העורך Editor

I Can’t Endorse EVERY Word Below, But…

Several excerpts from a 2002 libertarian speech by author L. Neil Smith:

That simple truth is that a libertarian presidential candidate isn’t going to win anyway, not in 2004, not in 2008, not in 2012. A libertarian presidential candidate isn’t going to win anyway, so he can afford to think the unthinkable in public, to speak the unspeakable, and even, occasionally, to do the undoable.

A libertarian presidential candidate isn’t going to win anyway, so he can afford to rush in where Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives fear even to think about treading. A libertarian presidential candidate isn’t going to win anyay, so he can afford to step fearlessly on every “third rail” there is in American political life.

Think about it. A libertarian presidential candidate isn’t going to win anyway, so he can afford to be the one who takes the risks, the one who breaks the ice, the one who sets the tone, the one who establishes the level of discourse in the debates he’s going to be left out of anyway.

…

A libertarian presidential candidate isn’t going to win anyway, so he can afford to say that there is nothing about the public school system that can be fixed by tinkering with the public school system. Funded by theft and populated by kidnapping and slavery, it is rooted in a moral inversion, so that the more resources that are sacrificed to it, the worse it gets.

Considering the 100% negative contribution they make to it, public school teachers are the most obscenely overpaid individuals in our civilization and that someday history will recognize the public school system as an atrocity comparable to the Soviet system of gulags, or, more appropriately, to the Soviet system of psychiatric hospitals that were used to medicalize and eradicate dissent.

The public school system must be abolished, its buildings razed to the ground so that not one stone is left standing on another, and salt sown on the ruins.

…

A libertarian presidential candidate isn’t going to win anyway, so he can afford to say that Social Security was a criminal hoax from the beginning, from which there can be no recovery. Just as it isn’t the job of the cops to repay the victims of a con-artist, it isn’t the job of a libertarian presidential candidate to look for ways to repay those who, however innocently, counted on Social Security to feed, house, and clothe them in their declining years.

The fact is, most Social Security recipients – or would-be recipients – like most “victims” of con-artists, are not really that innocent, anyway. The con-man relies on a certain degree of larceny in the heart of his “mark”, an illicit desire for something unearned. The politician relies on the willingness of his elderly constituents to provide for their future by cutting themselves a nice, thick, steaming, bloody chunk of the quivering flesh of their own children and grandchildren.

Recognizing, as we must, the “Tompkins-Suprynowicz Principle” [*], government assets – land, in particular – can’t be sold off casually to make up any deficit, even Social Security. Either that land belonged to somebody, from whom it was taken in the first place, or it should have been equitably distributed, and later is better than never. Yet the politicians who passed Social Security in the first place, those who have maintained it ever since, those who’ve made a career of “saving” Social Security, these criminals and con-men all have assets themselves which could be seized to make up as much of the loss as possible.

The government can’t give you back your money – it was all spent long ago, and they’d just have to steal it from somebody else – but thieves can be forced to make restitution, even to those who foolishly or greedily counted on Social Security.

…

A libertarian presidential candidate isn’t going to win anyway, so he can afford to say that “Homeland Security” imposed by a fascist government is a hollow sham with an ulterior motive. Spy cameras at every intersection, fingerprints and retinal scans at the bank, electronic implants in our children, x-rays, anal probes, and wand-rape at the airports are worse than the problems they have failed to prevent.

History, current events, and common sense demonstrate beyond the palest shadow of a doubt that the American homeland will never be secure until every man, woman, and responsible child is free to exercise his or her unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon — rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything — any time, any place, without asking anyone’s permission.

A libertarian presidential candidate isn’t going to win anyway, so he can afford to point out that before, say, 1913, Americans didn’t allow themselves to be tagged, earmarked, tracked, traced, folded, spindled, or mutilated by government busybodies. They were free to live their lives, if they wished, in perfect privacy and anonymity. This is no longer possible, and the results, for individual liberty and the health and safety of the nation, have been disastrous.

It’s time to organize a broad-based and aggressive “disidentification” or “identification resistance” movement that would call a screeching halt to all of these obsolete and evil “Progressive Era” practices and abolish Social Security numbers and cards, do away forever with draft registration, drivers’ licences, the registration of possesions like cars and guns, repeal the 16th Amendment, and deeply reexamine the Census,

Read the rest here…

[*] I assume he meant something said by Rick Tompkins and Vin Suprynowicz.

שיעורין: נתנה ההלכה לחשוב בקירוב

חזו”א ר”ה סי’ קל”ח סק”ד:

במה שהקשו על תקופת שמואל שאינה בדקדוק י”ל דמצינו כיו”ב בריבוע יותר על העיגול ובאלכסונא תרי חומשא דזהו בכלל שיעורין ונתנה ההלכה לחשוב בקירוב שלא נתנו המצות אלא לצרף הבריות ולדקדק בצואותיו ית’ לקבלת מלכותו ית’. וגם לקיום חכמת התורה הכלולה בכל דיני המצוה ולסוד הפנימיות ולכל הני אינו מפסיד אם הקביעות של גבולי הצמצום יהי’ בקירוב כדי שיוכלו לקיים מצות המעשיות אף חלושי הדעת.

ואפשר שקבעו לחשוב מחזורות של י”ט שנה ולא חשו לשעה תפ”ה חלקים כדי לצמצם החשבון שבאמת יש בתקופת שמואל מותר, וכשמסירין המותר לא יותרו השעה ותפ”ה חלקים וכמש”כ המפרש.

