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Ron Paul can never be president. He is too principled and too grandfatherly (some say milquetoast) to be president.
I would love a President Ron Paul and a VP John Bolton. RP has the domestic and fiscal issues perfected. Bolton would be in charge of foreign policy and diplomatic affairs.
Will this ever happen? Maybe when cows fly.
bpt,
A great walk that I try to do 3 times a week is from 18th Avenue and Ocean Parkway down to Kings Highway, and then back up Coney Island Avanue to 18th, and down 18th to Boro Park.
Leave cumin out if you don’t like it. Cooking is an art, not a science. You don’t need to follow recipes exactly- use what flavors and seasonings appeal to you. If you don’t like cumin, you don’t need to put it in. It’ll still be delicious without cumin.
To me, at least, there are very few girls that are “ugly.” To me, each and every bas yisroel is beautiful in her own way, and what is attractive to me is a girl’s desire to treat her husband well, her desire to raise children that are ehrliche yidden and proper young men and ladies, and and her middos. I want an aidel maidel and a girl that shares my principles and Torah middos. This is what is beauty to me. A beautiful interior makes for a beautiful exterior.
NEVER rinse pasta. Any Italian cook will tell you that.
Sautee garlic, red onions, italian seasonings, and red pepper flakes in some butter and olive oil. Add sliced fresh mushrooms, sautee, and add a can of crushed tomatoes, Add salt and pepper to taste, a little sugar (to balance the bitterness of the tomatoes), and vodka. Let simmer for at least an hour, so you have a sauce that resembles a good marinara.
Add a box of frozen green peas (thawed), and bring to temperature.
Add a pint of heavy cream, let simmer, and add some butter to thicken. Finish by mixing the penne in with the vodka suace, and add some parmigiano reggiano or pecorino romano, and finish with chiffonade of basil and chopped flat leaf Italian parsley (never use curly parsley).
A nicer recipe is for a Cuban dish called picadillo, similar to a sloppy joe, but you can eitehr put it on rolls or eat it with rice.
Saute your chopped meat and drain.
Saute chopped red onion and garlic in olive oil, along with some cumin, oregano, and chopped green bell pepper.
Add an 8 oz. can of tomato sauce, as well as about half a jar of Spanish green olives with pimientos, along with some of their brine, some pepper, a little salt, and some raisins and wine.
Bring to the boil and reduce to a simmer, and let cook for 30 minutes over medium heat.
Serve on rolls, or with white rice and black beans, and some fried plantains.
I agree with above posters- law is a poor career choice.
But, if you are interested in going to law school, the key is to get a Bachelors in a good, solid humanities and social sciences-based discipline, such as a ombination of History, Political Science, Philsophy, etc.
Sheker hachen v’hevel hayofi ishah yir’at Hashem hi tit’halal
“Charm is deceptive and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears G-d shall be praised,” Mishlei 31:30
What is a “poskin”?
I never heard of a poskin.
Thank you Popa.
Charity is a religious ideal. I cannot think of any religion which says not to help the poor and downtrodden. It is just that conservatives believe that individuals, not the government, should provide charity. If taxes went down and if we could claim more money as a tax exemption, more people would give to charity.
I apologize to charliehall. This ludwig is far more odious and dumb than Prof. Hall any day of the week.
The American Revolution occurred when people got sick and tired of taxation without representation. They believed they were victims within their own nation. According to your logic, those who fought for our freedom were Nazis, and anyone who feels victimized or marginalized by the actions of their government is a Nazi.
I never encountered R’ ASher Yatzar. Is he some hidden tanna or amora some professors just discovered in an ancient manuscript? I think Daf Alef, Amud Beis, is missing from my Gemara. (lol)
I only used Isaiah for the sake of contrasting this charlatan’s arguments with my own.
Who calls Yeshayah Isaiah? Usually Christians.
Global warming? The originator of that failed hockey stick statistical model admitted that it was faulty- Michael E. Mann is a liar and so are all the global warming people who are preaching pseudo-science. I do think that pollution, acid rain, etc. are problems, as there is scientific evidence to support this. Anthropogenic global warming? That is a complete farce, and example of science being perverted to suit a leftist environmental agenda.
What Nazis are in the Tea Party? Can you list names of those who adhere to National SOCIALISM? Are you aware that Y”S attacked capitalism as a Jewish conspiracy and as a Jewish evil, just like Marx and Engels before him? Goebbels’ writings are full of vicious condemnations and attacks against the free market. The Tea Party is in favor of small government and the free market. How can a movement advocating what the Nazis were against be Nazi itself? Does this make any sense?
