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November 7, 2023 4:56 pm at 4:56 pm in reply to: Ukraine is more important than israel to joe biden #2237018akupermaParticipant
American foreign aid is for weapons. Recipients are normally expected to pay their own military wages.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Russia is actively involved in supporting the people attacking Israel. Eretz Yisrael is a front in a war that includes Ukraine, and threatens to expand to all of Eastern Europe, Taiwan, the Philippines and Korea.
Those who say they support Israel but not Ukraine, or the reverse, are similar to someone who says they support a baseball team but only the players on the left side of the infield, but definitely not the first baseman or the relief pitchers. War is a “team sport”, and our team (speaking as an American) includes Israel, Ukraine, NATO, Taiwan, Philippines, South Korea and Japan. The other team consists of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.
The only difference between war and baseball, is that if one team is really good, the other team loses interest in playing, and unfortunately Joe Biden and the Congresses (meaning, for all purposes both parties) are too distracted to get our team ready for the next season, which could be disastrous.
akupermaParticipantI suspect the person who posted this gets his information only from left wing secular media (e.g. New York Times, CNN, etc.), rather than secular media such the Wall Street Journal or Fox network. Whereas the Times tries to be the voice of the politically correct, and Fox of the conservatives, the WSJ tries to be the voice of the mainstream establishment, and their coverage of anti-Semitism and of Hamas has not been problematic from a Jewish perspective.
akupermaParticipant“Do they have a point”
If someone runs a fire safety campaign (there always is in out community, especially in Kislev), they have a point when they say “I told you so” when the house catches fire. But it doesn’t do any good to lecture on fire safety when the house is burning.
The Zionists (both the various socialist groups, and the nationalists) can be blamed for the current war (and arguably the Holocaust) based on dumb decisions made 100 years ago (and sharing credit with the British Colonial Office and the various Palestinian leaders, in that order). But the house is on fire now, and that fire is very much capable of spreading to engulf the world. And absent time travel or going to an alternative universe, there is anything we can do now to repair the mistakes of a century ago (so yes, Neturei Karta has a point, but it is moot).
akupermaParticipantYou much be young. From roughly 1947 until 1991, the United States (and the world) was always within 15 minutes of sudden death (time for a rocket to appear on radar until explosion of the warhead). Both the United States and the Soviet Union (a earlier version of Russia, but much worse) kept a large number of bombers in the air ready to destroy any survivors of the first barrage of ICBMs. Many thought that 1991 was the “end of history” and the world was entering an era of peace, democracy and prosperity – we were mistaken. World wars are not pleasant, but they aren’t “Gog u-Magog”. If you are worried spend less time on the internet, and more time doing something useful. Based on past experiences of our community, Torah and Mitsvos get better results than worrying about what Biden, Trump, Putin, Xi, not to mention Bibi, are up to.
akupermaParticipant“Hostage” implies a criminal. It suggests Hamas is an organization such as the “Mafia” (which at this point in time probably should not be capitalized). It also means that Israel can execute them after a brief trial, but can not attack civilians or infrastructure in retaliation (just as if the local drug pushers live next door, you can’t blow up the building and everyone in it).
“Prisoner” implies a government. It suggests that Hamas is the lawful government of Gaza (they did win the last election), and its forces and the armed forces rather than a gang of terrorists. This means that their kidnapping civilians violates the Geneva Conventions (which apply to official armies, not criminals).
If Hamas is the genuine armed forces of a largely independent state, it makes things much more awkward for almost everyone.
akupermaParticipantPersons who supported the Nazis objected to referring to the death of Jewish non-combatants as murder. So what’s your hiddush?
akupermaParticipantThe decisions that matter were made a century ago. Both the moderate zionists and the Hareidim were negotiating with the Arabs for what have been a Jewish “commonwealth” but not a sovereign nation (complete communal autonomy, economic freedom, unrestricted immigration). Two groups were outraged. One were the more fanatical zionists (both nationalists and socialists) since their dreams of a sovereign Jewish state would be destroyed. The other was the British Colonial Office, which greatly feared the emerging Arab state (possibly including all Arabs in western Asia) which included a Jewish commonwealth (and access to western tech) would undermine the British Empire. The Arabs had expected an independent state, as promised by the Allies during World War I, and had no problem if it included a non-sovereign Jewish entity.