ודע דתקופת שמואל היא מכלל התורה וכן כ”ט י”ב תשצ”ג הנאמר בגמ’ היא תורה, וכל תורה שבגמ’ היא התגלות תורה שבע”פ שנתגלה ע”י חכמי הגמ’ וכמו שאמרו ע”ז ט’ א’ ב’ אלפים תורה, ואמרו פ”ו א’ רבי ור”נ סוף משנה רבינא ור”א סוף הוראה…

ט”ז או”ח סי’ מ”ד סק”א:

אפילו שינת עראי. דלא כהטור והרא”ש שמתירין שינת עראי. הקשה ב”י למה לא הביאו הרא”ש והטור כמה שיעור שינת עראי דאיתא בגמ’ ע”ז תנא רמי בר יחזקאל כדי הילוך ק’ אמה ותירץ דאיכא ברייתא אחריתי דתנא הנכנס לישן ביום רצה חולץ רצה מניח כו’ וזה חולק על שיעור דק’ אמה אלא ס”ל דמותר לישן בהם שינת יום דהיינו שינת עראי כדאמרי’ בסוכה ותמוה מאד דהא פירש”י גם בההיא ברייתא אחריתי לפי שביום אינו דרכו לישן עם אשתו ולא לישן שנת קבע כו’ הרי דגם שם תלוי בשינת עראי ומ”ש עראי זה מעראי דברייתא דרמי בר יחזקאל ותו דשינת יום אמרי’ בסוכה פרק הישן דהיינו ס’ נשמי וכמ”ש בש”ע לעיל סי’ ד’ סי”ו ושכן היה דרכו של דוד ומאן לימא דלאו אידי ואידי חד שיעורא הוא ס’ נשמי והילוך ק’ אמה ונלע”ד דהאי שיעורא דק’ אמה אין אנו יכולים לשער אותו כלל כמ”ש ב”י בשם הראב”ד דמ”ה יש להחמיר לפסוק דלא ישן בהם כלל אבל להרא”ש והטור לא נראה להחמיר בזה כי לא ניתנה תורה למלאכי השרת או דוקא לבני אדם חכמים ביותר וכיון דעיקרא דהא מילתא אין בו איסור רק משום גזירה מדרבנן אזלינן בו לקולא ויכול לישן בהם שינת עראי לפי דרכו של אדם והיינו על דרך שכתב הטור סי’ מ”ז בשם הרא”ש דכל שאדם ישן על אצילי ידיו הוה עראי כנ”ל דעת הטור אלא שהש”ע החמיר ופסק כאן כדעת הרמב”ם.

ראה בספר על חז”ל והמדע כאן.

ראה עוד ענין קרוב לזה בהגדה כאן.

re: The Unknown Jew Who Risked the Electric Chair To Save the Globe From American Nuclear Tyranny

A reader wrote that he appreciates our posts, even when they don’t necessarily have anything to do with Judaism per se, such as this one:

The Unknown Jew Who Risked the Electric Chair To Save the Globe From American Nuclear Tyranny

To repeat myself in a past article:

Ever see an article that doesn’t seem related to Judaism on Hyehudi.org – “Aggregated Articles About Judaism”?

Here’s a general rule for reading Hyehudi:

Ask yourself if many of the most famous and scholarly rabbis today would agree with a certain message. If they wouldn’t, well then that’s what I mean to wonder about. And if the said rabbis haven’t expressed an opinion either way, then I mean they really ought to do so.

Even for the minute number of filler, or “padding” articles, my goal is to render the rest of the site more appealing and get new readers for the more meaty articles.
To illustrate, here is the Jewish connection of just this article:
  1. If a Jew were to ask a Torah question about a similar case of breaking monopoly, I think he should be told to do the same as our protagonist.
  2. My cynical view of the US tyrannizing the world if only it could is meant as a critique of blind, stupid Pollyanish views of the US, so common among Jews.
  3. How come you never read any Torah scholar lambasting nukes? Why not?!
  4. Look at this one Jew. Even distant Jews should at least not drift too far; Jews are ‘awesome’!
  5. Even the so-called exceptional USA could have been (even worse) a monster, so we should go slow on Iggros Moshe‘s “Medinah shel Chessed”-induced patriotism.
  6. An inter alia reminder of Hiroshima (we have elsewhere shown to be gratuitous), which undercuts the US claim of morality, let alone unique morality. And “When they fall we rise“.
  7. Hiroshima should awaken Jews to leave a State blithely capable of such things.
  8. Hiroshima should inoculate Jews against the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s feelings about the US.
  9. If a duly state-miseducated\programmed American Jew can walk away from a random article quoting Wikipedia suddenly thinking Soviet spies can be heroic (!), what other firmly-held convictions might you be wrong about (Temple Mount, Mechiras Chametz, etc.)?
  10. The article is meant to condition the reader to deep revulsion of mainstream, “Charedi” neocon rags (with numerous Jewish side-benefits).
  11. A reminder world peace is usually a good thing in Judaism, pace the necocons.
  12. Even if other interpretations of this are possible, how come you never heard any of this fascinating story? And what does that tell you about your, if not Jewish at least Jew-ish, education supposedly including all chief highlights (thereby encouraging independent study of Jewish history, etc.)?
  13. Another dig at some Jews’ acceptance of the USG’s world-monopoly-aspiring Russia-Ukraine narrative.
  14. This anecdote further illustrates the simple meaning of Mishlei here.
  15. I think counterfactual thinking (“the bomb might have been dropped on China…”) is essential to Torah study, as demonstrated eleswhere.


Enough to make my point yet?

Note: Feel free to evade all the above and read Hyehudi purely for pleasure (as some people read the Torah itself as a novel) so long as you don’t attribute to this writer the “starving artist” foolishness of spending hours writing this site for free\zip\nada\gratis\gornisht, merely to amuse the bored.