Why Jews Vote Democratic – Redux

By Bruce Bialosky

Many people in the Republican Party wonder why the majority of Jews continue to vote Democratic. The last time Jews preferred a Republican Presidential candidate was 1972. Not even in 1980, when the clearly anti-Semitic Jimmy Carter was running against Ronald Reagan, or when George W. Bush was running for re-election in 2004 after proving himself the best friend of Israel ever to inhabit the White House, did the majority of Jews cast their ballots for a Republican. I have spent most of the last ten years attempting to change that pattern in hand-to-hand combat with the left. And yet despite my battle scars, I was still frustrated and enraged over a recent set of events that only confirmed how profoundly challenging it is to enlighten Jews who vote for Democrats.

Last month, a prominent temple in Los Angeles decided to open its doors to the four candidates running for Governor and U.S. Senate in California. Knowing that they would never get a debate between the respective parties, the temple invited each candidate to address the audience (both members and the surrounding community) in separate forums, believing that an opportunity to speak to a large audience of Jews would both benefit the candidates and promote the Temple’s mission of educating the public. The temple asked influential members of the congregation (of which they have many) to contact the campaigns and extend their invitation. Meg Whitman, the Republican candidate for Governor, was the first to accept, followed by Carly Fiorina, who was running for the U.S. Senate. The Jewish press reported that Barbara Boxer declined the offer, and Jerry Brown’s campaign claimed that they never received a formal invitation; a statement known to be categorically false.

Once the first event with Meg Whitman was announced, there was a deluge of complaints from Democrats at the temple. If Whitman was coming, why not Brown? Ignoring the fact that Brown turned down his invitation, they attempted to suppress Whitman’s appearance. To its credit, the temple worked hard to promote the series – always making sure to remind its members that all four candidates were invited, and that the Whitman forum was merely the first one – but the complaints keep coming. To be fair, some of the kvetching died down when people were informed of the process, but several Democrats continued to be shrill and adamant: if Brown was not coming, then Whitman should not be allowed to speak.

Despite the behind-the-scenes discourse, the Whitman forum was wonderful: more than 800 people attended. It was held with a spirit of civility and decorum appropriate for a synagogue sanctuary. But the relentless whining of partisan Democrats took its toll on the temple leadership. They chose not to promote or publicize the next event, for Carly Fiorina. The only notice to the membership appeared in the temple bulletin. When I related this story to a churchgoing friend, he wittily replied with words of wisdom from his pastor, “If you want to make sure no one sees it, put it in the church bulletin.”

The attack on simple fair-mindedness was aided and abetted by other elements of the Jewish community. The Jewish Federation, the umbrella organization for the community, pulled out of involvement and conveyed that information through their Vice-President, a former staffer for Democratic Congressman Howard Berman. The Jewish Journal (formerly owned by the Federation and supposedly now “independent”) did a hatchet job reporting on the Whitman event which further chilled the Temple from promoting the Fiorina event.

The efforts were countered by the hard work of many and equally by the likes of Dennis Prager, who agreed to moderate the forum. Dennis helped publicize the event by promoting it on his radio show. The end result was over 1,000 people showed up to hear – and interact with – Ms. Fiorina. On the day of the Fiorina event, Jerry Brown was speaking in black churches in Los Angeles. There was no commensurate effort to invite Republican candidates to these events, and, of course, there was no outcry from partisan Democrats or friends in the press about him being there without an equal Republican opportunity.

The relentless effort by Jewish liberals to suppress the speaking opportunities of their political adversaries – behavior that is both shameful and un-American, and which violates the most fundamental principles of the Jewish community – is, regrettably, a constant theme of the left. This disgraceful incident points to an undeniable truth: there is a structural deterrent to even having a chance to present a competitive argument to the Jewish Community. Some live in denial of the fact that for the past 50 years, the Democratic Party has horribly misrepresented the interests of Jewish Americans, especially on the core value of our educational system.

They deny the fact that almost all of the Anti-Israel elements within America are not only found on the political left which are also major stakeholders and figures in the Democratic Party. They tell us we should support Jewish candidates despite the fact that none of them had the courage to stand up to President Obama while he was trashing Israel and its Prime Minister until Senator Chuck Schumer did after 18 months.

