Humor

The Life-Changing Magic of Dumping Your Crap On People In Need

rafifarber Humor, The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

We’re KonMarieing the house. We decided to do this when our 10-month old baby who can neither walk nor read books about the Japanese art of tidying, took a book about the Japanese art of tidying off the bottom of an abandoned bookshelf in my parent’s house, and handed it to me, as if to say, “UB-YON!”, which is the only thing she knows how to say.

The KonMarie method of tidying was invented by a crazy Japanese lady named Marie Kondo, who was so obsessed with tidying as a kid that she would spend her recesses in grade school organizing the classroom bookshelves by hue instead of normal kid activities like eating Tide pods, which would probably make sense for someone obsessed with tidying. Her entire approach to tidying is to THROW. EVERYTHING. OUT.

She’s one of those weird success stories of someone with an extreme mental illness who made millions by convincing everyone else that they are the ones who are actually crazy, God bless her.

So you KonMarie your house by giving it a surprise enema so that all the garbage you have ever accumulated in your whole life – minus the things that you really actually wanted to find – end up on the floor in a pile that vaguely resembles your house on any given day anyway, except this time you did it on purpose. You have to empty out every drawer, cabinet, chest, closet, panel, safe, crawlspace, sinkhole, and portal to the Upsidedown.

Then you put on your HazMat suit and start picking the things up one by one and feel them intently in your hands, provided that these things aren’t oozing radioactive gunk and none of them have infected you with flesh-eating disease, at least as far as you can tell. If they have, then you need to get a new HazMat suit.

The idea of fondling all the junk in your house is to better determine if it “sparks joy”. If something does spark joy, then stop fondling immediately before anything dangerous happens and make sure you have no gas leaks. If it doesn’t, you either throw it out (KonMarie it) which Marie Kondo recommends, or you KonMarie it onto somebody else, which Marie Kondo warns you never, ever to do because it is inconsiderate, but…well…you know…Pearl Harbor.

My sister-in-law has been into the KonMarie method for years, but I never realized until now that we’ve been the KonMarie dumping ground for all her junk this whole time. We’ve since KonMaried all the stuff she’s given us back to the garbage, just like Marie Kondo says to do, because I listen to Japanese voices when they tell me to do things.

Now that my house is much emptier and I’ve fondled all of my stuff more thoroughly and intently than I ever thought I was capable of, keeping only what sparks joy without blowing my house up, I’ve come to understand a lot about opportunistically dumping junk on unsuspecting people in need.

I came across a Facebook post recently that announced that a local preschool was collecting donations for a family in real dire straits but not the band.

The story is typical and could happen to any of us. The wife is in the hospital, there’s a new baby besides a 3 and 6 year old now home alone with their in-way-over-his-head father who has to watch the baby so he can’t go to work and can’t KonMarie the kids onto somebody else, so they have no money and they’re desperate. So the post says thusly:

“We are collecting clothing, shoes, stuffed animals, and used towels, and money for the family.”

Under any other circumstance I would have considered this type of post to be very thoughtful. But having just finished Konmarieing a lifetime’s worth of accumulated junk, I suddenly understood that this poor family was about to be turned into a KonMarie Ground Zero Landfill at a time when the last thing they need is everyone else’s useless accumulated crap.

I found myself wondering, acutely, what exactly a family in dire need could possibly do with old clothing, shoes, stuffed animals, and used towels. After thinking about it for 3 seconds, I knew the answer. The father is home alone with the kids. He probably did not consult his wife because he didn’t want to feel like an idiot asking what he was supposed to do now, because that would mean getting yelled at. So he called one of his wife’s friends who people generally call who’s into community type something or other and she’s really uppity and “does things”. Here’s how the call went:

Dad: We’re in a bad situation. I can’t work and my wife is in the hospital and I’m alone with the kids and I don’t know what to do and I’m freaking out!

Poster: Oh wonderful! I can organize a donation campaign for you! I’ll post it on Facebook and get the local preschool to collect stuff. What else do you need? Clothing? Old shoes? Stuffed animals for the kids?

Dad: Uhh…sure yeah that sounds great. What else do I need?