The Marxist agenda of “social justice” is not a Torah concept. Never once does the Torah call for hippie-style communitarianism, or an erroneous interpretation of Bereshis 4:9. The neviim were calling for people to help one another. I help others whenever I can, even though I am homeless and have little resources to call my own. However, they DID NOT advocate the welfare state, with Robin Hood-style economics and a paternalistic state doling pout welfare to the orphans and widows. Isaiah is not the Manifesto or Keynes, le havdil.
You think that George Soros and Obama care about you and the poor. They do not. They care about themselves and they want to control capital for themselves. That is how the elite limousine liberals operate- capitalism for us, communism for everyone else. They want to be rich and enjoy all the luxuries while making the American Dream an impossibility for all others through heavy tax burdens and stifling regulations. Even the USSR had capitalism- State Capitalism, in which the ruling elite enjoyed the benefits and delights of capitalism, while everyone else had to fight over the last remaining potatoes on the magazine shelf, due to inflation, which we are suffering from immensely.
Do you want NHS-style health care? Do you want to not be? Just speak to any Canadian or British citizen, who cannot access vital services, tests, and procedures and who are directed to palliative care when the government puts a price tag on their lives. Do you want this kind of Mengele system in the US? If you suffered chronic illness like I do, maybe you would open your eyes and stop wanting to impose your dangerous communist ideas on the rest of us who are happy with things just the way they are.
Anyone who hires an illegal immigrant/goy over a Yid to do a job that any Yid in need of work could use is a sonei yisroel. So many times I weep when I see illegal immigrsnt goyishe shammashim in shuls, having no kavod for seforim, kedushas beis knesses, etc. Oy, would I love to have such a job to help me get through school. Instead, we give these jobs to our enemies, maybe to save a couple of bucks. Very nice way to treat a fellow Yid.
I believe that the way to deal with the kollel chaverim is this: if we did not have to support the lazy goyim of the world on welfare, we could support our rabbonim. I also believe, however, that kollelnikim should be enterprising and use their talents, if they really do have them, to teach torah to those who are working. Ideally, there should be no more than 10% of our men learning in kollel longer than a few years.
Regarding Israel, I believe that as one of our only allies, we should support Israel, South Korea, Taiwan, and other allies in the fight against communism and tyranny. I endorse a Larry McDonald-style foreign policy over a Ron Paul-style diplomacy. However, I do not believe that Israel requires our dollars; we should encourage Israeli economic growth so that she may be prosper and never again be a slave to the goyishe world. If I were president, I would support Israel monetarily while building up her economy and supporting her right to develop and expand as she wishes.
I like their crispy habibi tacos and their bbq rib platter is a very good deal at $14.00.
I believe that morality in the marketplace is the Jewish way. If a Jew is in business, he is obligated to follow the Torah’s moral standards, and in a free market system, it is these individuals who would be able to conduct business according to our values and who would truly benefit.
I really do wonder if Ludwigvanquixote
is the same poster as charliehall. An investigation should be undertaken. First of all, fascism is a Statist political system that is characterized by totalitarianism. According to the economists Ludwig Von Mises and F.A. Hayek, fascistic regimes seek a collusion between big government and big business, with the result that in Fascist Italy, businessmen had a degree of control over state policy, and the state had a degree of control over the economy. Using this mechanism, fascists were able to fix prices, determine the level of wages, and put up barriers to entry in important markets (so as to give their business allies the power to form monopolies). High tariffs were placed on imports for the protection of the Big Brother State. These policies exercised state control over the means of production. This is just like how FDR (Y”S) and his wife believed that the Great Depression required big government policies and “benevolnet dictatorship.” Fascism is NOT Free Market Fiscal Restraint and Little Government. It is Statism and the unholy alliance between big government and big business; the Libertarian Movement and the Tea Party advocate AGAINST Big Government and Big Business, while Obama’s policies are the epitome of what can be considered Fascistic/Statist- TARP, a $787 Billion Stimulus Bill aimed at protecting Obama’s cronies- members of his green energy cabal, including the big business corporations General Electric (which owns NBC and the leftist MSNBC, which constantly attacks Republicans, with the lesbian Maddow and Keith Olbermann), Duke Energy, NextEra Energy, Exelon, and Honeywell. GE continually receives taxpayer dollars for its various programs, as a recipient of the liberal bailout and stimulus spending.
The Tea Party opposes welfare to big business, just as it opposes the Big State and the Welfare State. They want fiscal responsibility and the federal government to stay out of spcial welfare programs.
