am sure that some others even say that my faith is not relevant. Obviously, they can not speak for me about my view of ultimate reality and relevance (my view being faith based).

We each decide for ourselves a response to our condition. Perhaps by design freedom to believe is requisite to belief. Significantly, I find contradictory the notion that the outcome of ultimate personal happiness is bestowed on believers and withheld from non-believers and find such a conclusion inconsistent with the basic belief in a loving compassionate God. More subtlely, I find it conclusive that acting in concert with a loving compassionate God is the very essence and definition of human happiness (such non-believers being beneficial children of God who in fact are in allegiance with the loving compassionate God who without having said so have acted so).

Relevance by definition is essentially about moral consequence of action or inaction. Human ethical conduct has everything to do with what is required of us to survive, thrive, and prevail as a species (and on a more limited scale as individuals). Our time as a species in existence is limited just as is our individual existence. We all regardless of posture taken on the "God question" have this commonality and in the face of this commonality find objective relevance. Answering the God question will not for one moment remove from us the burden of individual and collective efforts to transcend our past failures and rise to ever higher standards and conduct, not if this commonality is trusted and relied on as truly relevant.

In my view the person who refuses to torture another living person or thing is governed by the objective relevance of doing the right thing. He or she may lose his or her political or military position or chance at promotion, but that is an acceptable outcome compared to condoning or participating in torture for any reason. Objective relevance required that this person be self-governed. The same is true in corporate life by employees and shareholders, and failure to so act is an endorsement of what is wrong with corporate America but especially international corporate practices.

Is my belief in a loving, compassionate God, a flinch? Do I want an escape hatch which takes me as a human off the hot seat? Is an atheist not more courageous for his or her want of flinch? In writing out what I believe I find that this flinch (if that is what it is) is really about my quest for completion in something outside of myself. An atheist or theist is really not making the leap to something relevant outside of himself or herself except on the same ground as myself, the ethical ground. The only way in which we differ is in our conclusions on the God question. I tend to personalize the other which is outside of myself, outside of the human condition, while a theist or atheist does not because the leap of faith is not deemed relevant either to personal success or ethical conduct.

At what point does it ever become necessary to pose the God question (which is not to say the question does not arise of its own accord)? The answer is when it is clear that it is of moral consequence that we must do so. I for one believe that the necessity arises when we humans struggle with doing the right thing. In many circumstances I have to act or omit to act with insight, and sometimes only with hope, that my choice is God centered, not self-centered. Personal honesty about exercising choice is made possible by the compassionate God standard. There is no place to hide for me if I do the self-centered thing at the expense of the God centered thing, the loving action. Moral necessity is a very low threshold indeed without the compassionate God standard (this being the crux of the matter).

If a deist or atheist diverges in his conduct because of his lack of belief in God, he is not spared the ethical burdens. If a deist diverges in his conduct because of his belief in a loving God, he may be spared the consequence of his conduct ultimately to be resolved in favor of mercy. One is bemused to learn that there is a way out for the believer in a personal god, but no way out for the atheist or the deist without a personal god. I suggest we not abandon our commonality. We are all in this boat together. Does the "flinch" deserve more attention?

I am going to turn this whole discussion on it head by saying the following: The relevance issue really is about the reality of the God question in essence being about our human condition which is finite and terminable. Ethics is a result of our awareness of our finite and terminable condition. What is infinite and interminable is beyond ethics, unless included in the infinite and interminable is its embodiment in a finite and terminable condition (which argues for the incarnation).

We humans confess “I do not believe in God” or to the contrary “I do believe in God.” However, humans can attempt abstaining by asking of the two basic postures: “What does it matter?” or a variation of this: "What should it matter?"

First, an atheist posits no god exists. Which seems fine as far as it goes. Since the God question is about existence, an atheist is saying God does not exist (or more subtlely so what if God does exist as it is of no consequence to the human condition). This will not do in the face of the opposite belief of the theist who posits God does exist (or more subtlely is of consequence to the human condition, or not). Clearly, reconciling these postures is an object of mental gymnastics.

