Year: 2011

From Israel: Vote Ron Paul and Let My People Go!

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , ,

Lately I’ve been having trouble sleeping. I sit here in my living room in Karnei Shomron, Israel, on the 8th night of Chanukah, wondering what other miracles lay in store on January 3rd and in the months ahead. The name Ron Paul is constantly at my fingertips. I’ve typed it in so many times the past month it’s insane. I’m experiencing an excitement I’ve rarely ever felt, and I don’t even live in America anymore. During the last Republican debate I woke myself up at 3am Israel time to watch an 8pm EST live stream on YouTube, with no fatigue whatsoever. I’m on overdrive, and I can’t calm myself.

I’ve only recently figured out what this excitement actually is.

I first got interested in the whole freedom movement when I heard that Ron Paul wanted to end all foreign aid, including to my country, Israel. This seemed like a spectacular idea to me. I hate the idea of taking American tax payer money I don’t need. The only reason we take it, by the way, is not because we need it. It’s that we don’t want to feel alone, and Jews always feel a deep existential isolation and loneliness. “As I see them from the mountain tops, gaze on them from the heights, this is a people that dwells alone, not counted among the Nations,” says Balaam of the People of Israel in Numbers 23:9. We still feel that loneliness. So we take the money. It’s shameful, it’s theft, it’s destructive, it’s morally wrong, and it makes people hate us for tying them into a conflict they have no business trying to solve. I wanted it to end and didn’t trust any Israeli leader to give it up on his own, so I looked up more about Ron Paul.

What I found was fascinating. On the forums, I learned of people who, back in ’08, literally gave their lives short of death to this man. Some poured money into his campaign they could not afford to give, and some even lost their marriages because of their single-minded insane dedication. This shocked me. I couldn’t yet understand it, but after a few days of listening to him, it began to click.

What is it about Ron Paul that inspires such extremes? Such maddening support on the one hand, and such fear and loathing on the other? I can give the answer in one word: Soul.

The essential soul of a human being is by definition free. The idea that men are free as determined by God is a concept that is foreign to most men. This is because most men want to control others, to take away their freedom. This is usually referred to as the drive for power. The drive for power is antithetical to freedom because power means the ability to control others. There is only one legitimate thing that power can and should be used for, whether it be military, legislative, or executive power. That is, to legalize freedom.

Ron Paul doesn’t want to be President to “give” me freedom. He doesn’t own my freedom and he didn’t give it to me. The only reason Ron Paul wants to be President is to stop punishing people for using their freedom that is rightfully theirs. He wants no power. This is clear to anyone who listens to him speak.

There are two kinds of human beings. Those who want power, and those who want freedom. You can tell which one’s which very easily. Those who want freedom are straight-edged. They are consistent, principled, and you can feel their human soul when they speak to you. There’s a continuum out there of human souls somewhere in spiritual cyberspace, and when you come into contact with one of these souls, you know immediately, because souls are by definition free. You sense sincerity, realness, consistency, a free human being. If you’re a man who seeks freedom and you come into contact with a real human soul, you become instantly addicted and you swallow up anything you can get your hands on. You want to unite immediately, no matter what you disagree on. There are people in the freedom movement that don’t exactly like Israel, especially me being a “settler” and I don’t care. If they want freedom, I sense it and my human drive for individualism suddenly turns into an intense desire to unite into a collective – but a collective of free individuals. It’s a beautiful dialectic, and it doesn’t matter what we agree or disagree on, as long as we agree on freedom.

You get hooked on Ron Paul and you desperately seek more and more, any video you can find from the past, any speeches you missed, anything he said that you haven’t heard yet, even though you’ve heard it a thousand times already in different words. You can’t help yourself. The voracious hunger to be able to use your God-given freedom takes you over entirely. It’s like you suddenly realize you’re human and the Divine Image with which God created you comes alive and catches fire.

But something else happens to you. Once you get hooked on Ron Paul, you can no longer bear to listen to a man who wants power, and you become instantly disgusted when they begin to speak. Before, they were just boring. Now they’re revolting. Listening to Romney or Gingrich or Bush or Obama makes you sick and you don’t know how Ron Paul gets through those debates without getting nauseous. You see a political veneer in these politicians that’s so transparent it’s like a ghost flapping its ethereal tongue at you. You can’t bear it.

