The evile within many humans is not remediable.

 

Today’s Musing Minute.

The Starman said.
"You are a strange species. An interesting species. You are capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares."

I recently posted a remembrance of Zsuzsanna “Zsuzsi” Ozsváth, the inspiration behind and founding director of the Ackerman Center at UTD. https://ackerman.utdallas.edu/

Tonight I attended one of its many events: a lecture by Tali Matas, a remarkable South African scholar of the Holocaust and of human rights.

She spoke about the growth of Holocaust studies—by which I mean *the* Holocaust, the one perpetrated by the Nazis. It was gratifying to hear that efforts to raise awareness and deepen understanding are in fact increasing. One hopes those efforts will succeed.

Yet I worry about the blunting effect of history. As the event recedes further into the past, the enormity and horror it once evoked may diminish, and it may come to be seen as merely one more among history’s many atrocities rather than something quite unique—unique in its duration, its bureaucratic efficiency, its scope, and the sheer difficulty of explaining it. The same might be said of the phenomenon of Jew-hatred itself.

This is precisely what Holocaust education must strive to communicate: a signal example of just how depraved human beings—and even an entire modern, sophisticated society—can become.

When we contemplate the Holocaust in light of current events, we see that this darker side of human nature persists. It is not buried deep within the psyche; it can appear openly and proudly, for all to see. More troubling still, it can be cultivated—from childhood to adulthood—under the right social and ideological conditions.

Extremist factions within Islam attest to this every day. Anyone who examines what they say and do with open eyes will see it: large numbers of people driven by a violent ideology that seeks the subjugation—or elimination—of “non-believers,” especially Jews but also Christians.

I generally agree that comparisons to the Nazis should be used sparingly. But in this case it is difficult not to notice certain similarities—and also a crucial difference. The Nazis often tried to conceal their crimes. The jihadists proclaim theirs openly and proudly, convinced they are doing God’s work.

A guiding credo in the West is the belief that, under the right conditions, all people can be brought to recognize the sense and justice of universal human rights—rights that apply equally to everyone, without exception for race, gender, ethnicity, or religious affiliation.

Yet there is a stubborn—and perhaps delusional—reluctance to consider the possibility that a large portion of humanity does not actually share this belief. On the contrary, some hold firmly, even religiously, to the opposite view: that only certain humans are entitled to particular freedoms (and not necessarily the full range of liberties embraced in the West), while others may justifiably be subjugated—or even killed.

To cling to the assumption that everyone ultimately shares (or, more important, can be persuaded to shere) the Western conception of universal human rights is not merely naïve. It can also be dangerous. For this illusion risks blinding us to the reality of ideological movements that explicitly reject those principles, leaving us poorly prepared to recognize or confront them.

From my FB page - why are American Jews so "liberal"?

 

The Sapir article

Today's musing minute, What does religion have to do with it?

 Listening just now to Dennis Prager, I was struck by what may be an *essential* difference between the religious and the secular approaches to morality.

For the secular, Hume's fork applies, the one that fundamentally distinguishes between facts and values. Facts are matters of objective reality, not always knowable, and often incompletely knowable, but always objectively given to us, outside of our perception of them. So, facts and values (what we regard as good and bad) are distinctive, completely unrelated categories. One concerns objective reality, the other concerns subjective belief (not amenable to scientific investigation and refutation.)

For the firm religious believer, Hume's fork does not apply, or, at least it does not apply in the same way. Both the laws of morality and the laws of nature are revealed to us (insofar as they are revealed) by God.; and they share the same ontological status. Good and bad are matters of objective fact as determined by God, in the same way as heavy and light, high and low, far and near, etc. are. It may be that the ways in which we comprehend and discover these God-given laws are different, thus demarcating scientific from religious/moral inquiry, but both are matters of trying to learn more about God's laws. As I say, scientific and moral laws are ontologically equivalent.

