Stand with Israel: A Speech Before the Independence Day Rally for the Constitution

Yesterday, July 4th, 2011, I gave a short speech at the Independence Day Rally for the Constitution in Luna, New Mexico. Here is what I said:

Good Morning. Shalom Aleichem.

I ask for a few minutes of your time to discuss something that goes beyond the important national and Constitutional problems we have been thinking about this morning. We are certainly facing those dangers from within, but we are facing dangers outside of our country as well. As you have heard, the International Left has now joined with the forces of Jihadist Islam in order to work together for one world government. the leftists believe that they are using the Jihadists to attain world domination. The Jihadists know that they will use the leftists to attain one world Caliphate and then destroy them.

For us, this means the loss of our liberty and the Western Culture that produced it, no matter who wins. I am not a betting woman, but I expect that in any struggle between the Left and the Jihadis, the Jihadis will win. They are the most consistent.

But this is not the first time Western Culture has been threatened. In fact, the first time it was at risk, Western Culture had not even been developed. The nascent ideas of the Rule of Law and Individual Responsibility would be given to the world by Judaism, which at the beginning resided within the future of the dynamic people of the Israel more than two thousand years ago.

Imagine with me, if you would, circumstances a long time ago in place very far away. It is the year 701 BCE. Sennacharib King of Ashur ( that is, Assyria) sent his general up from the sack of Lachish to threaten the City of Jerusalem with utter destruction. If you had been an Israelite upon the walls of the old city, you would have heard this general, Rab-Shakech, saying in your own tongue that your city is doomed, that should you fight, you will lose, and you will be flayed alive and beheaded, and that your wife and children will be taken into slavery in Ninevah, that great city, and forced to serve idols. But the general also said, O, he of the honeyed tongue: "Come now, and surrender, and you shall eat of your vine and fig tree until you are taken to serve in Ninevah, that great city, a place not unlike your own."

In these circumstances, what would be your hope? Would you hope that Hezekiah, King of Judah, would listen to the beguiling voice and take you into slavery, to bow down to the gods of death in order that you may live?, Or would you hope to stand and fight, no matter how desperate the situation—to fight to remain faithful to your covenant with the G-d of Israel, to die free rather than live as a slave?

Whatever your wish would have been while standing on that wall, knowing that the hour of trial was soon upon you, this is what happened. The G-d of Israel told his prophet, Isaiah son of Amoz to tell Hezekiah, King of Judah: “Be not afraid”. And the king listened to Isaiah and prepared his people for battle. For he knew that a choice between slavery in defeat and slavery in surrender was really not a choice at all. But by some unaccounted for miracle Sennacherib’s army became desperately ill, and no battle was fought. Rab Shakech and his armies left the field of battle before it began, and were gone by morning light.

And so it was that Western Civilization was saved before it ever began. Historians and scholars recognize this battle that never was as one of the decisive moments that set the future history of the world onto a path recognizable by us today. One of the pillars upon which Western Civilization is built is the Jewish understanding that the universe rests upon order and law, and that the law applies to all equally, that it favors neither the rich nor the poor, neither the kings and priests, nor the choppers of wood and drawers of water. But had Hezekiah King of Judah, chosen to surrender before the battle began, then there would have been no Judah, and no Jews to bring the idea of the Rule of Law forward, to see it in full bloom as a pillar of human freedom in the West.

There are many such moments in human history, times in which if a small group of seemingly unimportant individuals had wavered in the face of seemingly unbeatable foes, human freedom might have been stillborn, and the generations that have now lived free would have never seen liberty’s great light.

I believe we stand at such a moment today. Western values—individual rights, the rule of law, liberty its-own-self—is under attack from within and without, and as in 701 BCE, the tiny land of Israel, is standing in the crosshairs. The enemies of individual rights and human liberty will strike there first, seeking to destroy the West, the keeper of human dignity and freedom.
The Jewish State is the canary in the coal mine: if Israel falls to the bronze-age group-think that is the marriage between Jihadist Islam with the Left, then what is left of the West will not be too far behind.

And now it is we who are called upon to “Be not afraid.” Courage, it is said is found in the most unlikely of places, and its messengers are often the least important of people. We are those people, and what we do matters.

Last summer, the radio host Glenn Beck called for a rally in Washington DC, and he asked us, just ordinary people, to restore our honor by coming to the Lincoln Memorial on 8/28. The number of people who did so, peacefully and with purpose, speaks about how the smallest of persons can make a great difference in the world.

This year, Mr. Beck is holding a Restoring Courage conference in Jerusalem, on the south steps of the remnant of the Temple. He is asking all of us to stand with him, to stand for Israel, for he believes that Israel is once again the place where the battle will be met, and where the resolve of the West will first be tested. And to those of us who cannot travel to Israel, he is asking that we stand here, in our neighborhoods and in our churches and temples and synagogues. He is asking that we participate in the events through the wonder of the internet, and that American Christians find and invite their Jewish neighbors to join them for this event.