What’s so maddening about hearing Romney or Gingrich talk is that there’s someone standing there saying things, but there’s no soul in it. These are not free men. These are power men. Not that Romney or Gingrich don’t have souls. They do. They are men just like you and I. But they have practically forfeited their souls to try and attain power, to control others with spin and talking points and contradictory statements like “I want to cut the budget and expand the military!” and they’ll say it with a polished tone and a straight face, just like a soulless recording. Their humanity is so buried under the mountain of lies they have told themselves, that neither they themselves nor you can even sense their souls in the human continuum. The scene of a human body speaking but no soul communicating can drive a free man mad.

The reason that Ron Paul never goes down in the polls is that he’s not “convincing” people in the everyday sense that he’s right on whatever issue. He’s activating human souls, lighting spiritual fires one by one speaking about freedom. Once a soul gets activated, and the man realizes that he IS free no matter what people do to him or tell him, there is no turning back. The other candidates are trying to turn heads with snappy one-liners that sound cool. Slaves follow these one-liners like mobs, and follow each other from candidate to candidate. Slowly but surely, Ron Paul activates a few of the individual souls in the mob as they bob from snappy comeback to snappy comeback and he goes up in the polls.

Yet, we cannot expect every man woman and child to understand or get excited about the message of liberty. In fact, most just can’t handle it. Being truly free is as terrifying as it is electrifying. The Bible tells us this very clearly in the story of the Exodus from Egypt. When Moses finally accepts the role of deliverer from God, he was assigned to say the following to my great-grandparents the Israelites:

“Therefore say to the Israelites: I am God. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with amazing signs. And I will take you to be My people and I will be your God, and you will know that I am the Lord who freed you from the labors of the Egyptians.” (Ex. 6:6-7)

And what was my grandparents’ response?

“And Moses told this to the people, but they didn’t listen due to lack of spirit and cruel bondage.” (6:9)

Not everyone can handle the message of freedom. It’s too frightening for some people, and some are just too enslaved. Those are the people that despise Ron Paul, the same types who rebelled against Moses in the desert and attempted to go back to Egypt. Freedom is too much for them and they can’t handle the Divine gift. They want and need someone to control them. Their souls have been too battered by slavery, taxation, and wars.

But nonetheless, God forced my stiff-necked great grandparents to leave Egypt, and as a result I’m here today, preaching freedom once again, fighting not only for America’s freedom, but for my own from America’s influence in my own region.

Vote Ron Paul and let my people go! Stop meddling here and stop trying to buy influence by giving me money. Stop trying to be the all powerful Peace Maker and let us work out the problems here on our own! If we think Iran is a threat, we can handle it and we’ll take the consequences. It’s not America’s problem and you can’t afford another war.

Now I understand why people will give everything to this man. Whenever he’s asked the question, “Would you legalize heroin?” Ron Paul answers, “I want to legalize freedom!” Little do these people understand that freedom is a thousand times more addictive than heroin.

American Jews! Wake up! Set your brothers in Israel free! We were the first nation ever to be set free by God, and we brought the concept of liberty to the world when we left Egypt over 3000 years ago. It’s about time we set the example we were chosen to set.

The writer, Rafi Farber, is a member of Jews for Ron Paul and manages the website World of Judaica. Email him at settlersofsamaria@gmail.com

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How I explained my Ron Paul support to a fellow Jew

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

Use at your own risk. This is an answer I gave to a fellow Jew who was concerned about Ron Paul’s Israel stance. Not the foreign aid issue, but his calling Gaza a “concentration camp” and seeming unwillingness to help Israel if she found herself in existential danger.

—————-

OK, I guess I’ll put in my final 10 agorot. Take it or leave it. I’ll just have bullet points, I don’t have time to adequately defend what I’m saying here. Just writing it so you can get the surface of my thought process. I’m not trying to convince you of anything. I warn you that I have a radically strong faith that is either blinding me to reality or helping me see the truth. I honestly can’t tell because if I’m blind, I’m blind. This is just what my mind is telling me based on what I’ve seen so far in my life.