One does not go far along this route before encountering perceived contradictions, the most well known being, the problem of squaring God's omnisience and omnipotence with individual responsibility (and also the problem of the existence of evil given God's omnibenevolence) - a matter, I have learned, that my religious friends prefer to leave unresolved as one of God's mysteries. [footnote: For me it is like saying that, if he wants to, God can make it so that 2+2=4 and 2+2=5 as well .]

So what? So, ok. As a practical matter, this very fundamental difference, matters most when the religiously zealous have political power, and matters least when they don't, because in the latter case they lack the power to compel belief and behavior according to their perception of God's law. Regardless of how we perceived their ontological status, religious laws must be held separate from civil laws, secular laws. In many respects, that move, the move towards "religious freedom" and the secularization of religious identity, that move allowed for the development of the modern world and the great enrichment. Theocracy is incompatible with the freedom of choice that we now take for granted and that made us rich.

It is fortunatethen, that for the most part, even the religiously inclined enthusiastically accept the separation of religion and state as necessary, and forsware the right to compel others according to their beliefs. But, we also know there still exists too many who have not made this move. The future of Western Civilization depends on its continued existence.

Today's musing minute. Will there be enough childern?

Other than family and friends, my greatest passion is economics. Studying, teaching and discussing economics is, for me, an endless pursuit of fascinating social phenomena, a window into the mysteries of the challenges and achievements (and failures) of the human race.

All the moreso since I have lived through numerous momentous changes that have brought us to the remarkable global economy we now inhabit. To say that the modern and post-modern ages are unprecedented is a massive understatement. We are, indeed, living in a brave new world, but not in the sense that Huxley thought. It is full of contrasts, but it is not as a whole dystopia, though some parts and some episodes may be and may have been. Instead, it is full of promise for the creation of ever-increasing human capabilities.

Much of this is a hyped-up version of economic development as usual, much faster and much more transformative; but following the expected pattern of value creation through expanding trade, production, investment, migration, and, most important, innovation.

But one thing is completely new. For the first time ever, human societies are facing a transformative decline in fertility as a result of enrichment, not of starvation or catastrophe, but as a result of choice, of the rising value of human time. And this implies declining and aging populations, with rising degrees of dependency of the old on the young, and worker shortages, etc.

Clearly it is a transition period. If we are to survive as a species, the population must stabilize, or rebound to increase, at some point, and it is easy to imagine various economic models depicting this. But in the meantime, a long meantime, there will be challenges. I believe strongly that, if we let it, the market economy will adapt spontaneously, in ways that we might not yet imagine, but we will feel changes.

One of the challenges is to our perception of children and of families in general. There is enormous evidence showing the economic (and psychological) benefits of strong functional families and the bad effects of their absence. The decision not to have children implies, at the society level, a society not invested in the future.

We are biologically wired to want to produce children. Especially women (in general). The popularity of family TV shows endures. And shows like Call the Midwife - a remarkable, enduring success about pregnancy and babies - suggests as much. So, it is my hope that some incarnation of "family values" will characterize currently emerging generations as they enter this new bewildering world.

Proposal for a Guest Worker Probationary Immigration Program.

1. Biometric Identification
   All applicants for entry or regularization would provide biometric data—fingerprints, photographs, and other reliable identifiers—to be stored in a secure national database.

2. Initial Guest Worker Status
   Applicants with no criminal history or documented problematic behavior would receive a three-year probationary guest-worker permit. During this period, participants would complete two brief online check-ins per year to document employment, school enrollment, skill-building activities, or other relevant information demonstrating productive engagement in the U.S.

3. Affirmation of Legal Obligations
   Each applicant must formally affirm that U.S. law is the governing legal authority during their stay and that they will abide by it. They may hold or discuss any belief system, but active efforts to substitute an alternative legal framework for U.S. law would violate the terms of the program and may lead to deportation. This functions as a contractual condition of temporary residency.

4. Pathway to Citizenship
   After three years of incident-free residence verified through the database, participants become eligible to apply for citizenship. Guest-worker status may also be renewed indefinitely for those who prefer it. Guest workers would pay taxes and receive the same financial benefits as citizens, with the exception of voting rights.