I stand before you today as a Jew. I believe that American Christians are the truest and surest friends that Israel has in the world. Despite what many have said, American Christianity shares important bonds with Israel, and Israel recognizes it. In Hebrew, the United States is called ARTZOT ha-BRIT—the Lands of the Covenant. That Covenant is the United States Constitution, born of the longing of those who left their birthplace to become a light to the nations, to advance the cause of Liberty in the world. Imperfect as we are, this is the Covenant that we strive to protect: Justice—characterized by the Rule of Law and not men; and Liberty—characterized by the recognition that individual rights are the divine gift endowed through our very nature and unalienable by any government.

To stand with Israel takes courage in these days. And that is why the rally in Jerusalem is called Restoring Courage. The time is coming, it is said, when we will all have to choose between what is easy and what is right. In the free choices we make, we come to learn who we are. As a Jew, my choice is between standing for who I am or risking certain annihilation, for the enemies of Israel have proclaimed the desire to kill every last Jew on the face of the earth. As Americans, your choices may not seem to be that stark. But they are still choices between being who you are and being enslaved. So I am asking you today to look into Restoring Courage: Stand with Israel. I am asking you to look into how this can be accomplished even here in New Mexico, here in Catron County.

It takes some Chutzpah to stand here and ask you this, but I am inviting myself to join with you to participate in this event on August 24.

I ask you: Will you stand with Israel?

Arizona's Wallow Fire: The Ragamuffin Ranch Experience

On Sunday, May 29, with all of us present at Ragamuffin Ranch, we ate a nice breakfast, and then moved washers, dryers and refrigerators into the house, and out of the house to the cabin and the barn, in order to get each where we wanted it, since we had inherited the former owners appliances and moved down our own. After that was done, the Engineering Geek left to return the rented utility trailer to U-haul in Albuquerque, and the Cowboy-In-Training and I went to Springerville, Arizona--about 30 miles away--to do some necessary shopping.

It was a clear, cool and very windy day, with a few puffy clouds over the White Mountains. As we walked across the Safeway Parking lot, dodging wind-blown shopping carts bent on catching the cows in the pasture next door, I watched a hard-bitten character in a black cowboy hat flip a smoking cigarette onto the pavement. He started to walk away, but he must have felt my glare, for he came back and ground out the ember, and tipped his hat. "He could have started a fire!" the CIT hissed when he had passed by, and I replied: "And with this wind, he could have burned down the whole town."

We did our shopping, ate our lunch, and began the drive back across the state line into New Mexico. As the CIT drove, I was watching as a white cloud built to the southwest, over the heart of the Rim Country, and then it seemed that the wind began blowing dust from the clouds toward us. By the time I opened the gate at Ragamuffin Ranch, standing aside to let the CIT drive through, I saw a definite haze clinging to the bottom of our washes and along the ridgelines. "Smoke," I said, having closed the gate and jumped into shotgun position for the drive to Ragamuffin Ranch headquarters.

When we had got the groceries inside, the CIT went to feed the horses, and I turned on my computer. Arizona Fires website had no information yet, but New Mexico Fires had a tweet along the right banner of the page. Following the tweet, I was taken to InciWeb for the Southwest Region, and found out that a small fire had been discovered in the Bear Wallow wilderness of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest 18 miles southwest of Alpine, Arizona, which was already a reassuring 50 miles away from us. "No problem," I told the CIT before we sat down to dinner. "It's small, yet, and far away. They'll get it under control before we have to worry about it."

On Wednesday, when I left for Ragamuffin House in Tijeras, the fire was not under control, and we had seen smoke Tuesday evening, but it was still reasonably small and far away. But while I was driving, the Red Flag winds blew that fire up, and overnight that night it grew from 6,000 acres to 40,000 acres. And on Thursday evening, the smoke from the fire blanketed Albuquerque, and was so thick that people wondered if the Bosque was burning again. It was, the radio guy reassured us on the news, the Wallow fire.

I drove back to Ragamuffin Ranch on Sunday, as we watched the fire grow and grow. While I was driving back, they evacuated Alpine and Nutrioso, and dry lighting started fires in Catron County. Fire spotters were stationed along US 60, and one was on the hillside from which I took this picture, looking west through clouds of smoke and thunder toward the fire burning in Arizona. The very small shower I drove through on the Continental Divide fell with ash, making a strange gray mud on the windshield.


The fire grew by the hour and by the day. The the smoke cloud sat above the ridges on the Ragamuffin Ranch road, and it stretched from this western horizon all the way to east, a thick border of smoke dividing the sky, and headed toward the Rio Grande valley. On Monday I discovered all the best websites to get up to date news, as the fire grew into the hundreds of thousands of acres, and towns near Escudilla Mountain on the New Mexico border were evacuated.



The animals got weary of the smoke very quickly, and even the horses, who spend snowy days out under the sky, were reluctant to come out of their stalls. Here, Rafie stands peering out with a look that says it all.

By Monday evening, there were two Type 1 Incident Command Teams in charge of nearly 1000 firefighters, and no containment. We had spent the day in a fog of smoke here at the ranch that got thicker and thicker, so that working outdoors was impossible and the gloom made us turn on the lights at 3 in the afternoon. At the community meeting that night, the residents of Eager and Springerville were told to prepare for possible evacuation, and the residents of Greer were evacuated.