The socialist zionists murdered the Hareidi negotiator and told the rabbanim to stay out of politics or meet the same fate. The Brits organized a pogrom targeting the Hareidim (note that encouraging religious and ethnic clashes was the standard modus operandi of the British Empire). Most Hareidim learned to live with the zionists and avoid anything more than asking for handouts and a bissel of autonomy. Neturei Karta went on saying “I told you so”, but its a century too late to do anything to end the war. Almost all Israelis will settle for nothing less the full national self-determination, and almost all Arabs will settle for nothing less than a single Islamic state “from the river to the sea”. It could indeed lead to World War III and the destruction of the world as we know it, but that is up to Ha-Shem, and it would be reasonable to notice that the goyim’s persecution of the Yidden would be the ultimate cause.
akupermaParticipantThose compiling such statistics often are unable to differentiate between what have become, for all purposes, two separate communities. One community is defined by observance of kashrus and Shabbos (which totally define where you can work and live) and tend to be social conservatives and the other is almost totally assimilated into American culture. The former tend to vote Republicans on a national level, and the latter tend to be solid Democrats. If the Democrats are unwilling to expel the wing of their party that supports mass murder of Jews, there may be some shifting. I strongly suspect the increased gun ownership among Jews is among frum Jews, since we are the only ones who can readily be identified as Jews.
akupermaParticipantIf Israel gets all the hostages back, alive and well, it might be worth it for Israel to avoid having to level Gaza and schecht its population (no other way to do it). They can insist on a rigid ban on Palestinians entering Israel, engage in targeted killings of Palestinian leaders, and annexation of all West Bank settlements – but resign themselves to having to go back to the old system of reserves doing over a month per year, until age 55. Israel was, and probably still is, unprepared for a full scale war, which for Israel would be an “all or nothing” proposition (the “nothing” is a Judenrein Eretz Yisrael. They have assumed they would be dealing with terrorists and occasional rockets – not a full scale war on the model of World War II in which one side wins by permanently eliminating the other.
Israel also has to consider its own internal divisions, that in the United States there are strong blocks of isolationists and anti-Semites (separate blocks who hate each other), and when taken in a global context (including Eastern Europe, Iran, and East Asia) the Middle East would be single theater of world war that the “Free world” is hardly prepared for.
akupermaParticipantLack of donkeys. Donkeys are considered noble beasts, hard working. A symbol often identified with Bnei Torah.
American universities are full of thorough bred horses, who are serious “full of themselves” and seriously pampered, but incapable of thought or action. Good for showing off, but not much more.
akupermaParticipantAfter the next election, it is unlikely Bibi will still be the leader. The question is will Likud still be considered a right wing party, as opposed to a left wing party in a world in which the “center” are those in favor of “transfer”.
akupermaParticipantAfter the war. Just as Golda Meir did. Note that the reason Chamberlain resigned was not the mess he had made, but because he was near death from natural causes. Sometimes they last long enough to turn defeat into victory, and are remembered not as the idiot who got into the mess, but as the great leader who won the war (e.g. Roosevelt and Stalin).
If the reason for Hamas success was something Netanyahu had no control (e.g. they figured out not to use smartphones to communicate, and set up the invasion using only paper and oral commands, without using the cell networks or the internet), then the blame will fall on the military more than the politicians.
akupermaParticipantAnimals do not kill without a reason. When the Romans wanted to throw someone to the beasts (a punishment for religious crimes, and a particularly bad way to die), they had to starve the animals first. If you ever get thrown into a lion’s den (has happened to the best of us), you will probably survive if the manage to get out before the lion gets hungry. Mosquitos don’t bite unless they are hungry. Bees don’t sting unless threatened.
So the people who refer to Hamas (or the Nazis, or whomever is being annoying at the moment – we do encounter more than our share of such people), should stop insulting the “animals”.
October 20, 2023 11:05 am at 11:05 am in reply to: Mainstream Media = The Enemy Of The People #2233191akupermaParticipantThe mainstream media are the Wall Street Journal and Fox (especially the former). If you watch politically correct media, that have given up on old fashioned objective reporting, it is your choice.
