Taxes leave less money in the productive sector. So less taxes are good and more are bad. Government welfare subsidies, on the other hand are a from of illegitimate income redistribution and social engineering, which especially harms the poor in the long run. Ergo, more welfare is bad and less is good. Here are two old political comic strips by Yoni Gerstein where he makes a crucial error.
One:
Two:
Some Rabbis are clearly corrupted by our decadent culture. How come we have rabbis like Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg “permitting” aborting Down Syndrome babies, “extenuating circumstances”, and the like, apart from danger to the mother? The Gemara is very clear in many places that abortion is part-murder.
But as attitudes worsen around us, Jews learn from the Non-Jew. And pretend the Torah itself permits murder.
I highly recommend Rabbi Brand’s tiny book on abortion here (Hebrew).
Hold on just one minute, lets not confuse Torah and Daas Torah.” Just because the Torah commands us to do something that doesn’t mean we should actually do it. What do our Rabbis tell us?After all, who are we to try to understand that which is clearly stated in the Torah when some of our lesser teachers (henceforth known as “Gdolim” for the sake of the common vernacular) tell us that they have decided something contrary to G-d’s eternal commandments to the Jewish people on earth embodied by the Torah given to Moshe Rabbenu on Har Sinai?This concept is known as Daas Torah, the central idea being that Daas Torah is the Guide by which we should lead our lives lest we wander astray following the precepts of the Ol Malchus Shamayim we accepted when we said NaAsseh ViNishma.
Excerpted from Brisk Yeshiva, here.
ראה דברי הרב שלמה פישר בקובץ “צפונות” גליון 3 שנת תשמ”ט כאן לגבי אחד כזה: יוסף אבן כספי.
In Israel, the common line is the state is great as is. It’s not too large. Our fundamental problem isn’t bloated government but the wrong kind. They say the state “mix” needs more of the entrepreneurial element and less of the bureaucratic one.
Really?!