Tuesday, and there was optimism that the firefighters would hold the perimeter between Nelson Reservoir and Greer, and no further evacuations would be necessary. The CIT and I went to Quemado to get a few things at the little Country Store, and buy a cab for the '93 Dodge Ram that he is restoring to its former glory. While I sat over a cup of coffee at the Largo Cafe, talking to a trucker from Tennessee who was stranded for need of a new engine computer, we watched the smoke roll in once again. Then, as I was mopping up the last of my blueberry pie and ice cream, a couple came in and sat down to order. The woman was crying. I gave her a kleenex and she said, "Well, after all, I've never been kicked out town before." They were from Eager, and the southern part of that little Mountain town where I shop at the Merc and at Basha's was being evacuated. We stopped for the outhouse at the log yard on the way in, and ash covered the seat and the paper. The setting sun through the smoke gave the ranch an eerie, Mars-like ambiance.

Still, Tuesday night the meeting--which was streamed--was brave in the face of difficulty. We were told that they were working on holding the line at Eager, but that since Wednesday was predicted to be another Red Flag windy day, other residents of Springerville-Eager ought to be prepared.


Wednesday morning, as the sun rose through the ever-present smoke, we learned that the lines from Eager to Greer had held, but at the morning press briefing, the IC Commander said that another Red Flag windy day meant that it would be a hard day. It was, as the smoke thickened and the Mars landscape returned, we hoped for the best and began preparing for the worst. We had a phone meeting with the EG and with our partner, and the EG began driving down with the horse trailer so that we could move the horses. Thus we spent our 9th anniversary preparing to evacuate if it comes to that.By evening, the fire was now less than 25 miles away.

So Wednesday evening, when the CIT and I finished watching a movie, and just as the EG pulled up with the trailer, we turned on the computer and learned that all of Springerville and Eager were being evacuated. The Community Meeting was cancelled, and we began to plan, as we ate our dairy and fish meal for Shavuot, to evacuate the horses.

They left this morning, after we learned that the fire went through Greer and structures were lost, and that the New Mexico National Guard is at Luna, near the Arizona border and that the Quemado Volunteer Fire Department are in Coyote Canyon, waiting to engage the fire as it nears the state line.


And so I wait, while the EG and CIT drive the horses to the Rio Grande Valley, and I wonder. So far the lines at Eager and Escudilla Mountain, at Luna and at Coyote Creek are holding. Will they hold today? Tonight? Will Luna, under a pre-evacuation notice by the Catron County Sheriff since Monday, will Luna be spared? Will the fire enter New Mexico at Coyote Creek and Bonita? Will it trigger an evacuation for us in a few days? And the big question: Where will it end?

The smoke seems thinner now. Is that a harbinger of good news?

Road Trip Reserve: A Geology Field Trip

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Life is getting serious again. There are wars and rumors of wars, the economy is unstable, and some of my readers want a break from "all that." And it just so happens that last week, I took a day trip to the Catron County Seat, the town of Reserve, in order file a deed at the couthouse, on to Luna on the Arizona Border, and back through Reserve to Quemado. I drove from Quemado, and it is a spectacular drive across mountains, mesas, canyons, and two different watersheds. So, it's time for another geology road trip! Because, despite our troubles, the mountains have been standing for more than 40 million years, they are still standing, and will remain long after we--and our troubles--are gone!

Castle Rock as seen in the early morning, along New Mexico State Road 32. Like many of the mesas in the Mogollon-Datil Volcanic fields, it is a remnant of a Tertiary Conglomerate (the O.K. Bar Conglomerate) preserved by a cap of Quaternary Basalts, that has slowed its weathering. The basalts are very young, extruded less than 2 million years ago. Castle Rock is in the Apache National Forest, in the Largo Creek Wash--in the Little Colorado Watershed.




Further south on S.R. 32, the road plunges over the edge of Jewett Mesa, and into the Apache Creek Canyon. A divide had been crossed, and Apache Creek is part of the San Francisco Watershed. The water that falls on the southern reaches of Jewett Mesa flows into the San Francisco River, then into the Gila, and finally to the Colorado and the Gulf of California. The lava rocks in the center, right of the trees is made up of Tertiary Andesites that are much older than the basalts on Castle Rock. They were extruded more than 37 m.y.a.


South, after plunging into Apache Canyon, the road rides upon Tertiary-Quaternary alluvium of the Gila Conglomerates, and winds along Apache Creek into the small town of Apache Creek, at the junction of Route 32 with New Mexico 12. Apache Creek also sits at the confluence of Apache Creek with the Tularosa River, flowing southwest from its source in a small canyon on Tularosa Mountain. The camera here was pointed north across wetlands at the confluence, looking toward Jon South Mountain.






From Apache Creek, S.R. 12 winds southwest along the Tularosa to Cruzville, and then leaving the river, crosses the faults of the San Francisco Mountains, riding now on Tertiary Ash Flow Tuffs, and again on Quaternary Basalts. Here, looking west of the road across the Gila Formation, we see Mess Box Canyon, composed of a gate of Quaternary Basalts, and framed by older Tertiary Rhyolites and Andesitic domes that make up Higgins Peak and Monument Mountain.



