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Daas Yochid,

Another point. The book does claim to show that “the holocaust was an act of kindness” from HKB”H and it bears the subtitle “a defense of Hashem in the matter of the holocaust” it seems to be attempting much more then giving some perspective ( As I pointed out above I don’t really understand how pointing out that people in prewar Europe were going off the derech “gives perspective” to among many other things the death of over 1 million innocent children)

An answer like the one given in the above mentioned book does not address the core questions on the holocuast. This does NOT mean there is no answer. I just don’t see how the answer given by the above mentioned book answers it (which also is not to say that it doesn’t. I just am having a hard time understanding why it would…)

Let’s review the question:

1.) If Hashem can do anything then it is not “necessary” for him to do anything to reach any particular outcome.

2.) Hashem is Kind, Fair, Loving and does not want to cause any pain that is not necessary.

3.) Why and how does it make sense that he would cause such unimaginable suffering as was seen in the Holocaust when he is capable of reaching whatever outcome he desired without causing that suffering?

Saying simply “he did it because he wanted to wake up Klal Yisroel” or “he did it because he said he would if the yidden did aveiros” does not seem to answer the above question at all.

But my point is that the conclusions I made follow from the facts that I DO know from the fact that the Police Officer said them, and you don’t seem to be disagreeing with me.

Syag,

Again, what I said was what officer Wilson said happened.

Syag,

The facts I mentioned above were stated by the officer on National TV

I know he got out of a car with no backup and without a taser to chase a hostile subject and ended up blowing that subject’s head off. That’s all I have to know in order to say that the Police Officer could have reacted differently and not killed the guy.

Coffee Addict,

You said,

“what if the driver was being attacked or charged at (as in wilsons case) and your driver took his truck annd ran him over, in order to save his life?”

If running him over was the ONLY way the truck driver was able to save himself then you would have a point. As I wrote above I just find it hard to believe that this was the case with the Police Officer. (it’s not a perfect comparison because Police Officers are supposed to be trained to deal with and neutralize such situations without panicking and a truck driver isn’t)

Wilson was a Cop and Cops are supposed to be trained to deal with and arrest people without killing them. If in fact Wilson’s life was endangered by an unarmed teenager then he was doing something wrong, or was incompetent. If that’s not entirely his responsibility then it’s definitely the department that is responsible for training and managing the Cops responsibility.

If a truck driver in my company does something unprofessional and kills someone I and the driver would be held responsible on at least some level. Letting the Cops off scott free is wrong whichever way you look at it.

Voos Epes,

There was a short “Golden Age” for Jews in Arab lands when the Arab lands were ruled by people who valued Philosophy, Astronomy, Mathematics and discourse in general (Algebra was a product of this time and a good portion of the Stars in the sky bear Arabic names to this day)

When as today Muslim fanatics ruled Arab lands the Jews were persecuted as were all Non Muslims.

As Sam2 said above you should really try and learn some history.

Here’s what I really do not get about you NK folks: If instead of spouting untruths you would simply make the Argument that the Torah forbids making a state and therefore we should not make one, you would at least come across as someone whose opinion is worth discussing among other Jews who think that your position would matter if it is true. Instead of doing this you guys pull these ridiculous publicity stunts and use your platforms to spout things that are plainly untrue and make yourselves into a complete laughing stock.

DaasYochid,

Doesn’t make a difference who actually wrote the song any more then it makes a difference if a “Rap” song was written by a Jewish person. In fact what we are talking about certain style songs written by Jews, and if that is/should be a problem.

The things you base it on are all subjective. The same music and neshama “experts” who today say that Rap and rock music is “Vulgar” said the same thing about Jazz (and anything other then classical music for that matter) in the early 1900s.

Daas Yochid,

What do you base that on other then your distaste for it (something I happen to share with you)

There is no such thing as Jewish music that is not influenced by Non Jewish music. It does not exist and everyone knows this. Where do these people that don’t know this think Jewish music comes from?? Do they think it was passed down from Har Sinai?

