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“even with a succesful out vote full trade will continue in and with the europe zone”
Actually France has made it clear that that will not be the case unless the UK does what Norway does and adheres to EU rulings on a host of issues — while having no influence into those rulings. Basically, if the UK leaves, it has two choices:
1) accepting precisely the things it hates about the EU while losing all the leverage it might have from staying in, or
2) losing all its markets in other European countries, losing London’s status as the financial capital of Europe, losing the renumeration from UK citizens working in other EU countries as they will be fired and deported, and probably losing Scotland as well
“The Clinton’s are better at hiding it.”
You have just accused a former President of the United States and the next President of the United States of charity fraud and tax fraud. If you are going to do that, you better have some evidence. Otherwise I will just assume you are a baal motzi shem ra.
“Kind of like the Clinton Foundation. “
No, not at all like the Clinton Foundation. I pulled their IRS Form 990 off the internet. Neither Bill, Hillary, nor Chelsea Clinton received any compensation from the Clinton Foundation during 2014, the last year for which the form is available online. By comparison, the Trump campaign has paid $11 million to Trump businesses.
” In terms of issues, he’s either a conservative Democrat or a liberal Republican. “
In terms of issues, Trump’s principle is What Is Good For Trump.
In terms of everything else, too. His campaign seems to be a vehicle for funneling funds to Trump companies that have contracts with his campaign organization! No wonder nobody wants to contribute to his campaign.
“the Democrats have moved radically to the left and are now support positions that in the past would have been considered off-the wall radical”
Actually it is far more complicated.
The Democratic party has moved to the Left because it made things uncomfortable for southern racists like Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, Mills Godwin and their ilk. They became Republicans and the Republican party (most of it, at least) welcomed them with open arms as part of Nixon’s “southern strategy” which represented a horrible immoral political opportunism. (I have seen videos of Nixon in the 1960 campaign calling for more civil rights laws!) And at the same time reasonable southern Republicans like Linwood Holton were forced out. (Holton eventually supported Barack Obama for President and his son in law is now a Democratic US Senator).
However, outside of the South, the Democratic party is far more conservative today than 50 years ago. For example, it was normative for northern Democrats to support single payer universal health insurance for everyone, not just the elderly. Democrats not usually associated with the Left such as John Dingell and Henry Jackson were big supporters! Huge fractions of northern Democrats wanted to decimate the US Defense Department budget; now it is only Libertarians like Gary Johnson who express such ideas. (Bernie Sanders even supports the F-35, which his own foreign policy advisor Bill French correctly calls a massive boondoggle!) I am aware of no Democrat of importance today who wants to return tax rates to Eisenhower levels when the US experienced great prosperity; the sluggish growth in median incomes began with the Reagan tax cuts!
By European standards the Democratic Party in the US would be called a “center right” party. The Likud Party in Israel is more to the Left!
‘There is no justification for declining to give a “get” when ordered to by a Beis Din, or even refusing to give a “get” while refusing to support’s one’s wife and children. ‘
Correct.
“requiring him, per halacha, to give it even if they cannot compel him.”
I would trust responsible beit dins consisting of rabbis who have spent years studying for yoreh yoreh and yadin yadin semicha over some anonymous internet commenter.
“I stress it is un-verified.”
Then why are you posting it?
“We were better off without Germany & Co in the last century”
Had the EU been in existence in 1940 the Jews of Eastern Europe could have all fled to the UK and Ireland. Note that a lot of the objections to the EU today are about immigration of people of the wrong religion.
There would be numerous sequelae:
1) The UK would face big trade barriers for its main export markets. Unemployment would rise.
2) London would no longer be the financial capital of Europe. Jobs would move to the continent but the UK citizens who currently hold those jobs would not be able to move with them.
3) UK citizens currently working in other EU countries would lose their jobs and be deported back to the UK.
4) Scotland will probably vote to leave the UK and to join the EU, ending the UK as a political unit — it would be England and Wales, and Northern Ireland.
5) Northern Ireland might also vote to leave, as it benefits tremendously from the EU.