1) I take it as a given that Israel will never be destroyed again. This is it, we’re here to stay, no one will destroy our sovereignty. This is an axiom, accept it or not, it’s what my beliefs are based on.

2) You’re right. Ron Paul does not want a special relationship with Israel. To that end, you’re right that if Israel were in existential danger, Ron Paul wouldn’t lift a finger on his own. I am aware of this. But if you go back to point 1), that’s irrelevant for me. And if you’re worried and don’t accept point 1, then if Congress decided to lift its finger, Ron Paul would follow. He would not interfere and discourage congress or go to war kicking and screaming. He would just let congress be because he believes in the separation of Powers religiously. Ron Paul may be a lutheran in name. But his Bible, the book he makes his life decisions on, is the Constitution.

3) Ron Paul is not a Jew. He doesn’t understand the kind of subconscious disgust and revoltion it causes in us Jews when he says we put someone in “concentration camps”. If I were Ron’s campaign manager, I would advise him to apologize for using that word, or at least vow never to use it again. If he wants to distinguish between manzanar and auschwitz, then use the word Internment Camp at least. Even if distasteful, it’s not disgusting. But to him, “concentration camp” is just a word. His grandparents weren’t murdered and burned. He doesn’t have that sensitivity, and we can’t blame him for it. He used it carelessly, and as we all know, Ron Paul is a phenomenally bad speaker.

3) I don’t want a special relationship with America. I want to be friends with them, but I don’t see any of this “special bond” nonsense. They are Esav, we are Yakov, we’re brothers but we are on different paths. Our special bond is with God, not America. Not with the White House. God doesn’t want us to have a special relationship with anyone. We are a nation that dwells alone and we are not counted among the nations. Any attempt to bow to the next Pharaoh Necho will backfire. God will take care of us from his Big Oval Office in the sky.

4) In the video you sent, watch again from 2:40 to the end. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYNLXYLM44c&feature=player_embedded#%21 He clearly says he has a “personal opinion” that he would not act on because as president he has no right to act on his own peronsal opinions. I trust Ron Paul never to violate the constitution in favor of his personal opinions. If you don’t, then don’t vote for him.

5) He is not a flip flopper on anything. Once again, he has personal opinions that contradict what he says he would do as President. Those are two different planes entirely. He’s running for President. He’s not running for Ronpaulident. He says the US should trade with Israel and be friends even though he thinks we’re doing bad things because he believes in the Jeffersonian ideal of friendship with all, entangling alliances with none. What we do is none of his “presidential” business and he says that openly. 

6) Go back and read Moshe Feiglin’s article on the Marmara. You’ll see he agrees with everything Paul says, except Feiglin doesn’t use the word “concentration camp” because Feiglin is a Jew. Gaza is our fault. We ARE the aggressors, because we’re locking them up there with nowhere to go. Just like America must come to terms with its foreign policy contributing to 9/11, we must come to terms with our own evil policies contributing to terrorism. The land is God’s. To give it to them is evil, and Gaza is OUR fault entirely. We left the land, said it isn’t ours, said it’s THEIRS, destroyed homes and ripped apart families and caused kids and parents to commit suicide in despair that they had lost their lives and incomes. And now we have the CHUTZPAH to blockade the place?! What are we mad? We are the sinners. They’re just arabs. We’ve got to pay them to get out of our land and we’ve got to move back in, or otherwise get out of this whole country and call it quits back to Galut. And the only president who wouldn’t lift a finger if we paid them all to get the hell out our country and killed whatever terrorists remained? It’s the same guy who wouldn’t lift a finger if we were in trouble either. Ron Paul.

7) I think I addressed most things here.

Good Shabbos to you all.

