RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

Ignorance about government and its Constitution threatens our nation. The Founders felt the provision of a virtue-inspired public education that includes civics imperative to the survival of the Republic they had created. Noah Webster was direct about the need for a moral sense: “The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities.” In the 1950s,” as Paul Volcker mentioned recently to Gillian Tett of the Financial Times, “courses in public administration commanded high status at universities such as Princeton. But now the phrase ‘good government’ is a mockery.” Civics is no longer universally taught. A March 2017 article in “neaToday”reported that only 25% of students reach the “proficient” standard on the NAEP Civics Assessment. An article in the November 8, 2016 issue of The Atlanticnoted that 30% of Americans did not know in what century the American Revolution took place. Forty percent thought the Bill of Rights guaranteed the right to vote; 40% did not know that the Constitution gives the right to declare war to Congress; 50% did not know the terms for U.S. Senators and Representatives, and 80% did not know the origin of Lincoln’s unforgettable words: “…a government of the people, by the people, for the people…” What does this portend for our country? The direction the country is moving is not healthy for democracy. We need to calm rhetoric and emphasize the civic virtues critical to a free people.

As we approach the 100thanniversary of the Armistice that ended World War, two books, with lessons for today, are worth noting:George Dangerfield’s The Strange Death of Liberal England, written in 1935. The book covers three crucial events in England – Irish Home Rule, Suffrage and unionization – during the four years preceding the Great War and how attitudes and responses threatened a nation that had been the cradle of liberalism. The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914by Christopher Clark covers the two or three decades leading up to the same war. The book was written in 2012 and explores the complex relationships, treaties and alliances that led well-meaning leaders into a conflict during which idealism was destroyed and sixty-million people died. Bad things happen when complacency and ignorance flourish. It is a desire for power that has caused arrogant elitists in the U.S. and Europe, who speak the language of globalism but who act with imperium. The teaching of civics, including the virtues expressed by our Founders would help restore moral principles and maintain freedoms of expression.

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ttps://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/11/trump_is_the_best_president_ever_for_american_jews.html

President Trump’s statement on anti-Semitism the day after the Tree of Life massacre truly was “electrifying.”

The Jews have endured terrible persecution, and you know that we’ve all read it: We’ve studied it. They’ve gone through a lot and those seeking their destruction…we will seek their destruction…Never again.

It touched my heart deeply. Jews have never, but never, been given this kind of whole-hearted support by an American leader before. Trump told the rally-goers in Illinois, slowly, and with great emphasis:

This evil anti-Semitic attack is an assault on all of us. It’s an assault on humanity. It will require all of us, working together, to extract the hateful poison of anti-Semitism from our world. This was an anti-Semitic attack at its worst. The scourge of anti-Semitism cannot be ignored, cannot be tolerated, and it cannot be allowed to continue. We cannot allow it to continue. It must be confronted and condemned everywhere it rears its very ugly head. We must stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters to defeat anti-Semitism, and vanquish the forces of hate – that’s what it is.

Jews have never, but never, been given this kind of whole-hearted backing by an American leader before. Jews are used to facing murderous hate alone. We are not used to words that reflect the moral truth. We’re used to mealy mouthed pieties condemning hate on all sides.

A dear friend who is active fighting anti-Semitism wrote me, “It is the strongest statement in support of Jews ever made by an American president.”

President Trump is a promise keeper. He is unique among Presidents in keeping his campaign promises. When President Trump says anti-Semitism cannot be allowed to continue, it sounds like he means it. This may be, let us hope and pray, it may be of real significance.

President Trump is sui generis. He bulls through what ‘everyone knows’ and takes on the problems that others say are impossible to change. He sees what should be done, and he gets down to do it. Bringing back industrial jobs to America? No problem. Create jobs for unemployed blacks and Hispanics. At historic levels. Dealing with the immigration disaster destroying America? Bring it on.

And now antisemitic murders of Jews have happened in America, on his watch. Trump is putting the evil doers on notice: anti-Semitism will not be tolerated. Anti-Semitism? It’s got to end.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-many-faces-of-jew-hatred-1541025486

In the wake of the shooting in Pittsburgh, a volley of voices called for more of this or that—armed guards or gun control, barring the doors of synagogues, policing of fringe web platforms or resources for mental health. While President Trump denounced the shooting as “an evil anti-Semitic attack” and visited the grieving community, a sector of the media blamed the president for the incident, as it does for everything else. It was politics as usual.