5. Regularization of Undocumented Residents
   Undocumented individuals currently residing in the United States could be admitted immediately into guest-worker status and begin the same three-year probationary period as new applicants.

6. Criminal Conduct
   Any criminal conviction during the probationary period would result in removal from the program and deportation.

7. Additional Provisions
   Other reasonable program requirements may be added to ensure security, compliance, and fairness.

---

A structured, probation-based approach like this offers a more practical and humane alternative to mass-deportation strategies while maintaining clear expectations, accountability, and respect for the rule of law.

Today's musing minute. A troubling dilemma.

 

Thanksgiving embodies the central place of gratitude in the American tradition — gratitude for the extraordinary achievements of our country. As we approach the 250th anniversary of the founding of a unified nation dedicated to a set of guiding principles, we can marvel at how we have stumbled, persevered, and ultimately risen to become one of history’s most remarkable societies. Our past includes dark and destructive periods, yet time and again we have managed to renew our commitment to those foundational principles and preserve our republic.

But what now? The 21st century has brought profound challenges to that code — challenges that reach beyond America itself to the broader framework of Western Civilization, which has in many ways been built upon the American model. As America goes, so goes the West. Will it come to that? We can only hope and pray not. Much depends on whether enough Americans remain willing to defend these principles in the face of an unlikely but increasingly assertive alliance aligned against them.

One part of this alliance is radical Islamism, whose explicit goal is to replace Western Civilization and who will employ any means—including infiltration, intimidation, and violence—to advance that aim. The second is its unwitting support system: the “woke” enablers who, misled by a decades-long, well-funded campaign, have come to view the Islamist cause through the lens of victimhood and anti-colonialism. They have been persuaded, wrongly, that Western institutions are the oppressors and thus believe they must stand in solidarity with those seeking to undermine them. Historians may someday study the surprising success of this strategy; we can already identify at least one contributing factor: the decline of K–12 and higher education, particularly in teaching the meaning and value of the American code.

This is why universal school choice is long overdue. Yet even if such reform were miraculously enacted, it would not, by itself, set us back on course. Restoring our bearings will require a renewed political orientation across the board. Both major parties are confronting challenges from their own extremes—forces similarly hostile to America’s founding principles. Both parties should undertake initiatives to bring their members back within the framework of the American code and to reject those who refuse to affirm it.

For this reason, I propose a well-publicized 250th-anniversary affirmation by all elected officials and party members — something along these lines:

“I affirm this truth as sacred: that all people possess the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and private property, with which to peacefully pursue their happiness.”

A national recommitment to the core principles that made us great — and that can drive our continued progress — is essential.

Which brings me to a particularly troubling dilemma. America was built by immigrants — by our unmatched ability to welcome and integrate millions from diverse cultures, each generation bringing new energy, creativity, and enterprise. These immigrants came with the desire to become American in both action and attitude, even while preserving what they cherished from their own traditions. A thousand flowers bloomed.

But today we may, for the first time, be facing a significant immigrant group credibly committed not to joining our system, but to replacing it with their own. How should we respond to this threat — from those already here, from those abroad, and from those seeking to immigrate? I do not have a clear answer. I remain convinced of the immense benefits of peaceful and open immigration. Precipitous enforcement action risks discarding the very qualities that have defined our success. The recent actions of ICE are the result of opportunistic abuse, not of the real threat to which I refer. It is, indeed, a painful dilemma.

 

From my FB page. Jewish hypocrits, fools and useful idiots.

 

Read the story here

Thoughts on the significance of the murder of Charlie Kirk.

In these last few days yet another cataclysmic event has shaken the tenor of our mental state and our discourse. The premeditated brutal murder of Charlie Kirk is significant for a number of reasons.

Kirk was effective at what he was doing, namely braving the campuses of our nation and engaging young people in open debate. True his tone was sometimes combative, but he never evaded a point made against him. He was well informed and logical. And this was why he was killed. His killer interpreted his views as a personal affront, as evidence that Kirk hated him. And the many who celebrated his murder did so because they found Kirk intolerably annoying, especially since he seemed to be gaining traction in convincing some students. He created a nationwide organization to push back against the formidable decaying of the young American mind. And this terrified his incoherent critics.

