I have had a number of Jewish readers of my blogs for some years. That is an excellent discipline for me as many things that I write touch on Jewry and Judaism and, not being Jewish myself, there are occasions when things I write on such matters are not as precisely expressed as they might be. And on such occasions, I rapidly get an email drawing attention to the lacuna concerned. I enjoy such emails greatly as they are undoubtedly the most intellectual emails that I receive. And I quite often respond by editing or updating what I have written to plug the apparent hole in my argument.
I was aware that my recent post about Islam as a "Jewish plot" could be misinterpreted as derogatory to Judaism but I retained that title because I felt confident that my Jewish readers would be smart enough to see that I was mocking the Left, not anybody else. And I was right. The title evoked no complaints.
There was however another point that I was conscious of not spelling out fully at the time but which I left stand for lack of time to add to it. And one of my readers of course picked it up. He wrote (quoting me initially):
"And other Jewish theologians have had no difficulty in also taking on board most of his ideas -- so that Paul has in fact humanized Judaism too. It is left to Islam to represent the "old" version of Judaism."
Judaism had no need for Paul to "humanize" anything; the Rabbis were long in the process of doing so already. Read "Pirkei Avot", "Ethics of the Fathers", which is one of the books of the Mishnah. The Talmud was filled with "humanized" law and parable.
I replied:
Yes. I expected a complaint of that sort -- which is part of the reason why I noted the humane elements in the Torah. Both Paul and Jesus were good Jews and almost all they said had precedents in the Torah. And I noted that Paul was only one figure in a long line of great Rabbis and prophets.
The point I think you miss and one I should have spelt out more is that Christianity gradually changed the whole culture of the European and Levantine world so that the influence on Jewish thinkers was more osmotic than conscious
That response cleared the matter up, with my correspondent agreeing that Jews have always tended to make big adaptations to the society in which they found themselves. The language we call "Yiddish" is in fact mainly a form of German!
I guess that this post is already a little rambling (my more rambling posts are usually written with the assistance of Mr. John Walker of Scotland but this one isn't, surprisingly) so let me ramble just a little further: The reader I have just mentioned bears a surname which in German means "The landlord of "The Sun"" -- where "The Sun" is an inn. As regular readers here may remember, I rather enjoy looking at what is behind personal names. So I noted something unusual in that surname. It is of course normal for Ashkenazi names to mean something in German but what such names mean is usually mocking. My favourite is "Kren" -- which is Southern German for "Horseradish". Can you imagine someone going around and being obliged to introduce himself as "Mr Horseradish"?
But being the landlord of "The Sun" is not at all unprestigious -- quite the reverse in fact. So somewhere way back there was a Jewish guy who took on the quite challenging job of being the landlord of an inn and who eventually came to be known by that name. Occupational surnames are of course quite common. In English, Mr. Taylor and Mr. Baker, for instance, must have had remote ancestors who were a tailor and a baker respectively.
And it's not only occupations that formed bases for surnames. One of my favourite non-occupational names is "Inglis" -- which is a Scottish surname that is pronounced as "Ingels". But what does it mean? It means "English". The original "Mr Inglis" was an Englishman from England who settled in Scotland and became known in his locality for that strange peculiarity!
There are also many English inns called "The Sun". Here is a link to one of them. Note the sign. Such signs date to times when few people could read and write -- so a simple sign that could readily be recognized was put up out front and used to identify a particular inn. "Bull and bush" and "Elephant and castle" are other well known examples of such signs in England. A German inn in the same category that most people will have heard of is Das Weisses Roessl, though most will know it in translated form as "The White Horse Inn" -- a popular operetta set in an Austrian inn that was identified by a picture of a white horse outside. You can see a small picture of the horse concerned here
And here is a link to an actual German inn called "Sonne" ("Sun"). Note the sign again.
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Foggy Bottom Apostate: "Jay Lefkowitz, President Bush's special envoy for human rights in North Korea, has recently pointed out that our current approach to Pyongyang is failing. Lord help a diplomat who tells the truth. Mr. Lefkowitz, growled Condoleezza Rice at a Tuesday press conference in Europe, "doesn't work on the six-party talks [on North Korea], he doesn't know what's going on in the six-party talks and he certainly has no say in what American policy will be in the six-party talks."... Mr. Lefkowitz is being written out of the Administration's North Korea policy for a speech he gave last week at the American Enterprise Institute. Noting that it has been more than two years since Pyongyang pledged to abandon its nuclear weapons program, and more than two weeks since it violated the latest deadline to disclose the full extent of that program, Mr. Lefkowitz observed that "it is increasingly clear that North Korea will remain in its present nuclear status when the Administration leaves office in one year."