The town of Reserve sits on a mesa at the north end of the Saliz Mountains, and in the Valley of the San Francisco River, that winds through the canyons from Arizona into Luna, and on into the Catron County Seat. Just south of Reserve, between Upper and Lower Frisco Plazas, the Tularosa River and Negrito Creek run into the San Francisco, doubling the size of the river.






After leaving Reserve, Route 12 takes a right angle west through the Five Bar Ranch, and joins US 180, which I took northwest to Luna, where I got my rifle a sling at Southwest Shooting authority. To get to Luna Valley, 180 winds across the San Francisco Mountains. Here we see the cross bedding in dune deposit sandstones that lie below the rhyolites and basalts of Prairie Point Peak. The cross-bedding in this sandstone of the Gila Group is spectacular indeed.

Following the visit to Luna, I turned back along US 180, and S.R. 12, through Reserve and back up Apache Creek Canyon, across the divide, and through Jewett Gap toward Quemado.




Noontime in the Largo Creek Wash, the dark green gymnosperms forming the side of Largo Mesa. Here, in the Little Colorado Watershed, the cottonwoods were just beginning to leaf out in a delicate green, only a few weeks past the last frost in this high Mesa and Canyon country. The waters of Largo Creek flow into the Carizzo Wash that flows just south of the Zuni Plateau, and into the Little Colorado River south of Winslow Arizona. The Little Colorado flows into the Colorado at the Grand Canyon, far north of where the Gila waters join it, near Yuma in southern Arizona, on the California border, and just north of Mexico.





Coming into Quemado from the south along S.R. 32, we cross into the more open canyon and mesa country of the Mogollon slope. Here the mesas are high, and one can see for miles. The mesas and peaks here are all part of the Datil-Mogollon volcanic field, composed of Tertiary and Quaternary volcanics, with a Chain of Craters that march north and east, from the Red Hill near the Arizona border to Mount Taylor. The youngest of the lavas are less than 2,000 years old north in the Malpais. The earth is still very active in this part of New Mexico.

Ragamuffin Ranch lies in this open mesa and canyon country, the canyons created by ephemeral washes that lie above shallow aquifers, creating little areas where the grass is good, and the volcanic sediments create a fertile soil watered by wells pumped by windmills.

Pottage: Ron Paul, His Groupies and their Jewish Problem

One day, when Jacob was cooking pottage,
his brother Esau came in from hunting in the field
and said to Jacob: I am starving, let me eat some
of that red, red stuff! Jacob said: Sell me your birthright here
and now. And Esau said: Here, I am going to die!
What good is my birthright to me now?
--Breshit 25:26-33

Ron Paul became quite a phenomenon during the 2008 election because of the enthusiasm and inventiveness of the young people who seemed hungry for liberty, and who found many unique ways to support his candidacy for the Republican nomination for the Presidency of the United States. Ron Paul, a libertarian at heart, was once a candidate for the same office for the Libertarian Party. That was in 1988, and I voted for him then, as he seemed a solid enough libertarian candidate, and was certainly better than the mainstream choices.

But during the 2008 election, some of Ron Paul's supporters, and supporters of the Ron Paul R3volution began to display a distressing lack of critical thinking skills, and many of them brought a more leftist agenda into Paul's campaign, including a virulent hatred of Israel, and far worse, some of the most classic of the antisemitic cant, charging American Jews with dual loyalty, and complaining that Jews control the banks and the money--with an undertone that money is inherently evil and corrupting--and that Jews control the media. This all seems to be at odds with what ought to be Ron Paul's libertarian values, and with capitalism, which he espouses.

I came late to the R3volution, having put off reading Paul's book by the same title after Obama had sworn an oath to the Constitution and promptly violated it. I thought Paul's book was reasonable enough. He did not advocate a one sided removal of foreign aid to Israel, for example, but instead advocated the classic libertarian idea that no foreign aid is moral. And yet, I had heard odd things about him from other Jews of all political stripes, and particularly from Jewish Libertarians. I heard that Ron Paul was an antisemite, or at least that he tolerated antisemitism among his followers, and that it was rampant among the most fanatical of them, the ones I call groupies.

At about the same time, through a series of acquaintances, I began working on the problematic Retake Congress effort through a company called Common Sense, Inc. (Someday I will tell that story of my naivete and failure, but not now. There are some innocents that still need to be protected). In doing the work, I had reason to frequent many of the social media and blog sites where Ron Paul R3volutionaries gathered, and read their comments. These included the Daily Paul, Liberty Forest, and various local and national Campaign for Liberty (C4L) blogs, message boards and discussion groups. And I began to understand what other Jews had warned me about with respect to Ron Paul's groupies.

They have a Jewish problem.

And it goes far beyond reasonable disagreements about aid to Israel or politics. Rather, it seems to pick up on the old classical antisemitic canards described above. They come right out of the history of Christian and collectivist Europe, and are particular to the antisemitic racism that replaced earlier Christian anti-Judaism with what become classical Nazi dogma and doctrine. It is the same racist antisemitism that the Nazis exported to the Middle East, absurdly claiming that while Jews are an inferior race, the Arabs are "little Aryan brothers." (When one believes absurd racial theories as the Nazis did, one more absurdity does not matter). It seems that some of the leftists who converted to the Ron Paul R3volution brought along with them the same classic antisemitic ideas that the Nazis took to the Arabs.