October 18, 2023 4:44 pm at 4:44 pm in reply to: Israel and Palestinians trade blame for hospital explosion #2232727akupermaParticipant1. The Israelis have no incentive to target a hospital (since in the end, they’ll have to treat the patients when they retake Gaza) unless it was being used as a military base (e.g. guiding drones from the roof, which the Israelis didn’t claim).
2. The Americans said the Israelis didn’t do it, and Biden stuck his neck out to say so.
3. The Palestinians have a history of inferior weaponry, which is why even though they have been harassing the Israelis for years by sending rockets at civilian targets, they were seen as more of a nuisance than an existential threat (until they switch to ground assaults and started trying to retake territory that was on the Israeli side of the 1949 armistice (green) line. So the “friendly fire” explanation is credible.
akupermaParticipantAny frum married woman who has anything to do with the world outside the frum community is displaying tremendous mesiras nefesh, since for the last 60 years American women normally go bareheaded, and anyone who wears a hat, with very narrow exceptions, such as softball players, is regarding as weird and subject to varying forms of harassment and discrimination.
The halachos on this are well known, and the style discussion is irrelevant to any halachic discussion (albeit important to anthropologists and historians of costume and fashion).
akupermaParticipantPerhaps the caption should have been “End game for Zionism”. What happens to the Zionists will be at most an inconvenience. While have legal and political rights, whether in America or Eretz Yisrael is nice, Jewish survival has always been related to Torah and Mitsvos.
The Zionist future in the long run is bleak. Zionism was found on the dual principles of socialism and secularism. The former has largely been sent to the “dustbin of history”, and the latter is incompatible with the other peoples of the Middle East. The Zionists always believed that anti-Semitism was a reaction to what Jews did (dress differently, worship differently, value different classics, etc.), and they never have been able to realize that racism is not based on logic but on hatred.
The Hareidim have always been the heart of of the Jewish world, and will continue to be so in the future, since there is where Torah and Mitsvos rule, and all the secular false idols are rejected – and this makes no difference where we are living, or under what regime.
akupermaParticipantBut like it or not, the Israeli war is with the Muslims, not the Palestinians. To be effective, “transfer” means expelling all the Muslims, and in effect return the world (okay, northern Africa, the Middle East, East and South Asia) to the status quo ante that existed prior to the rise of Islam. The means turning North Africa and the West Asia to be Christian, Iran to be Zoroastrian, Pakistan and Indonesia to be Hindu, etc. Practically it won’t happen. As many gedolim said 100+ years ago, the only viable alternative is to be willing to live in peace with the Muslims, which might be acceptable to some Hareidim but would never be tolerable to the hilonim.
akupermaParticipantAfter all, if you don’t go to non-kosher stores that actively support murdering Jews, who will???
akupermaParticipantThe end game could be that a Russian-Iranian force marches into Tel Aviv, while American pursues an “America First” agenda. While the DINOs and RINOs support Israel, the WOKE and MAGA are opposed to foreign wars.
Biden is one of the least popular presidents in American history, and a big chunk of his party cheered the idea of Jewish babies getting slaughtered. The isolationist wing of the Republicans appears to be ascendant. There appears very little support in the US for a massive military buildup, which is probably the only thing that will deter the Sino-Russia-Iranian-North Korean alliance. When the rest of the “free world” sees American chicken out, they’ll realize they have to make their peace with the “new world order”.
akupermaParticipantGiven modern technology, no country can launch a surprise attack involving a large army. Satellites in orbit will see everything. That is why the world press reported the Russian invasion at least a day or two before it happened. Similarly, something such as Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor over 80 years would be impossible in 2023.
One thing a country can do is limit the attack in size, to basically a glorified commando raid, and to have bases close enough to the border that the other side won’t see the troop movements. This is what Hamas did in Gaza.
akupermaParticipantWhile on a kabalistic level it is of course true that whatever happens in the fake world is due to what the Yidden do, and if all the Yidden got their act together this world would vanish and we could finally be in the real world – it is not realistic to expect all the Jews, most of whom are so assimilated they don’t realize they are Jews, will do Tsuvah, so we are stuck in the world of lies whether we like it or not, and whether we think we deserve it or not.