So, while the murder itself shocked and saddened me greatly, I am equally alarmed by the reaction to it. It is almost like another October 7, where the victim is seen as an oppressor deserving of his fate. There seems to be a lot of this going on. And it is huge and in your face. How is it possible to understand the complete silence about it at the Emmy’s. You do not have to have liked the guy, but he was a nationally prominent figure who was murdered for what he thought and said. That is an outrage no matter his views. A dignified public condemnation of such violence is the minimum one could expect. The reason is clear. There are large elements of our celebrity and chattering class who have abandoned the fundamental American commitment to open debate and the importance of never resolving political differences with violence. Many now think violence is ok to silence what they believe are destructive speakers. That is pretty scary, right?

Consider the almost unbelievable contrast to the reaction to the George Floyd killing. As reprehensible as Floyd’s killing was, it was in no way any more significant or reprehensible than Kirk’s murder. Whatever the differences in circumstances, and there are many, the differences in reaction are in no way justifiable.

For the record, I do not agree with some of Kirk’s personal beliefs, and some policy preferences that may flow from them. For example, I am pro-choice on the question of abortion, I regard sexual orientation as a matter of private free choice without moral implications (as a believing Christian, he towed the fundamentalist line on this), though I do agree with his condemnations of government interference in the transgender space, and some other implications relating to this.

For the rest, he understood and explained classical liberal economics admirably, being cognizant of all the significant scholarly authorities that his student listeners, even those studying economics, were abysmally ignorant of.  He was articulately effective in pointing out the dysfunctionality and immorality  of our social welfare and anti-discrimination policies. And more. He filled a space that was otherwise not available to these students, these young minds on and off the campus. And it is my hope that it will be his legacy that in some way his efforts and their effectiveness will continue.

What is anti-semitism, an illuminating discussion with a friend

 

Antisemitism, Jew-hatred, is an ugly, disturbing, yet puzzling and resilient social phenomenon, and it takes many forms. It is similar in many ways to crude racism, but also different. We seem forever to be wondering what it is, why it exists, and how to respond to it. In the linked column, from the NYT a few years ago, Brett Stevens (formerly of the WSJ) tackles the question “what is it?” and, as usual, does a superb job of providing a guide for the perplexed. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/12/opinion/antisemitism-jewish-israel-war.html 

My friend Kenny Hymen recently sent it to me, with some comments of his own, and a poignant story about his recent experience as a tourist in Morocco, that I felt compelled to share with you. 

First, Kenny’s “random thoughts”  on the column:

 ·  The Progressive Left and the hard right are very focused on identity politics. And that focus is primarily on the victims, the persecuted, oppressed, disadvantaged, disenfranchised etc. And there must be someone to blame for that.

·    I hear little of the success stories ie those who’ve risen from disadvantaged backgrounds and become successful, be that in business, professions, science, philanthropy. Many of these success stories are Jews and many are also black.

· Too many Jews have become success stories, creating a pent up loathing from the broader community… jealousy and “they’re to blame for the disadvantaged and less fortunate”. Must have ripped them off. Look how many billionaires are Jews. Over millenia, Jews have been too successful, especially as forced refugees/immigrants in new countries. We all know that many immigrants have a higher need/passion for success, to replace what they may have had before and especially to ensure that their children thrive. I would say that almost all Jewish immigrants have this passion…. And we’ve been on the move for over 2 millenia so we apply this passion to succeed to successive countries.

·   Then there’s the quest for education. Let me share a story of my lightning visit to Tangier and the deep discussions with my guide Ahmed (not his real name) on 

the history and roll of Jews in Morocco.

 “they (Jews) were so successful.  They built up trading businesses that helped the country’s economy.  The rulers liked the Jews. The Jewish merchants acquired wealth and they bought beautiful apartments.  (he showed me a street where 90% of apartments were owned by Jews 50-150 years ago). My father worked for a Jewish merchant.  Such a wonderful man.  So honest.  No contract signed… just a handshake. He gave my father a small share of some of his businesses. My father did well and bought a few flats (apartments). The merchant told my father he must educate his children so that they can succeed. My father decided to move to a different area close to a good school.” 