Halevi,

You said “The question is that he noticed a color reflecting off an object of a different color. ”

And my answer was that the reason he saw the “other” color when he applied a filter was because the original color he was seeing (when he was shining unfiltered white light) was a mix of more then one of the “primary colors” that make up white light…. (in my example blue and red were being bounced back so he perceived it as purple he was assuming that the red and blue light was absorbed so if he shined a light through a blue filter he was surprised that blue light bounced back, but blue light was being bounced back all along. Now if he had tried to shine a green light on a purple surface the surface would appear more or less black.

It would be the same if you shined light of any one of two primary colors on an object that is the third color for example if you shine a green or blue light on a red surface the surface will appear black as well).

That’s why I was saying that the premise his question is based on is simply wrong.

Curiosity,

Thanks for the correction. So substitute turquoise for purple in my example or green for red. Point is that the observation made in SDD’s question does not contradict anything.

SDD,

The color you see is dependent on the wavelengths of light hitting the object. For example if you shine a “white light” which consists of Red, Green and Blue light onto a surface that absorbs red light the surface will reflect back green and blue and you will see the surface as purple. (Green + blue= purple I think) if you use a plastic filter that only lets green light through to the surface you will see that surface as green. No contradiction at all.

Health,

Regarding HIV

you said,

“I see you read Wikipedia!” ….. “How do you know?”

Again, I fail to see how your statements above address my points. I wrote the questions I have on your position below.

1.) Why do you assume that people would want to be tested knowing that if they test positive they will be quarantined for life in order to receive pain meds in the future? Once you consider that people test positive for HIV 10 to 15 years before even feeling sick, your assumption is even harder to swallow.

2.) Considering that even in the “at risk population” there were at least 6000 people in the USA infected from direct contact with contaminated blood products from companies like Hemo Carribean in the 70s; and considering that they did not know that they were infected, why would you assume that the disease would stay confined to that population? People who receive blood products do not only have relationships with others who have received them.

Once you consider the thousands who at some point in the 70s had used an intravenous drug and that the G– community was mostly underground with many of them maintained a facade of being married or being in a regular relationship this assumption as well gets a whole lot harder to swallow.

Regarding Ebola,

Sending qualified medical proffesionals to the affected areas to deal with the disease and help educate the public on how to avoid infection as well as to help treat the disease does help get it under control.

BtGuy,

You said,

“I guess I understand you view that you have a right to think specific procedures may not work, but what would be wrong with ALL measures of containment being enacted, even the ones that in hindsight would turn out to be fruitless, until we could have gotten a handle on this?”

If doing things did not come at any cost I would agree with you. However they do come at a cost, and using the limited resources that we have on “solutions” that won’t fix the problem will probably make it worse. These epidemics are a serious issue, they much too serious to deal with in a reactionary and ineffective fashion.

Health,

1.) No one will turn up for testing in order to receive pain meds at the cost of being locked up for life, at best a policy like the one you mentioned above would be great for the illegal dealers of pain meds.

2.) You completely ignored my point about the thousands of people who were infected in the early 70s by tainted blood products and other means. Just take the people infected by tainted blood products, do you really think that in about 10 years they didn’t have relations with “regular” people? Most of them were adults and did.

3.) Regarding Ebola a lot more people then those two nurses would get sick if a travel ban was in place, for reasons I explained in my earlier posts and you failed to address.

BTguy,

The point is that by the time HIV was noticed tens of thousands of people where already infected and the disease had been circulating in the USA for decades. Even if an effective “geographic quarantine” had been possible at some point it was too late by the early 80s.

There was close to 10,000 people infected from tainted blood products alone, not to mention thousands of people who had used intravenous drugs, were G— or had been to or had a relationship with a Hatian. And that’s making (the almost certainly false) assumption that the virus was only circulating in those populations it was first clinically observed in. The reality is that there is almost no way it could have stayed in that population. I elaborated much more in my earlier posts.

Regarding Ebola,

I don’t have anything against testing those who come in from infected countries and quarantining those who test positive. The point is that all a travel ban will do is make it less likely that we will know who is coming in from where and will be ineffective in keeping the diesease out of the US for reasons I listed earlier.

Health,

Please explain why you think people would report for ineffective treatment at the cost of being locked up for life. Terminal patients turn down ineffective treatments that will effect their quality of life a whole lot less then that.

