Dear Marion,

It's neither sarcasm nor flattery when I write that I wholly
agree with the sentiments in your last letter concerning animals,
agriculture and the virtues of good government. The limiting
factor, it seems to me, is the concept of agreement, which is,
after all, powerless to equate the unavoidably disparate
experiences from which it derives, and must be recognized as
little more than a mere emblem of harmony. 

Your eulogy of good government brings to my mind my own past
enthusiasms. I can remember commenting in an early Internet
discussion group on health care metamorphosis, much to the
distress of my more conservative correspondents, that I could
comfortably envision the entire landscape being managed as a
national park. I would argue that I haven't changed my mind,
but that I have become more sensitive to the complications
entailed in the idealistic propositions of my youth. As I 
grow older, I conclude that in addition to, and perhaps as
penance for the presumptuousness of proposing to refashion
the world in the image of my hopes and dreams, I must accept
the insight that the longed for utopia is unreachable, not
for lack of my effort - or for lack of your effort, - but
unreachable because the problems to be obviated are so deeply
rooted in, - and perhaps inseparable from - the nature of the
human society and the human individual, so as to prove
intractable to our deliberate efforts. Without doubt these
problems will change with the evolutionary development of
mankind, but it is not at all apparent to me that the problems
rather than being obviated, will be other than transformed.

There is, I acknowledge, a contradiction between my espousal
of cognitive and ethical imperatives - more than perhaps you
give me credit for - and my assertion that the issues addressed
by these imperatives are ultimately insoluble.  This contradiction
is obvious when I make efforts to "learn" and "understand", for
example, molecular biochemistry in the context of my conviction
that the schemas which I am internalizing are idealising
constructs of limited validity. A similar contradiction obtains
in my belief that "health care" should be available to all
without cost, and my understanding that the degree of regulation
unavoidably entailed in any system purporting to furnish such
universal "health care" poses the danger of transforming a
potentially humane and humanistic endeavor such as the medical
practices which Onkel Max, Onkel Georg, Onkel Heinz, Cousin Jochen
and Nephew Klemens attempted to implement, into a nightmare where
human beings - both patients and their physicians - become victims
of mechanical if not sadistic bureaucratic machinations. When I
observe that other nominally beneficial and essential governmental
activities entail analogous ethical diseconomies, the "Defense of
the Homeland" entailing as it does the conspicuous examples of
Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, I must add by way of explanation,
that I consider all (large scale) organized activity as essentially
governmental in nature and subject to the same risks of moral
depravity. By their social (and legal) nature, all organizations
fulfill a governmental function. The large organizations frequently
because they meet widespread needs and discharge governmental
purposes more efficiently and humanely that the politicized
government itself.  Compare the quality of care in a first class
not-for-profit hospital with what the government deals out to its
soldiers and veterans. (I myself refused to teach at a Boston
Veterans Hospital because I could not condone what was being
done to the patients.) As for fulfilling governmental functions,
consider the airlines, shipping companies, railroads, oil companies,
power companies, telecommunication companies, banks and brokerage firms, -
to mention those that immediately come to mind. The so-called
non-profit corporations, the Red Cross, the YWCA, the Rotary and
Kiwanis "service" Clubs, the universities and colleges, the countless
hospitals, also fulfill essential governmental functions.  And not
only large organizations, likewise the smaller companies, be they
for profit or for charity turn out to be quasi governmental agencies.
I can elaborate, if it seems important.

In this perspective the debate between "small government" and
"large government" appears to me largely an issue of political
control. Big government is nominally responsible and responsive
to the voters, - who are not very smart and are easily hood-winked,
while private government is nominally responsible to the stockholders,
who probably have less influence than the customers who pick and
choose from whom they buy, and is cynically manipulated by shadowy
brokers of power. As for myself, I don't feel there's much to choose
from, but I very much respect your preferences.

My own practical - as opposed to theoretical - solution is to execute
a Will which relegates my taxable estate, if any, to fund a "School
Street Charitable Trust", thereby implemeting what seems to me and
to my family, socially, economically, spiritually desirable, rather
than implicitly endorsing, with the payment of taxes, the government's
programs, worthy or hateful as they might seem.  A charitable trust,
I find, is much simpler to set up and to maintain administratively
than a charitable corporation.

The stated purpose of the proposed trust is:
i) to aid and support individuals who compose, edit, invent, 
translate, publish, perform, disseminate or otherwise promote
works of music, literature, art and or science.
ii) to remunerate authors, artists, performers and or
scientists for their work and to defray their expenses.
iii) to provide studios, libraries, laboratories,
concert halls or office space where writers, artists,
musicians and scientists may realize their work.
iv) To acquire and maintain collections of books,
musical scores, scientific and or musical instruments, 
for use by authors, artists, musicians and or scientists.
v) To rent, lease or own real and personal property required
for or incident to the purposes in D.2.i-iv above.
vi) To fulfill any other function supportive of music,
visual art, literature or science.

I am well aware, of course, that such a trust is prohibited
from "self-dealing" with disqualified family members. But there
is no prohibition against disqualified persons making contributions
of personal services, e.g. conducting orchestras, or making gifts
of literary texts which the Trust might then publish.

Aside from its secondary purpose of constituting a non-profit
entity which might receive proceeds of donations or ticket sales
from Nathaniel's concerts, the Trust's primary purpose is to divert
our taxable assets from subsidizing Guantanamo and cluster bombs,
to providing a stage for the creative and constructive efforts
of various family members, a privatization of governmental
function such as no reactionary Republican has ever dreamt of.
The procedural consequence of diverting potentially taxable
estate assets into a Charitable Trust is that, there being
no taxable estate, no estate tax return need be filed, and 
hence there is no reason to anticipate that the estate would
come to the attention of the IRS. But even if it did, the IRS
auditors would have little incentive to probe our accounting,
since the consequences of an audit would determine not how much
tax revenue the government obtained, but what proportion, if any,
of my gross estate should be diverted into the Charitable Trust.
Moreoever there could be no penalties for "underreporting"
because the terms of the Will require the entirety of the
otherwise taxable estate to be poured into the Trust, and 
therefore preclude the assessment of taxes under all 
circumstances.  Admittedly, all this seems too good to be true, -
and it probably is. Sooner or later I'll present my "estate
plan" to a tax "expert" and report to you whether or not I
received a passing grade in tax law. Ultimately you'll have
to find out from Klemens after I'm dead, what happened.

Your surmise that I'm doing all this to make myself "loved"
by my family, again, forgive my bluntness, has it backwards.
My self-esteem is not susceptible to calibration by anyones
affection for me. Rather these efforts are an expression of
my perhaps excessive perhaps even pathological passion for
that family of which you too are a potential member, a passion
which, I am well aware, may be rooted in the separation 
anxiety that has haunted my life. Erik Erikson postulates
a stage in life where fulfillment is derived from providing
for ones family, rather than for example from being rich or
famous. Providing for my family is a deep-seated need which
has driven me for many years, a need which I suspect will
subside only with my death. It's no contradiction that my
personality should prove an embarrassment, a source of
offense to them,- nobody wants to be loved too much, -
a scandal, ein Aergernis, to invoke Luther's translation of
skandalizesthai - I don't vouch for the accuracy of the
transliteration. And in this regard, don't forget Margrit's
response to me.  I negotiated with the funeral home today,
about the placing of the flat granite slab on her grave.
Jochen