But instead of prompting a serious inquiry into the ideology that fuels the murder of Jews, the atrocity seems to be reinforcing a misconception that can only worsen the problem. Anti-Semitism is not synonymous with Hitlerism—the only form of anti-Semitism that has gone down in military defeat. Anti-Semitism is a politics of misdirected blame, and Americans must be sure to avoid its trap.

The shooter is being cast as a neo-Nazi threat. Under the caption “A Day of Broken Glass,” a cartoon in the Pittsburgh Current shows broken windows on the Tree of Life synagogue, linking this attack to Germany’s Kristallnacht of Nov. 9, 1938, which signaled Nazism’s open season on the Jews of Europe. Israel’s Education Minister Naftali Bennett made the same association in conveying Israel’s sympathy to Pittsburgh community.

What could be worse than the specter of Nazism here in America? In fact, it is politically comforting to cast Robert Bowers in this light. Unlike in Germany, where the attacks on Jews were launched by the Führer, our head of government ordered the full press of law enforcement to prosecute the sole gunman. Unlike in Germany, where the SS directed and fomented the attacks on Jews, here four policemen were shot trying to save the Jews. Moreover, the American people are united in horror at this atrocity. If Mr. Bowers represents anti-Semitism, the response to his attack tells us we have relatively little to fear.

http://www.stolinsky.com/

We guard what we value. Our political leaders? Of course. Our money? Absolutely. Our children or our houses of worship? Not so much.

My wife and I often visit a nearby mall. The Rolex store and the Louis Vuitton store have very large men in dark suits standing near the door to inhibit shoplifting. The mall is large enough to require three armored-car services to remove the cash. We see the armored-car guards walking briskly, with the money bag in one hand and the other hand hovering near their holstered pistol.

When we go to the bank, we see the tellers behind thick sheets of bullet-resistant glass. Other banks employ armed guards. Money is obviously valuable, and we go to great pains to protect it. Perhaps that is why Los Angeles no longer has the distinction of being the bank-robbery capital of America.

But when we pass schools – elementary, middle, or high schools – we see young people and teachers, and an occasional elderly crossing guard. But we never, literally never, see an armed guard, much less a police officer. Yes, we know that Los Angeles, like many cities, has a school police force. We know that there may be an officer somewhere in the high school. But we also know that he or she is there to try to enforce some semblance of discipline, which teachers and principals are no longer willing or able to do. But protect the young people from attackers? Not really.

Similarly, when we pass synagogues, we see no security officers. The only exception is that on the High Holidays, we may see traffic officers to help with the congestion and parking. The same is true for churches on Christmas and Easter. But protect worshippers from attackers? No, not really.

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/swirsky/181030

This past Saturday morning, 11 Jews were shot to death in a Pittsburgh synagogue by one of the millions of Jew haters who contaminate our world.

To Jews like me, who know and appreciate Jewish history as I do, this is no surprise. Tragic, yes; shocking, no.

We are a tiny, indeed microscopic, people, only 15 million in a world of nearly eight billion. That ratio equals the proverbial grain of sand on the vast beaches of life, only one drop in the immense oceans that cover most of our globe.

But Jew hatred is very powerful, written about in thousands of books and articles by erudite scholars who posit theories ranging from resentment that God selected Jews as his “chosen people,” to the myth that the Jews killed Jesus, to the accusation that Jews are either greedy capitalists or cruel communists, to the grievance that Jews run the world.

My own take is that when you peel back every layer of the onion of anti-Semitism, the root cause is that the anti-Semites among us are obsessively jealous. How can it be, they wonder, that this tiny people – dispersed in a diaspora for the last 5,000 years to far-flung communities all over the world where they landed with no language skills, no money, no resources, no nothing and in the process survived the Jew-targeting Inquisition, Crusades, pogroms, concentration camps, and pandemic outbreaks of anti-Semitism – managed to flourish and rise to prominence wherever they went?