There are plenty of problems with the EU. Its bureaucrats are far less responsive to elected officials that those in the US or Canada; its European Parliament does not have the power to restrain the bureaucrats; the various heads of government defer far too much to Angela Merkel and her Austerity program, causing economic misery all around; there is too much corporate welfare; Greece was let in under false pretenses and we know how that worked out; it refused to allow Turkey in when it had a secular western-oriented government and the voters reacted by bringing Erdogan to power; the Euro itself was clearly a bad idea (but the UK has not suffered as it stayed out of the Euro zone); it has failed to enact a common immigration policy (again, the UK is not affected here). But these are mostly fixable problems. The UK leaving would result in unfixable problems that would last for a generation or more.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if I would be considered “off the derech” if I lived in Lakewood.”
I have actually never been to Lakewood. Can someone who is familiar with it comment on whether I would be accepted there or considered “off the derech”?
“Ideally it should be Anarch-Capitalism.”
Not according to the Torah and Chazal. Among the many mandates for communal authorities are to collect taxes for maintenance of the Temple, public works, education, and support for the poor. Those tax payments are mandatory, not optional. We are part of a community, not mere individuals.
The Gemara in Avodah Zara has a Baraita on daf 10 amud a that clearly states that it is best that sons succeed fathers as rulers. Later on in that sugya Antoninus, who is known to secular historians as Marcus Aurelius, wanted to have his son succeed him as Emperor. That son, known to secular historians as Commodus, did succeed Marcus Aurelius, which was almost unheard of in Rome. Commodus was an absolute disaster as Emperor and most secular historians date the beginning of the fall of Rome to Commodus’ reign.
This should come as no surprise to anyone who has read Sefer Melachim. Abarbanel saw this and it is surprising that so many others have not.
” the large majority of gun deaths here are a result of suicides”
This is correct, and across the US the availability of guns is much more related to the rate so suicides than homicides. The 2012 state-specific suicide rates (I couldn’t find more recent data) show that the lowest suicide rates are, in order of decreasing rate, in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey, with the District of Columbia lower than any state. Those are probably the places with the strictest gun laws in America.
“NYC is one of the safest cities in the US, if not the world “
Yes to the US, but most cities in Europe have far less violent crime.
Example: Last year NYC had 352 homicides (down from 2,262 in 1990). London, England, with about the same population, had 118.
“It’s irrelevant where it was bought! “
Correct. That is why the entire US needs real background checks, like Israel has.
“Uzi does it then “
Private ownership of the standard Uzi automatic rifles has never been legal in the US.
“Every Jew a F-22.”
Absolutely!
Lets see, there are about six million Jews in Israel, five million in the US, and maybe a million in other countries. An F-22 costs around $150 million. The cost would therefore be about 1.8 quadrillion dollars, well over ten times the GDP of all the countries in the entire world put together. 🙂
” Weren’t UNSC veto-bearing Britain and France on Israel’s side in that conflict?”
True, but by that time the UK government had already changed as the result of the disastrous outcome (largely the result of the Eisenhower/Dulles policies).
France’s socialist pro-Israel Prime Minister Guy Mollet was still in power, but in big political trouble as the Algerian War was started and the government’s main focus had shifted westward; Mollet needed all the support he could get to fight the Algerian NLF terrorist campaign (it wasn’t called that back then, but that was what it was). Unfortunately the French campaign degenerated into genocide and Algeria was lost anyway — a lesson for people who think Donald Trump’s similar ideas regarding what to do regarding Syria have any merit whatsoever. Mollet did, however, assist Israel in starting the Dimona nuclear reactor (and thus, nuclear weapons) before he was forced from power in June, eliminating the last barrier to the Eisenhower/Dulles sanctions plans. But by that time Ben-Gurion had been forced to cave.
“How do you know?”
He doesn’t, unless he has reviewed all the cases of the Beit Din of America. And to imply that Rabbis Schwartz, Willig, and Reiss don’t know the Shuchan Aruch is the kind of motzi shem ra that should get one banned from every frum web site. How about it, moderators? You would never put up with such a slander against a Charedi rav, much less a gedol. Do you accept “Joseph’s” slander as valid?
“”Cardiac death” is final as aopposed to brain death. I told him this is simply incorrect as CPR revives people from “cardiac Death” Literaly daily”
You are of course correct. Furthermore, cardiac death has no basis in our mesorah for being a definition of death — blood circulation was not even discovered until the 17th century, after the period of the rishonim!