My Complete Guide to Bumgenius Cloth Diapers

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog ,

With disposable diapers readily available and pretty much the only diapers that people use these days, it’s might be quite daunting to try any other alternative. However, as soon as I saw a friend using them, it became clear that I would one day use them for my baby as well. You see, I’m not the type to just do whatever is most convenient or most popular, I’m the type to think things through, research, and decide what the most cost-effective methods are for running a household while taking into consideration the environment, health, and efficiency. So when my first baby was born, I immediately started her out on cloth diapers. The ones I settled on were Bumgenius. They looked nice, durable, and user-friendly. However, the system took some experimenting and getting used to, exactly like becoming a mother. Here is what my system looks like after 18 months:

 

 

Materials:
12 Bumgenius One Size Diapers (with velcro) – good from birth to potty training
Washing machine
Detergent (watch out for allergies)
Pail
Drying Line
Dish soap
Wipes (again, watch out for allergies)

Methods:

1) Insert the inserts (included with purchase) according to needs and sizing. In the first stages, use the small one. Then, switch to the large one or 2 small ones. For overnight, maybe even an extra small one.

2) Optional: line the diaper with a wipe. Basically, after using a wipe for urine (not #2), toss it in the machine with the rest of the diaper stuff and dry it. This is meant to catch BMs to allow for easy clean up as you simply toss it in the garbage. Their other purpose is in case of diaper rash, when you want to apply cream. Don’t allow the cream to get on the diaper because it doesn’t come off in the wash (you must strip them see step 7). Instead, use the liner to protect the diaper from the cream. Note that the only diaper rash my baby ever had was due to the cheap wipes I was using, many say cloth diapered babies get less rashes.

3) Diaper the baby the same way you would use a disposable.

4) After the soiling, remove the diaper and place in the pail. Place the liner wipe in the garbage. My pail is near the washing machine and toilet.

5) After collecting 10-11 (you get used to the timing and also you need to adjust according to the weather), prepare a diaper load. This involves removing any extra solids from the diapers with toilet paper, shower head (if near enough to toilet) or however you choose. With solid BMs, they just fall into the toilet easily. For nursing babies, it’s a little more effort but less smelly. Remove the inserts and place both inserts and diapers into the machine. I generally add other laundry in as well to make a fuller load. Make sure to put it on a high spin cycle.

6) Line dry the diapers, inserts, and liners in the sun weather-permitting. The sun removes stains and odors to keep your diapers white. The diaper covers dry really quickly so be ready to use the inserts that weren’t in the load to stuff the diapers for faster availability.

7) Every few months, “strip” the diapers of oils and residues to return to original absorbancy. Get out the dish soap (any will do), and make sure to get soap in all the diapers and inserts. Do this process by hand. It takes a bit of time, but it is important. Rinse out the diapers and inserts and toss in the machine.

8 ) When traveling or out of the house, always carry a plastic bag for dirty diapers. Just roll them up and toss them in, they don’t smell so bad. If you will be away from a machine for more than 2-3 days, resort to disposables.

9) Always have some disposables in your house and diaper bag in case of emergencies. You never know when it’ll rain on your drying diapers or when your baby will have an extra special day.

10) Nutrition: I find that formula and dairy products cause smellier diapers. It makes the whole system a bit more unpleasant. So, when possible stay away from them.

Sound simple enough?

Zionists: What if Ron Paul is Right about Iran?

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , ,

I love Israel. I love my country, and the land that God gave my family. I would fight and die for this place. I live here. I am not a peace activist. Nor am I a warmonger. I don’t believe in peace treaties with anyone whatsoever, nor do I believe in going to war under shaky pretenses.

I’m 28. Much of my high school and college career occurred during the end of Oslo and Arafat and Barak’s meeting at Camp David, and the subsequent outbreak of the brutal and bloody 2nd Intifadah murder spree. Watching every single suicide bomb on the news right after it happened, as a high school kid, drove me mad with rage against Islam and “terrorists” and Arabs. I hated them for their method of murder and killing my Jewish family. It is hard for me to describe the dehumanizing emotions I had.

The emotions were so strong that any attempt to attach “motives” to “terrorist” actions made me react impulsively and with disgust at whoever suggested that terrorists even had “motives”. I just wanted them dead and out of my country. These are classic “neocon” feelings. We’re good, they’re evil, that’s it, end of story, if you even try to explain anything you’re getting us all killed.

Now, if you identify with these feelings, let me ask you a few questions. Try to clear your head and see things from above for a second.

Were any of America’s wars since World War II necessary? What did any of them accomplish? How many people did they kill? Did America have to go into Vietnam? Why? Did they have to go into Korea? Why? Did they have to go into Iraq? Why? Did they have to prop up the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia? What about Egypt? Was involvement there necessary? Did we really have to overthrow the Iranian government in 1953 in order to install the Shah?