Your quotes on caring for the orphans and widows is a cliche, and shows a Torah comprehension no greater than that of Obama, who erroneously believes that the pasuk on Kayin and Hevel (Am I my brother’s keeper?) refers to supporting the social welfare state.
Judaism demands that we care for each other on a human-human level in the mitzvah of tzedakah and maaser, not by supporting a welfare state where we lose our income to government taxation.
The Rambam states that the highest form of tzedakah is when you give a person the tools to be self-sufficient. That is the hallmark of an economy which promotes entrepreneurship and small businesses, the type of society the Tea Party wants. This is in line with the old adage that if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, but if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. Otherwise, you keep people in a state of servitude to the state, in which they are not self-sufficient, but rely on the state for their survival.
To quote Yoel Bainerman, “The Torah never denies man a basic human condition- such as the desire to work, prosper, and provide the highest standard of living possible for their family. The Jewish sages recognized that denying private property and the substitution of it with centralized planned economies for the decision process of the market- leads ultimately to immorality and injustice. So the Jewish view in this matter cannot be regarded as synonymous with socialism or economic polices which deny private property.”
Jewish law views the giving of interest-free loans as an act of charity to break the poverty cycle, to prevent descent into poverty. Although giving of an interest free loan as an obligatory requirement rather than an act of voluntary philanthropy- this in no way implies a waiver of rights of the creditor to receive payment of his loan or absolve the debtor from his obligations. Even if the lender is wealthy and the borrower poor the debtor has to meet his obligations- even at the cost of losing all his property. To do otherwise would saddle the lender with all the social an economic problems of the borrower. The requirement to repay the loan is based on the concept that people have obligations as well as rights- a consideration often blurred in modern welfare economics.
There is also no philosophical basis in Judaism for taxation being used as a means of redistributing income. Nor can taxation be confiscatory of wealth, arbitrary or discriminatory. In Judaism, taxation is a manifestation of the concept of the rights of the community and of less fortunate individuals in the property of all other individuals. It is a moral and ethical imperative- not as a punishment on the wealthy for being successful in their economic endeavors, which is how the left views the creation of capital.
Is this all evil to you?
Is the Jewish understanding of economics evil to you, chas ve shalom? Is R’ Dovid Cohen, a highly respected posek, evil to you, chas ve shalom, because he argues that there is an anti-tax basis in halacha?
I may think you are misguided, but not evil. But you have made it clear that you believe that 21% of Jewish Americans are evil, because they are Republicans (most of these voters are frum).
Do you also know what vile, disgusting, nivul peh it is to call a Republican a t*bag?
Becaause this poster seems to copy verbatim from Soncino-style translations of the Gemara, I strongly believe that this ludwig fellow can be a fraud from Anthony Weiner’s campaign or from any other host of liberal politicians up for a vote tomorrow. He is a liar and an ignoramus who should study some economics and learn some Gemara and Halacha. His hashkafos are way off.
Do you think that the Anti-Israel Democrats are tzaddikim? Baalei mishkav zachor, anti-semites like Jesse Jackson and Hillary RodHam Clinton (remember, Ham is NOT Kosher), Black Panthers I(who did engage in voter intimidation, complete with baseball bats in 2008), Bill Ayres, Convicted terrorists, militants, radical leftists, Weatherman Underground, etc., are all Tzaddikim to you? You have a perverted and Korach-style way of looking at the world.
Juat because someone puts on a uniform for historical pruposes does not make them adherents to an ideology. I participated in reenactments for money one summer, and had to wear a Red Coat. Does that make me an adherent to the ideology of King George III? Now, I believe John Iott was foolish for doing so as someone in politics, but that is another story.
I truly think you ought to be investigated- you are either a goy, a gentile intruder, or a secular non-Jewish Jew, perhaps an adherent to the false ideologies of the Reform, Conservative, or Weissian schools of thought.
It is a shame that the nice organic lettuce is delicious and much better for you, but it is also probably infested.
Smile E. Face,
It is ok to be a seeker. We are obligated to know G-d and knowing Him entails studying things in Torah, philosophy, science, psychology, and the natural and social sciences. This is the derech of the Rambam and Rav Hirsch. Studying and learning hashkafah, aggadah, mikra, etc. are really good ways for a young woman to become closer to HaShem. I am interested in a lot of the same things, and if you’d like, feel free to send me a message anytime (you can get my email address from the Moderator). Hatzlacha Rabba!
I believe that was the problem by Grossman’s execution. If there were a Jewish murderer who was not mentally ill, there would be no inherent moral need to try to save him, as that would lead to chillul hashem impressions among the goyim that we are playing favorites with our own kind. From an objective stance, he was a shoteh, and a shoteh cannot be considered to know right from wrong.