Poster: What about towels?! We can collect towels for you!

Dad: Yeah, towels…Towels are great…

Poster: Got it. What about money?

Dad: Definitely money.

In all seriousness, the family probably lost all their stuffed animals when the wife went to the hospital. Maybe the kids lost all their shoes overnight now that their mother is temporarily out of commission. Maybe they threw all the towels in the compost bin in an ill-advised game of Towel the Compost and the father can’t clean the towels because the kids ate all the Tide Pods and he doesn’t know how to use the washing machine. Maybe he thinks he’ll burn down the house if he pushes the wrong button, like what happened last time and his wife yelled at him, which is why he needs all that used clothing.

Have you ever seen a used clothing drop off point? In my city there are many of them, and they’re always bursting full of old clothing that nobody ever picks up. It just sits there for years, evolving, a testament to the out-of-control clothing epidemic in the West.

There is, and this is totally true, a now former used clothing store that closed down (or as we like to say in the West “Clothesed Down”) because it became overridden with too many clothing donations and the owner just abandoned it.

This used clothing store died, it was literally suffocated, by people dumping their clothing in a rabid KonMarie frenzy. Now this former store, located right next to the beloved municipal tax agents, has bags of clothes literally vomiting themselves out of its windows, and people are STILL dumping clothes there. The rule of thumb is, if you see a mountain of used clothing, add to it as fast as possible in order to usurp city dumping ordinances.

I wonder how high the mountain of used clothing and old shoes and towels is just outside this poor man’s house now. What if all the crap was KonMaried right in front of his door while he was out visiting his sick wife and he can’t get back in his house without hiring a crane? Worse, what if the donations came when he was IN his house and now he’s barricaded in by the KonMaried refuse of the entire neighborhood? What if the police never rescue him because they think his house is now just another de facto legalized dumping ground for used clothing?

Somebody get me my HazMat suit. I’m going on a rescue mission.

 

 

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My Three Year Old, Offended by Everything, Ready for University

rafifarber Humor, The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , ,

If you’ve ever had to deal with a three-year-old pre-gendered person who doesn’t understand how offensive it is to say anything at all to anybody about anything involving something that could define some other thing in some way that makes it not a different thing, then you’ll understand what’s going on in college campuses today.

My three-year-old child (or as racist sexist fascist Nazi cultural appropriators would say, “boy”) Fry is totally ready to be a college student because he gets offended by everything. And when he does get offended by something, almost always literally anything unless in very rare instances it happens to be something else, I have to put him in a “safe space” where I have removed all dangerous objects within a five-foot radius where he can scream until his face turns blue and he faints.

He really does this. He gets SO offended by something that he cries and cries and screams louder and louder until he turns purple and I can see the intricate vasculature in his 3-year-old neck. Then he literally stops breathing, at which point he finally quiets down because he can no longer, you know, breathe, and therefore make any sound, at which point we begin “The Countdown”.

When “The Countdown” begins, we usually have between 5 to 7 seconds before his teetering and staggering leads to him falling over. So my wife and I clear the 5-foot radius around him of all dangerous objects he could fall on and whack himself with and while I’m doing this I tell my oldest daughter Tzivia, who is 7 and strong enough to resist his violent staggering and also doesn’t rage in response to orange cheese sticks not being blue for example (we’ll return to this shortly), to grab onto him gently so that when his knees buckle from lack of oxygen he doesn’t break his face on the floor.

Then his knees buckle, and Tzivia lets him down easy, and he arches his back violently while sort of resembling the shape of a dead caterpillar on the floor. Then we count back up to 5 and he takes a huge breath and has no idea where he is or how he got there or what he was so offended by in the first place. It’s like it never happened. That’s called “The Reset”. Sometimes we prefer resetting him because it’s easier than plotting a long circuitous path down from the current insanity fit, wrought with land mines of potential offence.

Picture dealing with a Microsoft Windows crash. A dialogue box keeps popping up telling you about an error and you keep pressing OK but it keeps reappearing no matter how seriously OK you are with this error personally as long as the computer keeps computing. Then the computer freezes up and stops breathing, and you can either try to grease it up again somehow, which could take hours, or you can just reboot the whole thing.

