Category Archives: Justice

UPDATE IV: “Jesus, No Radical”? (Jesus’ Jewishness)

Ancient History, Christianity, Classical Liberalism, Hebrew Testament, Islam, Judaism & Jews, Justice

“Jesus was no political radical or rebel. He was God” is how the ever-provocative Jack Kerwick introduces his latest Belief.Net blog to Facebook Friends.

Maestro, pray tell, why are the two categories of the title—“G-d” vs. “political radical”—mutually exclusive?

One might have theological reasons for designating “G-d” and “political radical” as mutually exclusive, but reason is reason. It has to work a priori, surely?

Jews (at least those who think) think of Jesus as a preacher in the great tradition of the classical Hebrew prophets, whose genius, courage and yes, radicalism is hard to match—they were forever telling the stiff-necked people where to get off in no uncertain terms.

UPDATE I: “Yiddishkeit.” In reply to the thread on Facebook: Jesus was indeed a Jew (or a Hebrew), with everything that being a Hebrew would imply. A lot of people describe Jewish traits negatively. But you can be sure that Jesus was not without a dose of “Yiddishkeit,” as my blond, blue-eyed, Jewish mother would call it.

UPDATE II: Meathead: One should never place Russell Kirk in the company in which you placed him. For one, Kirk was against the wars Buckley embraced as a matter of principle. As I read Kirk, he was a classical liberal of enormous talent.

UPDATE III (June 14): The “because” is unfairly placed in yours sentence below, Jack Kerwick.

As for Ilana’s contention that Jesus was a “radical” because, like the prophets of old, He told “the stiff necked people where to get off in no uncertain terms,” how does that make Jesus, or anyone, a radical?

Here is what I wrote in the post above:

In punctuation, the sentence indicates that the last clause is but an example of the “genius, courage and yes, radicalism” of the prophets, and hardly exhaustive.

In meaning, how does the last clause, which you rightly seem to disparage as inexhaustible, qualify the words “genius, courage and yes, radicalism”?

It doesn’t. Yours is a somewhat unfair read of the sentence.

As for conflating, as you do Jack, the views of Jews on Christ with those of Muslims: That, in my view, is a grave error.

The Quality of Egyptian Mercy… And Society

Democracy, Islam, Justice, Middle East, Military, Morality

“The concept of a society is based on the quality of its mercy, of its sense of fair play, its sense of justice,” goes that memorable line from the film “Midnight Express” (which surely represented Hollywood at its heyday). The protagonist’s protest against his inhuman and inhumane Turkish jailers was a plea against a merciless authority.

The kind the US and its surrogates (“NATO”) around the world endorse as democratic.

In another word, Egypt.

The new Egypt has demonstrated in spades the quality of its mercy and, by extension, society, by sentencing the “deposed leader Hosni Mubarak” “to life in prison for failing to stop the killing of 900 protesters in January 2011.” (Was that even provable?)

The demonstrating “activists” might want to consider giving old Hosni a sponge bath and reinstating him, rather than condeming an old man to life in prison (or death there, whatever comes first).

Since the ousting of Mubarak, reports BBC News, “Foreign direct investment has reversed from $6.4bn (£4bn) flowing into the country in 2010 to $500m leaving it last year. Tourism, a major revenue generator for the country, has also dropped by a third.”

UPDATED: Organized Vs. Disorganized Crime (US Vs. China)

China, Criminal Injustice, Government, Individual Rights, Justice, Law, Liberty, Private Property, Regulation, The State

Statists stateside have come down harshly on me for even suggesting that your average Egyptian under Mubarak or Libyan under Gadhafi was probably less likely than his American counterpart to be jailed, harassed or have a threatening encounter with the state’s emissaries.

Do you think these former dictators retaliated against “Their People” with diabolical efficiency for selling raw milk and homemade lemonade? Or unintentionally violating Honduran law of which the Hondurans themselves were ignorant? Or attempting to erect a structure on their land?

