Monthly Archives: May 2009

Updated: Memorial Day Message (On Just War & Against Pacifism)

Foreign Policy, Free Will Vs. Determinism, Just War, Propaganda, The Military, War

Since the Messiah was anointed (1/20/09), 72 soldiers have died in Iraq. He campaigned on bringing them home.
Glenn Beck asked every American encountering a uniformed man or woman to thank them in person for their sacrifice. No! Enough of this meaningless jabbering. I thank all the Ramos’s and Compeans of this great nation, who stand on this country’s soil and defend their countrymen from the worst of mankind.

To those who fight phantoms in far-flung destinations; I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’ve been snookered into living and dying for a lie. But I will not honor a lie, or those who give their lives for it. I cry for them, as I have from day one, but I can’t honor them.

To those who enlisted thinking they’d fight for their country and were subjected to one backdoor draft after another in the cause of illegal, unjust wars—I am sorry. My heart hurts for you, but I will not worship Moloch.

I honor those sad, sad draftees to Vietnam and to WW II. The first valiant batch had no option; the same goes for the last, which fought a just war.

“What I learned growing up in a war-torn region is that a brave nation fights only because it must; a cowardly nation fights because it can.”

LET THE SUNSHINE IN. This wonderfully executed tract of a lost soul shipping-out says it all for me (watch this classic antiwar film again, if you can):

Update (May 27): AGAINST PACIFISM. Pacifism is evil. Myron, whose delicious postings on BAB we relish—and who deserves a fan-base—has fallen into that error. There are most certainly just wars, just as surely as there is evil in the human heart. Myron, quit hanging around anarchists in cyberspace, or else you will, as the hard-left has and does, continue to reduce human evil to the state’s doing, thus relinquishing the philosophical cornerstone of civilization: free will and human agency. Here on BAB I argue from the vantage point of those tenets. Anarchism, invariably and by default, argues from the stance of social determinism. Or, in simple terms: the State made me do it.

Schiff's Sad, Sound, Song

Debt, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, Political Economy

The only thing you want to take away from this condescending Time magazine “piece” about libertarian financial analyst Peter Schiff’s prognostications is this:

“over longer periods, Schiff’s decade-old strategy of steering clients out of U.S. securities and into commodities and overseas stocks has been a big winner. His investment record surely can’t be the reason for his fall from media grace.”

Much to the consternation of the Times “writer,” the reason Schiff “hasn’t changed his tune” on the imperative of escaping the phony US economy is because the tune is in the right key!.

Justin Fox’s column is so pointless, so full of non sequiturs. This guys doesn’t even attempt to make sense, and I imagine he gets a bundle for the epistolary offal he produces.

I mean, on the one hand, Fox concedes that Schiff’s investments have proven prudent. But on the other hand, he insists that Schiff got to bask only briefly “in the glory of his spectacular call,” because he has fallen out of grace with the menagerie of morons on mainstream media.

As though you “bask in the glory of [your] spectacular call” only so long as you’re invited on the Keynesian “Kudlow and Cretins” show. Perhaps saving your clients a bundle and safeguarding your own assets is enough to make an honest man “bask.”

Schiff’s Sad, Sound, Song

Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, Political Economy

The only thing you want to take away from this condescending Time magazine “piece” about libertarian financial analyst Peter Schiff’s prognostications is this:

“over longer periods, Schiff’s decade-old strategy of steering clients out of U.S. securities and into commodities and overseas stocks has been a big winner. His investment record surely can’t be the reason for his fall from media grace.”

Much to the consternation of the Times “writer,” the reason Schiff “hasn’t changed his tune” on the imperative of escaping the phony US economy is because the tune is in the right key!.

Justin Fox’s column is so pointless, so full of non sequiturs. This guys doesn’t even attempt to make sense, and I imagine he gets a bundle for the epistolary offal he produces.

