When Can We Expect To Hear a Similar Speech in the Holy Land?

Disclaimer: I’m not calling for anything, of course, just wondering if this will come to pass, or when.

Patrick Henry’s famous March 1775 speech against the king and the redcoats before the Revolutionary War, “Liberty or Death”:

NO man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope that it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen, if entertaining, as I do, opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely, and without reserve.

This is no time for ceremony. The question before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery. And in proportion to the magnitude of the subject, ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country.

Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country and of an act of disloyalty towards the majesty of Heaven which I revere above all earthly kings.

Mr. President it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth – and listen to the song of the siren [a reference to Homer’s epic tale, The Odyssey] till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the house?

Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with these warlike preparations [by the British] which cover our waters and darken our land.

Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation – the last arguments to which kings resort.

I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motives for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging.

And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer on the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain.

Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted?

Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned – we have remonstrated – we have supplicated – we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament.

Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne.

In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free – if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending – if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained – we must fight!

I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us, sir, that we are weak – unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of Hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of the means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.

Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.

Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat, but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged, their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable – and let it come!

I repeat it, sir, let it come!

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace – but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have?

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

An Indian’s Indictment of Pagan Hindustan

India’s “Structure”—Addendum

By 

January 8, 2024

 

In the previous article, I delved into the absence of moral foundations in India and elsewhere in the Third World. Considering this, the institutional structure left by colonizers cannot survive. Each of these Third World countries, in its unique way—civil wars, over-population, self-destruction, hedonism—will negate the benefits bestowed by the colonizers, Christian missionaries, and Western technology, reverting to its pre-colonial state of subsistence living, savagery, and barbarianism.

Without a rational, moral fabric—the essential civilizational factors—entropy reigns, and nature asserts itself. Intellectual or financial capital cannot coalesce, fails to hold together, and gets frittered away. The following focuses on exemplifying the decay and degradation which are gaining pace in India.

A staggering 800 million Indians get government-provided free rations, equivalent to the total populations of the USA, Canada, and the twenty-seven countries comprising the European Union. The majority of the remaining 1,435 million Indians receive subsidized rations.

Su, JonathanBuy New $3.99(as of 04:42 UTC – Details)While extremely low, India’s GDP per capita of U$2,389 (2022) still gives you a misleading glimpse of reality. A significant portion of the GDP benefits a minority with political connections or a business façade.

Strategic thinking among Indian businessmen revolves around the art of transferring money—by any means necessary—from your pocket to theirs, devoid of a need to provide a product or service. The absence of shame or guilt in engaging in scams or reneging on commitments is pervasive. Even financial institutions, without exception, impose fabricated charges, including for the spam messages they generate. Social workers, engineers, and intellectuals—whose work is difficult to quantify and is distant from customer feedback—exhibit worse conduct.

Remarkably, those at the receiving end have no righteous indignation and do not complain but look for someone else to “recoup” their losses. With people around you looking for an occasion to usurp your property and money, you must forever be on guard, wasting most of your time defending yourself. Surpluses, if any, in such an ecosystem tend to get frittered away—no one knows where they come from, so society cannot focus on nurturing or preserving them.

Unless the individual in society is moral and wants to provide more value than he receives and honor his part of the deal, any economic value created is incidental and unquantifiable.

Forget about being able to operate in the globalized world, such no-trust behaviors make it very challenging to conduct any business beyond the immediate family, with the latter already laden with significant issues. Managing large firms, achieving economies of scale, or undertaking complex endeavors becomes formidable. That is why, even in today’s high-technology world, India leaves much of its society at the edge of starvation.

This environment fosters a moral hazard and a rationality trap, encouraging individuals to prioritize street-smart tactics over being value-creators with moral and rational inclinations. During my tenure working in India, expressing my refusal to engage in bribery for the sake of outcompeting others or securing an overnight train berth at the expense of someone else was met with laughter, dismissed as overly romantic.