The last thing Fry was offended by was “blue sticks”. We didn’t know what a blue stick was so we gave him a blue marker, a blue crayon, anything that was blue but every time we gave him something he’d scream louder and say “NO!” Then we switched our focus to the stick part and tried giving him a cheese stick, but he was very offended because he wanted blue cheese, not a blue stick, but we were getting closer!

We didn’t have blue cheese, but we had blue duct tape, so we put the blue duct tape on the cheese stick. He calmed down for a second, and then remembered that he was still offended because the cheese stick with the blue duct tape on it wasn’t orange.

We told him that we are very sorry, but blue can’t be orange because colors are mutually exclusive and he fainted again, which is exactly why he’s ready to be a college student.

In college you’re not allowed to say that anything is different from anything because the fact that some things are different from other things is discrimination. The more obvious the differences are that you point out, the more offensive you are, so just like my son needs a safe space to faint in when he is told that blue cheese sticks can’t be orange, many students need safe spaces to grieve in when told that men and women have certain biological differences, like being able to read novels about a fictional husband from the 18th century who understands his wife’s emotional complexities so thoroughly that he must have a tumor somewhere, and functioning nipples.

For example, take these offended students from Portland State University.

They became offended by the fact that women are the ones who gestate and lactate and men don’t. “You can be irritated by the fact that women are the ones who have to gestate and lactate. But taking offense is a response that is rejection of reality,” said evolutionary biologist Heather Heying whose gender must not be named because it is female. The students then staged a protest, and waved around cheese sticks wrapped in blue duct tape screaming about the fact that they weren’t orange and that this was fascist.

Regarding the genderless evolutionary biologist, one student responded, “Even the women in there have been brainwashed!”, which raises the question of how this student even knew that Heying was a so-called “woman” if you can’t discriminate based on nipple functionality. Another student response also reminded me of my 3-year-old in the midst of a fainting fit only with a slathering of intellectual superiority. “We should not listen to fascism. It should not be tolerated in civil society. Nazis are not welcome in civil society!”

He then gestated and lactated in front of everyone, to the surprise and dismay of Dr. Heying.

Let us end with some cultural expropriation in the form of a politically correct Zen Haiku:

Hysterectomy

Confusion say no Nazis!

Perform it on man.

Why We Definitely Need More Gun Control Alt Delete And Intergalactic Kama Sutra

rafifarber Humor, The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , , , ,

Remember when we were kids and the government told us all not to do drugs? I remember it fondly because I was naturally a sedated kid and didn’t need drug sedation in order to sit in a chair for 7 hours every day for 13 years straight in order to get educated about stuff. I would supplement my education by scribbling crude scientific diagrams of various alien genitalia and their uses within the context of xenoreproductive habits. I was working on my resume for Star Fleet Academy.

In retrospect, it was rather unwise of me to craft these drawings within the margins of various workbooks, my teachers on occasion flipping through said workbooks to check periodic enrichment assignments. My margins were way too enriched, if you know what I mean. My teachers probably all thought I was on drugs.

Anyway, so we were told not to do drugs in a class called “D.A.R.E. To Keep Kids Off Drugs”. We would all wear these black goth-looking emo shirts to illustrate how D.A.R.I.N.G. we were not to do drugs, and boy did I learn a lot about drugs during that government program! It was so much fun! I specifically remember learning about LSD and how if you took it you could “taste music”, and “hear colors,” and “sing with all the voices of the mountains” and “paint with all the colors of your wind”!

I was quite a gassy kid so I was really excited about this. When I heard about that I actually stopped doodling alien genitalia for a few minutes and when I went home I further supplemented my D.A.R.E. education by learning all I could about how to make LSD. Dial-up AOL internet was really slow and pixelated though in the mid 90’s and it knocked out your phone line so I just gave up.