Mary and John are no big deal. These are anglicized versions of Miriam and Yochanan. Peter is a Greek version of Shimon.
References are pointless and opverrated, and do not give an accurate account of anything with school admissions, shidduchim, jobs, etc. Why would a person list as a reference someone who is going to say nothing but great things about them? They serve no logical purpose whatsoever. A person is only going to give as a reference someone who they know is going to praise them and make them out to be the godol hador, the tzaddik nistar, or the best in their field.
The concern with Grossman was not that he was of Jewish ancestry, but that he was mentally retarded and committed his crime under mental duress.
My belief is that he Reform are growing leaps and bounds in America, as charliehall says, due to their acceptance of someone with a Jewish father and shiksa mother as a Yid. What Orthodoxy needs to do to help ameliorate this trend is to adapt the kiruv/geirus approach seen in different organizations, such as EJF, which follows the shita of R’ Benzion Uziel and R’ Azriel Hildesheimer, the Melamed Le Hoil, who both encourage a streamlined approach in geirus for patrilineals. These rabbonim, along with R’ Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer, argue that patrilineals fall under the category of Zera Yisroel, the seed of Israel, and should actually be encouraged to convert. Indeed, R’ Chaim Amsallem has come out with a sefer documenting the relevant mekoros, which I mentioned here in part, on the inyan of zera yisroel. If we adapted the positions of R’ Uziel and R’ Hildesheimer on Zera Yisroel, than the crisis of patrilineals can be averted ansd these individuals can be more easily welcomed into klal yisroel. Note, however, that I am not advocating geirus without malchus ol shem shamayim; this would mean that a patrilineal who observes mitzvos, etc., in the Reform movement or who has come through kiruv, etc., but who wants to become a full-fledged member of klal yisroel, would be converted in a more streamlined manner than others. I am not advocating wholesale geirus l’kula, and bringing frei individuals into klal yisroel, which would only give us non-observant Jews with mevatel conversions. This proposal of mine only applies to shomrei mitzvos who are zera yisroel and who want to become full members of the mishpacha.
Yes, it is healthier. Organic animal products do not contain pesticides, antibiotics, or hormones, and when one uses grass-fed meat or dairy, it has the effect of actually reducing cholesterol ansd serving as an anti-inflammatory, which helps in yeneh machla prevention. By produce, however, there can be serious problems as far as sheratzim go. For shomrei kashrus, it would be best to only use organic potatoes, apples, etc., basically any fruits and vegetables you eat the skin, but to use non-organic berries, lettuce, cabbage, etc., and wash it very well, due to the sheratzim factor, but using organic meats and dairy falls under shmiras haguf, and to me, is a chiyuv. The problem is that I do not know yet of one cholov yisroel grass-fed organic dairy in the country.
I am of the personal opinion that the system of capital punishment in our country is failed and unjust. I believe that we need mental hospitals which provide adequate compassionate care instead of prisons; I believe that most people who do end up behind bars suffer from one form of mental illness, whether it be an Axis I disorder, mental retardation, a personality or Axis II disorder, or substance abuse.
That being said, on the issue of the death penalty, there is a legitimate machlokes. Reb Moshe paskined that it certainly has its place in our society, in Igros Moshe CM 2:68. He wrote that the Torah prescribes capital punishment for a number of grave offenses,including murder, certain types of kidnapping, adultery and idol worshiping. The transgressors in these cases, he explained, are capable of committing all kinds of atrocities and cruel acts for their own benefit. The punishment, however, was not to be inflicted because of hatred for the offender or concern for the survival of society, for it is the Jewish belief that G-d will punish the offenders (Bava Metzia 83b). The purpose of inflicting capital punishment for these offenses is to educate people about the severity of the offenses,rather than to end the life of the offenders.
On this note, R’ David De Sola Pool emphatically declared that the rabbonim approve of the theory of capital punishment, and in the post-talmudic era, it is brought down by the Rosh that mosrim were executed, and by the Rambam, as well.
On the other hand, voices like R’ Ahron Soloveichik, paskened that based on the fact that the Gemara says that a sanhedrin that executes more than 1 person in 70 years has blood on its hands, we should not support it.
I believe that the death penalty is generally the Jewish way, although in our society, based on the socioeconomic realia I mentioned above, there ought to be a moratorium for a while and then a reconsideration of how to make criminal justice work, and how to make mental health services work better for the marginalized in preventing against criminality.