I mean, on the one hand, Fox concedes that Schiff’s investments have proven prudent. But on the other hand, he insists that Schiff got to bask only briefly “in the glory of his spectacular call,” because he has fallen out of grace with the menagerie of morons on mainstream media.

As though you “bask in the glory of [your] spectacular call” only so long as you’re invited on the Keynesian “Kudlow and Cretins” show. Perhaps saving your clients a bundle and safeguarding your own assets is enough to make an honest man “bask.”

Update II: The Genius Of Ancient Hebrew Law

Anti-Semitism, Ethics, Hebrew Testament, Ilana Mercer, Judaism & Jews, Justice, Law, Natural Law, Reason

I’m not a religious Jew; I’m a Hebrew—of the civilization that invented equality under the law; a principle that is dictated in Deuteronomy and Exodus centuries before classical Greek philosophy. I believe the passion for justice is in my genes, as transmitted to me by a father—a rabbi—who’d repeat the phrase most repeated in the Hebrew Bible: “Justice, and justice alone, you shall pursue.” (Deuteronomy 16: 18-20)

While the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, “the first written code of laws in human history,” put in place different laws for the aristocrat, the slave, and the commoner; my tribe, commensurate with the ethical monotheism it was instructed to practice, was being hammered about applying the same laws to the king (Samuel advised the people against having one), the commoner, the alien, the orphan, the widow, the slave, the rich and the poor.

One of my favorite injunctions comes from Exodus 23: 2-3. I know you’ll share in my admiration for its unadulterated exhortation of individualism and justice:

“You shall not be led into wrongdoing by the majority, nor when you give evidence in a lawsuit, shall you side with the majority to prevent justice, nor shall you favor the poor man in his suit.”

How wonderful; how brilliant! And how modern-day religious sects—the churches and the Jews—flout the law of immutable justice by demonizing, for example, those who possess the ability to accrue wealth while deifying those who don’t.

Update (May 24): One of the ignoramuses who frequent the site accuses me of “Jewish supremacy.” That, after I wrote a post explicitly extolling the “teachings” of the Torah as a pioneering text—not the Jewish people.

As I commented hereunder to a reader; then, as now, the stiff-necked people did not often heed the classical prophets.

Against Posting Policy, I’ve posted “Dan’s” missive even though he did not provide a valid email address, so you’ve not been spared his post. But let us provide the evidence of my “Jewish supremacy” for the research-averse Dan, in the form of my writings on matters Jewish:

Your Godless Government At Work (The teachings are praised, not the people.)

Jews Against Judaism

Chronicle of Jewish Community Omits Capitalism

Soul and Moral Tradition (Here I am quite scathing about the contribution of Jews to the popularization of psychology.)

More here.

Clever Anti-Semitic writers often point out that Jewish thinkers are chronically critical. I fall into that category, in as much as I find it impossible to refrain from pointing out contradictions and corruptions wherever I see them, irrespective of tribal affiliation.

Dan’s logic works in the Age of the Idiot, where making clear distinctions is obsolete.

Update II (May 25): This is getting a little personal for my taste, however, to reply to my friend, The Judge: I’m not sure I love my own, as you put it. In fact, I very much doubt that. I am not part of a Jewish community, don’t have Jewish friends, and am married to a WASP. What I am positive about— crystal clear, in fact—is that I love, and know a bit about, the Hebrew Bible (is it 39 books?). I can read it in the original prose (Hebrew). And as a writer, I have to agree with historian Paul Johnson’s assessment that very many of the biblical writers were geniuses, with a unique, pioneering creativity.

As for the principles of justice that are found in the early books we’ve been discussing and are developed by the classical prophets: this is the stuff upon which our concepts of justice rest. What else?

I’m not a person of faith, but for those who are: who other than the ancient Hebrews brought into being the “concept of a single non-corporeal God and its ethical and moral commandments”?

When Jews went into the diaspora and became a sickly, disembodied, landless people, the rabbis took over, implementing a faith dominated by particularist, legalistic, ritualistic elements.