The First Good Explanation of the European Union

The EU: Economically and Morally Peverse

An Interview With Hans-Herman Hoppe in the Polish weekly Najwyższy Czas!

What is your assessment of contemporary Western Europe, and in particular the EU?

All major political parties in Western Europe, regardless of their different names and party programs, are nowadays committed to the same fundamental idea of democratic socialism. They use democratic elections to legitimize the taxing of productive people for the benefit of unproductive people. They tax people, who have earned their income and accumulated their wealth by producing goods or services purchased voluntarily by consumers (and of course especially the ‘rich’ among those), and they then re-distribute the confiscated loot to themselves, i.e., the democratic State that they control or hope to control, and their various political friends, supporters, and potential voters.

They do not call this policy by its right name: punishing the productive and rewarding the unproductive, of course. That doesn’t sound particularly attractive. Instead, they tap into the always popular sentiment of envy and claim to tax the few ‘rich’ to support the many ‘poor.’ In truth, however, with their policy they make more and more productive people poor and a steadily increasing number of unproductive people rich.

But what about the EU?

Looking at the EU, the picture becomes even worse. The EU is the first step on the way toward the creation of a European Super-State, and ultimately of a one-world government, dominated by the USA and its central bank, the FED. From its very beginnings, and despite all high-sounding political proclamations to the contrary, the EU was never about free trade and free competition. For that, you don’t need tens of thousands of pages of rules and regulations! Rather, the central purpose of the EU, supported all-along by the USA, was always the weakening in particular of Germany as Europe’s economic powerhouse. To facilitate this, Germany was sent on a seemingly never-ending ‘guilt trip’ and thus pressured to transfer increasingly larger parts of its already limited (vis-à-vis the USA) sovereignty to the EU in Brussels. Especially noteworthy in this regard: Germany’s giving up its monetary sovereignty and abandoning its traditionally ‘strong’ currency, the DM, in favor of a ‘weak’ Euro, issued by a European Central Bank (ECB) composed overwhelmingly of politically connected central bankers from traditionally ‘weak’ currency countries.

The EU, then, is characterized by three main features: First: The harmonization of the tax- and regulation structure across all member states, so as to reduce economic competition and especially tax-competition between different countries and make all countries equally uncompetitive.

Second: On top of the economic and moral perversity within each country of punishing the productive and subsidizing the unproductive, another layer of international income- and wealth-redistribution is added: of punishing economically better performing countries like Germany and the countries of northern Europe and rewarding economically worse performing countries (mostly of southern Europe) and thus successively rendering the economic performance of all countries equally worse.

And third, of increasing importance especially during the last decade: In order to overcome the rising resistance, in many countries, against the steadily increasing transfer of national sovereignty to Brussels, the EU is on a crusade to erode, and ultimately destroy, all national identities and all social and cultural cohesion. The idea of a nation and of different national and regional identities is ridiculed, and multi-culturalism is hailed instead as an unquestionable “good.” As well, in promoting the award of legal privileges and of “special protection” to everyone, except white, heterosexual men, and especially married family men (who are portrayed as historic ‘oppressors’ owing compensation to everyone else as their historic ‘victims’) – euphemistically called “anti-discrimination” or “affirmative action” policy – the natural social order is systematically undermined. Normality is punished, and abnormity and deviance is rewarded.

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From Lewrockwell.com, here.

Does Ritual Parchment (Klaf) Require a Hechsher?

Sofer Offers Refund or Free Replacement

As a Sofer, I have always used certain types of klaf that were easier to write on, in the belief that certification made the klaf of a higher standard, yet was not essential. I relied on the factories to use only G-d fearing, Jewish labor when processing hides designed for use as STaM klaf.

Upon hearing of the Elul 5766 scandal, I turned to leading Rabbinic authorities from both Israel and the Diaspora, all of whom ruled that the “regular” parchment was of doubtful validity. There’s a high probability that the lime-soakage was done by Gentiles who are always considered to lack the needed intention (lishma), rendering the parchment completely unkosher.

I must now either fully reimburse my customers, or rewrite all my work on hechsher-bearing klaf. My customers can reach me at the number below. In the meantime, none of my work may be used, including tefillin, mezuzos, etc. I hope this notice suffices.

__________________________________________________
Clarification
Regarding the overwhelming response to my previous notice entitled “Sofer Offers Refund or Free Replacement”, I’d like to clarify a few points:

(a) It has been brought to my attention that quite a few prominent Poskim, among them Av Beis Din Zichron Meir Rabbi Shmuel Wosner, Badatz Eidah Hachareidis and tens of Rabbis from America had by Teves 5761 already issued a ruling to the effect that the use of unsupervised klaf is absolutely forbidden and that 86 well known Rabbis had said the same thing a hundred years ago.

(b) Distinguished rabbis have contacted me to offer encouragement in withstanding this trial of great monetary loss.

(c) In the wake of this scandal, I confronted the person who’d instructed me in the art of writing upon certain klaf that is easier to write on even though it lacks Kosher certification. We asked a great Posek who should be responsible for the free refunds. The ruling was that my teacher, the sellers, and I all should share the reimbursement expenses. The Posek also showed us no less than six pamphlets concerning this very subject. My teacher was shocked and agreed to help pay my customers.

Shmuel Nesanel Blum, Sofer STaM, Bet Shemesh

(Formerly of Kiryat Yoel, NY)

Grandson of the Kashoi Gaon zatzal

011-972-2-991-0591

Pray for Israeli Government, State, or Nothing?

Misgivings about the Prayer for the State of Israel-Interview with Rabbi David Bar-Hayim

TUESDAY, 12 JULY 2016 18:27
Should we be saying the prayer for the State of Israel every Shabbath? In the following video interview Machon Shilo’s Rabbi David Bar-Hayim assesses this prayer:

In English:

:בעברית

LAST UPDATED ON TUESDAY, 12 JULY 2016 18:34

From Machon Shilo, here.

There is No ‘Scale of Offenses’ Against the State

The Penalty is Always Death

electric-chairYesterday, the NYPD opened fire on an unarmed suspect in Times Square. Luckily for the suspect, the NYPD has terrible aim. Not so lucky, were the two innocent bystanders struck by taxpayer funded bullets flying indiscriminately through the polluted urban air. This all started because the NYPD allegedly saw the man stumbling around on 8th Avenue. Moments later, they started spraying bullets in his general direction, in one of the most crowded places on the planet.

I can think of no better opportunity to take the chance to point out, that the penalty for disobeying agents of the State, is always death. I’m borrowing the title from a 2008 article by Mike Gogulski on NoState.com, but what follows are my own thoughts, and it’s a point I’ve been making for a long time, that everyone, or at least, every anarchist, on some level, knows is true.

Whether you stand accused of stumbling, smoking marijuana, ignoring threatening letters, driving too fast, or parking too long, the outcome is always the same, threats of violence. If, when the armed thugs come to extract their vengeance, you become compliant, true enough, you are likely to survive the encounter. If however, you treat them like the criminals they are, they too will display their true nature, and kill you where you stand.

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From ChristopherCantwell.com, here.