But then the policeman who taught us all about LSD, someone named Officer Becker, told us not to do those drugs and I went back to my xenobiology diagrams. All drugs were bad, Officer Becker taught us, except for Aderall® (amphetamine), Concerta® (methylphenidate), Desoxyn® (methamphetamine hydrochloride AKA “glass pills”), Dexedrine® (dextroamphetamine), Focalin® (dexmethylphenidate), Ritalin®, Datrana®, Vyvanse® (lisdexamphetamine dimesylate), Intuniv® (guanfacine alpha-2-adrenergic agonist), and Straterra® (atomoxetine). Those were all great drugs despite mandated FDA black box warnings of increased suicidal tendencies in children if we weren’t good at sitting still by occupying ourselves with the fine details of sketching extra-terrestrial sex positions and needed some help calming down.

I didn’t need those drugs, but I do remember they made up some complicated name for the terminal disease all these kids had that did need them. They had this serious problem where all they wanted to do was like, get up and, like, DO things instead of sit all day. They called it ADHD, for Accelerated Decrepit Hyperinsanity Disorder. Oh, and the ADHD kids were all told that the best weapon against a drug habit was a high self-esteem, and also to make sure you took all your drugs if through no fault of your own you were unable to SIT THE $%*& DOWN AND SHUT THE *#@& YOU LITTLE S*$&S!!

It was top notch education.

And while the bad drugs were bad, if, through no fault of our own we were sad all the time, we could also take fluoxetine, sertraline, citalopram, paroxetine, fluvoxamine, escitalopram, or guanohexadinaflarg cyanide. (OK, I made the last one up. Guanohexadinaflarg is actually a poison. But seriously, the rest, which are all real, were considered good despite additional FDA-mandated black box warnings of increased suicidality. But never mind that. All they really did apparently was prevent your brain from reabsorbing neurotransmitters like serotonin, which floods your brain with serotonin, which makes you really jumpy all the time, which means you have to double up on your dose of prescription meth to SIT STILL! I forgot to close parentheses.)

So in my D.A.R.E. class we had all these kids told that they had hyperinsanity dementia for not sitting still, on brain-chemistry-altering neurotransmitter-flooding drugs because they were sad, on more drugs to keep them sedated from the other drugs, all with black box warnings of increased risk of suicide, being told that in order not to do drugs they had to think very highly of themselves and learn about how amazing drugs like LSD are but you definitely should NOT do them. This is known as “drug control”.

Maybe I live under a jagged rock or I’m just too busy drawing aliens or I’m taking way too many drugs (probably all three), but as far as I know there is absolutely no drug problem in the US because we have drug control. I mean aside from all the drugs that we’re supposed to be on. Drugs are illegal, at least the illegal ones are, and after spending more than $1 trillion on drug control enforcement, drugs are finally a thing. Of the past.

So that’s why we need way more gun control. Because in order to stop crazy people from murdering others with assault weapons, all you need to do is make them illegal. So if the government just sits down and does something responsible for once and makes it illegal for anyone to purchase assault weapons, all the kids now on brain-altering antidepressants and ADHD drugs to make sure their antidepressants don’t make them so jumpy that they no longer have the ability to concentrate on their D.A.R.E. courses about how they shouldn’t do drugs which they can’t get anyway because of drug control, won’t go out and somehow find an assault rifle somewhere on the black market and murder people.

It really has absolutely nothing to do with all the drugs the government says these kids should be on because they need to sit and listen for 13 years straight 7 hours a day and they have hyperinsanity dysphagia, but shouldn’t be sad about it because it’s really not their fault, and won’t be as long as they’re taking all their antidepressants.

I mean think about it. When the government says you can’t buy something, like an assault rifle, how in the world are you going to find one?

I would suggest, humbly, as someone successfully educated by the government never to taste any colors with LSD, that maybe the solution to mass shootings could perhaps involve something like stop giving kids so much drugs that come with warnings of increased risk of suicide and making them sit and be lectured at for 13 years straight by law and instead let those who can’t handle such sedentary habits go to work and DO something but I’m just too busy illustrating the Star Fleet First Contact Guide to the Intergalactic Kama Sutra.

Enjoy this very serious and not sarcastic piece? Then you’ll be totally titillated by this fantastic nonsense about Libertarianism and Silicone Brain Implants.

