The right of insurrection

Masses are not asses as Alexander Hamilton characterized them. On the contrary, populations are remarkably sensible. Many ostensible aberrations are superficial. Russians supported socialist revolution as the only imaginable alternative to oppressive monarchy, and supported socialism afterwards because propaganda convinced them that capitalism offers less economic opportunities. Once the information barrier was broken in mid-1950s and especially the 1980s and Russians realized that Americans live way better than they do, communism was doomed. In another example, Israelis did not vote for a kind of Rabin who signed Oslo accords but for the Rabin who ordered Israeli army to break hands and legs of Arabs during Intifada. Israelis voted for Begin (Sinai), Shamir (Madrid), Rabin (Oslo), Netanyahu (Wye River), Sharon (Gaza) who promised hard-line approach to Arabs, but lied; Shimon Peres openly appeases the Arabs and never gained support among Jews. All polls indicate that Israelis think rationally: they want a Jewish state free of Arabs in defensible borders, and oppose Palestinian state.

Israeli leftists predominantly resent the Arabs and gladly kill them in wars. Ben-Gurion helped 600,000 Arabs to flee Israel in 1948. The left, however, is rational: if Arabs cannot be driven out, Jews have to coexist with them. If Israel cannot annex Judea and Samaria, it’s logical to give them away to Arabs. The left have all the correct premises except one: faith and vision overcome the boundaries of rational politics.

No one seeks popular consensus on scientific theories; majority cannot decide which scientific hypothesis is correct. Politics is a science no less complex than others; more complex, actually, since it depends on subjective inputs from many players rather than objective observable facts as natural sciences. Politicians cannot fool people about goals, but can deceive about procedures. Socialists falsely assert that redistribution enhances general welfare; Israeli political crooks claim that sweeping concessions bring peace with determined Arab enemy.

Democratic elections bring autocrats to power. Elected politicians feel free to pursue any agenda, often contrary to their electoral promises. But people vote for platforms, not personalities. Electoral platforms form an integral part of electoral mandate. Elected representatives, just like the power-of-attorney representatives, are only authorized to carry out the principal’s express wishes. The Knesset must amend election laws so that voting bulletins include not only names, but also specific electoral promises which the politicians are not allowed to break.

Churchill was right: democracy is a bad system of government, except that others are worse. Torah implies democratic governing of Jewish communities in the injunction, “Do not follow majority to evil.” Presumably, in other instances one has to follow the majority. “Do not follow” is not passive. If the majority is deluded into thinking that homosexuality is a liberal value rather than abomination or the destruction of Gush Katif brings peace with Arabs, passive resistance turns into acquiescence. “Do not follow” dictates continuing in status quo ante, the old ways. In the above example, the commandment tells us to continue treating homosexuality as wickedness and Gush Katif – as Jewish land the Arabs are barred from.

Ben Franklin advanced his version of “do not follow” rule: “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” That’s the essence of republican or liberal democracy: people submit to majority vote if it does not infringe on their dear values.

If it does infringe, then we have to fight.

Erick S

I would stand and applaud, but… well… Just use your imagination.

I would just like to defend Shamir. He has objected to the Madrid conference, and to the beginning of what would later lead to the Oslo submission treaty. He remained true to his ideals to the end - even when it was no longer popular. I respect him for that.

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chaim

To Erick:
Bush Sr cheated Shamir with the promise of giving Israel money for integrate 1 millon russian jews.
That is why Shamir accepted going to Madrid. Bush anyway gave him nothing..

That does not make him a criminal in my eyes. He was a little naive, like so many idealists (Including myself), when he believed those Russian s would tip the scale against the Arab population from inside and from the outside.

There were a lot of mistakes when choosing who to bring here. Yes - An all-powerful Israel with a clear vision of how to form its citizens could have integrated them.
The Israel that exists in reality failed at that, and created even more internal tension, plus the always-welcome addition of Neo-Nazi Slavs.

But I digress from the topic..

Democracy was supposed to take care of the people - not their rulers! An elected tyrant, or traitor, is just that. The people need to own their country in order for democracy to work. That means they can overthrow a corrupt government, and that they have a non-corrupt alternative.
The other requirement for such an arrangement to work, is that the population is educated enough, well-aware of its rights, and respects them enough to be able to fight for them.

Israelis have a lot of education - technical education, in fields that lead to better salaries. Besides that, none of the above requirements are fulfilled.

Like Obadiah said - For the good of the Jewish people, we have to fight.

Ray Bright Subscribed to comments via email

“Politics is a science no less complex than others; more complex, actually, since it depends on subjective inputs from many players rather than objective observable facts as natural sciences.”