All 5 of the siblings went to university … Ahmed did a 5yr linguistics degree. he speaks 5 languages. 

So Ahmed, “how did the other Moroccans feel about these Jewish merchants and their families ?” 

“They hated them.  So jealous.  They must be stealing money from us … “ SOUND FAMILIAR? 

This to me is a classic summary of the plight of the Jews and the regular rekindling of antisemitism. As long as the Jews are suffering and not succeeding, antisemitism is percolating without boiling over. But once you start succeeding and being noticed. Woe betide.

When I asked Ahmed what he thought about the Abraham Accords (to which Morocco was a signatory) he knew nothing about them.  If a successful university graduate knows nothing about the Abraham Accords no wonder the "Arab Street" is on a different planet from their rulers. 

[And now Kenny turns to modern Israel]: 

Until the 1980’s Israel was generally regarded by the West as the “victim” and fitted well into the community’s view of victimhood. Being constantly attacked by multiple Arab armies. 1948, 1967 & 1973. Fending them off bravely … little Israel. 

And when Palestinian hijackers landed Israeli hostages at Entebbe in 1976, what country could launch a successful rescue mission in a foreign country, aside from Israel? (Jimmy Carter couldn’t do it in 1979   he crashed his helicopters In the desert). 

But slowly the tide has turned.

Israel, drawing on the Jewish passion for education & science and the independent, unstructured thinking and “can do” ethos embedded in the IDF, became the Startup nation. Some of the most cutting-edge technology of the past 20 yrs comes directly or indirectly from Israel. Business and investors applaud that but progressives hate it. Big business and Tech exploiting the masses. Granted some of the technology can be used for nefarious purposes as can electricity, nuclear energy, social media etc. 

The economic success of the Startup Nation now made Israel to the oppressor - no longer seen as a victim.  

Following the 2000 Camp David offer from Barak, that was turned down by Arafat, the Israeli appetite for a settlement with Palestinians has steadily receded, helped a lot by the “reign” of Netanyahu.  Settlements, the closest to the current fad for Colonization, have ramped up this narrative. Many in the world see Israeli settlers in a similar way to Russians in the Donbass. The combination of extreme right-wing nationalists and Haredi fundamentalists has significantly weakened global support for Israel, from Jews and non-Jews alike. 

So, we are in a situation where ugly Israel is a global oppressor/colonialist, an economic powerhouse “relative to size of population” and becoming a pariah when it defends itself. It fits perfectly into the “oppressor” camp. Think Al Assad/Russia bombing Fallujah/Mosul, Putin’s bombing Mariupol, Bucha

And the percolating, pent up loathing of mainstream communities for Jews has been unleashed. It plays perfectly into the key drivers of antisemitism.

 What can reverse this?

 Do we need to return to victimhood?

The Nazis accomplished that pretty well and the world tolerated Jews for a good 35 years after WWII 

 The Haredi drive to eliminate Science and Maths from Haredi education may be a perverse attempt to cut out the education that tends to drive Jews’ success. Produce theologists with no broader education?

===

Our discussion ends with me mentioning to Kenny Natan Shiransky’s incisive test for identifying speech that is anti-semitic. The three D's for whether speech is antisemitic. When is Demonizes, when it delegitimates and/or when it engages in double standards.

What is a "just war"?

 

President Trump, excercising authority as the commander in chief, and in consultation with advisors, bombed the nuclear facilities in Iran - clearly an act of war. How should we feel about this?

War is a particularly problematic issue for libertarians - one that occasions deep divisions between them. There are some who, almost reflexively, oppose any kind of war, as a particular kind of violence, no matter what the surrounding circumstances. Anarcho-libertarians can find no place for it, they question the very existence of government itself. I have never understood this position, though I agree heartily with their penchant for dramatic reductions in government scope and size. When the prospect of abolishing government becomes plausible, i will gladly have that discussion.