Libertarianism and Silicone Brain Implants

rafifarber Humor, The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , ,

I have an announcement to make. But before I do, I want to talk about silicone brain implants.

I just learned, in what may seem surprising but in retrospect makes perfect sense considering how little people think about stuff, that you can actually cut half of a person’s brain out of his skull and aside from the opposite side of his body being numb and  the loss of side vision, the person will be fine. Maybe a bit forgetful (as in, “Hey, where did I just put my hemisphere?”) but pretty much fine.

The procedure is called a functional hemispherectomy, and it’s a real thing. The doctor basically comes at you with a really precise chainsaw and after flipping a coin for dramatic effect and making a doctorish quip or two like “Don’t worry, I know it’s the left one, right? Don’t get ahead of yourself! Just kidding! Relax!” carefully removes half of your brain. In preparation for surgery, it is recommended that you store all critical information in the remaining hemisphere, such as where you put your car keys, and remembering why the chicken crossed the corpus callosum. (Answer: to get to the other hemisphere.)

Some questions you may be asking yourself at this point:

  • Why would someone have half of his brain removed?
  • Are silicone brain implants available for these patients?
  • Where can I get a really precise chainsaw?
  • Where are my car keys?

The answer to question 1) is life-threatening childhood seizures. This is a serious non humor thing. Apparently, functional hemispherectomies have a 75% success rate in stopping these seizures which is great for 3 out of 4 people. The other 1 out of 4 apparently just feel a bit lightheaded.

Now, while it is generally known that cannabis oil can sometimes be helpful in treating seizures in children, that is only the case in jurisdictions where cannabis is not a schedule I drug that has no generally accepted medical use and has high potential for abuse. In said jurisdictions, doctors first resort to chemically engineered lab-created schedule II drugs that thankfully do have a generally accepted medical use and high potential for abuse. If those don’t work, you can always just calmly and gently remove half your brain.

At this point (.) I’d like to share a passage from a post on the interwebs that I found by googling “Cannabis hemispherectomy” because surprisingly, it didn’t lead me to a porn site. (At least not yet.) The post opens thusly thus:

Just a a (sic) quick post today. MCANZ has heard second hand anecdotal stories from an (sic) NZ Refugee to Colorado, that CBD rich Cannabis oil has worked on children for seizures where this much more drastic (and rare) [functional hemispherectomy] procedure has failed.

You hear that boys and girls and other assorted genders? After having half their child’s brains excised and the procedure failing, only then did these responsible parents try cannabis oil for their child.

Now call me old fashioned, but I’m the type of parent who, before resorting to having a doctor slice half of my child’s brain out and having to go through the trouble of finding a suitable tailor-made silicone brain implant – quite expensive from what I hear – I would first maybe try to get my hands on some cannabis oil somehow on the off chance that perhaps, possibly, it might help a bit even though it is a schedule I drug with no generally accepted medical use and high potential for abuse. That just seems more reasonable to me than cutting out half of your kid’s brain first before even trying it.

But the author has another critical point I didn’t mention, one based on the Hippocratic Oath of Do No Harm. There’s an ethical dilemma here:

So we have an ethical dilemma, the use of an experimental medicine [cannabis oil] with scant but positive scientific research and attached legal baggage, versus a rare, but extreme, and on average effective treatment for those children with life threatening seizures.

It’s a question of morality, people! If you have your child take a schedule 1 substance before first removing half his brain, he may get stoned for a few hours for nothing! After all, in three out of four cases a hemispherectomy will work just fine, so why risk it? Aside from the matter of the opposite side of the body losing feeling, at least until a suitable brain donor can be found. And on the off 25% chance it doesn’t work, just think of it this way. You won’t even have to fit him with a silicone brain implant. You can just have the doctor stuff the old hemisphere right back in there with a shovel maybe and save some money.

Don’t worry. It’s a very small precise shovel. It comes in the same do-it-yourself hemispherectomy kit as the chainsaw.

But then thinking about this again with both my hemispheres, (sorry for triggering those with only half a brain) I don’t quite get the ethical dilemma here. Maybe it’s because I’m on the “spectrum”. Perhaps I need a functional hemispherectomy in order to see things more clearly. I just don’t have the money for an implant and I’m a DD.