“God is not in existence” is to say God is the origin of existence, the Creator. However, God is not confined to non-existence. So too God does not suffer the limitations of time and space. God is in time and space and is not limited by time and space. Paradoxically, God is not only in time and space. Creation or “the universe of what is” is limited by God and as all of science teaches is either known or knowable given sufficient time in which to study, analyze, and conclude. God on the other hand is not to be known by science except through the study of creation, or as otherwise God discloses knowledge of God to us. In the mere act of writing this tract, I am reasoning to the reconciliation of both “God is not in existence” and “if God is in existence God by definition can not be limited by existence.”

Obviously, the relevance of this is that our species has been gifted hope and insight and prospect of relationship with God. I for one believe that the call to moral conduct is quite simply the call to relationship with God. The predicate is God, the subject is God, and the object is God and we must fit ourselves into relationship with this super reality.

Hence, the God question even if not raised or positively answered is grappled with by each and every one of us each time we grasp that our action or inaction is our ethical dilemma. This is why I am so stirred by the atheist who struggles mightily with doing the right thing by self and neighbor or enemy. I see the hand of God moving over this person and more trust in our commonality is engendered. I want him or her to be relevant. Just as profoundly I want God if God there be, to be relevant. Choose life over death, choose love over hate, choose hope over despair, aspire to achieve oneness with God.

I have reached a conclusion that with an affirmative yes I am yet in the wilderness and only leave the wilderness one day because of the affirmation that there is a God and that God is a loving compassionate God. As I see it, God is the ultimate relevance (which is a far cry from saying God is relevant).

So, my brothers and sisters, join with me in hope that one day we all shall be one, even though in life we were denied unity because of the limitations of language and the individuality of our lives.

Sincerely,

Richard J. (Rick) Hilber

RJH. February 21, 2009; Saturday, February 21, 2009, rev.; Saturday, February 28, 2009, rev.; Sunday, March 01, 2009, rev.; Saturday, March 07, 2009.

© 2009 by Richard J. Hilber, all rights reserved.

The Quest for Completion

Today, Monday, January 31, 2011, I publish in this blog seven sections of my treatise of faith and ethics, The Quest for Completion. I present these seven sections to my readers in the hope that further dialog may occur among we humans on our commonality, but most especially our mortality and the demands of that mortality upon our conduct while we live. RJH, the Author.

THE QUEST FOR COMPLETION

Index of Sections Published today:

Part 1. An Attribute of Human Life: Finitude
Part 2. Human Consciousness
Part 3. The Person in Residence
Part 4. Lightness of Being
Part 5. Youth and Adulthood
Part 6. Heroic Responsibility
Part 7. An Attribute of God

Special Note. A six page pamphlet of this treatise is available with color photographs by email request to the author at ricklaw5@msn.com. At this time upon receipt by U.S. Mail, I request of you a nominal fee for reproduction, shipping and handling which will be free will until further notice by the author on this blog or otherwise.

©2011 Richard J. Hilber. Reproduction of the content in these excerpts from The Quest for Completion limited to single copy for an individual is permitted but not for sale, resale, or distribution without further permission from the author.

Part 1. An Attribute of Human Life

Below is the first excerpt from The Quest for Completion.

An Attribute of Human Life - Our Finite Condition.

One has to admit that the stuff of which we are made existed even before our birth and persists in some form after our death. Beyond the physicality of matter, is there yet part of us which is infinite? The physical universe itself whether it expands or collapses, whether it has a beginning or an ending, is the only "place" we can physically look for our answer. I understand in the exercise of the human imagination there is no such limitation but try using your imagination which is not yet a figment of the physical universe we live in and continue to explore. I for one believe myself capable of the exercise of the creative mind subject to a rigorous discipline.