 In the meantime, governments exist, and there is evil in the world. Surely, if we sanction the action of self-defense, we must acknowledge the validity of a just war. The justifiable divisions of opinion revolve around how one interprets and analyzes the current reality. Is the threat really existential in nature? What actions will deter it? What actions will make it worse? How much damage and suffering will it cause, to whom? Can we rely on our fallible, corruptible leaders to get it right, etc.

 I don't have answers to these things. No one does. The future is unknowable, and the minds of others are impenetrable. But, for what its worth, here is my non-expert opinion. 

I support the bombing. I buy the argument that Iran is an existential threat, not just to Israel but to the very fabric of our western civilization. For many decades now, the threat has been building, Iran has sponsored numerous terrorist organizations and specific incidents, like the bombing of the JCC in Argentina, the attacks by the Houthis, Hezbollah and most recently Oct. 7. Iran paid for the incredible tunnel infrastructure built by Hamas, for one purpose only, the destruction of Israel. Thousands of people around the world have been killed and injured, including many Americans. The official Iranian position is one of hostility to the West and the commitment to destroy Israel and exterminate Jews. 

The nuclear threat? The argument that it is for peaceful purposes, like energy generation, is implausible. The level of enrichment achieved is not necessary for that. So what is it for? Some people say "deterrence". Against whom? No, given the level of fanaticism and demonstrated beligerance, I personally would not be inclined to gamble that Iran does not intend to use a bomb once acquired. 

So, while I certainly have my differences with Donald Trump, the man and the president, I am glad he did this. Now, it is true, we will need to deal with the fallout. Thankfully, this is not like Bush's Iraq invasion, which was a disgrace, based on lies and personal grudges, that caused massive distruction in the long run, with which we are still dealing. This should be a very limited action. Let us hope so. 

Just one man's opinion.

From my FB page. Today's musing minute

 Today’s musing minute

*SPOILER ALERT*, IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE TV SERIES “YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS” OR ARE CURRENTLY WATCHING IT, WATCH THE WHOLE OF IT BEFORE READING THIS IF YOU WANT TO AVOID THE SPOILER.

--------------------------------

Clearly, art is often a vehicle for social philosophy, even propaganda. The extent to which a work appeals to its viewers depends very much on the conscious and unconscious values that they hold dear, that they relate to, that motivate and energize them in their imagination of a better world.

I found the series interesting, engaging, sometimes amusing and frustrating. Interesting because it is full of beautiful talented actors doing their thing against a backdrop of a beautiful affluent neighborhood. Engaging, because the situations are sometimes cleverly ironic, also sometimes sad, in an exaggerated but familiar way. But, also, very frustrating, because of the constant, but unmissable, sub-text of social criticism and perverse moral judgement resonant with the “social justice” credo pervasive within the chattering class of our current society.

The story is rather simple. Andrew Cooper (Coop), [John Hamm], is a regular hard-working ambitious American guy who makes good, better than he could have imagined, and gets to live the “good life” in a fabulously affluent suburb, with his glamorous wife and two slightly troubled kids. Except that the “good life” turns out to be not so good, full of stress and spite and trivialities, which Coop only comes to realize after suddenly losing his job as a superstar hedge fund manager, having earlier lost his marriage and become estranged from his kids. The series is about how he tries to cope with the new calamitous world in which he finds himself. Now, suddenly in his life, everything is dark.

I will leave those details to the show. A driving theme, emphasized by Coop’s recurring eloquent third-person narrative to the viewing audience, is the revelatory value of what has happened to him. As a consequence of these unnecessary losses (a result of misallocating his time and energy by pursuing misguided ambition for material and status-achieving goals) his eyes are opened by degrees to the hitherto hidden reality of his pathetic existence as a “rich person”.

In his new reality staring poverty and deprivation in the face, he begins to realize the offensive nature of his friends’ lives, particularly their penchant for acquiring useless mega-expensive stuff, which they never use, and sometimes don’t even remember they have. Zero-sum thinking is seductively present throughout this. I could almost here the script writer thinking: “they have all this stuff while so many good folk are struggling and starving. Its unjust, isn’t it?” One could almost hear the “social justice warriors” cheering.

