This Shabbat, the parashah was Noah (Bereishit/Genesis 6:9-11:32). This is the story of the flood, the curse of Ham, the origins of various peoples, the Tower of Babel, and the beginnings of Abram (Abraham).
Landschaft mit dem Dankopfer Noahs by Joseph Anton Koch (c. 1803)
I was reading about the theme of the number seven in the Tanakh, and of the passages mentioned is I Kings 2:34, where a child wakes from the dead and sneezes seven times. Knowing that there is no concrete concept of resurrection in the Tanakh, I wondered what the real context was and looked at it. The story begins at I Kings 4:8, but I am cutting to the main point here:
Presidential debates mean debate watch parties. I had the choice of staying at Americans for Prosperity (conservatives) after phonebanking, where we would cynically play entitlement bingo, or I could go to a Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton watch party in an attempt to troll. I opted for Bernie, also being curious about the campaign, since libertarians agree with him on a few issues.
What exactly has been so bad about the past 5 years of gridlock? You see, socialists like Bawney Fwank here, cant stand to see government not adding more and more laws. The combination of a Democrat as President and a staunchly Republican Congress has done absolute wonders for America by preventing new laws. The same occurred in the 95-97 Congress with Bill Clinton.
I know half of libertarians will agree and probably already try to buy local; this is common in New Hampshire, where I reside. The other half will cite CATO, Skeptical Libertarian, and assorted memes, claiming that its actually better for costs and the environment to ship strawberries from California. In a sense, both views are correct. In fact, I am not really going to oppose buying from “abroad”, provided it is local to that place. This will make more sense in a few paragraphs.
Every time there is a mass shooting in America, all the usual suspects come out and point fingers. The socialists blame guns, the conservatives blame violent media, and everyone blames mental health. Guns are not the problem. Shootings always happen in places where guns arent readily accessible or are thought to be so. Violent media exists in every country and is worse in many countries that do not even have mass stabbings, let alone shootings. There are depressed, suicidal, and mentally ill people all over the world, and yet these attacks mainly happen here. And no, it isnt because other countries have better health systems. They dont. We probably have the best mental health response in the world. So what is the real reason for these attacks? And why do they often happen at schools.
As the new school year gets underway, Jewish educators are making decisions regarding how best to teach about German Jews and the Jewish-Nazi conflict. Most begin with the premise that Jewish students should learn to support German Jews and defend their actions. Throughout the year, their lesson plans will flow from this fundamental objective.
A few times over the past few months, I have had to explain the practice of Judaism to nonJews, usually those more familiar with Christianity. Like Christianity and other religions, Judaism also has denominations. However, it is a bit different in Judaism than Christianity. I like to say that while Christianity is like a tree with many branches and subbranches, Judaism is more like a spectrum. That is not to say that Judaism does not have branches, but the main difference is spectral.
Communists and their ilk frequently state the needs for social justice and that the market cannot provide for all the needs of people adequately. They present a string of bleeding heart causes (nevermind that it is the state that causes these hardships) and conclude that socialist forced collectivism must be enacted to accommodate these “needs”. However, history has shown that these various schemes to be abject failures.
Child Labor: A look at a statist scare story and how to show it baseless
We free marketists argue that there should be no government whatsoever. No arbitrary laws restricting trade. One such law, present in all industrialized countries, involves “child labor”. The term “labor” usually conjures up the thought of hard work, sweat, and toil. Statists argue that it is necessary to forbid such a possibility so that young, vulnerable children are not threatened or abused by it. We argue that there should be no such restrictions and statists think we are mad. However, like most statist arguments, this is completely ignorant of reality and the needs of society.