Anyway, here’s my announcement. After thinking long and hard and after several seizures, I’m rebranding this blog. I used to be a humor writer, even before I was a libertarian. And I used to be really good at it. It made me happy. Google “Rafi Farber hoot” and you’ll find some good stuff. (Google “Rafi Farber hemispherectomy” and you’ll end up right back here, probably at this very parenthetical sentence. (Not as in a sentence that is very parenthetical, but as in this very sentence that also happens to be metaparenthetical.))

I’m still The Jewish Libertarian, but instead of blasting righteous anger at politicians and governments like some abused half-brained chipmunk, I’m going to return to my roots and instead employ humor. Because I know politicians would never try Schedule I drugs with no generally accepted medical use.

I don’t want to be angry anymore. Anger leads to hate leads to suffering leads to Yoda leads to Hayden Christensen mumbling super creepy Attack of the Clones dialogue about sand being coarse and irritating (It gets everywhere!) and none of us want to see that movie ever again. I’m sure we’d all rather have double hemispherectomies, whether functional or not.

And a shout out to Dave Barry, who probably gets shouted out at a lot. He is the closest thing to a professional writing role model guy that I have. And I’m pretty sure he’s libertarianish, too. He runs for president every election cycle. Vote for him. I will. (I’m seriously not joking.)

And President Dave, might I add that The Silicone Brain Hemisphere Implants would be a great name for a band. Trump could probably use one. Or two.

Bonus for alert readers: Describe, in 100 detailed illustrations or less, what a cannabis-hemispherectomy-themed porn site would feature. 

Gun Control for Math Geeks

rafifarber Humor, The Jewish Libertarian Blog

While four heroic government policemen were dodging bullets by staying wisely behind their cars as Nick Cruz was murdering kids, at least the police had sense to investigate a math problem. They then shot the kid for using the square root sign, which looks like a gun.

That last part about police shooting a kid for using a square root sign is a joke, but soon it might not be. From my hometown paper:

On the afternoon of Feb. 20, detectives investigated a report of terroristic threats at the school, where they learned that a student had been completing a math problem that required drawing the square-root sign.

Students in the group began commenting that the symbol, which represents a number that when multiplied by itself equals another number, looked like a gun.

The square root symbol.

After several students made comments along those lines, another student said something the sheriff’s office said could have sounded like a threat out of context.

Police searched the student’s home, where they found no guns or any evidence that he had any access to guns. Authorities also wrote there was no evidence the student had any intent to commit harm.

Why Impeaching Donald Trump Would Save Lives, Impeach Trump!

rafifarber Humor, The Jewish Libertarian Blog ,

Because it would give all the kleptomaniacs on Kapitol Hill something relatively benign to focus on. When the State fights the State, we all benefit. So if Trump breathes the wrong way, impeach him. There will be less time for politicians to pass more regulations and taxes. And bomb people. Impeachment saves lives!

Impeach Trump! Let it be a long, long, drawn out process that takes years and years to untangle. Trump can’t start any wars while he’s being impeached I don’t think, not because it’s illegal, but because he won’t have the time.

How could Something Pence be any worse? I really don’t know the first name of that guy. I think that’s the first time I don’t know a vice president’s first name since I was old enough to know who the president was. Dan Quayle I think.

They should impeach Dan Quayle, too. Retroactively. That’ll take up even more time.

Why The Neil Gorsuch Nuclear Option Blather Is So Astronomically Important

rafifarber Humor, The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , ,

Here’s your answer in one line.

It’s not important at all, this nuclear option nonsense. It’s all a smokescreen to distract you from upcoming wars Trump will start in Syria following some nonsense story about chemical weapons, and Trump playing chicken with Kim Jong Un.

All hail glorious leader.

I’m talking about Trump of course 😉

Maybe that was two lines. Point is, if you care about the Gorsuch nonsense and you feel any sort of conviction either way, then you have been officially hoodwinked by warmongers who want to drop bombs just a few miles north of me, and rattle the cages of a nuclear-armed North Korea.