WHY? Why did America have to do that?

What is the point of all of this? What has it accomplished? What would the world look like today if none of this ever happened? Would September 11th have happened? Would there be a “War on Terror?”

What the hell IS the “War on Terror”? Who is “Terror”? How does the war end?

The answer to this is actually pretty simple. The standard reaction is “America did all this for her security.”

I used to believe that. But I no longer do. America is not secure. She is a nation teetering on the biggest bankruptcy in world history, and running on the fumes of borrowed Chinese money. Her citizens are poorer and more dependent on handouts that they get from a government running on borrowed Chinese money.

In the last debate on December 15, every Republican presidential candidate talked about how they were going to A) Cut the budget and B) Massively expand the military. None of them realized the apparent contradiction here. Why? Because there is no substance to any of these war hungry power driven men with no souls. They fight not because they believe in something. They fight because it gives them power. Saying they’ll cut the budget will give them power. Saying they’ll massively expand the air force and the “modernize” the navy while at the same time dealing with a $15 trillion debt, this is just mad. It’s simply mad.

I wonder now if any of them are even conscious of the words that are coming out of their pandering mouths. These smiling, grinning, nonsensical people convinced that America has to put a no fly zone over Syria now and other such EXPENSIVE nonsense that CHINA  is running out of money to FUND.

Ron Paul’s strongest point in the debate was when he asked Mitt Romney, the guy talking about cutting the budget while  massively expanding the air force, the following question:

“How are we going to do that? We don’t have any MONEY!”

For those who can see the humanity in Ron Paul, who aren’t brainwashed by fearmongerers like Bachmann who say that if he becomes president Iran will nuke the US, you could read the horror in Paul’s face. “How am I on the stage with such…people? Is there anyone behind any of these shiny veneers? Do they even realize they are not making ANY SENSE?”

Every candidate, including Obama, is drunk on power. They go to war not for security, but because, as president of the most powerful country in the world, they can’t resist playing with their toy armed forces. And they CAN’T RESIST coming over here, to Israel, and telling us exactly how to make peace with our neighbors.

What if Ron Paul is right? What if September 11 really did happen because America simply can’t mind her own business? What if none of these undeclared wars ever had to happen, and 2 million vietnamese and Iraqis were still alive today?

If you ponder that question seriously, and it flicks a light on in your head and you recognize the possibility of it for even a fraction of a second, you can do one of two things:

1) Shut that recognition down immediately and go back to thinking America has no blame in any of this

2) Allow yourself to ponder further, ultimately culminating in a sudden rush of remorse that millions had to die for this pointless nonsense and you just didn’t realize it.

Whether it’s War Making or Peace Making, America feels they have to be in it all. What if Ron Paul is right? Imagine if he were president. Would he have forced Arafat and Barak to sit down and pretend to be friends at a meeting that was destined to explode in a murderous intifadah? Would he, like Clinton, pressure Israel to invite Arafat back into Israel to “make peace” with him? Would the second Intifadah have ever broken out? Would the first one? What if America simply left us alone to handle our own issues? Would any of the death and murder that drove me into a rage in high school ever have happened?

I remember when Obama ran and said something about talking to Iran. I thought it was a really really bad idea because I was a neocon back then. But I also never trusted Obama for a second and knew he was just saying this to get power. I knew he was just as fake as the rest of them and I didn’t believe in his “change” nonsense. I saw right through it. There was no human being there. Just a political veneer.

But Ron Paul is a real person. When he speaks to you at a debate, it’s a bona fide human being talking there. Imagine if we had one of those in the White House. Do you think the Ayatollah would chill out just a bit? We could back off each other, get some perspective? The White House could back the heck off of me in Israel and leave me alone? And if we feel like Iran is a threat over here, to let us deal with it how we want to deal with it without calling him up and asking permission like a lapdog?

What the heck does Iran have to do with America? Are they going to cross the Atlantic in the aircraft carrier that they don’t have and nuke Manhattan? Are they going to use their intercontinental ballistic missiles they don’t have and bomb Washington DC?