Caspar Weinberger, y”s, a liberal neocon and CFR insider, imprisoned Jonathan Pollard. Rubashkin was sold out by his own Yiddishe brothers, like Yosef. He was sold out by the social justice-types of the new amalgamation known as Left-Wing Modern Orthodoxy, which has a lot of overlap with the Conservative Movement (Morris Allen, Hechsher Tzedek, Uri L’Tzedek, the Catholics, Unions, La Raza-style pro-ilelgal immigrant groups, PETA, and all sorts of liberals who support “cracking down” on shechita and the kosher meat industry, just as the Nazis, y”s, outlawed shechita- see the teshuvos of the Seridei Esh on the matter). In fact, pro-life Libertarian Conservative Bob Barr came out in support of Rubashkin and spoke at the asifa in Lakewood a couple of months ago calling for the release and yeshua of R’ Rubashkin, while the Obama Justice Department continues to persecute this man, a rov b’yisroel, while allowing dangerous Black Panthers, a hate group, according to the left-leaning ADL and Southern Poverty Law Center, to terrorize and intimidate voters at the polls in Philadelphia).
R’ Yosef Dov Soloveitchik holds it is mutar.
The Conservative Movement is one of the great fallacies of our time. The CLJS is a body which decides halacha according to majority rule, and many policies are determined by the popular opinion of the laity. I am not duped by their overtures and flimsy justifications. That being said, however, CLJS resppnsa on non-controversial areas are generally well-written and reach conclusions we would not find objectionable. However, on anything politicized, such as those involving women’s issues, gays, driving on shabbos, etc., you will see that there is little solid evidence. For instance, the driving on shabbos teshuva is 2 pages long and includes no references whatsoever, IIRC. On issues in Orach Chaim, and similar matters, there is little objectionable material, and indeed, these reponsa can serve as a valuable wealth of English source material.
I am interested in principles. not partisanship. Bush was not a real conservative. Earlier in his administration, he pushed through “compassionate” policies such as Medicare Part D and other social welfare programs. However, what you seem to not understand is that in our country, Congress has Power of the Purse. The president does not determine the budget or how our money is to be spent. Congress controls government spending. And for the last 2 years of Bush’d presidency, who controlled Congress? The Democrats.
The Democrat Congress is to blame for these failed economic policies- hence the name tax and spend liberals. The massvie deficits result from Democrat spending and floundering money away on bureaucracy and social welfare, as well as issuing sub-prime mortgages and loans to destitute, largely African American ACORN-Radical-linked Democrat Party activists, who had no way of paying these loans back. Yes, it is people like you who are to blame for the depression we are in.
Instead of realizing that government spending and fiscal outlandishness and high taxes are to blame for our economic woes, Obama sticks to his liberal guns and insists that the free market is bad for the economy, when common sense and economic erudition suggest that it is Keynesian, neo-Marxist polciies that are to blame for our woes. The bailout of the banks and the subsequent stimulus were passed by the Democrat Congress. We lost control of Congress in 2006 to the Democrats, which is when all of our economic problems began as a country. Deficit spending has increased beyond all reasonable bounds under the DEMOCRAT Congress led by Pelosi and Reid.
Budgets do not come from the White House, they come from Congress, and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democratic Party. They controlled the budget process for fiscal year 2008 and FY 2009, as well as FY 2010 and FY 2011. In that first year, they had to contend with Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases.
For FY 2009, though, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid bypassed Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the FY 2009 budgets.
And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as president to complete FY 2009.
If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the FY 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Obama, who voted for the budgets. If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself.
In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is, “I inherited a deficit that I voted for and then I voted to expand that deficit fourfold since Jan. 20, 2009.”
After the stimulus bill did little, if anything, for the economy and increased the deficit substantially, why is he blaming the previous administration for the sluggish economy?
And unfortunately, idealogues and drones like you, charlie hall, do not realize the fundamentals of our system of checks and balances- that it is the Congress that controls spending, not the president.
This is Civics 101, and if you fail to realize the truths in my vort here, than you failed Civics 101.
The only authority the president has over Congress is veto power. A veto can only be overriden by a 2/3 vote of Congress. The president simply does not and cannot control government spending. That has been in the hands of the Democrats since 2006, and the proof is in the pudding. 4 years of Democrat Congressional rule have given us a depression and failing economy, with a deficit that reached over $ 1 Trillion not too long ago. Did we have a depression and failing economy prior to 2006? I don’t think so. The economy under a Republican Congress did great, from 1994-2006, more or less. When people say that Clinton was good for the economy, what they are really saying is that the economy did well under Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress, which is 100% emes. Under Bush, despite two wars (which plenty of Democrats had voted for) and terrorist attacks, we all did a lot better than we are doing now. Under Bush, excluding the effect of home equity extraction, our economy grew at a rate of 1% during the Bush years.