akupermaParticipantPerhaps yes, perhaps no. Golda Meir was politically much closer to her generals in 1973, so it was harder for her to escape the blame. If the Israeli voters perceive the leadership of the military, and especially the intelligence service as allied with Bibi, he is out after the war ends (and remember that most of the current opposition consists of Likudniks who can’t stand Bibi, whereas most of Golda’s oppositions were anti-socialists who rejected her entire agenda rather than just her). If the public perceives the military elite as allied with the economic elites whose demonstrations crippled the government and may have encouraged Hamas to think Israel was “easy pickings”, the reverse is true, and Bibi’s replacement will probably be an ultra-nationalist who can say “I told you so” when pointing to past left wing policies (such as Oslo, withdrawal from Gaza, etc.).
akupermaParticipantMany if not most people tend to dress better if they start to have more money. And the more affluent you are, the more your accent tends to reflect the “better” class of people you associate with. That is human nature and applies to all cultures.
October 3, 2023 9:18 am at 9:18 am in reply to: Validity of Jewish Marriage where it’s for other reasons #2228927akupermaParticipantIf the people are Jewish (by halacha, not “culturally” or “genetically”), and they are living together as man and wife, and its their child, the only possible objection to the marriage is that the woman didn’t go to mikva. It might be an issue if they they weren’t living together, or if the child wasn’t there child, or the man was married to another woman -but what the question describes is a proper Jewish marriage by a couple that is already de facto married, and wants to “make it official” for a legitimate reason. Consider if the reason was so that they could easily file taxes as a married couple or to own a house by the entireties (since it is very hard to get a marriage recognized without the expected paperwork, even though it is a valid marriage).
They most probably would need a “get” to marry anyone else, as well as a government divorce, since New York, like most states, recognizes the validity of religious marriage ceremonies even if you don’t have the marriage license (the couple and the clergy might owe a fine, but that’s a revenue measure, not a domestic relations matter).
akupermaParticipantIf you don’t borrow at ribis, you won’t have this problem. There is no law against living frugally and saving up money for things before buying them.
The government’s idea is that by raising interest rates, consumers will cut back on consumption (drive older cars, live in smaller houses, wear older clothes, skip out of town vacations, etc.), which will lower demand, and result in lower prices. In other words, if you are suffering, it means the government is succeeding in what it is trying to do. Congratulate Brandon and the Congress in doing what they set out to do.
akupermaParticipantOr they will both drop out. Both of them are deeply unpopular which much of the country, and neither wants to be remembered as a one term president whose vanity resulted in an evil opposition movement coming to power and destroying the country. Also, if they lose and the opposition gets control of Congress, Trump or Biden could end up in jail (and in the case of Trump, die a pauper), so they both have an incentive to drop out and support the member of their party with the best chance of uniting their party, and winning independents and discontented members of the other party. And if one drops out an endorses a successor, the other probably will.
Also, based on polling, there is a real possibility of a third party to win the election (for the first time since 1860). Much of the country detests both MAGA and WOKE, and there is still strong support for a foreign policy that favors America leading the “free world” in opposition to Sino-Russian imperialism.
akupermaParticipantI believe Nikki Haley said that the Senate (without relevance to either caucus) was”most privileged nursing home in the country”, and that largely holds true to the House. On the other hand, does want to force senior citizens, who happen to politicians by trade, to retire merely because they are too old to do their jobs. Look how unhappy Trump and Biden over the prospect of having to be retired, and in all fairness, the Congress largely outlawed compulsory retirement (after seeing who is running the country, maybe a little bit of anti-seniors age discrimination wouldn’t be so bad).
September 11, 2023 1:46 pm at 1:46 pm in reply to: The Rambam on the Linearity of Time, or Its Lack of Thereof. #2224566akupermaParticipantOF course time is not linear. We always have said that Ha-Shem exists outside of “time”. That is why no one has any problem saying how Matan Torah could have impacted Bereisheis (and many other examples in our literature discussing non-linear time).
If you have trouble with visualizing this, I suggest reading the SciFi classic “Flatland” (not about Brooklyn), explaining how a multi-dimensionsal multiverse can exist, even though it is not easily understood by beings (e.g humans) with limited ability to perceive all its dimensions.
akupermaParticipantIF you look at the frum community from the outside, what you would notice is a community in which learning Torah and doing mitsvos is the overwhelming activity (to the detriment of such activities as hobbies, the arts, recreations the goyim love that we don’t talk about here, sports, secular studies and making a parnassah beyond what is needed to maintain an ever-changing “respectable” standard of living). The fact that a person in modern day America or Eretz Yisrael can learn close to full time and still have a standard of living that 200 years ago would have been considered to be very bourgeois at the least (in terms of housing, medical care, food, transportation, etc.) helps explain why “kollel” people are perceived today to be willing to spend more time learning than in the past. What Yidden like best has always been learning, and there never has been such a good time for it as in the early 21st century.