This is music to my ears!
We need meritocracy, rather than democracy.
Also, YES to accountability and keeping the promises as a necessary criteria for staying in position of power.

ON the other hand, I disagree with condemning homosexuals. Certainly I would be OK with limiting the public display of homosexuality to specially designated areas. Otherwise, controlling the private lives of people is against everybody’s freedom. Such control is not going to stop at homosexuality, it is only going to set a precedent.

I think we covered the whole homosexuality thing a few posts back Ray
Did you miss the discussion?

Albert

One of your best posts yet.

Hear hear!

Joseph

I missed the discussion of homosexuality — I haven’t read all the posts yet. But maybe I can now understand why Ray Bright hates religion: He is not only vegan, he is gay. There is nothing to discuss. If a man lies with a male as with a woman, they have both committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them. This is the Law. Not very politically correct, but thus it is. Can’t sleep with your goat, either. Sorry. And no matter how many Rabbis “comment” on it, that is the Law. Not a bad precedent to start with, actually. It has been pointed out that there are many competing groups among the “Orthodox” — is there any group that proposes actually following the Law, commentaries aside, but exactly as transmitted?

Forgive me for getting slightly off subject, but I found the discussion on homosexuality. Though I have said that the Torah should be taken literally, forgetting the commentaries, I will offer one of my own:

The Law does not prohibit lesbianism for two simple reasons. 1) A homosexual man most often really cannot find sexual attraction for women (achieve erection), thus the race would face exinction, while it is not biologically necessary for a woman to have great attraction to a man to allow herself to be impregnated. 2) Homosexual men are notoriously promiscuous, and thus spread disease at a rate exponential to the straight population, while lesbians normally form lasting relationships with no disease transfers beyond normal.

A third reason for the lack of prohibition of lesbianism is perhaps the “patriarchal” suspicion that all women are just a little bit that way. And guys would rather have their women have any extracurricular activities with another woman, than with a guy who might get her pregnant.

Don’t let my attempt at rational explanation detract from my primary argument that the Torah was given directly to Moses by God. Just some of it makes more obvious sense than other parts.

Joseph,
So far most of the comments and discussions here have been sincere and at pretty high level intellectually.
Your personal attacks on me are taking this level down, which is unfortunate. I have no problem with you disagreeing with me. This is part of a healthy conversation.
As for my presumed homosexuality, it is irrelevant to the discussion. But if you were sincere, you could have simply asked me, and I would have wold you that as a matter of fact I am not a homosexual. More over I do hold this “politically incorrect” view that homosexuality is indeed a perversion. I believe that in most cases it is a psychological aberration based on early childhood experiences. I also believe that it is potentially curable through emotional discharge.
Would it not have been a better conversation if you asked me, rather than mistakenly assuming?
==========
In this comments, perhaps you would focus on what I believe was the important part of my message: Namely that even if I personally find male homosexuality un-apetising to say the least, I value freedom as the highest human value. I believe societies should be organized in such way that most people have most freedom. Homosexuals can engage in their practices in such way that they don’t force non-homos to witness them.
The important point was that if we start taking freedom away from the homosexuals, we are sliding down the path of totalitarian society.
Soon we will see all freedoms disappear. We might get laws prohibiting taking a bus, or turning on lights on Saturday.

It is also important to note a really large number of exceptionally gifted homosexuals throughout history including such individuals as Walt Whitman, Tchaikovsky, and Michaelangelo. I don’t think humanity would have been served if they were executed as commanded by Torah.
So finally here is the most important of all points: If we base our actions on the so called “holy” books, we are denying God’s greatest gift which is our ability to respond intelligently and freshly to each situation.

The generally greater intelligence of Jewish people as compared to other nations is due to the the generally greater ability of the Jews to doubt, discuss, investigate and find facts rather than rely on myths.

If general humanity uses about 1/2% of their potential intelligence, the Jewish average is perhaps 3/4%. That’s a huge difference, but much more is possible.

Ray Bright — My apologies. Not so much for my assumptions, but for being so flippant about it. I did not ask if you were gay, because I assumed that you would deny it. I have nothing to base an opinion on other than your writings. You have a hatred for religion of any kind, and I assume that is because you find your personal desires and habits at odds with all of them. Tchaikovsky was gay, and Whitman probably was. Michaelangelo may have been, but there is no real evidence of it. None of them were Jews living under the Torah, and so none of them were subject to its penalties. Many, if not most, homosexuals are aware of the perversity of their actions, and self-loathing does not change anything. If you say you are not gay, so be it. You still defend what is an abomination in the sight of God. It takes no “holy book” to know this. And, as almost always, you return to the racial superiority of Jews. You believe, as evidenced by your writings, that no ethics or morality of the larger society bind you, because you are a Jew (forgive me for assuming you are a Jew). You can define your own code based on nothing but your superior intellect. One does not need a “holy book” to see where that line of thinking leads, either.