Here in America, we have living proof that the green-eyed monster is alive and well, Exhibit No. One being the execrable “Reverend” Louis Farrakhan – one of Barack Obama’s buds – who little more than a week ago spoke before a smiling, nodding, applauding audience as he called Jews “termites” and “stupid.”

Did I mention his glowing admiration for Hitler? “The Jews don’t like Farrakhan,” he said some years ago, “so they call me Hitler. Well, that’s a good name. Hitler was a very great man.” Last May, this Nation of Islam leader – who has been manically obsessed with Jews his entire life – spoke of “Satanic Jews who have infected the whole world with poison and deceit.”

America is the sunniest corner of the Jewish Diaspora, and every single President, including previous ones who did not esteem Jews has adhered to this principle set forth by our magnificent first President George Washington. It is assiduously upheld by President Trump and arguments to the contrary are pure partisan rot….rsk

Thanks to e-pal Laz for reminding me of this.

On August 17th, 1790, Moses Seixas warden of the Hebrew Congregation of Rhode Island wrote a letter to our magnificent first President George Washington welcoming him to Newport: Excerpt:

Sir:

Permit the children of the stock of Abraham to approach you with the most cordial affection and esteem for your person and merits — and to join with our fellow citizens in welcoming you to Newport……..Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free Citizens, we now with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty disposer of all events behold a Government, erected by the Majesty of the People — a Government, which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance — but generously affording to all Liberty of conscience, and immunities of Citizenship: deeming every one, of whatever Nation, tongue, or language equal parts of the great governmental Machine……”

On the very next day, President Washington responded, quoting Seixas…..Excerpt.

Gentlemen:

“It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support…”…..“May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants—while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/10/29/accusing-trump-of-fostering-violence-is-incitement/

If you believe President Trump’s “discourse of hate” is to blame for the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, then you must also believe that the absolute silence over the many anti-Semitic incidents under the previous president also played a significant role.

A hate crime is a despicable thing. That is why accusing someone of being responsible for a hate crime (like saying U.S. President Donald Trump may not have been the shooter, but he created an atmosphere that was conducive to the shooting) is a very serious thing. In fact, it is incitement.

The bodies strewn across the floor of the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood were still warm when my colleagues here in Israel began to suggest that this heinous murder, committed by the vile neo-Nazi Robert Bowers, was carried out under the auspices of Trump. Revolting.

There were even those who broadcast out loud, on their microphones, their theories that the massacre perpetrated by Bowers was inspired by the “spirit of the times” in the United States since Nov. 9, 2016 – in other words, the day after the man the media believes was the wrong candidate won the presidential elections. The public doesn’t feel that way, but what does the public know, right?

The media is certainly not responsible for what happened in Pittsburgh on Saturday. But neither is Trump. Bowers is responsible. He is the murderer. He is the criminal. Those looking for the root cause can find it in the sick ideology that has already taken millions of Jewish, black, Romani, Christian and Muslim lives. Faced with racism, we are all brothers.

As for Bowers, he actually viewed Trump as being too soft, and worse, he hated him for maintaining close ties with the Jews. But the media chose to focus on Trump’s war on illegal immigration and his fight against violence and anti-Semitism, from the left end of the political spectrum too. That’s what he was trying to do last year, when he made that controversial remark after the neo-Nazi attack in Charlottesville. He did not come out in defense of neo-Nazis. He just wanted to point out that incitement and instigation of violence were not exclusive to the Right – there are also instigators on the Left.

https://bit.ly/2PxdSU6, https://bit.ly/2hQ8sow

The October 27, 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue, in Pittsburgh, PA, was an egregious reminder that since the early 17th century, anti-Semitism has been a systematic feature of – yet an abhorrent aberration in – the US. At the same time, the US society has demonstrated 400 years of respect for Judaism, Judeo-Christian values and the Jewish State.

For instance, Peter Stuyvesant, the first Dutch Governor of New York/New Netherland (1647-1664), failed in his attempt to block the immigration of Jews to the colony, but prohibited them from constructing a synagogue and serving in the local militia. Moreover, he confiscated Jewish property and levied a special tax solely on Jews, claiming that they were “deceitful and enemies of Jesus Christ.”