I now have a clearer picture of why our job has been so difficult. All we want is a fair, honest and open debate. There is a reason they don’t want to have it. They don’t have a winning case

SOURCE

Many conservative Jews have tried to answer the question Bialosky tries to answer above but it seems to me that both his and their answers only scratch the surface. Bialosky seems to be saying that Jews tend to be Leftist because Liberal Jews block other Jews from hearing the conservative side of the argument. And he is of course right about the way Leftists generally do their darndest to silence conservatives. "Free speech for Leftists only" seems to be their motto.

Jews are however in general intelligent people well able to seek out any information they want. It would be hard to imagine a group less likely to permit itself to be subjected to censorship. Just the suspicion of it would produce instant rebellion. So I think we will have to look deeper than Bialosky does.

I have been reading attempts to explain Jewish Leftism for a long time and have found none of the other explanations to be very persuasive either. I particularly took an interest in such explanations after I read in "Mein Kampf" Hitler's claim that all the Marxist rabble-rousers he encountered in Vienna of the '20s were Jews. He actually lists them in "Mein Kampf". He says that it was their constant preaching of Marxist class war and support for revolution that decided him that Jews were the enemies of the German people and hence must be eliminated. Read more on that here.

I am inclined to think that Hitler's account of his own mental processes is a straightforward one but I am not going to hang my hat on it. If someone can come up with a better explanation for Hitler's campaign against the Jews, I would be most interested to hear it. Most writers on the subject however have NO explanation of it at all, treating it as if it were a mystery of inspissated darkness. The only explanation usually proffered is that Hitler resented being rejected by the Jewish Rector of the Vienna art school and then took it out on all Jews -- but that is pretty laughable if one reads Hitler's own account of that matter. He actually agreed enthusiastically with what the Rector said!

At any event, it does appear that Jewish Leftism has a long pedigree, going back to Karl Marx himself, of course. And it does seem that the Leftism concerned has served Jews extraordinarily badly -- a point also made by Bialosky above.

Yet I don't myself see the motivation for Jewish Leftism as any more mysterious than the motivations of Adolf Hitler. Let me put the explanation in one sentence: Successful people in life tend to be Leftist and Jews tend to be successful in life.

Why successful people tend Left is of course a large topic in its own right so I will refer readers elsewhere for a full discussion of that topic.

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Just in case you haven't seen it yet!

A Palestinian businessman:



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Another video below -- explaining why American small businesses can't create jobs these days



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TSA: One step behind the terrorists

by Jeff Jacoby

NOT EVERYONE has reacted the same way to the Transportation Security Administration's aggressively intimate new frisking technique. Air traveler John Tyner created a minor sensation when he recorded himself warning a TSA screener in San Diego to stay away from the family jewels: "If you touch my junk, I'm gonna have you arrested." Journalist Emmett Tyrrell, on the other hand, says he would "welcome a soothing pat-down . . . especially if the patter-downer is a cute little number on the order of, say, Sarah Palin." It takes all types to fill a passenger plane.

But what are we to make of TSA Administrator John Pistole, who told a congressional committee last week that he has no intention of relaxing his agency's intrusive new screenings? These include not only the hands-on body search (which at least one pilot has compared to "sexual molestation"), but also, for those who prefer to be ogled electronically, full-body X-ray scanners that leave nothing to the imagination.

"I'm not going to change those policies," Pistole testified, brushing aside a flood of recent passenger complaints as the price to be paid for security. Why, TSA's current methods are so effective, he insisted, that had they been in effect last December they would have thwarted Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the al-Qaeda terrorist who tried to blow up a jetliner on Christmas Day with a bomb sewn into his underwear. That would have been quite an achievement, considering that Abdulmutallab was flying into the United States from Europe, and was never screened by TSA.

"There is an ever-evolving nature to terrorist plots," Pistole told the Senate Homeland Security Committee. "It is clear we have to be one step ahead of the terrorists."