When it comes to American Jews, it appears that the "love" in the Ron Paul R3volution does not apply. It applies to everyone but us. Last year, I wrote a blog entry about my experience of antisemitism in the local Ron Paul Campaign for Liberty. The cant there was taken lock, stock and barrel from Arab-Islamic antisemitic claims that included the blood libel, and was served up with a side of the dual loyalty charge. In that blog entry, I opined that Ron Paul might very well be ignorant of the kinds of antisemitic cant that was posted on Liberty Tree, in the comments to The Daily Paul, and in other Ron Paul forums and social media on the web.

The antisemitism at these sites is also of the classically European variety, made into American conspiracy theories about Jews and Money. You know the type. They include the word "Jew" linked to one or more of the following: "the FED", "the Rothschilds", or "the Bilderbergers". The "Jews control the media" trope is equally represented, whereas the blood libel claims of the Islamists are usually only present in great abundance when Israel is in the news. Which means that it is present often enough.

Whether he likes it or not, Ron Paul has a Jewish problem.

Although I have been hard pressed to find solid evidence that Ron Paul himself has ever made any of these claims, it would be stretching my credulity and yours to continue to claim that Ron Paul probably does not know about the libels against Jews perpetrated on websites devoted to his cause. That these claims come more often than not from his more devoted but kookie followers, the ones who indulge in believing that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney singlehandedly wired the twin towers for demolition (because, you know, steel does not melt), does not excuse his silence on the matter. If he wants the support of rational people for his presidential run, then Ron Paul must address the Jewish problem in his campaign and clearly differentiate his own ideals from the beliefs of the antisemites among his followers. (Addressing some of the more truly bizarre conspiracy theories wouldn't hurt, either).

It has been suggested to me by some of Ron Paul's followers, as well as by other Jewish Libertarians, that it is likely that this antisemitism within the Ron Paul social media sites are the result of leftist infiltration meant to hurt Ron Paul, and that the perpetrators are therefore not Paul supporters. This is certainly a possibility given what we know about the Alinsky tactics outlined in Rules for Radicals. It would be hard for the casual observer to know that this is what is indeed happening, sans a full investigation of the sites and origins of the offending posts.

However, if this is the case, it is clear that the antisemitism meme is not difficult to spread among Ron Paul's young followers. It is truly frightening to witness their credulity and even eagerness to pick up on it, and spread the notion that Jews are to blame for all that is bad about their world. What we are seeing here is the abject failure of public education to teach the current generation to think critically, to question what they are told intelligently, and to reject the concept of collective responsibility. Sadly, through one hundred years of progressive education, young people in America who are not privileged enough to go to elite schools, or to have parents who can counter the indoctrination of collectivism, have been taught to bargain away their birthright of individual liberty for a pottage of "that red, red stuff."

These young fools may claim to be libertarian, but their propensity to make blanket statements such as "the Jews control the media" and "the Jewish-controlled banks" gives the lie to these claims. Libertarian thought insists on the responsibility of the individual for his actions. Collective responsibility is a collectivist notion, and it is not compatible with the radical individualism that lies at the heart of libertarianism.

And there is a real danger to the acceptance of such notions, for hand-in-hand with the doctrine of collective responsibility comes the concept of collective salvation. Hundreds of thousands of Hitler Youth members marched to certain death when the Wehrmacht was spent at the end of WW II, simply because they did not have the critical faculty to understand that Hitler was no messiah. Hundreds of Islamic young men, and now women, and even children, are induced to blow themselves up, convinced that the murders they commit will be rewarded by Allah. They are encouraged not to think, because their salvation relies on the collective not on responsibility for their own actions. To watch American young people accepting such ideas is terrifying. If they can uncritically accept groundless conspiracy theories and baseless hatred of other human beings, what else will they accept? What will they do?

If our young people who claim libertarianism as their credo are not to be cheated out of the blessings of liberty as a result of selling out their birthright, it is up to all of us to confront racism and any other form of collectivism for the evil that it is, and to refuse to support Ron Paul in any way until he does the same. His silence is shameful, and a man of his years ought to have the wisdom to understand what such ideas will do to the young people who espouse them for his sake.

Israel: In Which I Do Not Know What to Say

I have been working on a blog entry in my head, and gathering together sundry comments that I have made here and there, but the POTUS announcement inviting Israel to just commit suicide already, and spare the world the need to destroy her, threw me into a sea of emotions that I have not yet traveled through. The situation seems so dire to me that I cannot find the issue I was preparing important. It is, and I know that; but for the nonce, it seems that I must let it go.

And although I have a number of ideas about the O-chamberlain's new version of "peace in our time", I am not at all ready to settle on one, and I find myself obsessively visiting blogs and news stories hoping to find a word of encouragement. I know they are out there, and I just must work through the obsessive moments of early mourning, and come out to a place where I can find some internal balance once again.