No. What America has to do with Iran is this: America thinks it runs the world. And there’s an annoying brat in Persia that America thinks has to be put in line. But it’s really none of America’s business. Leave Iran alone. All America is doing by threatening Iran is endangering me in Israel. Let us deal with it if we have to, but stay in your own hemisphere.

Don’t you think the world would be a much less scary place if there was a HUMAN BEING in the oval office?

What if Ron Paul is right?

What if?

Europe and the entire Western economy is a Global Ponzi scheme

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , , ,

It hit me when I was reading an article about Italy “refinancing” its debt by selling bonds. Bonds are debt.

The definition of a Ponzi Scheme, as I’m sure we all know ever since Madoff ran away with $50 billion that never existed, is paying investors off with money from other investors.

In financial newspapers and other smart guy publications with articles written by people with $100,000 MBA’s that aren’t worth 50 cents, they’ll call it refinancing, or restructuring, or recombobulating, or whatever. Doesn’t make a difference. When a country like Italy sells bonds in order to pay off other maturing bonds, they are by definition engaging in a Ponzi Scheme. They are taking money from new investors – the buyers of the new bonds – to pay off old investors – the holders of the old bonds.

The reason the financial magazines and websites and newspapers call it “refinancing” is that they don’t want us to freak out and pull our money out of Europe by calling it what it is, because this would mean the reset button would have to pushed all the sooner.

It’s not just Europe. America pays off interest it owes to China and Japan with money that it borrows from somewhere else. It pays off old treasury bills by selling new ones. There’s no real genius to it.

Why can’t they pay off with real money? Because they’re busy using that to blow up rocks in Afghanistan and Iraq with billion dollar precision missiles.

The entire Western economy is nothing but selling bonds to pay off bonds. Paying off investors with other investors’ money. The clock stops when they can no longer attract new investors.

That’s when 1.5 quadrillion dollars in global derivatives gets wiped off the books in one shot.

Stay safe out there.

 

Glenn Beck – Wise up and Endorse Ron Paul

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog ,

I saw a video of Glenn Beck discussing Newt Gingrich on Freedom Watch with Judge Nap. In it he basically ripped Gingrich for being a, basically, horrible fake of a human being, which is true. He doesn’t deserve any position of leadership. He said he would hold his nose and vote for Romney over Obama. Then he said he agrees with Ron Paul about everything except…

Israel.

Watch the latest video at video.foxbusiness.com

I want to smack him. Really. I want to swing my hand back and snap it right across his face. He is going to throw out everything just because Ron Paul doesn’t want to give me three billion lousy worthless American dollars.

The question is why? The answer is simple. Jesus. It’s all about Jesus.

Beck came here in August because he believes he has to take care of the Jewish people himself. He thinks he’s my father. He thinks that if he doesn’t take care of the Jewish people, then we won’t convert and then Jesus won’t come back and give him a medal for facilitating the second coming. That’s why he will throw America down the tubes and vote for Romney. Because he thinks we have to convert to Jesusism and he’s self-righteous enough to believes he’s the one who has to do it by giving us a big Jesus hug.

Glenn Beck – leave us alone. I don’t want your money or your love. I have no one to rely on but my Father in Heaven, not you or your money. Go save your country from disaster and endorse Ron Paul. We’ll be fine over here and you can keep on believing in Jesus over there. But you’d be really stupid to make that belief be the only thing that stands in the way of your country healing itself or destroying itself.

Why There is No Way for Europe to Avoid Collapse

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

Come sit around the fire while Crazy Economic Collapse Uncle Rafi explains why there is no way out for Europe in the simplest terms you’ve ever heard. The key to international finance is this: If a 7 year old can’t understand it, chances are it’s a bunch of bullshit.

I read some more crap today on Bloomberg about the grand master bazooka artillery plan that the European Central Bank has to come up with to “solve the European debt crisis.” Something about “recycling funds via financial instruments through the IMF and out it’s newly defined cloaca that excretes Euros” or something. I had no idea what I was reading. It sounded so sophisticated and financish that it made whoever wrote the stupid thing sound really smart. But I’ll put my life on it that the writer had no idea what the hell he was even writing about.