I always wondered the same thing myself.
The problem is that most kids are not going to libraries to read Dickens, poetry, or classic literature, or books that expand their knowledge and love of HaShem and His maaseh bereshis. They are going to generally read trashy-silly fiction books and scary books, which lack real value except maybe having fun. However, many of these books probably have corrupting elements in them, such as books girls read talking about crushes, dating, fashion, etc., things repugnant to what we want for our bnos yisroel. If kids wanted to learn about the presidents, or oceanography, or things of that nature, this would be a different story, and I don’t think we would see any complaints.
A BT is supposed to take on the minhagim and nusach of the persons or rebbeim who were mekarev him. I would think the same holds true of a ger tzedek.
A ben torah is someone who is kovea itim, with a Torah mindset, who is an eved HaShem, who tries to do mitzvos as much as he can, and who devotes at least some of his leisure time to limud hatorah.
I never heard of chocolate chips in a banana muffin, but it sure sounds good. My theory is that they made the batter very dense, causing it to sink. I am thinking that the type of fat you used was too soft, or maybe you didn’t use enough baking powder.
Don’t use chicken cutlets. Use dark meat pieces and chop meat for fleish. Save things like kolichel and other cuts for Shabbos chulent, and even in that, don’t use too much fleish. Shop in places like the Kollel store that are on the more inexpensive side. And consider doing things to make money, like the following idea that is a mitzvah in and of itself- record chaburos on different sugyos with Rashi, Tosfos, rishonim, acharonim and sell the recordings through the Torah Tapes library, or through the internet. I would be your first customer. You can buy a recorder for about $30.00 at stores like the Buzz or other places. You can make some extra money this way, or by learning b’chavrusa with people who work, for a fair fee (maybe something like $25 an hour).
A variety of sources, liberal, conservative, Jewish, Non-Jewish, academic, magazines, blogs, and everything in between.
I, too, think that gay marriage, while crucial, is not the be-all end-all issue facing the state and the country as a whole. I believe that the problem is that the Democrats are pushing through an agenda of failed economic policies that make no sense. We hear all the time about how they hate corporations, etc., although the result of their legislation is to hurt small businesses, the backbone of American free-market entrepreneurship. We need free-market ideals to lead the way, not the failed ideas of anti-semites Marx and Keynes, yemachem shemam.
SJS,
You say, “I’m fiscally Republican and sometimes socially Democrat. I believe in social equality regardless of background, history or basic choices.”
Social equalty can only come about through fiscally conservative policies, such as reducing taxes, putting people to work, encouraging free enterprise, and promoting entrepreneurship.
Maaser is tithing, not taxes. Taxation is state-imposed and is not a mitzvah. Maaser is a mitzvah, and is given from HaShem. Two totally different things.
charliehall,
Don’t assume. Can you speak for Carl Paladino? Are you able to read his mind? If I read, “Candidate x, the Democrat, wants social justice,” and then said that candidate X was an agent of the Castro regime, that would be faulty logic. You cannot read your biases into what you think a person might believe on a particular matter. And, as was mentioned before, there is no heter to save the life of a nochri mother when she would die from the pregnancy, unlike with a Jewish mother.
Your friend is a bloodsucker, a parasite, that you are only ensbling. It seems like she needs some permanent arrangements here. If you help her get a home health aide or a companion, and maybe help arrange this through her medical insurance, that would be a mitzvah and real chesed. If she is so crippled that she is useless to herself, than she needs someone to provide care on a long-term basis. This is not your duty. if she paid you for doing her errands for her, etc. than that would be different. Get her in touch with an agency and see what they can do for her.
Kids ages 2-6 according to Piaget go through a period of preoperational thought, where they ask why all the time because they cannot yet think logically about the world around them. Their thought is egocentric and is rigid, limited to one aspect of a situation at a time, and strongly influenced by the way things appear at the moment (they lack object permanence). This is why everything is a question.
The philosopher Montaigne answers these skeptics in his writings, arguing against the stupidity these people exhibit when they question everything and refuse to accept anything as axiomatic truth at face value. These people will ask how can G-d exist if He can;t be seen, yet they’ll believe science, which claims that everything is made of atoms, even though you can’t observe an atom. (Atoms, like G-d, lehavdil, cannot be seen, yet we believe that they exist). This is why atheists are illogical and quite dumb.