September 1, 2023 10:16 am at 10:16 am in reply to: Could influencers be Mashpiim for Chasidish? #2222005akupermaParticipantFrum Yidden, at least the Chareidim, tend to be influenced by their rabbanim (and their families, especially as pertains to clothing).
akupermaParticipantOne should note that most graduates of frum schools that minimize secular studies end up with sufficient skills, including English language, to find employment and in some cases to end up becoming quite successful. Of course, it could be explained by the low standards of instruction in government run schools (at least for the non-elite students) in the cities where most Orthodox Jews live. Historically, westerners who pursued a “classical” course of study studying their classics in Greek and Latin (we prefer our classics in Hebrew and Aramaic) were able to achieve in many areas, suggesting it is the rigor of the curriculum that matters more than the substance. English is useful since it is the language of business and government in much of the world, but especially in America, there has always been great tolerance in its misuse, especially since America has always welcomed (or at least, tolerated) immigrants, and since American culture has always been welcoming to the “Horatio Algers” working their way up the economic and social ladder.
akupermaParticipantUnder the Muslims (in this case, the Ottoman Empire, since we are talking about Eretz Yisrael n the pre-zionist period)we had a status somewhat better than, for example, Blacks in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, 1865-1954 period, (and much better than Jews in most Christian countries who had fewer rights and were subject to frequent violence, excluding America which has not been a “Christian” country since 1789). There was no forced conversion (unlike the zionists who try to force Yidden to become secular), we controlled our own welfare and educational institutions (the government didn’t try to restrict Torah learning), we had our own courts whose decisions were respected by the state, and we were exempt from (and in fact, banned from) military service. Those Jews who preferred a financially oriented lifestyle were allowed to do so without having to adopt a non-Jewish lifestyle, and those whose primary concerns were Torah and Mitsvos were unmolested. And there usually was peace in Eretz Yisrael (except for the time Napoleon invaded).
August 16, 2023 11:57 am at 11:57 am in reply to: Jewish books on the paranormal/mysterious/ufos/conspiracy theories #2216528akupermaParticipantBenjamin: The gemara(s) are in Jewish dialects of Aramaic, which has almost identical grammar to Hebrew (as is true of most Semitic languages), and is as close to Hebrew, as for example, French is to Spanish, or Russian to Polish (if not Ukrainian). English is an Aryan language with radically different grammar than a Semitic language; look at the verb tenses, in a Semitic language there is no present tense which is why we use a noun pretending to be a verb to indicate the present, so if you say Ha-Shem created the world in English it means it is a “done deal” and the Ha-Shem created the world sometime in the past, but in Hebrew you are saying it was an action started in the past but continues to the present, or if we say that the Bayis Sheini will be built in the future, in English that means sometime in the unknown “yet to come” but in Hebrew it means it will be built starting in the present and continuing into the future. It is interesting to note that while serious frum books were written in Aramaic and Arabic, none were ever written in Greek, Latin, Ladino or even Yiddish. While many people lack the academic training to access the “real stuff” of Yiddishkeit and have to settle for reading about Yiddishkeit in a foreign language, they need to remember the goyish proverb “translators are traitors”. One needs to consider why over the last few millenia, Jewish communities whose scholarship was in a foreign language (such as Greek or German or English), tend to assimilate.