Pope tells the Jesuits to shape up: "In a letter to the Jesuits, gathered at their 35th General Congregation dated January 10, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI has called on the ancient order which has been rocked by scandal to reaffirm their "total adhesion to Catholic doctrine" mentioning specifically the Church's teachings on "sexual morality". The letter comes in the wake of the homily given by the Pope's representative at the opening of the Assembly on January 7, which bemoaned the infidelity of some in the order to the teachings of the Church. The once illustrious Jesuits, the great defenders of faith, have over the last 40 years been steeped in dissident controversy. Jesuit priests have featured prominently in the homosexual priest scandal and Jesuit universities have been hotbeds of dissent on Church teachings especially those on life and family. The Pope stressed this reaffirmation several times, pointing to specific areas where the Jesuits are known to have caused scandal." [The Jesuits were founded on a complete loyalty to the Pope so if they ignore this they are betrayers of their own oaths]
Federal Department of Light Bulbs and Toilets: "Nevada Sen. Harry Reid said he thought the light bulb ban was an appropriate exercise of federal power. Interesting company Reid's keeping. Because when the bill was originally introduced by California Rep. Jane Harman last March, CNS News reported that two other countries had already taken similar steps to eradicate inexpensive incandescent light bulbs from the planet: Fidel Castro's Cuba and Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. Unfortunately, this is nothing new for Congress. The light bulb ban is simply the latest example of an increasingly intrusive federal government butting into the day-to-day affairs of the average citizen. Remember the 1992 energy bill, in which Congress banned the 3.5 gallon toilet?"
There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race and IQ. Some readers have reported that the site doesn't download unless one clicks STOP.
For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here
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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".
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3 comments:
"... 3.5 gallon toilet." I recently learned about the Sloan Flushmate toilet, which harnesses the water pressure in the pipes to give the waste an extra boost on its way down the drain. In this way, it can use less water to flush without impairing the flushing action. I found to my surprise that these toilets, up to now unknown to me, were installed in a house which I bought recently.
As you most correctly point out, Nazism is indeed a leftist phenomenon. Note that Marx, Lenin, and Stalin all were anti-Semites. Jews were referred to as "Rats" in Venona code. Nazism and Communism have a great deal in common; anti-Semitism is only one example. Hitler's attitude on eugenics closely matched Soviet era thought. Read "The Venona Secrets" and "Blacklisted by History" for the many parallels long denied by leftist invention. Stalinist propaganda was very effective and somewhat dominated Western media prior to 1950; today it continues, only slightly squelched.
[PLEASE DISCARD MY ORIGINAL COMMENT(S), ASSUMING YOU ACCEPT THIS SPELL-CHECKED ONE. WASN'T SURE IF IT WENT THROUGH, NOT HAVING NOTICED THE MODERATION TAG, SO I SAVED A COPY AND MY SPELL-CHECKER WENT CRAZY, WHICH DIDN'T WORK IN YOUR COMMENT BOX LIKE IT USUALLY DOES ON BLOGS.]
Slow down to speed up. I mean: (1) Again re-organize your own personal blogosphere into a Reader's Digest format (I know not how except to publish one or more BOOKS), and (2) get perma–linked by as many other popular (semi-libertarian) blogs as possible, such as NiceDoggie.net and Jonah's blog etc.
You added comments! So I am commenting. Actually, you have answered every one of a dozen e-mails I've sent in the last few years, at least with a "cheers" that indicated you actually read them. Alas, your comments do not allow me to comment on specific items, just the whole flurry of entries? I usually don't have time to get to the bottom of your day's page (or weeks' worth, however it's organized until it turns into archive links only).
Your end-piece about your credentials and history is hodgepodge, by which I mean, besides on my browser being double-spaced between paragraphs, has not been edited into a block-essay format, nor is it obvious that it is an epilogue instead of a continuation of a blog, and so it suddenly hit me as the harsh and disorganized rant of a drunken sailor making his way home, screaming about the Party in Power. This would, I imagine, if I was new to your blog, which I am not, lessen the effectiveness of your message, a message that was once shocking to one like me who didn't exactly switch from liberal to conservative as much as had 9/11 be a wake-up call to finally "figure out politics" for which previously I had not only no interest in, but a lifelong aversion to.
Having a Ph.D. in chemistry from Columbia (followed by 3 years at Harvard in Boston, which finally turned me into a real "New Yorker" for life), it was when I finally looked into "Global Warming" and found it to be utterly junk science...that was my "too late to turn back from expulsion from Paradise" moment, when I awfully realized that whole passive-aggressive subcultures existed, ones that wanted to, like individuals with narcissistic (parasitic) personality disorders, lure entire countries into their fold, just like happens in office politics or marriages, in which a Honeymoon phase hooks you, but then their sadistic back-stabbing claws jut out, after you have invested your life in them, and yet you keep forgiving them again and again until it becomes too obvious for them to hide, so you discipline them, so they scatter their efforts, by which I mean randomize them, and it becomes death by a thousand cuts, each individual pinprick being like a single mosquito bite on a camping trip, but dozens of stings and your are diving into water to escape ticks and dear flies too, but I digress, if not confess, to once having been as big a dupe as Bill of Capitol Hillary.
I do not yet accept your logically deductive yet unreferenced and thus unempirical axiom that Leftistm is hatred of success, merely due to the fact that celebrities latch onto it so often. I say this due to the bitter experience of trying to find events in NYC full of young creative types, who, say, have tried LSD in college, and who have read Nietzsche and Cellini, or at least dabbled in Joyce by choice. But I find that the envious Liberals are mainly the gold-digger wives of non-celebrity business and money men who are too busy to even have political opinions, combined with huge numbers of “gatherings” run by living fossil hippies, the room being full of young “art student” types who spout conspiracy theories as a form of mating ritual which I fail to dance to, so they suddenly see me as a dreaded non-dreadlocked Republikan. I do run a home business, if that counts as being a Capitalist.