That which ends is finite. In our common experience that which lives and has life is finite. In the human condition I have a beginning, my birth, and thus the period of my non-existence ends. Likewise, I have an end, my death, and thus the period of my existence ends.

In my lifetime, I will experience and have experienced the end of finite relationships, parent-child, teacher-student, employer-employee, husband-wife, et cetera. One could conclude that the essence of the human condition is its limitation in time and space. While it is sometimes in jest that we say mememto mori, it is a reminder to make much of time before we go and an encouragement to seize the day (the jest part is the celebratory posture as opposed to the serious pursuit of a serious object for which pursuit our time on earth is indeed short).

A reasonable position about the non-physical or spiritual domain is that it can not matter since humans can not by definition experience something outside of the human condition and experience. Does a thinking person leave open the possibility of "non-existence" without limitation by time and space? It would seem not. Life as we know it is both defined and limited by time and space while the explanation of its existence at all is rooted in the practical and evolutionary realities of chemistry and physics.

To hit the nail on the head, our finitude is in human terms our mortality. When someone speaks to us of immortality of the human soul, it is spoken in terms of aspiration or hope for a "life" after death. This in spite of the conclusion that no mere mortal by definition can trump death. The revival of one who has died while it suggests a re-habitation of the body by the person wrongly presumed dead that person has actually not died. Why? Death can only be said to have occurred when the revival is no longer accomplished or to be accomplished.

Part of an enhanced state of our finite existence is our awareness of our finitude. However, this awareness, this human consciousness, leads inexorably to the contemplation of its opposite. The mere posit of the finite is the posit of the infinite.

In contemplating a time before I existed and after which I no longer shall exist, I think of the period of my non-existence as joinder with infinity, that which does not end and is outside of time and space. I do not mean this in terms of persistance or transformation into something else of the physical molecules of my body. Our humanity is in essence captured as I have said by this one quality, finitude. Regardless, in the germ of our nature as humans is the prospect of what is beyond the finite, beyond physicality.

So this is the jumping off point, the spiritual frontier.


RJH Saturday, November 22, 2008.

Edited by RJH on Wednesday, December 31, 2008, Thursday, January 01, 2009, Friday, January 02, 2009, Saturday, January 03, 2009, Tuesday, February 03, 2009.

©2011 by Richard J. Hilber with all rights reserved.

Part 2. Human Consciousness

Below is the second excerpt fromThe Quest for Completion.

Human Consciousness.

Purchasing an apple requires determination of a price which satisfies the grower and gatherer of that fruit which is brought to me for my consumption. I desire no apple merchant more than another and simply yearn for benefits of the eaten apple. Often we walk away from the interaction with another and realize we do not care for our partner in the interaction. We have learned with whom we would do business. It is the same principle, procurement of necessaries and from whomever provides the desired outcome.

My being is not mere being, but being enhanced by the awareness of my surroundings, consciousness. I have an awareness of my locality. I have to physically move to achieve a different locale. As I go about obtaining food, clothing, and shelter, I exercise powers of locomotion and even acquire such skill or skills as each task I perform can be performed in a manner more productive of an end result. I doubt very much lacking a need and some degree of consciousness of a need that I would develop at all.

Because I am insufficient in myself, to obtain sufficiency I have to act. In having to act, I move beyond myself. In having to move beyond myself, I have an awareness of my incompleteness which incompleteness obtains completeness by interacting with my locality. Where ever I go there I am and for whatever purpose completes me. Complete in myself, I would want for nothing, and having no needs which can be met by interaction with my locality, I might just as well be unconscious.

In one area alone, I am consternated by my quest for completion and that is in how another completes me. I mean this at first sexually in the sense that my mother and father in conjoining brought me about and in participating in that union of bodies there was an attempt at unity of purpose and intent.

I assume each of us seeks completeness in joinder to another. Just as there is sexual joinder, there is spiritual joinder, or common cause whether it be in building a barn or a house or in raising a child to adulthood.