August 15, 2023 9:25 pm at 9:25 pm in reply to: Jewish books on the paranormal/mysterious/ufos/conspiracy theories #2216408akupermaParticipantHumash, Talmud, Zohar, ShaLo”H (Shnei Luchot ha-Bris), Kedushas Levi, etc. — Books, including translations, in goyish languages, such as the one we are using now, tend to be watered and highly influenced by whatever theories are in vogue among the goyim, the theory being that those who can’t learn from the original materials probably shouldn’t be given access to the real stuff
akupermaParticipantIF you have a lavish lifestyle in a community dominated by Bnei Torah (and almost by definition, if you are in kollel or employed as a teacher is a Torah environment, you are unable to live a lavish lifestyle), you are for all purposed volunteering to pick up a large share of the costs of running the community. While we pretend it is not a “tax”, from an economic perspective the frum community is financed by very progressive taxation (even if they are “voluntary” contributions, but since we don’t have an IRS to make sure you pay more than your fair share, we rely on lifestyle to know who gets the bills for communal expenses. This has always been a major check on the frum community’s “1%”.
akupermaParticipantI think frum children greatly relate to the idea of being part of a discrete minority whose activities are largely hidden from the general public and totally misunderstood by the general public, and who are also subject to sometimes severe discrimination and persecution. Much of the lives of frum Yidden in golus are very much parallel to the “wizarding” subculture in the Harry Potter novels (i.e. we are the wizards, the goyim are the muggles).
There are some Christian themes that the author included, but it should be noted that none of these involve Avodah Zarah, and are based on aspects of Christian culture that were derived for Judaism. If a Yid had written the books, they could have used the same concepts and we would attribute them to Yiddishkeit origins and history. The “witchcraft” in Harry Potter doesn’t involve looking to or believing in an Avodah Zarah, and should be considered alternative science (consider the famous line to the effect that any technology too advanced for the observer to understands appears to be witchcraft). Advanced beings with superpowers are only a problem if the superpowers are derived from an Avodah Zarah (that there is nothing “treff” about either Star Trek’s “teleportation”, or Harry Potter’s “apparation”).
akupermaParticipantMost surveys conducted by the secular community confuse “Jews” with persons of Jewish descent. One should definitely exclude those persons of Jewish descent who don’t have a clear claim of being Jewish based on matrilineal descent. One should probably exclude those who have been so assimilated that they are not distinguishable from the general population (I suggest such matters as observance of Shabbos and Kashrus are key factors in deciding whether one has assimilated).
If you found some DNA from Sinai (when the Jewish people began), you would probably discover that almost everyone is of Jewish descent (which would be true of anyone from 3500 years ago – at this point all humans are related to all others-remember Noach is about 4500 years ago, and we hold everyone is descended from him).
akupermaParticipantMany people make a career studying children’s stories as well as folklore. When you investigate their origins, there is often much that we would find objectionable. There are Jewish stories for children which pose few shailos.
If you want to use “cleaned up” folk tales to teach Jewish children, you need to explain what the characters are doing from a halachic perspective (Goldilocks is a thief, but as she is a minor she probably isn’t liable, and if the bears and her are all Yidden, then perhaps it is a situation to discuss hachnasas orchim, and note the stories of rabbanim running after thieves to give them tsadakkah).
akupermaParticipantHow can the ruling class, the social, economic and political elites, be ANARCHISTS?
Since they want a return to the status quo ante of 70 years ago, they are perhaps “reactionaries” trying to preserve their privileges, but not anarchists.
July 25, 2023 7:20 am at 7:20 am in reply to: Chris Christie – why can’t Jews rally around him? #2210716akupermaParticipantNeville Chaim Berlin: Christie is constantly criticizing Trump. Scott (and some others), are following the “old rule” attributed to Reagan, “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.” A Republican who wishes to win in November 2024 must have Trump’s support, and you don’t get that through ad hominem attacks on Trump. Indeed, there are signs of a backlash building against the nastiness of both the MAGA and WOKE camps, suggesting that the way to win the national election is to stick to respectful disagreement with one’s opponent instead of insulting and mocking those one disagrees with.
akupermaParticipantSecular Jews in the United States are major contributors to the Democrats, and turn out in good numbers to vote Democratic, and they are outraged at Eretz Yisrael being taken over the a coalition of nationalistic and religious Jews. It would be surprising if Biden didn’t work to keep his team in control of Eretz Yisrael. It is important to note that in left-wing circles, “democracy” refers not to rule by the people, but to secularism.
July 24, 2023 7:11 pm at 7:11 pm in reply to: Chris Christie – why can’t Jews rally around him? #2210637akupermaParticipantChristie has no chance of winning. His whole campaign has focused on alienating Trump’s base (the populist base, often called the “deplorables”, who would abstain rather than vote for Christie).