“making special divorce provisions at the time of marriage is a bad way to start a marriage”
Chazal and rishonim disagreed when they forbade any marriage without a ketubah.
“It is halachicly assur for either spouse to litigate in secular court (arkaos) to adjudicate who gets what money, assets, support or custody.”
And only the prenup protects a woman whose husband divorces her in secular court. The form of he prenup that my wife and I signed require us to go to a specific beit din to arbitrate all this. By opposing the prenup you are enabling halachic violations.
“A kesuba protects marriage and the wife by making divorce harder and more costly to divorce her. The prenup does the opposite by making marriage more expendable and easier to dissolve in divorce while making it more costly to stay married.”
That is completely false in our times; in fact it is almost the opposite that is true. The ketubah is not enforceable in any court, at least in galut. The prenup is the only protection a woman has against a husband divorcing her in secular court and leaving her a penniless agunah. No prenup makes marriage more expendable; the prenup requires a husband to act responsibly.
The really bad consequences would be if the UN SC then imposed sanctions on Israel for violating a resolution. The closest we came to this was in 1957 when Eisenhower threatened Ben Gurion with UN sanctions for not withdrawing from Sinai and Gaza in return for nothing. No less a figure than Lyndon Johnson, then Senate Majority Leader, wrote to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to complain!
“We Modern Orthodox don’t believe in Daas Torah because Rav Soloveitchik told us not to.”
“does Rabbi Avi Weiss have Da’as Torah? How about HaGaon Shaul Lieberman?”
One of the most humorous aspects of the Open Orthodoxy wars is the heresy hunters citing HaGaon Shaul Lieberman in opposition to Rabbi Avi Weiss on semicha for women when they would never cite Rabbi Lieberman on anything else, ever.
“No I didn’t.”
Yes, you did. The people who use the single sex swimming hours at the two Bronx JCCs are MO/OO. Other than the Telshe Yeshiva, one chasidic rabbi, and a very few Lubavichers, there aren’t any charedim in the Bronx.
“you’re preaching to the choir”
I wish that were the case but we have some anti-Zionists here in this chatroom. 🙁
“These kids associate the frum look (white shirt and beard) with their teachers, rabbanim and our gedolim. These episodes are destroying emumnas chachamim.”
It is very important for children to learn that what matters is your insides, not your outsides.
“There is alot of construction in Williamsburg, there is no reason someone cant build a Y and your problem is solved”
I was wondering that myself. If the two JCCs in the Bronx, neither of which serve charedim, can have separate swimming hours….
“as regards oreos”
Forget Oreos. Eat Hydrox. For 90 years they were the only kosher chocolate sandwich cookie. And they were always kosher.
“somewhat crazy is worse than utterly corrupt”
Given this week’s revelations that Trump made campaign contributions to two state Attorneys General after they both squelched investigations into his fraudulent university, you need a more emphatic adjective than “utterly” to describe Trump’s corruption. No major party nominee in history has done anything like that!
“JCC in the Bronx is a private pool, unlike the pool in Williamsburg which is run by the city”
The same civil rights laws regarding public accommodations apply.
“what should be an issue?”
That a pool would have a few hours a week of single sex swimming.
Both JCCs in the Bronx have that.
“it was accepted by”
Precisely. AFTER the minhagim had already come into existence. They were NOT instituted by Talmidei Chachamim.
I spent a week in Anchorage two summers ago; we managed minyanim for Shabat but not during the week. Good luck!
“And certainly America was better off with a culture heavily more European/English “
Spain is in Europe.
“The main impediment to Jewish immigration was your hero, FDR, yemach shemo.”
Sorry, but the immigration quotas were enacted by the Republicans in 1924. They gave FDR no authority to admit even a single refugee.
” Only Talmidei Chachamim whose entire existence is toiling in Torah, are qualified to establish new minhagim, or to change existing ones. “
Sometimes new minhagim arise as the result of Talmidei Chachamim, but it is likely that often minhagim do not have any such obvious source.
Examples:
Which Talmid Chacham instituted Hallel on Rosh Chodesh?
Which Talmid Chacham instituted Simchat Torah for the second day of Shemini Atzeret in galut?
Which Talmid Chacham instituted not eating kitniyot on Pesach?
