RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/290884/north-korean-israeli-shadow-war

The North Korean-Israeli Shadow War

Whenever nuclear weapons technology appears in the hands of Israel’s enemies, Pyongyang is usually involved

By Jay Solomon

Jay Solomon is an adjunct fellow at The Washington Institute. A veteran journalist whose career has included postings in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, in addition to Washington, he is the former chief foreign affairs correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and author of The Iran Wars (Random House, 2016).

It was largely by chance that Israel scored one of its greatest ever intelligence coups in 2007.

At the time, Mossad was running surveillance on the director general of the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission, a pudgy, bespectacled bureaucrat named Ibrahim Othman. Othman was visiting Vienna that winter to attend meetings of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and Mossad sought to learn more about his secretive activities. The Israelis hacked the Syrian’s personal computer after he left his hotel for meetings in the Austrian capital.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/09/can_mainstream_conservatism_survive_in_the_21st_century.html

Is it authoritarianism to ban Drag Queen Story Hour in public libraries, with the explicit threat of violent prosecution?

That’s the question at the heart of the recent debate between author Sohrab Ahmari and National Review’s David French.  Moderated by columnist Ross Douthat at Catholic University, the disputation was the first public confrontation of fusion conservatism and a burgeoning but inchoate mix of nationalism and integralism.

The contest of ideas, sad to say, wasn’t an even-sided scrimmage.  The mainstream conservative side, represented by the hail-fellow-well-met writer David French, was dominant, aided by French’s attorney background and jujitsu-style argumentation.  Ahmari ping-ponged between decrying proceduralism’s fecklessness and offering his own thin-soupy proceduralist solutions.

For example, when pressed on how he’d combat crossdressers reading children stories in taxpayer-funded libraries, flaunting their sexual depravities, Ahmari could only recommend a congressional hearing and proscription via local ordinance.  Not exactly the Battle of Lepanto.

Ahmari lost the verbal battle, but the war over a proper right-wing philosophy in tune with the greater good continues.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14879/self-esteem-public-service

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” — Socrates, “On Personal Service,” 469-399 BCE.

“With no attempt there can be no failure; with no failure no humiliation. So our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do.” — William James, “The Strangest Lightness.”

Those in public service have a daily opportunity either to welcome that challenge of advancing our nation or to retreat into mediocrity…. [I[t becomes evident that securing self-esteem is the true benefit from such a career and one that every public servant should aspire to.

“You will learn that those with ideas and enthusiasm to work hard and improve services may be ostracized by the status quo elements…. Set goals, dream big, and ask ‘why not.’ Maintain an exemplary standard of ethics. Begin with the end in your sights. And, above all, maintain your sense of humor!” — Larry J. Gordon, Gordon Visiting Professor, UNM School of Public Administration, 1994 Commencement Address.

That most precious of resources, time, gives us the means to think, ponder, reflect and acquire that most coveted of treasures: wisdom. The thought-provoking writings of three eminent scholars — Socrates, William James and Larry J. Gordon — bridge the centuries to provide us with the means better to understand ourselves and our era. Take the time to read their essays.

When it came to the role of teachers in our society, Socrates knew exactly what their role was. He observed, “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” He reminded all of us that the educator’s real goal is to excite a student with the love of learning — perhaps one of the most crucial responsibilities in any society. More than any paycheck, pension or summer recess, creating a legacy that ensures a new generation will welcome that “flame” of wisdom elevates our teachers far beyond measure, a fact too often lost amidst the debate over benefits and course curriculum.

One can make that argument for all those who are in public service, whose responsibilities are meant to advance our nation, protect our future and better the lives of our fellow citizens. These careers offer a benefit that is far beyond measure — self-esteem — and the knowledge that they have the means to “kindle a flame” that shines a bright and lasting light on democracy.

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/09/opinion/pseudo-science-the-bible-and-human-freedom/

Scientists are confused about every foundational problem in physics and biology. The more confused they get, the more prevalent the notion becomes that the human brain is just another machine and human consciousness is a byproduct of electromagnetic effluvia. Never mind that we don’t know what an electron is, let alone an atom, not to mention a molecule, and we don’t know why such things interact with each other.