Especially in sexual joinder, there is the subtle relationship potential of doing the right thing by our mate. The potential in our human sexuality is in caring for another (beyond satisfaction of the mere urge to physically or spiritually join one another). I'd say the quest for completeness only goes on even in the most stable lasting unions. Our incompleteness is our condition and no one event or for that matter person can ever complete us, at least not if by person you mean fellow human being.

RJH Saturday, November 22, 2008.
Revised by RJH, Friday, January 02, 2009, Saturday, January 03, 2009, and Tuesday, February 03, 2009.

Part 3. The Person in Residence

Below is a third excerpt from The Quest for Completion.

The Person in Residence in the Body.

The human body can be said to host the person in residence. I do not mean nonsense here since the human body that concerns this discourse is the living human body. However, the human body is not a dwelling in the sense that a house is a dwelling. The owner occupant of a house can have invitees who in coming into the house accept the hospitality of the invitor owner/occupant. However, it can more accurately be said that the human body in its respirations gives rise to the person that comes to occupy it. There is in every human body the potential resident, the person. Initially, this resident is not an invitee as the body has no say in the matter of which person comes to occupy it.

The multiple-personality disorder posits that in residence are not just one person but several persons. The healing of this disorder if healing there be is in dis-inviting persons from the body and asking them to leave, or not. I am not sure who does the asking to stay or to go. I believe that in coming to know who does the asking, the true person in residence is coming to the fore and accepting possession of the body.

The expression being comfortable in one's own skin is helpful. The human body does host the person in residence and that person may have to disinvite either persons or versions of persons that are ultimately anathema to the person in possession and control of the body. In saying I want to become and am in the process of becoming is to say I am not yet fully realized as a person. In this sense the human body does give rise to the person that I am to become.

However, the nature of the person is at issue as that person exercises dominion over its body and the conduct of the actions the body takes.

I believe this taking hold of self-government is the wisdom of responsible conduct. Mental health is not a given but it is the result of exercising responsible conduct. Non compos mentis is not a status I aspire to. In abdicating the responsibilty of self-government, the person is unseated ultimately. Insanity is the result. I choose sanity and more directly I choose to take responsibilty. I do not mean this judgementally of those who are driven insane by the exertions upon the psyche of events beyond the control of the individual (ex. torture).

Early on I abhorred the taking of mind altering drugs because I could not stand the thought of loss of control over perception (which I deemed perception of reality). I was fearful of the perception of the unreal as real. I was not into sticking a knife into a pillow under the influence of a drug only to later discover I was sticking the chest of another human being. I could not stomach the absence of responsibility for one's actual conduct.

RJH Saturday, November 22, 2008.
Revised by RJH, Saturday, January 03, 2009, and Tuesday, February 03, 2009.

Part 4. Lightness of Being

The following is a fourth excerpt from The Quest for Completion.

Lightness of Being

In my evolution as a person, I had to grapple with the illusion that not only is God in existence but I am not God. For purposes of this essay, I define God as the "Ultimate Responsible Party not in Existence." Shortly, I come now to the proposition that I am not God. I did not start with the high morality that I am the ultimate responsible person in existence but I had to work through the posture that I was if I was to make a difference (my youthful self-importance). I know the dissonance in this perception is deafening to hear but so it was I suffered grandiosity of the highest order. The other tact would be to blow off any responsibility at all, but such was not my conditioning as a child.

While we are called to be heroic, we have to live life as it unfolds. The youth who takes on the task of changing the world for the better and acts heroically in the pursuit is quickly hobbled by the sheer weight of taking responsibility for the result. The result may not by heroic effort even be obtainable in his lifetime.

In taking small steps and half-measures he must be satisfied with little progress towards the goal. He or she is sure to be humbled by his own shortcomings if not by the limitations of time and mortality. A mental breakdown can be precipitated by the awareness of the impossibility of the undertaking.

