Sunday School

[jakelafort]

Enco,

I inadvertently wrote capitalism when i intended communism in relation to a dalliance.

So yeah communism has proven itself to be abhorrent. However and let me be concrete. Lets assume a famine, a bloody revolution. People starving to death and eating corpses. That happened during the Chinese revolution in fact. THAT may be the time to implement communism on a temporary basis.

I think the kibbutz is the most successful socialist idealism experiment ever. And the longevity is remarkable. Hamas went hog wild on those socialists. I wonder if any of them are still bleeding dodger blue for the Palestinians considering their support meant absolutely nothing as they were slaughtered. And Hamas is so widely endorsed by the Gazans that their own brand of progressivism has hopefully gone out the door.

[TheEncogitationer]

Reg,

Who needs the stupid FDA anyway! I am going to chill out tomorrow with a lucky dip of compound meds from “Hims and Hers”.

Indeed. They are the biggest barrier to the drug repurposing we were discussing earlier. If the FDA wasn’t put on a leash, AIDS patients couldn’t use Thalidomide in their therapy.

If the label is accurate and all risks are made clear, consenting adults should have have the right to ingest what the Hell they want.

One thing Trump’s people did right in his first term was advocating The Right to Try experimental drugs and treatments for critically-ill patients without saying “Big Brother May I?” to the FDA.

“My Body, My Choice” isn’t just for abortion.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by TheEncogitationer. Reason: Spelling

[TheEncogitationer]

Jakedelafort,

I inadvertently wrote capitalism when i intended communism in relation to a dalliance.

So yeah communism has proven itself to be abhorrent. However and let me be concrete. Lets assume a famine, a bloody revolution. People starving to death and eating corpses. That happened during the Chinese revolution in fact. THAT may be the time to implement communism on a temporary basis.

Uh, it was Communism that created all the above horrors in China, both during the fighting in the Revolution and afterward in The Great Leap Forward. Communism also created these horrors in Ukraine during Stalin’s Terror Famine in the Thirties and creates these horrors today in North Korea and has gotten Venezuela dangerously close to cannbalism. The latter so far are only eating grass and zoo animals.

I think the kibbutz is the most successful socialist idealism experiment ever. And the longevity is remarkable. Hamas went hog wild on those socialists. I wonder if any of them are still bleeding dodger blue for the Palestinians considering their support meant absolutely nothing as they were slaughtered. And Hamas is so widely endorsed by the Gazans that their own brand of progressivism has hopefully gone out the door.

It doesn’t sound like the Kibbutzim did a good job at protecting innocent civilian lives and at educating Jewish children that not everybody can be your friend.

You don’t even history or even daily news, do you?

• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by TheEncogitationer. Reason: Spelling

[TheEncogitationer]

Reg,

…and the idea for a sovereign wealth fund is not a very good one…

This is a terrible Universal Basic Income idea of Trump’s. Alaska already has a form of this, where State citizens get a share of oil revenues. It doesn’t change the fact that everything there is more expensive than in the contiguous 48 States due to having to ship everything in. It also doesn’t help the rampant alcoholism, drug abuse and crime in Alaska.

Also, there are foreign examples that are failures. Denmark has a sovereign wealth fund that draws from North Sea oil revenues…right when Denmark’s government has propsed ending exploration for more oil by 2030. What will they do then?

There are some real knobs on all sides running things.

[jakelafort]

Enco, i was not thinking of the communist rev. in China. Could be any place. But your take is a gross oversimplification. I oppose doctinaire thinking. Unfortunately we see the overwhelming numbers married to their ideology and incapable of analyzing their betrothed. Regurgitation of political rhetoric is the outer limit for the masses. Reasonable people and there are few understand the shortcomings and flaws in all political systems. Libertarianism is no panacea.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

I think the Kibbutz is a great idea. Many Irish people worked on one for the summer back in the 70’s and 80’s. I have never met anyone who had a bad experience there.

I am sick of hearing from ignorant lefties who think that social media educates them and that their ill-informed opinions are of equal value to freethinkers who study the facts before speaking on a topic.

Recently a student, who has never left the country, but is studying Arts and Media, informed me that he was pro-Hamas as they were the only people actively helping the Palestinians.  Apparently they are “freedom fighters”

I asked him if he was pro-Iranian and he said absolutely not!!

I asked him what he thought Yasser Arafat would make of the ceasefire and got a blank stare.

He admitted that he was UNsure which organization managed UNwra!!

I asked him what would he think if children were kidnapped by these “freedom fighters”.  He was unsure how to answer that. I guess he was a Catholic as he had a wooden cross around his pious neck.