One of the very difficult things about being Jewish, loving my people and our homeland, Israel, is that it is impossible to go anywhere on the internet be it You Tube, blogs, news stories, and discussion groups, and not see the blinding hatred for us and for the Jewish state that appears to be everywhere. Even for posts that are supportive of Israel, I have learned to discipline myself against taking a look at the comments, for the vitriol is real and frightening, and so irrational as to be unanswerable. Everybody has an opinion, and most are based on misconceptions and a terrible ignorance of history.

Today, though, I am not prepared to discuss any of the issues, as the shock of what POTUS did is still fresh. And even though I expected it, it was still a shock. All I can say at this moment is this:
The O-dolater--O, he who presented himself as a Greek god at his nomination--does not speak for me. He never really did, and he never really can. I have never had much respect for him, and now all I feel is a sick contempt. By his actions and words, he is--as Craig Biddle of the Objective Standard noted--"giving the green light to a second Holocaust."

So, since I cannot write rationally at the moment, in mourning as I am for the government of my country that has made itself the enemy of my people, I will post a portion of a letter I wrote to Russ Roberts of Cafe Hayek, and some links of people who have a stake in the survival of Israel. The letter to Roberts expresses my thoughts on his second Israel post, one in which he laments the inability of people to discuss the issue without vitriol. I wrote, in part:

I am a frequent reader of Cafe Hayek, and I comment infrequently. I I did read your first post on Israel, and followed the link and found the Harsanyi's post to be thought provoking. I appreciate that you posted it, and I shared your post on my Facebook Wall in order to give it wider coverage.
I support Israel, and I agree with you that foreign aid is a bad thing altogether. I believe that the United States needs to stop supporting wars by providing funds to all sides in all areas of the world. I think that forcing people to support causes they oppose through their tax dollars will always lead to vitriol. But the vitriol and hatred aimed at the tiny state of Israel has a special and extremely nasty quality all of its own, and some of it crosses the boundary into outright antisemitism. Although antisemitism is almost universal on the political left, it does appear on the right. Growing up in a libertarian household, with a parent who helped found my birth state's Libertarian Party, however, I hardly saw it among Libertarians. But since the Ron Paul R3VOLUTION, I have seen it rear its ugly head to a startling degree, especially among those who substitute a good deal of anger and passion for strong and solid libertarian values. I have, for the most part, given up on commenting on any blog, news story or You Tube post about Israel, because the comments become so vicious and irrational that they are unanswerable. For this reason I did not even look at the comments on your first post when I cross-posted the link.
I want you to know that I do not think you have betrayed your principles and values, and it is my suspicion that those who have accused you of this have minimal education in the basics of libertarian thought and the major arguments within thoughtful libertarian circles.

Here are Russ's two posts about which I was writing: Israel and Israel II . "Israel" contains Robert's link to David Harsanyi's comments on the O-amalek's speech.

Here is what the Jerusalem Post columnist and Center for Security Policy member Caroline Glick's column: Obama's Abandonment of America .
Isn't interesting, that even though what is preying on the mind of every Israeli is dismay that the United States has abandoned our treaty with Israel, commingled with the relief that now at least Israel does not need to concern itself with pleasing the United States, this Israeli's realization is that in this speech Obama has made it clear that he is abandoning America and her citizens first and foremost.

Just a few thoughts, while I consider whether I want to pray: "Pour out your wrath, O G-d" or "Extend the wings of your protection over the land of Israel and all of its people". Maybe both.

Who's Out of Touch: Rejecting "Shared" Sacrifice

It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice,
there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings.
Where there's service, there is someone being served.
The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves
and masters, and intends to be the master.
--Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

Congress called oil company executives to a "show" hearing on Friday. The hearing was intended to make it look like Congress is "doing something" about the high price of gasoline at the pump. The show was also intended to assuage the fears of some members of Congress, who are "terrified" of the massive budget cuts that will be required to return the federal budget to fiscal sanity. The new buzz phrase out of the administration and the Democractic Party is "shared sacrifice"; the oil companies should "sacrifice" what is being called 'subsidies" in order to bring down the price of gasoline at the pump.

There are so many things wrong with that last statement that I could easily write several in-depth blog entries about what is happening in Congress and to the oil industry. I could write about the "terror" that certain members of Congress are feeling about the need for fiscal sanity. I could write about economics, and the law of supply and demand, and Gresham's Law. And I could write about the fact that Congress produces nothing (except perhaps excessive CO2) and therefore has no power to do anything to create wealth, create jobs, or lower prices except to get the hell out of the way. And maybe by the time I finish this entry, I will have written about all of the above. However, I am going to focus on two words in the sentence above: subsidies and sacrifices.

Subsidies

I don't know if you have noticed, but the Obama Administration, certain members of Congress, and the press have been very busy redefining words and concepts related to the tax code lately. For example, we have heard a great deal about how they intend to 'reduce spending' though the tax code. In plain English what this means is that they want to take more of your money (and mine) by force in order to continue spending because they are "terrified" of the change in their spending habits that must inevitably come. Conceptually, what this means is that they believe that they own you and your wealth; it is all theirs to dispose of as they see fit, and thus it is "cutting spending" to let you keep less of what is theirs. Politically what this means is that the people they call "taxpayers" are their cash cows. Frankly, in their eyes, we are slaves put on G-d's Green Earth to provide them with the means to continue the fantasy that the piper never need be paid.