The state of the Jewish community improved in the aftermath of the 1664 British conquest of New York and the introduction of a series of civil covenants in the various colonies (e.g., the 1641 Massachusetts Body of Liberties). It was further improved as a result of the 1789 ratification of the US Constitution, which enhanced civil liberties – in a drastic departure from the state of mind of the European Churches and monarchies – also inspired by the Five Books of Moses, and especially by the concept of the Jubilee (Leviticus, 25:10).

Still, European-imported anti-Semitism established itself in the US, although as a significantly lower profile in the newly-created society and governance. The latter have expanded liberty over and beyond the European standards, while severely restricting the playing field of potential anti-Semitism.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/rage-makes-you-stupid/

People have the strongest feelings about the things they know the least about.

What are we supposed to think about political rage?

Before and after the arrest of Cesar Sayoc, the suspect in the recent string of bombs sent to prominent Democrats and media figures, we were treated to any number of homilies about “rage” and its origins in “toxic” political rhetoric. Many of these homilies were pointed directly or indirectly at President Donald Trump and his immoderate Twitter habits. That political rage is necessarily linked to political violence was assumed, and sometimes asserted, but rarely argued.

Five minutes before that, rage was all the rage. Rebecca Traister, an editor for New York magazine, has just published a book celebrating the “revolutionary power” of anger, which was celebrated at The Atlantic on 4 October under a headline noting the “seismic power” of “rage.” On 21 September, the Washington Post affirmed that “rage is healthy, rational, and necessary for America.” On Friday, NBC news praised a television show for depicting “anger as righteous and necessary.” Before that, it ran a segment encouraging certain political partisans to “embrace their rage.”

Earlier in the year, Leslie Jamison wrote a very interesting and intelligent essay for The New York Times Magazine exploring anger as a “tool to be used, part of a well-stocked arsenal.” Right as the bombing suspect was being arrested in Florida, Rewire shared “All the Rage That’s Fit To Print,” its assessment of four books on “fury.”

I’ve omitted the word “women” in several instances above, on the theory that we’re all adults here, and that we would recognize the obvious hypocrisy and illogic of any “my rage good, your rage bad, bad, bad,” construct.

Except . . .

https://amgreatness.com/2018/10/26/the-eternal

The eternal return—Friedrich Nietzsche thought the idea was horrifying. Life as an endless merry-go-round in which the same things keep recurring, forever. That prospect, Nietzsche thought, was the hardest, weightiest, most depressing idea mankind could ever confront. It was part of Nietzsche’s blustering nihilism that he should first conjure the most unpleasant idea he could think of and then announce that true heroism lay in embracing it.

The rest of us may be less enthusiastic about the prospect of ceaseless repetition. After all, we’ve all had a foretaste of what it entails in the remarkable career of socialism. Like the fabled hydra, socialism is an evil that suffers decapitation after decapitation only to spring back to life, its blood—or, rather, the blood of its victims—somehow sprouting ever new heads of credulousness.

The Soviet Union was “really existing communism,” under whose aegis millions were impoverished, tortured, and murdered (but, according to the New York Times, the sex was great). Western intellectuals, gullible creatures that they are, adulated that steaming tyranny. Eventually morons like Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II brought to an end that horrible “experiment in living.”

Chairman Mao probably has the distinction of having murdered more people than any other single human being. His efforts to bring compulsory fraternity to China has yet to be definitively repealed; indeed, China seems to be slipping backwards towards a new embrace of centralized tyranny.

Where else have we seen socialism on the march? In Cuba, of course, an island paradise that the Castro brothers transformed into a murderous police state. Then there was Pol Pot’s Cambodia. Like the Earl of Strafford, Pol Pot’s motto was “Thorough.” Wearing eyeglasses was for him evidence of counter revolutionary sentiment since it signaled an interest in such despicable bourgeois pursuits as reading. The result were those mountains of skulls for which his reign was infamous. We all know about North Korea: possibly the worst place on earth under the Kims, though it must be said that Venezuela, once the richest country in South America, under Hugo Chavez and Nicolás Maduro is well on its way to socialist apotheosis, i.e., total collapse.