The only way out is to surrender and confess dependence on something or someone outside of oneself. This is not to be confused with the abdication inherent in insanity. It is definitely about a pattern of conduct in which the human being by honesty confesses he can not ultimately be responsible for the result because the result is not obtainable by his efforts alone. In deed, he sooner or later concludes that he is not alone in questing after the seemingly unobtainable goal of altering the course of human conduct.

The release that shortly thereafter transpires is what I call the lightness of being. He or she experiences release from responsibility for the result. He concludes he or she must trust that the result though not procurable by his or her own conduct is yet obtainable by someone or something outside of himself or herself. Notice he is not absolving himself of the responsibility of taking steps towards the goal.

Who is then responsible if not I. This can not be about holding others to account because that is to play the blame game and ultimately I have to accept that others are in the same boat that I occupy. So I conclude that by definition the truly responsible does not include my human peers, but it does include the truly responsible party, God. However, before getting ahead of myself here, follow the path with me.

The person who in his humanity and humor accepts that she or he is not God, not ultimately responsible, having experienced the lightness of being, released from ultimate responsibility, trusting in "something" outside and greater than himself or herself is on the pathway of one who has begun to experience relationship with God.

Not sure how, but this context in human experience gives rise to trust that the goal is obtainable by one not ourselves. Trust that what is about to happen and what is even unavoidably about to happen (given our human experience and insight) is in the hands of "another" not ourselves has been required of us in our moment of extremity.

The term "oversoul" is perhaps useful here as a precursor to the use of the word God. This is comparable to the mountaineer who knows he will not make the summit of the mountain but trusts that someday given the spirit is willing someone will make the conquest. We all live in the "oversoul" that procures the result we desire. This is very much like Martin Luther King (MLK) and Barack Obama, dreamer and dream come true. A person should not be judged by the color of his skin but the content of his character.

The tremor in MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech is that realization that he might not personally live to see the day, but another would. In accepting his human condition, he was not yielding one inch of the ground that would have to be covered to achieve human equality, he just trusted that others would cover that ground in his stead. I for one am convinced that MLK experienced true lightness of being.

RJH Saturday, November 22, 2008, and Tuesday, February 03, 2009.

Part 5. Youth and Adulthood

The Quest for Completion continues with the fifth excerpt.

Youth and Adulthood.

Youth can be defined as a period of life in which we view ourselves as immortal and indestructible. This confidence is a by product of liberation from dependence on mother's milk (which fails in direct measure as our independence of it grows). I believe the obvious case is in the grandious conduct of some youth, but the result is the same whether a youth is testing his or her limits or not.

Our independence though is arguable and soon muted by experience. Physical pain, the not so gentle teacher, soon educates us to a different view of the matter. Make the pain go away is our common plea. We can be heard bargaining with the pain. I will just stop doing something if the pain will just stop. The "pain adverse" among us perhaps delay this moment of compromise but childhood is only temporary regardless of its duration.

This growth is in fits and starts. The pain of social rejection leads to changes in one's conduct. In my youth, I could act selfishly but always had to deal with the barrier to greater productivity in that course of conduct. In behaving socially I could expand my repertoire and success rate. In effect, true selfishness required a change in how I obtained what met my needs. Having obtained social acceptance, our self-confidence returns with a renewed vigor that in socially acceptable conduct we can more fully be indestructible and immortal.

It is ironic that adulthood only leads to a more subtle argument about my indestructibility and immortality. They call it humility. What makes me an adult? I now hold the view that I am mortal and dependent on my surroundings and in being separate I have no being. I am part of the whole, an island not! In procuring the indestructibility and immortality of the whole human race, I procure my own.

I believe based on my life experience that acceptance of my limitations has made me more human and capable of behaving humanely towards others. I have had to look beyond my personal success in having my needs met towards what makes me a successful person, my capacity and enaction of conduct which can be termed indifferent to my personal success, disinterested behavior, doing the right thing even if it does not support my enlargement or grandiosity.