Ok, say the girl was 9 years old and happened to be Irish? I was informed that “Hamas would not be stupid enough to do that as it would be bad publicity and they only target Jews”.

Really, only Israelis are Jewish? You are an idiot. Good luck with the media studies. (I was not that polite).

 

[Unseen]

Can we all agree that violent revolutions are generally a serious hardship for the average person who just wants to get on with their life, it mattering little if it’s a leftist or right-wing revolution?

The revolutionaries—in words recently heard from President Musk and his wingman Donald Trump—convince themselves that average citizens not only will be suffering “temporarily” but will be happy to do so and, if not, will eventually be glad for the suffering.

It’s the blindness of fanaticism. You can see it in Hamas, who are willing to bet their own people that they can defeat Israel and in Israel who base their claim on the land on “But Yahweh gave it to us!”

• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by Unseen.

[jakelafort]

What a beautiful little girl and what a tragic life. Horror in living color. I just read accounts of Thai workers who were murdered by Hamas. Fucking horrifying how they cut their heads off with knives.

So you are young and naive. You were never taught critical thinking and you have classical liberal sentiments. (I do as well) Those professors must know of what they speak! So you buy all of the lies about Israel. Ok. Or you just hate Jews. Ok. It is that leap to finding moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas or even more head-scratching in supporting the putative resistance. And if you identify with oppressed groups how do you not know enough about history to know Jews are the poster children? And how do you fail to be concerned about Islamic nations and how Islam causes immense and incalculable suffering? If only Israel would go away the world would be good?

[Unseen]

jakelafort wrote:

What a beautiful little girl and what a tragic life. Horror in living color. I just read accounts of Thai workers who were murdered by Hamas. Fucking horrifying how they cut their heads off with knives. So you are young and naive. You were never taught critical thinking and you have classical liberal sentiments. (I do as well) Those professors must know of what they speak! So you buy all of the lies about Israel. Ok. Or you just hate Jews. Ok. It is that leap to finding moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas or even more head-scratching in supporting the putative resistance. And if you identify with oppressed groups how do you not know enough about history to know Jews are the poster children? And how do you fail to be concerned about Islamic nations and how Islam causes immense and incalculable suffering? If only Israel would go away the world would be good?

How can YOU not know enough about history to know what a starting point and trigger the creation of Israel was, leading to the instability of the Middle East which could easily be the trigger to WW3 as soon as an Islamic state has the capacity to mount a nuclear attack?

No, I’m not excusing Hamas or arguing for anything like a moral equivalency. Morals are not written across the sky by God, which would provide a rational basis for such. Many times aggrieved parties reserve the right to strike back much harder than the offense which they suffered.

Sadly, both sides are reserving this right. There’s your moral equivalency.

If the Jews must have a land to call their own, let it be Montana or Alberta and let the Americans or Canadians displaced be fairly compensated. What compensation did the Palestinians get? I’ll tell you what Gemini AI told me:

No Comprehensive Compensation: To date, there has been no comprehensive implementation of compensation for Palestinian refugees.
Disputed Claims: Israel disputes the Palestinian right of return and has not paid compensation on a large scale.

So, basically, Palestinians were driven off in order to make room for mostly European Jews. No compensation and Israel doesn’t believe they deserve any.

Your moral equivalency argument is a distraction and smokescreen for what the real problem is: Israel exists due to the fiat of non-Middle Eastern military powers and only devout Jews believe they belong there because God gave them that land.

DID God give them that land, Jake?

And what would be unfair in compensating the displaced Palestinians for the act of eminent domain which created the state in the first place?

[jakelafort]

Unseen,

You are wrong on so many counts it is incredible. But you are not baiting me into it. No way. Honest brokers of opinions only. But you just keep reading and listening to garbage sources. Make sure you never have a thought of your own.

[Strega]

Re the ‘starting point’ comment. This seems absurd to me, having been born and brought up in Europe, in a country that has thousands of years of history both good and bad.  History moves in waves, each ‘starting point’ having been triggered by earlier event crescendoes. You can’t just pick a reference point in history and call it the ‘starting point’.

Re relocating Israel into Montana – this is utterly against the US interests in having a military presence in the middle of the Middle East.

So America supports Israel, warts and all, because it needs those bases in the Middle East.  But Americans themselves have what appears to be an institutional dislike of Jews – it seems to be a gut feeling, so logic isn’t any use here.

From my experience, each Jewish person I’ve met and worked with has been delightfully interesting.  None of them have been particularly  conformist either.  My Israeli client says, “If you find two Jews arguing, there will be three opinions” to emphasise this.

Re the gentlemanly banter, it’s mildly irritating when the posts themselves are so interesting.