So, as if motivated by this, Coop decides, since they don’t need all this useless treasure (watches, paintings, jewelry, … ) he might as well steal them, and fence them for a fraction of their market value, in order to bridge the financial gap in his fractured life until he can figure out something else. Coop the narrator suggests he should have known better, but not because it was after all, theft, and clearly and blatantly immoral, but because the system is rigged atainst him.

He gets greedy and finds his circumstances getting more and more entangled, ultimately facing a charge for a murder he did not commit. In a scene near the end of the final season’s episode, he confronts the person who has framed him for the murder, and asks her why she was prepared to sacrifice his life for her purposes. To which she illuminatingly replies, “because you don’t deserve that life!” in contrast to herself who worked up from the bottom and sacrificed more than he did to get it. And, strange to tell, Coop admits he basically agrees with her – his illuminated conscience speaking aloud.

I saw many aspects of an upside down morality. One of particular interest was the common misconception of the nature of “value” – what it means, what it is. So, when Coop makes contact with a tough, no nonsense inner city woman (who somehow seems to be Jewish) who is an expert fence for stolen goods, she lectures him about not understanding the value of real concrete physical things as against the (imaginary?) value of the pieces of paper he is used to pushing around in his hedge fund job. She is saying to him, you have left the imaginary world of parasites on Wall Street and now find yourself in the scary real world of objective merchandise.

So, when suddenly, things turn back around, and Coop is offered his old job back plus more, and is in a position to return to the $100K membership country club, and all the other good things, he strings things along before dramatically deciding to turn his back on this cesspool of richness and return to the honest, decent, socially just job of burglarizing his neighbors. Are the viewers supposed to applaud his clarity, his courage? Am I being cynical and uncharitable? You can decide.

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Today’s musing minute - from my FB page. Facing some important inconvenient truths.

Facing some inconvenient truths.

The world is a wonderful and terrifying place, in which the most sublime human virtues and the most unimaginable human depravity are revealed.

There are many examples. Let’s consider the Nazis, lets note the many acts of courage and compassion that saved lives. And let’s note the bigger reality of what happened as this sophisticated, “cultured” European nation descended into the moral abyss. I have no doubt that millions of decent German people lived through this, alongside the monsters. How much did they know? What did they do if they knew, what could they have done? The most common response no doubt was accommodation, sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes unconscious, eyes averted. What would I have done?

This is not a completely hypothetical question. I grew up in a morally bankrupt racist society, a cruel, crude, police state. And when it came to decision-making time, I left. I left, not only as an act of moral conviction, but also, let it be said, out of fear, out of fear of lapsing into quiet complicity (as most had done) or the existential consequences of resistance.

Now, especially since October 7, I look at the world and wonder, wonder why so many ordinary “western” people find it impossible to condemn the massacre of Oct. 7, and others who even celebrate it, and wonder how many there are who are simply averting their eyes from the veritable explosion of Jew-hatred, in America and all over the world. But, mostly I wonder, and worry about, the persistent existence of Nazism (and, if one can credit it, even worse) in the world today.

Again, I have no doubt that, in the Muslim world at large, there are millions of decent, loving people who want to live in peace and let others live in peace, no matter who these others are. But, the elephant of an inconvenient truth is that there are also millions of “ordinary” Muslims who do not regard Oct. 7 as a moral problem, and who firmly harbor the belief that a state of Israel, ruled by non-Muslims, as a secular state, is unacceptable, and that it is a religious imperative to fix this, some would say by any means, indeed even recommend by the extermination of the Jews, there and everywhere (and after them it will be time to deal with the other infidels), and others, perhaps the majority who would prefer to eschew violence while, nevertheless, dismantling the state of Israel. That this belief is so widespread is testimony to the power of sustained (religious ) indoctrination, starting at childhood.