And all that rests on the certainly false assumption that HIV was only extant in the populations in was first clinically observed in.

You have not addressed my point about Ebola at all.

Health,

Regarding AIDS,

You said “My idea is that – at that time- all from the high risk groups -we tell them they have to get tested. When they get sick & want to be treated – they have to prove that they were tested; otherwise we don’t treat them!”

And then what? How does that stop the disease from spreading?? The question was how on earth would you get at least tens of thousands of people (probably 100s of thousands) to submit to testing knowing that if they tested positive they would be locked up (“quarantined”) for life? You were suggesting that the government should have tested all of the people in the populations that AIDS was first clinically observed in and anyone that they had contact with in the previous 10 years (that’s how long HIV can circulate before becoming symptomatic) and quarantine evreyone who would have tested positive. Your idea above does not explain how they would do any of those things.

Regarding Ebola,

Whether or not the Government is doing a good job enforcing quarantines has no bearing on the fact that a travel ban on North Africa would not keep the disease out of the USA I elaborated more in my earlier posts and you failed to address any of my points

1.) Again your assumption that if the Government wanted it could have easily rounded up everyone in the populations AIDs was first clinically observed in as well as anyone they may have had contact with and lock them up for life if they tested positive is beyond ridiculous. No one would submit to testing if that was the case!

Just in the populations that AIDs was first clinically observed in:

There where thousands of people infected with HIV from blood products in the USA alone, thousands more in Canada and thousands more in Europe (about 6000 in the USA alone) a whole lot more then that would have had to be forced to submit to testing knowing that if they tested positive they would be locked up for life (at least 15 thousand as well as their spouses, children or anyone they may have had contact with.)

There were thousands in the G– Community that was mostly underground and very few would admit to being part of (another contributor due to “Conservative” moral ideas)

There were thousands of people who since the early 70s had used an intravenous drug and anyone they had contact with.

Thousands of Americans that had either been to or had contact with a Haitian.

Just in the population that AIDs was first observed the government probably would have had to “quarantine” over 10,000 people (lock them up for life) and since those people would have been having relationships with people outside their circles for up to 10 years while carrying HIV it would not have helped anyway.

Education is the only thing that has helped at all and gotten people to submit to testing and reduce their own chances of contracting the disease

2.) Regarding ebola: we are discussing if a travel ban would be affective. Quarantine and/or testing of those entering from those countries would be fine, you are trying to change your position or simply forgot what we were discussing or are “moving the goal posts”

Another point: There is no cure for AIDs or even HIV (to keep it from progressing to AIDS)the “quarantine” you are proposing would be in affect locking anyone who tested positive for HIV in prison for life. The assumption that people would have reported for government testing in this situation is beyond ridiculous. (Admittedly not much more ridiculous then the assumption that if the government had wanted it could have simply tracked down anyone who was among OR HAD CONTACT with a G–, an Intravenous drug user, a Haitian, a European who lived in a spillover zone, or any of the people who may have received a blood product for Hemo Carribean since the early 70s.)

If anything the government did caused the disease to spread it was their unwillingness to discuss and educate the public on the dangers of the disease and how to minimize the danger of contracting it, due almost entirely to a misguided “Conservative” idea of morality that prevented them from publicly discussing anything to do with STDs

1.) you have not addressed any of my points including the fact that thousands of liters of Hatian blood were being shipped to the USA for years and thousands of Europeans had been being exposed to HIV for close to 50 years before emigrating en masse from spillover zones.

Ronald Reagan definitely messed up the response to the epidemic, the government should have started a campaign to educate the public about safe practices to help lower the amount of people who would unknowingly expose themselves to the Virus. He (and many conservatives) don’t and didn’t like people talking about STDs or anything related to them so they ignored it (every once in a while you can probably still hear conservatives whining about S- Ed in government run institutions including schools today).

We are discussing if a Travel ban and forced testing should have been attempted.