A true parent is such a person because right conduct requires that he do what is right by a child even when that child does not approve of a course of parental conduct. In fact, the child may rage at such parental conduct but true affection for a parent only comes in hindsight and appreciation that the parent was not just well motivated in setting a limit on one's child but that the parent was right to do so. I doubt very much that a parent does the right thing awaiting the day of approval and acceptance by the adult child. If a parent does do so, he or she will spend months and possibly years waiting for that other shoe to drop. The reward is only in doing the right thing.

RJH Saturday, November 22, 2008.

Part 6. Heroic Responsibility

The following is a sixth excerpt from The Quest for Completion.

Part 6. Heroic Responsibility.

The moral code by which we humans may be adjudged by our peers and ourselves is grown by accretion of knowledge and understanding as to what deed or omission to act is right behavior.

A person of consequence in the evolution of the concepts of human responsibility is he or she who sees in the failure to act or in the act itself a consequence to oneself and to others. Without perception of consequences to others there is no human consciousness, just the animal who is checked by responses (Pavlovian response and conditioning).

The higher order of humans over animals is that in humans there is the realization that consequences for others which are negative consequences ultimately affect one's personal consequences. The fact that a personal consequence is positive and the effect on others is negative is the predicate outcome giving rise to the human conscience.

Is there not the beginnings of heroic irony in the individual who in being adjudged not guilty by his peers knows by his abject feelings and acute self-knowledge his loss of innocence. He was called to a higher standard of conduct, and by comparison to that standard, he fell short of the mark.

I will never forget the moment in time when it dawned on me that my personal defeat in life was by an act of love my finest hour of life. Because I felt loved, the love of my mother, I could not do the evil thing I was tempted to do in revenge. Someone had been the adult in life and shown me the way. All I need to do is to follow in her loving footsteps.

The fact that a personal consequence is negative and the effect on others is positive is a predicate outcome giving rise to the super ego, the person capable of disinterested conduct and heroic accomplishment of the self.

RJH November 22, 2008.
Revised by RJH, Wednesday, December 31, 2008.

Part 7. An Attribute of God

The section reproduced below is the seventh and final section of The Quest for Completion in excerpt form.

An Attribute of God.

Human knowledge of God is finite. As an individual, I can only vouch for what I know of God. However, literature which resonates with and is in consonance with our super ego (the study of truth) teaches us even more about the nature of the God than we as individuals can have through our direct experience.

I agree with those who say there is no God known to them. The problem is the God who is known to me! If the philosopher says there is a God, but says that God is not a person, I dissent vociferously. If God not be a person, it is an honest saying, if it does not contradict a person's experience.

The limitation placed artifically on us is that we can only experience what is in existence (or was in existence). The relationship of myself to someone not in existence has become my experience. Notice that I am not abdicating selfhood in saying this. I am saying that I am more fully realized as a person when I accept someone outside of myself who is outside of existence who is ultimately responsible. Why? Because being human, being in existence, my responsibility is finite and circumscribed by my human condition.

The fact that I can have a personal relationship with this person is to say I have come to trust this person will provide the outcome. Think of Abraham and Isaac on the mountaintop. Specifically consider the father who had a personal relationship with God. The father in seeking to appease the will of God would sacrifice his only son, but God holds back this beloved and fearing man with raised knife and provides an animal for sacrifice to symbolize dependence on God's will.

In effect Abraham did not stick a pillow only to later find out it was a person. He was not deluded, but sane, ultimately sane.

The quality of God as merciful is in effect the affirmation of the individual who grows dependent on God's plan and knowledge of God's will. Hence, I know that God has revealed that he is not capable of asking us to do an immoral act, such as killing an innocent child. This God I know affirms me as an individual who each step of the way is accountable for right conduct. God is truly merciful.

RJH November 22, 2008.

Revised by RJH, Wednesday, December 31, 2008.

Revised by RJH Saturday, February 21, 2009.