This truth is apparently quite opaque to the majority in the west, who shrink from the thought that there could be cultures in the world that completely reject the western values of tolerance, especially freedom of religion, indeed believe that the world should be ruled by the religious law of the one true religion. Oh, of course, they know about this, but have convinced themselves that it is simply the extreme fringe beliefs of a minority, and that the rest can be made in time to accept the self-evident truths that underlie western civilization. They cannot contemplate the numbers arrayed against this and the absolute impossibility, of easily reforming this “death cult”. It has existed for centuries in great number, and now, in the greatest numbers ever.

How to deal with a death cult that is out to destroy your culture and your civilization? It is not a military problem, though military problems are involved. It is a cultural problem. It entails the awareness and application of counter indoctrination, that will take generations, but the sooner it starts the better. At home and abroad, an awareness of the importance and achievements of western values need to be hammered home, contra the woke folk agenda. And, in the meantime the unacceptable actions of the death cult promoters need to be vigorously resisted.

States "defecting" from the anti-western Muslim alliance are most welcome. Will it be reliable and will it be enough?

Antisemitism as a response to the massacre of Jews

 

Watch it here:

From my FB page. Today's musing minute - What does the 2024 election reveal?

 Between the group of euphoric highs and devastated lows, it is hard to decide who is more arrogant. Arrogant people fly higher and fall harder. No matter what the result, there was going to be a lot of VERY unhappy people. Meantime, stepping back, what did we learn? What happened that was not expected?

Some of us wondered: who are the real Americans? What do the silent majority really think and feel in their hearts. I think we found out. It turns out “average” Americans were not so easily manipulated by a well-oiled seemingly powerful Democratic party establishment, nor deterred by the alarming disarray of what remains of the Republican party. The attempt to wag the dog failed miserably.

It seems to me what we saw, very ironically, was a significant number of voters who were spooked and insulted by the chutzpah of the Democratic Party to try and get them to vote for someone as abysmally unprepared as Kamala Harris. So, ironically, they did not vote for Trump, they voted against Harris. A surprising number of Democratic voters crossed party lines, very few went the other way.

Stepping back from the widely accepted aberrant personality of the president elect, which much of media commentary was about, the voters in general were more concerned with the issues, and the lies surrounding them. The swing within minority groups, including among the Jews of America, was beyond the imagination of the Democratic party elites. So, very surprisingly, the election turned out not to be about Trump the toxic narcissist, or at least, certainly not only about him. Front and center was inflation (the elites told lower income folks they just imagined it), immigration, taxation, Israel and Ukraine. (As unpredictable as Trump might be, many shuddered at the thought of Harris tackling the intricacies and subtleties of foreign policy.)

And looking deeper it is possible to see the sparks of a fundamental ideological realignment in America. Neither of the two main parties is what they used to be, especially the Democrats whose current mix of transformative policy positions strikes “reasonable” Americans as very un-American in its arrogance and scope. Disillusionment with crazy, costly, irrational climate policy, high taxes and uncontrolled spending that evidently has not done much good for anyone, and more. And, the Republican party too, has moved far from the Party of Reagan toward an embrace of big brother government on some issues. The politicians are out of touch with the silent majority. One wonders how this will play out, what steps they will take to course correct and what changes to policy platforms this will bring. Are we at a pivotal moment?

I confess that some of this gives me a bit more hope than I had. It could have been much worse. Many voters did not vote for anyone for president, they voted against the alternative they feared and resented most. The swings in the votes for the Senate and the House suggest it was much more than Trump’s personality.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is the complete collapse of the Democratic party in this election. There are simply no redeeming results for them. Every metric that is remotely relevant went against them. Just how bad it was is expressed by the splash of red ink covering the entire map, with a few blue spaces peeking out here and there. And if you take out California, with its whopping 54 votes, the imbalance is mind blowing. And when we realize that much of California is populated by sleep-walking dreamers wondering around in their impenetrable bubble, completely out of touch with the rest of the country and with reality itself, this sharpens the contrast.

But now, we have to contend with a presidency of unpredictables, and we better hope, that, one way or another, it strikes the right balance that will push us closer to the real Americans.