It’s the difference between organized and disorganized crime: Uncle Sam runs an organized criminal syndicate; Third World despots run disorganized criminal endeavors. It is not unreasonable to suggest that it’s easier to live off the grid in those tin-pot dictatorships America is forever overthrowing, than in the USA, the land of the “free.”

“Illegal Everything,” as John Stossel sees it. He “argue that America has become a country where no one can know what is legal.”

Kids who open lemonade stands are now shutdown by police. I tried to open a lemonade stand legally in NYC. That was quite an adventure. It takes 65 days to get permission from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
With government adding 80,000 pages of rules and regulations every year, it’s no surprise that regular people break laws without even trying.
A small businessman spent 6 years in federal prison for breaking Honduran regulations (and, to make it worse, the Honduran government said he didn’t). A family in Idaho can’t build a home on their land because the EPA says it’s a wetland-but it only resembles a wetland because a government drain malfunctioned and flooded it.

MORE.

UPDATE: “The US Is More Authoritarian Than China,” writes Lew Rockwell:

China is nowhere near as authoritarian as the US, and where authority is exercised it appears to be with more restraint. There is no TSA at Chinese airports. My son has entered the country when the customs and immigration checks were simply closed (because it was outside normal working hours) and walked off the plane and into Beijing.
On the surface, there are a lot of “rules” in China, but no one pays any attention and the authorities don’t enforce them.

As I’ve written, “US In The Red And Getting Redder”:

It’s time we came clean about our economic system. The Chinese are honest about theirs; they call it “socialism with Chinese characteristic.” We call ours free-market capitalism, when in fact it is a Third Way system too: “Socialism with American characteristics.”
The picture of China to emerge from behind those pretty Chinese screens is complex. The embodiment of feng shui it is not. The trend, however, is unmistakable: China is becoming freer, America less free. The devil is in this detail.

Hispanic Hero

Crime, Criminal Injustice, GUNS, Journalism, Justice, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Racism

Big media’s poster boy for a bad-ass white boy appeared in court yesterday. The tards of TV had nothing but bad things to say about the placid, polite, Hispanic young man called George Zimmerman. Unburdened by brains, CNN’s Erin Burnett entertained a body-language expert to decipher Zimmerman’s demeanor. This Western equivalent of an African shaman threw her ancestor’s bones and concluded that the manifestly demure Zimmerman was seething with rage.

Alan Dershowitz, the famed civil libertarian from Harvard Law School, never ceases to impress in the apolitical stands he takes. Dershowitz denounced the prosecution’s case, which I had found suspect when, a week ago, Special prosecutor Corey opted to dismiss the Grand-Jury option.

“Dershowitz Blasts Zimmerman Prosecution: ‘Not Only Immoral, But Stupid,'” reported Breitbart.com (which continues to do good reporting):

With ABC News’ release of the George Zimmerman photo showing blood flowing freely from his head, the question becomes whether Angela Corey, the prosecutor in the case, had access to the photo before charging Zimmerman with second-degree murder.
The arrest affidavit did not mention the photograph, or the bleeding, gashes, and bruises on Zimmermans’ head. Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School stated upon release of the arrest affidavit that it was “so thin that it won’t make it past a judge on a second degree murder charge … everything in the affidavit is completely consistent with a defense of self-defense.”

Bimbo Burnett’s choice of experts countered facts with feelings—and in favor of the cause of Trayvon Martin. One was a black woman with orange hair and peacock-blue eye shadow. She turned out to be a former Florida Judge. The other was the weeping, stammering Judge who presided over the investigation into the death of Anna Nicole Smith.

On March 30, I wrote that “The facts of the case should be reviewed impartially, and the identity of the aggressor in the altercation that left Martin dead determined. The issue, of course, hinges not on who was armed, but on who was first to aggress.”

The image of “Zimmerman’s head bloody, bruised, battered” the media had delayed publishing despite threats to Zimmerman’s life. It is convincing. The neighborhood watchman had been a victim of an assault by Martin, whose memory and innocence the corporate media had cultivated by airing only pictures of an angelic-looking Trayvon, aged 12.