Joseph,
Thank you for your apology, I am glad that we can resume a respectful conversation:
I regret that you did not address the point that freedom is highest value and therefore if consenting adults chose to engage in any sort of behavior, their freedom to do so needs to be respected, as long as they don’t infringe on other’s freedom. Whether God will punish them, it is between them and God. A healthy society must allow full freedom of religious expression, but must not impose religious values on others.
While I am not homosexual, I am vegan, and to me eating corpses is disgusting. Yet, I would never dream of passing laws against eating animal corpses, as I value your freedom more than my aesthetic and ethic sensibilities.

Secondly yes, I am Jewish, and I do not believe that Jews are racially superior to other people. Jews are not even a race. They are genetically very close to Palestinian and Syrian Arabs, as well as to other Mediterraneans people.

Yet it is a statistical fact that on average the IQ of the European the Jews is standard deviation above the average for Europeans. This has been consistently measured since WWI and the average has been between IQ 115 and 117. The next highest are East Asian countries is with about IQ 105.
In the recent 2 centuries Jews, relatively to their numbers, have contributed 100 times more to every aspect of culture then, the gentiles. (Science, art, literature, music, business, philosophy, psychology, politics, etc.)
Yet, it is not racial, it a cultural trait. It is a more effective operating system. This “operating system” is not well researched. Possibly it is something that is instilled in very early childhood and later reinforced.

Finally I don’t hate religions because they conflict with my habits and my ego-desires. I hate them because I love my fellow humanity, and all religions are against humanity. I hate religions because they are against God. They separate humans from the one true God that can only be known in utter aloneness, not in a crowd. God cannot be known through beliefs, beliefs kill every chance to know. If one believes he will never even look and find. all religious beliefs are false coin. Beliefs are mental, and God is spiritual. The spiritual domain cannot be known through beliefs, just like music can not be known through smell or touch.

Ray Bright — The “cultural trait” that is such an effective “operating system” is Judaism. Just because Einstein and Mendelsohn were not practicing, religious Jews, that is still the culture they developed in/from. You can’t have it both ways. One minute, you would say it is racial, the next that it is cultural — but the culture is the religious law (which you hate), and that is what held the race together.

You no doubt personally believe that murder is wrong, but do you have a problem making it illegal? You are probably an OK guy, but you are an anarchist. Your religion is that “people can all just get along” if only the old ways were abandoned. I used to feel the same way, for about 12 hours, doing LSD. But then the “real” world kicks back in. People are not “nice”. They will kill you and rob you and rape your daughters. There must be laws. The Torah has served the purpose of both religious and civil law, and as the adhesive that has held the Jewish race together. Make your peace with it. If you cannot, quit calling yourself a Jew. Of course, the Muslim fanatics will still kill you, anyway.

Joseph,

You are right, whether I call myself a Jew or not, the anti-Semites (not just Muslim) will. I am Jewish and Jews are my people for whom I care.
You are right that the Jewish religion and Torah were the foundations of Jewish identity for most of our history. That does however not mean that I have to accept everything Torah says. Some of the laws are rational, others are not. One of the most distinguishing characteristics of Jewish culture is that it allows, even encourages questioning and discussions of everything even of the most holy beliefs. This is not so in Catholicism where doubting the holy dogma is a mortal sin. Obviously, all criticism and new-thinking within Islam is even more suppressed. Therefore Muslims are by far the stupidest of all religions.
So yes, it may well be that Torah was the ground from which Jewish culture developed, but that does not mean that we need to get stuck with it. We need cherish that which is essential and disregard the non-essential.
And, no, I am not living in a LSD lallah-land. I know people need laws and government. I just want those laws to be clearly human and rational, and not pretend to be divine.

Oh, I just wanted to add, that I agree with Obadiah, that a strong religious belief can create an outcome that “rational” thinking would consider impossible. However it is not the belief, but the commitment that creates the miracles. Most people are only able to make a total commitment based on beliefs, it is however possible to make such commitment without organized religious beliefs. Please read, (or re-read) the famous quote from Goethe on “The Power of Commitment”. (you can Google for it) Commitment to a Jewish land does not need to be based on religion.