In the show hearings of oil executives before Congress, the same redefinition is being accomplished for the word "subsidy." In plain English, a subsidy is money that a government pays out to some favored class in order to support some favored project or end. In this case, a subsidy of the oil companies would mean that a check is drawn on funds in the US treasury and sent to the oil companies in return for some action or restraint of action on the part of the latter. But what Congress is actually talking about is an increase in the taxes that actually paid by the oil companies to the US Treasury. In other words, certain tax deductions--namely those dealing with the depreciation of the value of oil wells as they are drained, and on the equipment used--will be removed, and the oil companies, rather than giving up a check from the government, will be sending a larger check to it. These tax deductions for depreciation are common to all businesses, because much of the capital that must be acquired to begin production depreciates in value with time and must eventually be replaced. Because the oil companies would be singled out with respect to losing these deductions. This is unconstitutional, but since the federal government has sneered at the Constitution with respect to taxes since 1913, this is hardly a concern for them. And it has become depressingly clear that all three branches of the federal government consider themselves to be above the law in any case, as they do not bother to even find out what the Constitution says about any matter that concerns them. Some of them even laugh at the idea that they should consider the duties that Constitution demands of them. Remember Pelosi?

Conceptually, the redefinition of the word subsidy by Congress has the same effect as the redefinition of spending cuts does as explained above. It puts all companies that have been taking depreciation deductions on notice that the United States considers all profits earned to belong to itself. Again, it is Congress claiming that private businesses are slaves to itself and its spendthrift ways. We are all serfs, with respect to our businesses, and with respect to our personal wealth. Congress has, through a clever redefinition of terms, annulled our right to our own property.

Sacrifice

To make a sacrifice means to give up something of greater value for the sake of something of lesser value. It means for example, the total destruction of a food animal in order to appease an angry god, rather than using all of the hours of work and all of the energy put into the animal in order to feed one's family and increase one's health, wealth and well being. By this definition, a sacrifice is never a moral good. With this in mind, consider this exchange between Senator Jay Rockefeller and John Watson, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Chevron Oil:

Rockefeller begins this exchange by telling five oil executives, including Watson, that their companies are "out of touch" and that they must be willing to participate in a "shared sacrifice" in order to reduce the budget deficit.
Watson then says: "I don't think Americans want shared sacrifice. I think they want shared prosperity."
Rockefeller: "Do you understand how out of touch that is? We don't get to shared prosperity until we get to shared sacrifice."

First, notice how adroitly Rockefeller shifts responsibility for the federal deficit from himself and the federal government to the private businesses whose profits he wants to consume in order to continue deficit spending. The oil companies, being private concerns, have no power to reduce government spending, nor can they lower the federal deficit. Both houses of Congress must do those things. But Congress is "terrified" to do so, according to Rockefeller.

Frankly, I am more terrified of the 10% inflation, calculated by the traditional formula, that we are now seeing, and the increase of inflation that must occur as the dollar is devalued as a direct consequence of deficit spending at record levels. But I digress . . .

Rockefeller calls for "shared sacrifice." Of course he is lying. What he is really calling for is that the oil companies, and soon every company, and finally every individual, sacrifice profits and wealth in order that he, the Senate, and the House do not need to lose their power and prestige (earned as it is through promises and pork) by making the tough choices. Ultimately, since he believes that the United States owns all of us, and all of our productivity and our wealth, he need not "share" the sacrifice at all. He, and the Congress and the Administration--none of them--have any intention of sharing the sacrifice of wealth to dissolute spending. Rather than lose his power and prestige, he is willing to pour the wealth of others, wealth he does not own, down the toilet. This is known as "eating the rich."

This is the problem with "eating the rich." Once they are consumed, who do you "eat" next? The slightly less rich? The comfortably well-off? The middle class? The working poor? And once that wealth is gone, who is going to be creating wealth at all? It is the investment of wealth that drives productivity, and productivity that makes profits and pays on the investment two, ten and a hundredfold. Eating the rich is a sacrifice indeed; it is a race to the bottom, and will produce nothing.


The show is being put on in order to convince us non-corporate types that it is "us against them." But we do own pieces of those companies, or other companies that produce other products in other markets. Millions of us have our retirement funds invested in many different companies. The return on our investment comes when the companies make profits for us by producing value used by human beings. The wealth that is created by profits is indeed the "shared prosperity" that Watson was talking about in his testimony. It would be a terrible sacrifice indeed--and a moral evil--for the federal government to steal that wealth and pour it down the unproductive maw of the federal deficit just to delay their own day of reckoning.

It is very likely indeed that Americans are going to have to make hard choices, demanding that Congress make extreme cuts in spending and we will have to become more self-reliant in order to do so. But this is not a sacrifice on our part. We would be reducing our reliance on government and reducing our consumption temporarily because we wish to preserve a greater value: future prosperity for ourselves and our children. And we would be doing it in order to preserve the greatest values of all--life, liberty and property. These values make possible the great engine of wealth that America once was and may yet be again--should we so choose.