Considering the wages of the protagonist, the daily wage worker, from the earlier article, a foreign investor might be enticed by the potential profit margins achievable by relocating manufacturing operations to India. However, many entrepreneurs encounter an immediate roadblock when attempting to move their operations to India, with most never progressing—those who do often lose money and get stuck in chaotic legal entanglements.

Some persevere, often backed by the unending monies of big corporations. When they fail, they concoct a politically correct explanation. Or perhaps, spending most of their time in five-star settings in India, their bureaucrats never figure out what happened. Why bother looking for truth when doing so might be politically incorrect and risk your lifestyle and six-figure packages?

In the early 90s, after completing my MBA from the UK, with great aspirations to participate in India’s growth, I was in Delhi setting up the Indian subsidiary of a British company. I was obsessed with “incentives.” I hired an assistant. Within a year, I tripled his starting salary in an attempt to address some of his shortcomings. Soon, he was skipping two-thirds of the days as if he had done a perfect mathematical calculation—his instincts were not to go beyond subsistence living and didn’t include any plans for the future. When the company offered him a lump sum, he vanished for six months, returning with the appearance of having spent that time in a perpetual state of inebriation.

In a society devoid of civilizational values, might-is-right is the operating principle, and the individual—across the spectrum of class hierarchy—is driven solely by resource acquisition, power, and sex. The concept of work ethic does not stick in his mind. You can pay as much as you want, but given the slightest chance, he will shrug off. Lacking reason, he cannot see the causality between his lack of work ethic and his $4 per day wage.

The cultural underpinnings of magical thinking, resulting from the absence of reason and moral values, fail to see how prosperity is generated.

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From LRC, here.

משה פייגלין קולט היטב את הפסיכופת נתניהו

במילים קצרות על שליחת א. ברק ימ”ש להאג:

לא מן הנמנע, ששיתוף הפעולה של נתניהו עם הטריבונאל האנטישמי בהאג ועם הכהן הגדול של ההפיכה המשפטית – נועד לתת לגיטימציה להחלטה שתחייב את ישראל לסגת מעזה.

החלטה כזו תוציא לממשלת המחדל את הערמונים מהאש.

כרגיל, יאשים נתניהו את השמאל בכך שמנע את הניצחון ועם הקישקוש הזה ילך לבחירות.

The Ohr Samei’ach on ‘Tikkun Ha’umah’

the uniqueness of the 10 takanos of Ezra: tikun ha’umah vs tikun ha’dat

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

 Bava Kama 82 quotes 10 takanos that Ezra made:

עשרה תקנות תיקן עזרא שקורין במנחה בשבת וקורין בשני ובחמישי ודנין בשני ובחמישי ומכבסים בחמישי בשבת ואוכלין שום בערב שבת ושתהא אשה משכמת ואופה ושתהא אשה חוגרת בסינר ושתהא אשה חופפת וטובלת ושיהו רוכלין מחזירין בעיירות ותיקן טבילה לבעלי קריין

The Ohr Sameiach (Issurei Biah 4:8 last paragraph) makes an interesting observation.  He writes that the gemara has many takanos, many dinim derabbanan, but these were primarily instituted for “tikun ha’dat.”  They preserve and protect the rules of the religion, the halachot d’oraysa.  For example, Chazal made a takanah not to swim on shabbos lest you come to make a raft and violate a melacha.  The takanos of Ezra are different.  They were primarily instituted for the sake of “tikun ha’umah.”  The purpose of the takanos was not to prevent a person from a religious failing, but rather the purpose was to strengthen the social and family structure of the nation.

One of the challenges that Ezra had to deal with when the Jews returned to Eretz Yisrael was the high intermarriage rate.  To put it crudely, marrying a shiksa was the norm.  Ezra responded by trying to strengthen marriage to Jewish women and make it more appealing and attractive.  That’s why he instituted selling perfume to the women, that’s why there is a takana to eat garlic for the sake of onah on shabbos, counterintuitively, that’s why he made the takana of tevilas Ezra, as the gemara writes, so that “talmidei chachamim should not always be with their wives.”  Too much familiarity is not always a good thing; a little seperation preserved the desire to be together when allowed.

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From Divrei Chaim, here.