The trouble is that people want to believe that their thoughts and impulses are determined by something other than their own judgment. The popularity of scientific determinism has jumped while the explanatory power of science has bumped up against its own limitations, whether acknowledged or not. The irony is that our longing for determinism has nothing to do with science as such. On the contrary, the popularity of scientific determinism has grown along with obviously pre-scientific kinds of determinism, notably astrology, which is enjoying a revival among millennials. These considerations came to mind reading Scott Shay’s book In Good Faith, which contrasts the claims of biblical religion to the old idolatry of the pagan world and its contemporary avatars.

Shay observes, “The Bible assumes human beings have the ability to make moral choices. But today, many scientists, particularly neuroscientists, have begun to question the idea that man possesses any such things as ‘free will.’ The Bible takes for granted that man knows the difference between good and evil, even if we are tempted to deceive ourselves. Scientists, in contrast, are not so certain. In the book Free Will, Sam Harris takes the position that free will is illusory. At the same time, he recognizes, as do other neuroscientists, that as humans we can consciously deliberate and make choices. So what is the current debate on free will all about?” The full-credit answer requires reading his book. Below are a few pointers.

https://www.steynonline.com/9731/john-boltin

On the eve of the annual 9/11 observances, America’s National Security Advisor John Bolton was either fired (per Trump) or resigned (per Bolton). The dispute is being portrayed as one between a Bush-era neocon and an “America First” Trump. But that is something of an over-simplification. As I wrote upon Bolton’s appointment a year and a half ago:

Bolton is viewed with suspicion as a ‘neocon’, which is not a term of much practical use these days. But then so was his predecessor – H R McMaster. So the substitution might be of no more significance than a neocon whom Trump likes the company of taking the job of a neocon whom Trump finds a bit of a cold fish. There may be a little more to it than that: McMaster was complacent, and conventional to a fault; Bolton is a realist, and harder-headed about the illusions of mankind. Beyond that, McMaster belonged to the group of foreign-policy panjandrums who expected Trump to move towards them; Bolton has moved towards Trump.

And, having moved towards Trump, he came to have ever more reservations about what he found there. Whatever the President now says, at the time Bolton’s appointment was a Trump choice reflecting a desire to regain control of an administration in danger of being neutered by the GOP establishment:

At this stage the Gullible Old Pussies of the Republican Party are pretty much openly advertising that giving them control of the House, the Senate and the White House is the equivalent of giving Yosemite Sam three sticks of dynamite to shove down his pants – with the additional nicety that this time round they’re actively flipping the finger at their president’s bedrock issue. I reiterate the point I first made on the radio a year ago: On January 20th 2017 Trump should have taken all those showboating showbiz no-shows at face value and held a businesslike inauguration at the southern border while laying the first brick. The brick remains unlaid – not because Vicente Fox refuses to ‘pay for Trump’s f**kin’ wall’ but because Paul Ryan does.

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/10/724363700/trump-fires-john-bolton-in-final-break-after-months-of-policy-divisions President Trump has fired national security adviser John Bolton, the lifelong proponent of American hard power, after months of division between the men over the direction of foreign and national security policy. Trump announced the news Tuesday on Twitter. Bolton was Trump’s third national security adviser and continued the pattern of departures by advisers […]

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019/09/civility-is-wasted-on-the-left/

Like Jordan Peterson’s reputation, Lionel Shriver’s conservative credentials were burnished by leftist idiocy. In Peterson’s case it was his interview on the UK’s Channel 4 by Cathy Newman. In Shriver’s case it was Yassmin Abdel-Magied walking out of the Brisbane Writers’ Festival in 2016 in protest at Shriver’s views on identity politics and cultural appropriation.

Neither Peterson nor Shriver are my kind of conservatives and, to be fair, I am sure they would not claim to be or would want to be. That’s fine. What I would like to say is that conservative warriors are now needed more than ever. Much less useful are prominent notables on the conservative side who come over all reasonable in the face of those intent on our destruction.