One step ahead? That isn't how TSA operates. Knives and sharp objects were banned from carry-on luggage after 9/11, so Richard Reid boarded American Airlines Flight 63 with a bomb built into his shoe. Passengers ever since have had to take off their shoes to pass through security, so the 2006 Heathrow terrorists came up with a plan to use liquid explosives. TSA responded by confining liquids to tiny containers sealed in baggies, but then Abdulmutallab smuggled explosive powder in his underwear. Now TSA scans or gropes even air travelers' nether regions, so terrorists based in Yemen hid two bombs inside printer cartridges and shipped them to addresses in Chicago. TSA promptly responded by announcing that "toner and ink cartridges over 16 ounces will be prohibited on passenger aircraft in both carry-on bags and checked bags." Just who has been one step ahead of whom?

Precisely because terrorist plots are "ever-evolving," it is fruitless to keep trying to prevent the last terror attack. Yet that is just what TSA keeps doing. What's worse, it treats every airline passenger as a potential terrorist who must be searched for weapons -- any and all imaginable weapons -- before being allowed to board. That is a crazy system -- crazy in its ineffectiveness, crazy in its breathtaking cost, and crazy in the staggering degree of inconvenience and invaded privacy it imposes on innocent passengers. In security expert Bruce Schneier's cogent term, TSA provides not security, but security theater -- "measures that make people feel more secure without doing anything to actually improve their security."

Anyone who has traveled through Israel's Ben Gurion airport or on El Al, the Israeli airline, has experienced what is widely considered the finest aviation security system in the world. That system doesn't involve taking off shoes, confiscating water bottles, patting down toddlers, or conducting nude X-ray scans. Nor does it involve shutting down an entire terminal because a passenger inadvertently walked through the wrong door.

However, it does involve careful monitoring of behavior, individual conversations with every traveler, and a lack of politically-correct inhibitions about profiling. Unlike TSA, the Israelis focus not on intercepting dangerous things, but on stopping dangerous people. It is hard to argue with their results.

The federalization of airline security after 9/11 was a grave mistake. Instead of creating a vast new bureaucracy, Congress should have made the airlines themselves primarily responsible for guaranteeing their customers' safety, with clear legal liability if they failed. With their bottom lines riding on it, the airlines would have been far more likely than any government agency to figure out how to get security right. Instead, we've ended up with groin gropes, naked X-rays, and "security" procedures that irritate everyone while keeping nobody safe.

The time has come to rethink air-travel safety from the ground up. Eliminating TSA might make a good start.

SOURCE (See the original for links)

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ELSEWHERE

NC: Airport director wants private security, not TSA: "After recent controversy surrounding the Transportation Security Administration’s security screenings, the director of Charlotte’s airport said he wants a private company to take over the job. Federal law allows airports to replace TSA agents with private security guards. Right now, 17 airports across the country do this, and the Orlando Sanford Airport in Florida plans to be the 18th in January. Charlotte Douglas International Airport Director Jerry Orr said he’s wanted a private firm to do security screenings since 2001, when the TSA was created.”

Florida airport to opt out of TSA screening: "Amid concerns over radiation from scanners, civil lawsuits over pat-downs, and general ineptitude on the part of TSA airport personnel, one Florida airport has thrown in the towel. Orlando Sanford International Airport has announced that it will opt out of the TSA’s screening program.”

Groping toward Gomorrah : "The Transportation Security Administration knows with 100 percent certainty that John Tyner, the 31-year-old Oceanside man who refused to submit to one of those embarrassing body scans or be searched by TSA groin-grabbers during his recent attempt to fly from San Diego to South Dakota, poses no security threat to the United States or anywhere else. He is not a terrorist, just a citizen frustrated by the growing intrusiveness of TSA screening procedures. Nevertheless, after Tyner refused to complete his screening process, a TSA official told him that the agency is likely to sue him. If it did, Tyner could face $11,000 in fines and a possible ban from air travel – not because he did anything wrong, but because he refused to submit to the authorities, which used to be a proud tradition in our society.”

Obama regime tries to quell uproar over invasive pat-downs, scanners : "The Obama administration tried Sunday to quell an uproar over pat-downs at US airports, with air travelers in revolt against the new security measures described by some as invasive and humiliating. … A loose network of groups are calling for a boycott of the full body scanners on November 24, the day before Thanksgiving — a protest that threatens to gum up the works at airports across the nation on one of the biggest travel days of the year.”

There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

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 (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)

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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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