It reminded me of a psychology class I took in college where I wrote this paper having absolutely no clue what I was even saying, but it sounded very sophisticated. Don’t ask what grade I got.

So here’s the short answer of why there is no escape: This is a cultural problem. In hebrew, Talmudic speak, it’s called a tarbus ra’ah, a bad culture. The basic problem is this. You have X amount of wealth in Europe. But you have X+50 amount of debt, that X wealth can’t cover. So, you have one of 3 choices and a Wild Card:

1) Work your butt off to create X+50 wealth out of the current X wealth you have to pay off all your debt.

2) Print X+50 Euros, thereby not creating any new wealth, but rather diluting X existing wealth to smaller units to make it look like X+50, but really it can only purchase X because prices will go up. Anyway, pay back your debt in cheap Euros and watch the middle class disappear and possibly revolt.

3) Call it a day and default, and watch the global economic system cascade.

Wild Card) Sell Vatican City to the highest bidder for X+100, give the Jewish People 50 for all the stuff that was stolen from us over the past 2000 years and stuffed in Vatican vaults, and pay off the debt with the rest.

Choice 1 ain’t gonna happen. Choice 2 might happen, but then people will lose faith in the Euro, and 3 will quickly ensue anyway. The Wild Card is an option, but I doubt the Pope has the guts.

In life, the truest things are the most simple to understand. Ain’t no complicated “financial recycling” gonna do nothin’. Either you got the money, or you don’t. And you don’t, so you gotta print it, because you won’t give up your precious 35 hour work week and welfare systems, and if you even try, the entire Unionized continent will go on strike because they think they DESERVE printed money, driving you even DEEPER into debt than before.

Heh, good luck Europe. See you on the short side.

Another Feiglin Article I wrote today

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , , ,

Featured on Israelmatzav:

Moshe Feiglin runs again – this time he could actually win

Guest Post by Rafi Farber

Late Sunday night, Netanyahu announced that, along with internal elections to choose a new Likud Central Committee and local representatives, the chairmanship of the party itself would be up for grabs. Moshe Feiglin answered the challenge immediately and announced his candidacy. Bibi v Feiglin round IV is now set for January 31, 2012.

All the political pundits in Israel immediately started asking why Netanyahu was doing this. Army radio, Galei Tzahal as they call it here, was abuzz with speculation. Political commentators shot off a bunch of sophisticated columns in all the newspapers explaining that Netanyahu is doing this to “take advantage of his popularity”. I will tell you now that this is false, and I will explain exactly why.

Back in April 2010, the Likud, for the first time in 10 years, was about to have elections to choose a new Likud Central Committee. Netanyahu fought really hard to postpone them because he knew at the time that if they happened back then, he would lose control of the LCC to the right wing of his party who reject him. Eventually the case got to the Supreme Court, those “guard dogs of democracy” as they call themselves, who allowed him to push off democratic elections. In the meantime, Netanyahu’s goal was to strengthen his base in the party by signing up a bunch of people who would vote for him in the next primary.

During that time, there has a been a deluge of even more new Likud members to the right of Bibi, voters that don’t exactly like his whole “building freeze” and uprooting and expulsion of Jewish towns like Migron and Havat Gilad these past few months, not to mention his handing over Hebron to the Arabs and signing the defunct Wye Accords.

And who was Bibi able to sign up to his side during this time? Pretty much nobody.

When Feiglin first for ran for Likud Chairman in 2003, he got 3% of the vote. When he ran again in 2005, he placed 3rd at 13% of the vote, more than quadrupling his previous support. When he ran again in 2007, he doubled again and got 24% of the vote. And that was back before all these new people signed up to the party.

Bibi is not doing this because he’s trying to “take advantage of his popularity”. Within the Likud party membership, he has very little. What he’s actually doing is preparing the ground to jump ship.

 

He knows he doesn’t have the numbers for the overwhelming victory he desperately needs to secure his place at the head of Likud. He knows we’re too strong by now. He knows that Feiglin will get at least 30-35% of the Likud vote, and that’s being conservative. If Feiglin scores that low in this next election, it will still be a  high enough percentage for Bibi to say, “Well, these Feiglinites are too strong. We have to get out of here and form a new Kadima II with Ehud Barak.”