I cannot know what choices others might make, but as for me and my family, we will pay for our future prosperity and happiness with the coin of self-discipline and self-reliance, knowing that this entails a change in our own financial habits. And we must demand that the federal government do the same. You can keep your sacrifice, Mr. Rockefeller, and we will keep our wealth. We choose prosperity.

Justice in Abottabad

Last night, as I was sitting in bed, catching up on Facebook, I saw a post by the CIT stating that Osama bin Laden had been killed by American forces. At the same time, almost to the second, a friend had IM'd, saying: It looks like the bogeyman is dead." And so he was. Almost ten years since he had become a household name, and many more since he had begun his war with the United States and others, and he had been killed by Navy SEALS, his DNA taken, and his body buried at sea.

I felt a moment of solemn satisfaction of my sense of Justice. I wanted to stand up and sing The Star Spangled Banner, which is what the crowd in Times Square did at almost the same time. I went to sleep after a long day doing various tasks to get the house ready for sale--it's a long, drawn out business--and getting the loss of our friend's new dog registered with the Pet Alert. I did not spend any more time on the internet. And I am glad I did not. I did not want to see the moment of justice politicized and criticized, nor hear any theories about why the government was lying to us about this, too.

So today I put up my flag, and then drove down to Los Lunas to look for Tri. (No luck, but three sightings were reported through the Alerts, so we know where she is hanging around).

It was not until I was driving back up here that I heard the politicization. And later, checking on the web, I saw that the crazy train has once again pulled away from the station, this time with a series of theories on the Libertarian Enterprise alleging that bin Laden has been dead since 2001, and the death was just announced now in order to save Obama's presidency in 2012. I was not perturbed. I do not believe that this one incident will save the O-incompetent from being a one-term president. Only the Republicans can do that by once again choosing a candidate who hardly differs from the Big O himself, himself.

I was not perturbed, but neither do I have either the gumption or the patience to construct fancy arguments to counter either ideologues or loonies. However, there was one protest that kept cropping up that I do want to address, and that is that POTUS and our government are somehow murderers of Osama bin Laden. No, I am quite convinced that bin Laden was ultimately his own worst enemy, and after years of escalating attacks in on the West, he had finally met his match, and even if it took nearly 10 years, vengance is a drink best served cold.

Osama bin Laden declared war on the United States particularly, and upon the West in general. He took up the sword, and he used it against both military targets and civilians in Yemen, in Africa, and within the borders of the United States. He made deliberate, well publicized threats to kill many thousands of innocent people through the organization of terror he created, Al Quaida.

Osama bin Laden was killed by US Navy SEAL Team 6 on 1 May 2011, decades after he began his open war on the West and everything that is not Muslim and not extreme. He was killed, but not murdered. Murder is the unlawful killing of one human being by others, and the victim is innocent within the circumstances of the crime. Self-defense is the killing of one human being by others in order to stop him from committing assault that results in morbidity and death, or the destruction of property resulting in injury or death of innocents. In the case of killing for self defense, the one killed is not innocent, but has initiated force against innocents.

As Americans living under what is left of the Constitution, we have ceded self-defense against foreign invaders--whether they are a nation state or a band of brigands--to the federal government. This is one of the few actions of the federal government that is entirely lawful and Constitutional. Because bin Laden declared war against the United States by his threats, and followed it up with action, he is not a criminal, he is an enemy. We do not capture enemies and bring them to trial, we make war against them. War is not a rule-abiding exercise, and those who make war as Osama bin Laden did, know that. By taking up the sword against the United States, by attacking us on our own soil, he could expect nothing less than total destruction. And so he got it.

This is justice. To cut a man like Osama bin Laden any slack is to discount the rights of the innocent people who were working at the embassies in Africa and at the World Trade Center, and the innocents killed within the Islamic (so-called) House of Peace. It also discounts the fact that Osama deliberately provoked and attacked US military targets,including the USS Cole and the Pentagon. To ignore or excuse such behavior for any reason is to commit an injustice against those whose lives and property were destroyed by a deliberate act of war. It is not within the purview of the federal government and its executive to do that. In order to "provide for the common defense", the President of the United States must act. In this case, Obama acted properly and must be commended.

Of all of the sayings in the "other" Testament, there is one that unequivocally true. It is: The one who takes up the sword will die by the sword. Osama bin Laden took up the sword of Islam against innocents and against military targets. He made war on the United States. Responding to that is not murder, it is justice. Osama died at the hands of those whose Constitutional duty is to defend the people of the United States and their property.

Although I think that to madly celebrate the death of this evil man is unseemly, I do think that the sense of relief that people feel, and the pride that they exhibit at having finally gotten justice--shown in such acts as the singing of the Star Spangled Banner in Times Square Sunday evening--is entirely appropriate. There is pride in doing justice, because it is the moral response to acts such as Osama bin Laden's murderous terror. He chose his behavior, and in so doing, chose the consequences of it. The innocent people falling from the sky to their deaths on September 11 did not so choose.

I am not joyful about this, and I do not celebrate; rather, this moment has caused me to be happy that their deaths have finally been accorded the justice that they deserve.