Sunnyside Queens is looking for couples.
charliehall,
Firstly, oppressive taxation is not the Jewish way. I once said that I am a Constitutionalist because I like keeping the money I earn. You replied that my money belongs to HaShem, not to me. Yes, it does belong to HKBH, NOT to the IRS/Barry Soetoro/the State of New York, like the Progressives want us to believe. If I could keep my money, than I’d be able to give 20% of my income to tzedakah, which would help poor yidden, yeshivos, and the dissemination of torah, not to go for the abortions of 14 year olds, bureaucrats’ salaries, salaries of Public School teachers, welfare for drug addicts who don’t want to work, etc. It is my money in a political context, and as a Yid, I should have the ability and freedom to use it to serve HaShem b’mitzvas tzedakah.
Pat Buchanan is no longer a member of the GOP. In fact, his foreign policy is liberal, not Neo-Conservative (I am fairly libertarian on domestic issues, with the exceptions of moral issues and foreign policy, on which I am more Neo-Con- I am almost 99% like Rep. Dr. Larry McDonald, obm, due to this). He was thrown out of the GOP. GHW Bush was NOT A Conservative or religious man- he was a liberal, WASP, CFR establishment guy from New England who put on a Texan facade to dupe the country just like his son did in 2000, another fake conservative and fiscal liberal). Let us not confuse apples and oranges here.
I have no reason to believe Ron Paul is an anti-semite. He has no hatred for the Jews. Do you base this on the fact he wants America to end foreign aid to Israel? This is based in his principled belief that we should not give foreign aid to ANY country. Had he felt that we should give money to countries EXCEPT Israel, than he would be an anti-semite. He wants to stop giving aid to Israel and all other countries we currently give money to. The truth is that the left wing is full of bleeding hearts who want to give money to the Hamas regime (aka Palestinians), continue funding the Jew-hating United Nations and its refugee agencies who help the Arab squatters in our land, and donate to Indonesia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, etc. (under the pathetic guise of helping “moderate” Islamofascist regimes), while defunding what they perceive to be a repressive, prosperous, white country of Jews killing the poor, helpless, Palestinians who “have no choice” but to blow up buses to cope with their “internalized oppression.”
If we did end the measly $2 B we give them per year, you know what would happen? Israel would stop being a yehudion country, insecure and biting its nails all the time worrying about what the UN, America and Obama would think. Had we not given Israel the tight-fisted sum of $2 B a year, which makes not much of a difference at all, Israel would emerge as a nation that is sovereign, that makes its own decisions in confidence and Jewish pride, without having to fear the wrath of the United States. I fault Obama and Bush equally here- due to Israel taking American money, they humbly agreed that American policy would dictate Israeli policy. This is the reason why Gaza and now East Yerushalayim and Yesha, c”v, have been and will be rendered judenrein. You can blame the hitnatkut, which the Bush State Department, mainstream American Modern Orthodoxy and some Israeli Dati supported (OU, RCA, YU, R’ Yosef Blau, Gush, R’ Amital), with the few exceptions of the Chardalim, Igud Harabbonim, JTF, R’ Friedman, Young Israel, Chabadnikim, R’ Lior, R’ Melamed, R’ Aviner, and Jewish and Evangelical allies in America, on foreign aid and its implications. Israel should not be the horse, and America needs to stop waving the carrot. Plain and simple.
Had Ron Paul been elected, there would have been no disengagement and Israel would not have succumbed to pressure to committ suicide. Why? Because US foreign aid money, which comes with the condition of doing what the US gov’t wants done, would be off the table. Instead, Paul would have created an atmosphere of free trade with Israel, which would have enabled the Israeli economy to continue developing and fluorishing, rather than remaining impotent under the oppression of foreign aid. And we would have had an America that respected Israel’s right to defend herself, as she sees fit, without the rest of the world telling her what to do.
In fact, R’ Meir Kahane, Moshe Feiglin/Shmuel Sackett and the Manhigut Yehudit faction of the Likud Party, economist Yoel Bainerman ( http://www.meforum.org/258/end-american-aid-to-israel-yes-it-does-harm), Caroline Glick, Ilana Mercer, Boris Karpa, Aaron Zelman (who runs Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership) and Ron Paul’s economic adviser, who happen to be Jewish, Peter Schiff, among other Jewish libertarians and free-market economists, all agree that Israel’s acceptance of American foreign aid compromises Israeli sovereignty, negatively steers Israeli domestic polciy, and hinders Israeli prosperity. Would you say that these Jews are anti-semites?