This is not just speculation. The cover story of Monday’s Israel HaYom newspaper daily was, “Netanyahu: I did not guarantee refuge for Barak.”

Translation: “I did not promise political refuge for Barak.”

They know it’s in the back of his mind.

If Feiglin scores any higher than 30-35%, and he likely will, Netanyahu will run out of Likud as fast as possible. What will happen then? I guess we’ll all find out, but the party will be left to Feiglin.

The other possibility is that Feiglin outright wins the election. Any of these three possibilities spell the same conclusion. Netanyahu is on his way out of the party. That’s why he’s doing this now. He needs a new party with Barak to continue his plans to break left.

Ron Paul explains his Israel Position

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog

This is the clearest portrayal of Ron Paul’s views on Israel I’ve ever seen.

http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/paul-israel-support-wead/2011/12/07/id/420247

Ron Paul Tells Newsmax: I Support Israel

In an exclusive Newsmax interview, Congressman and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul confirmed his support for Israel, but cautioned that while the United States should be a “friend” of the Jewish state, America should not be the “master” of Israel.

Paul also says the United States should not dictate Israel’s borders or try to “buy her allegiance” with massive amounts of foreign aid. He argued that foreign aid has actually hurt – not helped – the Jewish state.

The interview was conducted by Newsmax contributor Doug Wead, a presidential historian and New York Times best-selling author.

Paul has recently come under fire from some Jewish groups in America. The Republican Jewish Coalition banned Paul from a debate on Jewish issues in Washington this week because of his “misguided and extreme views,” according to the group’s executive director, Matt Brooks.

Newsmax chatted with Paul to get his side of the issue as the Texas Republican is surging in some presidential polls.

A new Washington Post-ABC News survey in Iowa shows him threatening Mitt Romney as the second-leading candidate behind Newt Gingrich. Paul is now tied with Romney in the early caucus state with 18 percent of the vote, behind Gingrich’s 33 percent.

Rep. Paul’s interview with Newsmax follows:

Newsmax: What should our relationship be with Israel?

Ron Paul: We should be their friend and their trading partner. They are a democracy and we share many values with them. But we should not be their master. We should not dictate where their borders will be nor should we have veto power over their foreign policy.

This is not just about Israel, by the way, this is about how we should conduct ourselves with other countries around the world.

Newsmax: But Israel is not like other countries. We have a large Jewish population in America. What do you say to those who criticize your policy toward Israel?

Ron Paul: I think that some not only misunderstand the American Constitution and the role we should have in the world, they also misunderstand Zionism. Part of the original idea of Zionism, as I understand it, was that there should be Jewish independence and Jewish self-reliance. Today, America doesn’t want anyone to be self-reliant. We want to rule the world and be the saviors of the world and we are going broke in the process.

Newsmax: Some object to your policy of cutting foreign aid to Israel.

Ron Paul: I have objected to all foreign aid. I define foreign aid as taking money from poor people in rich countries and giving it to rich people in poor countries. We just can’t keep doing this. We don’t have the money anymore.

Stop and consider America’s policy: We give $3 billion a year to Israel in loans; and we give $12 billion or more in assistance to Israel’s self-declared enemies. Some of these are countries that say they will drive Israel into the sea.

Newsmax: What do you say to evangelical Christians who want that aid to continue?

Ron Paul: I say to them that our aid in the region is out of balance and it is wrong. Foreign aid does not help Israel. It is a net disadvantage. I say to them that “the borrower is servant to the lender” and America should never be the master of Israel and its fate. We should be her friend.

In October, 1981, most of the world and most of the Congress voiced outrage over Israel’s attack on Iraq and their nuclear development. I was one of the few who defended her right to make her own decisions on foreign policy and to act in her own self-interest.

Newsmax: What then, if anything, should we do for Israel?

Ron Paul: We should share intelligence for mutually agreed-upon goals. We should honor our pledge to refuse any arms sales that would undermine Israel’s qualitative military edge in the region.

But we should stop interfering with them. We should not announce bargaining positions even before she begins her negotiations. We should not dictate what she can and cannot do. We should stop trying to buy her allegiance. And Israel should stop sacrificing their sovereignty as an independent state to us or anybody else, no matter how well-intentioned.