Peterson lost his standing with me when he suggested that Brett Kavanagh should first win his confirmation to the Supreme Court but then immediately resign to clear his name. That was a ridiculous suggestion, to put it extremely mildly. Clearly Peterson has no idea about the enemy we face.

I caught Shriver on Q&A last week. True, I could only stand five minutes or so before turning it off. Any longer spent watching Q&A is injurious to my peace of mind. Nevertheless, I saw enough to sense that Shriver was trying hard to appear “reasonable” to other panellists and to the usual green-leftist ABC audience. Hint for Shriver: Prostration is pointless. They’ll always despise you. Look to, say, Michelle Malkin for a role model.

Did I get a false impression of Shriver’s demeanour? I think not. The following evening I attended the Bonython Lecture in Sydney, where she explained that her engagement, front and backstage, with other Q&A panellists was civil; and, furthermore, she made a point of extolling the need for civility generally in political debate.

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

There is so much in today’s news that is both silly and dangerous. The anti-democratic crowd in Britain, like their brethren in the United States, chose not to accept the outcome of an election. The vote three years ago was definitive, with 52% of the electorate voting to leave the European Union. For those of you who speak and write of the closeness of the vote, yes it was. Nevertheless, it was the will of the people. In the same vein there has been a refusal by many on the left in the U.S. not to accept the outcome of our 2016 election. We have corporate leaders who feel it is more important to be “woke” than to accept the reality that a corporation’s most important goal must be profitability. If a business is not profitable, employees, the community, suppliers and customers will not benefit. It seems the entire field of Democrats who would be President have chosen to end fracking and exit the fossil fuel industry – including natural gas, the commodity that has allowed us to come closer to global emission standards than any other industrial nation – and move quickly to renewables like wind and solar, no matter the costs or the effect on the environment. We have big-city politicians – the most prominent example being New York City – who would dumb-down public education to the lowest common denominator, in the name of equality. They would do so to the detriment of minorities and the impoverished, while sending their own children to private institutions.

The common thread running through all these tantrums posing as policies is hypocrisy. It is enough to make an old man wince. But, enough, on to the main message:

Slavery is barbaric, but to argue that it was the “foundation” on which our country was built is hyperbole and disingenuous. In 1619, Virginia was a colony of Britain. It would be 157 years before the American colonies revolted, and they did so to be free and independent. In that year 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote that “all men are created equal,” words, as we know, that did not capture the truth of slavery, but which suggested a road map for the banning of international slave trade, which was done in 1808; the freeing of slaves in 1863 under the Proclamation Emancipation, and for the Civil Rights legislation of 1964 and 1965. One might argue that 188 years is too long, but keep in mind slavery has been in existence since before written history. Also, remember, in 1776 slavery existed in all thirteen colonies and throughout Europe. And it persists today, enslaving forty million people, particularly in Asia, Africa and Central Asia.

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/09/09/the-downside-of-prosperity-madness-made-affordable/

No other system on Earth has created greater wealth for more people, and lifted more out of poverty than free market capitalism. But it has also brought a drawback we have to live with: plenty of idle time and available resources to feed foolish and too-often destructive activities.

When overcoming economic struggles is a family’s and an individual’s primary, and sometimes sole, focus of life, there’s not enough time and money left over to engage in ill-natured behavior, such as ignorantly and maliciously protesting, and harassing customers, at a Chick-fil-A grand opening in Toronto. All energy is directed toward daily survival. Putting food on the table and maintaining a roof above don’t leave many hours to participate in futile and stupid gestures, to borrow a phrase from one of Hollywood’s greatest movies. Productive adults, especially those who are depended upon by others, and even responsible teens, have far better things to do than to act like spoiled children, and worse.

But today, most in the West live in a society whose members are not only the richest in history, they have a bounty of leisure time that no other has even been able to comprehend.

William Ayers was among the first to exploit these conditions. His father Thomas G. Ayers was a president, chairman, and CEO of Commonwealth Edison in the 1960s and 1970s. The elder Ayers also served on a number of corporate and nonprofit boards, was a Northwest University trustee, and was known for his civic leadership and generosity.