In fact a Tzioni organziation called the Zionist Freedom Alliance endorsed Ron Paul, as did a leader of Manhigut Yehudit, which were featured on Arutz Sheva: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/124307
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/7552
Are Yehuda Hakohen and Shmuel Ben-Gad anti-semites?
In Ron Paul’s own words, “No foreign aid means that we’ve cut off all the aid to all the enemies of Israel,” he said. “And they get three times as much money as Israel gets. And Israel is the powerhouse in the Middle East, so they’re going to stay strong and defend themselves.”
“I’m defending the sovereignty of Israel,” Paul continued. “We shouldn’t have a veto over what they want to do with their borders. We shouldn’t have a veto on their peace process. And if we weren’t there interfering and telling them what they can and can’t do, I think they would have more peace overtures.”
Are these the words of a Jew-hater?
Does anyone remember Osirak? When Israel took out the Iraqi nuclear reactor Osirak in 1981 in Operation Opera, in an act of self-defense, the Reagan administration condemned Israel (like the child who gets scolded when they don’t listen to daddy or mommy, who feed them) in a harsh rage, and of course, the UN attacked the Jewish State in UNSC Resolution 487
Most congressmen, Republicans and Democrats, condemned Israel, as well, for this justified act of self-defense.
And you know who the only congressman defending Israel was? Ron Paul (see the Congressional Record if you don’t believe me).
Let me note, however, that I am not a Ron Paul supporter. However, do not call Non-interventionism (the approach of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson) anti-semitism. George Washington said we should avoid “all entangling alliances.” He also wrote magnanimous letters to the heads of Touro Synagogue that charliehall has always posted for the olam to see. Would you say that George Washington hated Jews because he believed America shouldn’t get invovled in other countries’ affairs?
Like I said above, I am of the Larry McDoanld mindset. I believe in a free market economy, traditional morals, and a foreign policy that robustly defends our allies in the fight against oppression, communism, statism/totalitarianism in any of its forms, left or right, Islamofascism, and all other threats to the free world. I cannot support Ron Paul’s foreign policy of not defending our allies in the struggle for freedom by aiding Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, and other such countries. However, I would also like to point out the fallacy in equating Ron Paul’s support of the founders’ foreign policy with anti-semitism.
His economics, though, are of the Austrian School, the most free-market economic system, created by Ludwig Von Mises and Murray Rothbard (2 Jews), and led by thinkers such as Walter Block (Jewish) and HaRav professor Yisroel Meir Kirzner, an NYU Professor of Austrian Economics and a musmach of R’ Hutner at Chaim Berlin. In fact, R’ Joanthan Sacks even delivered a lecture at the right-wing Institute of Economic Affairs in London England, where he is a fellow, and gave a speech liberally quoting the great Austrian economists- Hayek, Von Mises, etc. ( http://www.aei.org/book/582). This lecture was held in MEMORY of Friedrich Hayek, a father of Austrian Ron Paul-style economics.
As a Democrat, your economic darlings are John Maynard Keynes and Karl Marx, the latter of which envisioned “A World Without Jews” and called Jews “capitalist hucksters” and the former of which called Jews “ugly, repulsive, and impure” (he was the architect of the New Deal), http://www.spectator.co.uk/clivedavis/3274946/keynes-and-antisemitism.thtml
Also, charliehall, you boast of your wife’s position as a general practitioner and of your serving as a statistics professor at AECOM. Is “really crazy nutty” a scientifically-accepted term? I wonder what the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria are for this condition known as being a “really crazy nutty?” Is this classified as an anxiety disorder, a somatoform disorder, a mood disorder, or a psychotic disorder? Are you promoting Soviet-style Psikushka, aka punitive psychiatry, in which those who express political opinions differing from those you hold to be true are deemed to be mentally ill? Do all of us right-wingers in your solitary mind have “sluggish schizophrenia,” the arbitrary diagnosis used by left-wing Soviet psychiatrists against freedom-minded people like Solzhenitsyn?
Ayn Rand, by the way, was a bas yisroel (Alina Rosenberg), despite her imperfections. (Sorry, have to run to vasiknin and shiur).
Are you a male or a female?
Prayer is G-d’s special weapon. He does what He wills in His time, not anyone else’s time. All things are contingent on His will- trusting in this is Bitachon.
Do what I do- I took this as advice from the Lubavitchers. I learn Mussar or Chassidus seforim for a few minutes before davening and for a few minutes before learning. This sets my kavvanah straight and gets me in the mood to serve HaShem in tefillah.
We have to err in the side of caution under such circumstances