[_Robert_]

Strega,

Agreed. I must say having lived in NYC and South Florida, I found many Jewish folks to be some of the most interesting, intelligent, funny, creative, pragmatic, attractive, open-minded, and irreverent people ever. They roll with the punches. Most were atheists. Many travelled back and forth to Israel, in support.

I have little doubt that if the Palestinians accepted the offer of their own state right beside Israel, they would be better off than if they had the whole place.

Israel had to become an armed fortress. The Hamas charter is to destroy them with Iranian backing. Now we have the Trumpian/Netanyahu “solution”. All the anti-Biden, pro Trump Palestinians have a pet leopard to feed with their own faces.

After the Ottoman Empire lost WW1, the Palestinians were weak, unincorporated and under the British mandate aligned with the WW2 fascists. Oops. They still got a sovereign offer from the UN. They fucked up and decided on Jihad instead and still do.

[Unseen]

Strega wrote:

America supports Israel, warts and all, because it needs those bases in the Middle East.

Yup, it exists not because “the Jews deserve the homeland God gave them” or even “because they have been so widely persecuted,” but due to the power interests of The West generally and The U.S. in particular.

But Americans themselves have what appears to be an institutional dislike of Jews

Not among the Christian nationalists who don’t dislike them but rather view them as necessary for holding down The Holy Land for when The Son of God returns to take names and kick major butt.

From my experience, each Jewish person I’ve met and worked with has been delightfully interesting.

My experience as well, though to be truthful, much of my experience has been with secular Jewish people, many of whom I’m sure would join me in criticizing Israel’s conduct, if not the creation of the state.

Much of the enmity Israel experience traces back to the overall conduct of Israel toward the totally justifiable resentment of the Palestinians regarding, first, being driven out of their land and, second, the general tendency of Israel to lord over them rather than treating them as worthy of fair treatment. The instances of Israeli soldiers and police abusing and killing Palestinians, often for relatively minor offenses, like some teenager tossing a stone, are numerous.

None of them have been particularly  conformist either.  My Israeli client says, “If you find two Jews arguing, there will be three opinions” to emphasise this.

What I love about the Jews I grew up and went to college with. I grew up in Cleveland, which has a substantial and socially active Jewish community. I checked and it is #6 in terms of number of Jews per capita, which places it higher than Chicago, for example. Jews in Cleveland are prominent in supporting the arts and education.

[Unseen]

_Robert_ wrote:

Agreed. I must say having lived in NYC and South Florida, I found many Jewish folks to be some of the most interesting, intelligent, funny, creative, pragmatic, attractive, open-minded, and irreverent people ever. They roll with the punches. Most were atheists. Many travelled back and forth to Israel, in support.

All of my experience with the Jews I went to school with (both high school and college) were just as you described.

I have little doubt that if the Palestinians accepted the offer of their own state right beside Israel, they would be better off than if they had the whole place.

Canada might be better off if it accepted Trump’s logic of lower taxes and (LOL) better health care, especially if they’d just all trot on over and live in Nova Scotia a country all on its own (the two-state solution) so that Americans can move up and in. But, I can see how this might not seem satisfactory.

Israel had to become an armed fortress.

Usually a good sign that you’re not welcome. That “You don’t belong here.”

The Hamas charter is to destroy them with Iranian backing.

And who ultimately is responsible for creating this unholy alliance? Western powers doing what they do best: imperialistically carving up territory held by weaker powers.

Now we have the Trumpian/Netanyahu “solution”. All the anti-Biden, pro Trump Palestinians have a pet leopard to feed with their own faces.

No, no, no. The new Trump Palestine Palace Hotel and Casino will need low-paid immigrant Palestinians to clean rooms, mop floors, shine shoes, park cars provide sexual services, etc.

After the Ottoman Empire lost WW1, the Palestinians were weak, unincorporated and under the British mandate aligned with the WW2 fascists. Oops. They still got a sovereign offer from the UN. They fucked up and decided on Jihad instead and still do.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by Unseen.

[TheEncogitationer]

Jake,

Enco, i was not thinking of the communist rev. in China. Could be any place. But your take is a gross oversimplification. I oppose doctinaire thinking. Unfortunately we see the overwhelming numbers married to their ideology and incapable of analyzing their betrothed. Regurgitation of political rhetoric is the outer limit for the masses. Reasonable people and there are few understand the shortcomings and flaws in all political systems. Libertarianism is no panacea.

How is it “oversimplifying” to cite multiple real-life historical examples of the failures of all flavors of Communism and Socialism. And what could be more “doctrnaire” than these?

Thomas Sowell always rightly observed that: “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.”. Judging from what Communism and Socialism have delivered throughout history, they are clearly differing degrees of trade-downs.

[Author]

Posts