They don’t even think, as I hand them my design products postcard, that I pay more than their minimum wage college drop-out jobs do. They just red-eyed ask me to hold their huge quartz crystal (whose 3D molecular structure I as a formerly fanatically ambitious chemist can still write out on paper) and wish happy thoughts, which I don’t mind, but mostly they just smile, and discard my card in the corner with an affected gesture (!), as soon as I’m no longer holding eye-contact but they know I will see happen. This experience has become about as fun and predictable as watching the second-hand tick on my watch, and holding it up to my ear to see if I can hear it, and then check if the second-hand really lines up with the second marks on the dial, which it more or less does, as in the error bars would be pretty tight if you graphed it.
Yet first California, and now the whole USA is *outlawing* my main “retro” product that uses exposed filament Edisonian light bulbs for it’s entire ahead-of-its-time “steampunk” aesthetic effect. My business is outlawed, come 2012 (the end of the Mayan calander, which you must accept as also the end of the world as we know it or you wont get laid at the local rave).
My advice to you feels condescending, making me feel uncivil, but it's also midnight plus an hour in Manhattan so I'll just fire it off here, fueled by a little and now more beer.
In a way what you are doing is yanking open-minded yet "caring" people out of their cocoon, exposing the world as being corrupt, utterly, in not only one but at least three areas in which most people (like I used to) think were true instead of Kangaroo Poo: Environmentalism (science itself!!!), Atheists (liberals/Democrats), and twentieth century psychology.
My point is that it really is like realizing your husband or wife of ten years has a Machiavellian cold heart, then in the next gasp of air, you realize she's been slowly poisoning you with Arsenic supplied by her lesbian boss, who she is sleeping with, and then you feel an itch and your doctor makes you fill out a lot of forms, or at least you start to wonder if your liver already harbors time bomb Hepatitis Zyklon Z.
That's the type of barrier you face in getting your point across. It's not just "liberals" who might recoil from your site(s), but non-activist dabblers as well, who will give a dollar to a polite bum ("homeless person") yet change between moving subway cars to flee the body odor of a passed-out homeless drunk who just soiled his pants, because the fifth person that afternoon gave him the final dollar he needed for a fifth (of vodka), and basically he’s just some THING to flee from.
That impression hit me today, in some way, that you in fact only go half way, unlike “talk radio” shock jocks, or like a shy guy politely saying hi to a girl half his age, who doesn’t know he’s worth ten million dollars, since he works so hard, so she will stay stuck with her living-on-credit boyfriend who is merely 10 years older than her.
You are stating hard facts to people who have not obtained their opinions from study of evidence, so I declare Learn from Liberals Day: wrap your facts in the one fatty bacon emotion that is left besides shame: a sense of outraged injustice, worded emotionally, mockingly. I guess the reason I’m using your comments session for an obvious self-analysis session is that I’m wondering what Religion do you have to replace Puritanism or Fascism with? In my mind, you start with the Big Bang, and create new myths from it, meaning new nursery rhymes that draw people AWAY from “politics” and activism. Activist politics is a trap, on either side of the X does not equal Y equation, for it draws people into The State instead of into a state of self-actualization in the Old World sense.
If you wrote a 125 page book or three, then I could add one or two to the small stack of books I give my employees which include 'The Painted Word' by Tom Wolfe, Ayn Rand's 'Anthem', and a couple I hesitate to mention about male vs. female psychology, penned by applied instead of academic psychologists, by which I mean pimps and the last book by a 60s psychoactive drug enthusiast who was kicked out of Harvard, a book in which he actually distances himself from 60s activism and pressure on him to become a guru, a book in which he reclaims his scientific roots, and shame on you too for claiming academic credentials, even infiltration of street activist hate groups, yet who wont even discuss BRAIN CHEMISTRY ALTERATION from the right side of the fence.
Finally, I live on the “Upper West Side” and am here to honestly tell, that especially nubile females really like outspoken free thinkers, *and* that the Boomer liberals that you other islander’s and especially mainlanders claim DEFINE this area, well, they COWER at the very hint of a free thinker being in the same room with them. They are not controlling this area, they are hiding within it, defenseless. They tip poorly too, so every ethnic cafe between 72nd St. and 121st St. bring us libertarians free wine, to keep us coming back. It’s also a myth that NYC is open till 5AM. Same as everywhere I’ve ever been except Amsterdam: 1AM, then 4AM but you have to know where to go since it ain’t within walking distance.
I notice you have Reagan’s image as your current masthead. Guess what?! Even on the Upper West Side of NYC, those same “money men” whose wives chit chat away with their thousand dollar baby strollers tucked under their table (since they have not discovered how to operate the baby-chair function without knocking into me at the next table), if you mention “supply side” even across a room, their pussy-whipped facade falls away and they start ordering beers by the pint (large capped bottle).
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