Attempting a travel ban or forced testing of everyone who could have been exposed would not have been possible. Like I pointed out above even just rounding up anyone who had used an intravenous drug in the previous 10 years as well as anyone who may have been exposed to the body fluids of someone who used one is not realistic. This is not even mentioning anyone who was exposed any other way (contact with blood from Hemo Carribean or someone who received some, a European who had either lived or had contact with someone who lived in the Congo, anyone who had traveled to Haiti/had contact with a Haitian etc.)

Regarding Ebola,

Trying to put in place a Travel ban instead of getting the Virus under control in West Africa IS giving it a bigger population to mutate in. It is inevitable that people would “slip through” the travel ban carrying the strains that had more time to mutate. Thinking that a Travel Ban would not effect the economy is ridiculous. To even give the appearance of possibly being slightly effective it would have to cover much more then the 3 “main” countries affected.

Health,

You said,

“It wasn’t an assumption; if you read anything about Aids – you’d know it causes other things. You must have missed my post of -“There might not have been a diagnosis of Aids, but there was diagnosis of the opportunistic infections & Kaposi disease.””

Again, Those infections you mentioned where observed in a very diverse population over many years. It

Here’s a little crash course on the subject:

It is estimated that there were over 12 separate “spillover” events of HIV into the human population between around 1908 and the late 1960s, the first spillover either in or around The Congo.

When Congo declared independence from the Belgian Empire (1960) the only educated people in the Congo were Belgian (that’s how it was in many countries ruled by colonial governments) there were no Congolese doctors.

After independence the Belgians left so the UN sent in 4500 Haitian medical doctors and professionals to help the new country get off the ground (Haitian culture is similar to that of the Congo and they both speak French). Haitians were emigrating to the USA and Europe for a good 20 years before AIDS was recognized not to mention that thousands of Belgians had been living in areas where the disease had been spilling over from around 1908 for close to 50 years before emigrating back to Europe (and having contact with plenty more people that traveled or could travel to the USA.)

Now in the early 1970s a company named Hemo Caribbean was exporting between 5 and 6 thousand liters of blood a month that it bought off of improvished Haitians for use in medical products and blood transfusions. This stuff was not screened for HIV as no one knew what it was yet.

The blood came from an estimated 170,000 Haitians- any number of which could have been carrying HIV which by that time (unknown to anyone then) was prevalent in Haiti.

By the early 1980s when HIV was noticed in certain populations in the USA this thing was far beyond control. It wasn’t just a few thousand people that had to be tested and it wasn’t in a small area.

You should really read a bit about the subject of zoonotic diseases. It’s a fascinating subject and you should stop talking down to people who disagree with you when you aren’t familiar with the topic being discussed.

Regarding Ebola if a Travel Ban would not effectively keep Ebola out of the USA then it does not reduce the danger to American citizens.

Health,

You said, “So what??? As far as the general population – this was only a handful!”

Again what is your assumption that after decades of circulating in the general population there is was only a handful of cases based on?

You said,

“Actually all they would have to do is start holding the law drugs are illegal”

That’s ridiculous! If “holding the law” was so easy then there wouldn’t be drugs in the USA today. The US has and had fairly strict drug laws for quite some time. It’s like saying “I have a great idea to end the drug problem in the USA let’s enforce drug laws and then drugs will go away.

Regarding Ebola, the point that I have been saying over and over is that a travel ban won’t keep the disease out of the USA. It won’t effectively “keep away the sick people”.

Health,

1.) you said “You don’t read my posts or you don’t understand them! Hiv is a virus -therefore anybody who contacts this virus -gets it. HIV became endemic in the 80’s, despite your denial.”

I’m guessing you meant “an epidemic” here the word “endemic” doesn’t make sense in that context. AIDS was first clinically diagnosed in certain populations in the 80s, it (or the HIV virus that causes it) had been circulating in the general population for decades. That’s besides the point that to do what you propose the government would have had to force everyone who had used an intravenous drug or touched the body fluids of someone who had used an intravenous drug since about 1970 to submit to a quarantine/testing for it even have a chance of being effective. That’s not very realistic at all.

2.) If you cannot prevent the Virus from coming here you shouldn’t waste resources trying to do so. You should try doing something that has a chance of having an effect.

P.S. Look up the word “endemic”