To win, a Republican needs to unite the Republican party and appeal to independents and non-WOKE Democrats. While DeSantis has already alienated the populist wing, both Scott and Haley, both with good Reaganite/Tea Party backgrounds, are avoiding burning bridges to the MAGA wing of the party (though their best chance of winning the nomination is for Trump to drop out and endorse/anoint one of them).
akupermaParticipantThe system’s primary goal is to provide parnasah for lawyers, including the “Trial Bar” (plaintiff’s lawyers), and the Defense/Insurance Bar ( since many defendants have liability insurance), and the system works very well. They probably could make it a bit easier for victims to get compensation (if a company immediately admits a mistake and agrees to pay damages, give them immunity from punitive damages and class actions), and they could increase the incentive not to bring silly lawsuits (though the threat of not getting paid discourages lawyers from bringing truely silly ones). There are many Yidden working as lawyers, so we shouldn’t complain. While there are some negative macroeconomic aspects, freedom to litigate is a much better way to solve problems than what other countries do resolve problems (e.g. blood feuds).
July 4, 2023 2:59 pm at 2:59 pm in reply to: Does ‘giving land to Arabs’ not make things worse? #2205582akupermaParticipantThe alternative to negotiations, including concessions, is a policy of telling the Palestinians, and through them the rest of the Arabic and Islamic world, that Israel will make no compromise and there is therefore no reason to even try to negotiate with Israel, and that they are better off concentrating on how they can best destroy Israel, so it is an “all or none, no compromise issue”. Should Israel tell the majority of the Arabs (who have made peace with Israel) that they deceived?
Of course, we can rely on the zechus of the zionists and hope Ha-Shem makes a miracle, but that might prove to be an unwise policy decision.
July 3, 2023 2:06 pm at 2:06 pm in reply to: Reason for the Spanish Expulsion & Inquisition: Secular Education #2205221akupermaParticipantThe expulsion of Jews (and Muslims) from Spain was based on a desire to purge non-Catholics, for political and economic reasons. They would not have cared if the Yidden there were non-observant or Hasidim. Note that unlike the Germans, they were not racially motivated and would allow anyone to stay if they converted and did a good job of seeming to be Catholic. It should be noted that most Spaniards today regard the expulsion as one of the dumbest things they ever did. — One can argue that the mass persecution of Jews in the western countries in the 19th century was related to secular Jews integrating themselves into Christian societies and playing an increasing role in cultural, social and economic areas (the backlash was mild in the English speaking countries, severe in the German speaking ones), but there was no equivalent in Spain (at least prior to the expulsion, there was some “racial” persecution of those Jews who chose to go OTD rather than leave Spain in 1492).
July 3, 2023 10:08 am at 10:08 am in reply to: Should Israel reduce its massive affirmative action for Arabs? #2205065akupermaParticipantIsraeli policy is to try to gain the support for those Arabs who choose to support Israel in its war against the Palestinians (and their allies, at this point that means the Syrians and the Iranians, with most other Arabs states being neutral). In practice, it means those Arabs who don’t want an “Islamic” state, are good candidates for recruiting. That is why you have found Arabs holding significant positions in Israel government (e.g commander of the Golani, jude of the Supreme Court, etc.–jobs that are closed to hareidim), and that most Arab countries are no longer supporting the Palestinians.
Given that the zionists reject a policy of turning the medinah into a Jewish (i.e. Torah-based, run according to halacha) political entity, which would solve all their problems – it makes sense for them to have “affirmative action” to enlist as many Arab allies as possible.
June 23, 2023 3:18 pm at 3:18 pm in reply to: Is there a greater meaning to the Titan accident? #2202685akupermaParticipantWhen people do stupid things, it often comes back to haunt them.
akupermaParticipantHe has alienated the MAGA crowd and has no hope of getting Trump’s supporters to support him against Biden meaning that even with the nomination, he has no chance of winning. He might have a chance as a third party “Fusion” ticket with a prominent Democratic running mate.
akupermaParticipant1. Those who engage in unethical and illegal business practices have a feeling of shame and do everything they can to conceal such activities.
2. The LGBTQ community not only lacks of sense of shame, and is open about their activities, but actively tries to convert others to their lifestyle, and resorts to coercion to gain recruits and punish those who oppose them.
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