Which Talmid Chacham added corn (maize) to the minhag of not eating kitniyot?
Which Talmid Chacham instituted men not wearing a talit gadol prior to marriage?
“whose entire existence is toiling in Torah”
Many Talmidei Chachamim are well learned in other areas as well, baruch HaShem.
I can’t see why this should be an issue.
What is a bit more interesting is that we have had a tendency in recent decades to elect lefty Presidents — left-handers, that is. George Herbert Walker Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama are all left-handed.
” when there immigration quotas were gutted “
Proof that “Joseph” is an ignoramus, too. There were no quotas at all on immigration from anywhere in the Western Hemisphere until 1965. One person whose parents arrived during that no-quota period is Judge Gonzalo Paul Curiel, who has been the target of the shameful racist attacks from Donald Trump. Judge Curiel’s parents came legally and were US Citizens by the time he was born — in Indiana.
“America was much better off more WASPy than the hill it’s fast been going down since the 60s, when there immigration quotas were gutted “
Proof that “Joseph” is not Jewish but an anti-Semitic troll. It was those WASPs who wanted to preserve America as a WASP paradise who put on those quotas in the 1920s, leading directly to the deaths of six million Jews who had nowhere to flee.
“President Johnson as well as the French and English were not prepared to intervene in any meaningful way”
It was in fact De Gaulle who precipitated the Six Day War through his withdrawal of support for Israel. Had he lost the 1965 Presidential election to the pro-Israel Socialist Mitterand, Israel would still have had France as an ally.
Johnson couldn’t do anything concrete because of Vietnam. (The UK was also in a similar situation in Yemen.) But he tipped off Israel to the fact that Egypt was planning an attack. Israel pre-empted and the rest is history. Thank you, President Johnson. (Johnson also had helped save some Jews from the Shoah and had condemned the awful treatment of Israel after the Suez War by the Eisenhower-Dulles Administration.)
“I don’t think that he was born in the US.”
Then you are a fool.
There is a birth certificate in the Hawaii vital records department. The Jewish Republican former Governor vouched for it when she was Governor. The non-Jewish Democratic former Governor also vouched for it when he was Governor and furthermore when he was a student at the University of Hawaii he personally knew both of Obama’s parents. Furthermore there were birth notices in two Honolulu newspapers shortly after the birth. And his father’s immigration records state that Barack Obama II was born in Honolulu on August 4, 1961.
My own birth in Pennsylvania is nowhere nearly as well documented.
“decided not to renew his membership”
He announced that he would not renew his membership exactly one day before he retired as a pulpit rabbi.
“isn’t really used by any Orthodox Shul “
Three Orthodox synagogues using tzomet sound systems are listed as orthodox on the OU web site; two of the three are listed as OU members. There may be more — I don’t keep up with these things.
I think that 2012 Green Party nominee Jill Stein is a Jew. She is the likely 2016 nominee as well.
That was an argument used against civil rights acts back in the 1960s. Had we accepted that argument, we would still have Judenrein law firms, Judenrein hospitals, Judenrein suburbs, Jewish quotas in universities, and KKK members being able to justify acting on their anti-Semitism and racism based on their sincerely held Christian beliefs. Fortunately we did not follow that argument.
“make American want to be strong again”
Militarily, the US is stronger than every country in the world combined. For example, we have ten modern aircraft carriers. The entire rest of the world has exactly one (France, whose aircraft carrier carries roughly half the number of aircraft as ours). We are the only country in the world that can project military power anywhere in the world.
Economically we are also stronger than ever.
“she won her nomination (if she does) by the narrowest of margins”
She got three million more votes than Sanders. Obama only won the 2012 general election by five million votes over Romney. No superdelegates and she still wins big. In fact it is Sanders who is calling for superdelegates to ignore the clear will of primary voters.
“Tony Blair’s government was the most pro-Israel in recent times, as there were no Jews at all in the cabinet. “
David Miliband is Jewish and served Blair first as his #1 policy advisor and later in the cabinet.
“largely in spite of the administration’s efforts to cripple the oil industry”
Yet another laughable statement by an Obamahater. US oil production is higher than it has ever been with the single exception of the period 1970 to 1972 — and less than 3% off the peak year of 1970.