But yeah. Gorsuch. Nuclear option. Filibusters. This is all crucial stuff.

Technically, according to the “International Community” whoever the heck they are, I live in southern Syria, so Trump is, politically speaking, about to bomb “my country”. And Kim Jong Un might actually use a nuclear option for real. 

Meanwhile, there’s Gorsuch. And the wussy “nuclear option” of a bunch of whiny cry babies in suits that their guy doesn’t have enough yes votes.

Gorsuch. Nuclear option. Filibusters. That is really important $#!+.

It gets to anarcho-capitalism pretty fast on Facebook

rafifarber Humor, The Jewish Libertarian Blog ,

I went to Brandeis University. Full disclosure, I despise Louis Dembitz Brandeis and most of what he stands for. The clueless statist Zionism, the totalitarianism, his position on the Supreme Court.

While I was at Brandeis, I was not a libertarian, but I was headed there, even then.

While I was at Brandeis, there was this guy Igor Pedan. I never met him. I think he was my editor in chief at The Hoot where I wrote humor columns.

Here’s the thread we had. Posting here because I assume it will be deleted soon and it’s not bad. In response to this video of another Brandeis guy who thinks its worth his time to get politicians to condemn people who hit Muslims. He’s probably an aspiring politician, as many lawyers are. Though he’s anti war so he’s less dangerous than the average neocon and he’s a good guy generally, just a bit confused. He wants to spend your money giving it to others who didn’t work for it while you did rather than spend it on killing foreigners. That’s less bad. If he runs for anything, vote for him, because he probably won’t kill people.

Context: Cahn argued for some resolution that politicians in New York City should condemn people who say bad things about Muslims. I think anyone should be able to say bad or good things about anybody for any reason. So I objected.

You’ll see that Cahn’s video is pretty much standard politician-speak meant to sound so obviously moralistic and taking advantage so he can run in the future for some office using these lines as an ad. There’s nothing sophisticated or deep about it, just cheap opportunistic talk. But if you’re a New Yorker vote for him anyway because he’s against war. Seriously. Hopefully he’ll stay that way but I doubt it. Politicians who use these opportunities to pedal nonsense rarely stay principled.

Rafi Farber what’s the resolution? that politicians should condemn people who commit violence against other people? Is this more hate crime legislation? Why aren’t current punishments against violence enough? Why do we need more laws? Aren’t there already laws against violence against innocents?
Like · Reply · 5 hrs · Edited
Albert Cahn Rafi, as you’ll see if you review the bill, the resolution does nothing of the sort. It’s
A resolution that expresses the sentiment of the council, not a law restricting individual liberty. Your objection seems a bit off pointhttp://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx…|Text|&Search=1230

The New York City Council – File #: Res 1230-2016
LEGISTAR.COUNCIL.NYC.GOV|BY DARIUS TAJANKO
Like · Reply · 4 hrs
Rafi Farber
Rafi Farber Wasn’t objecting. Just asking questions. I’m not sure what this will accomplish, but nothing objectionable in the text.
Like · Reply · 4 hrs
Rafi Farber
Rafi Farber Actually, now that I read it carefully, it is objectionable. It condemns rhetoric and speech. For those who care about the constitution, that is unconstitutional, but that doesn’t really matter to most people. It is important for people say hateful things without the fear of being punished. Discrimination is also very important. Everyone discriminates. It’s why I married one female instead of 4 men.
Like · Reply · 4 hrs · Edited
Igor Pedan
Igor Pedan Isn’t condemning also speech?
Like · Reply · 1 · 4 hrs
Albert Cahn
Albert Cahn Rafi are you sure you want to use the rhetorical gambit of claiming that you care more about the constitution than I do? I’m a full-time civil rights lawyer, I work every day to defend my clients’ rights, including their rights under the First Amendment. The First Amendment prohibits laws that punish individuals for speaking, it does not restrict the right of our deliberative assemblies to pass a resolution expressing their own opinions. If you think this is censorship, if you think this violates the First Amendment, then there are two centuries of contrary precedent that you need to review. As for the utility of the measure, there’s a power in using civic institutions to reinforce social norms, even if those measures lack the force of our penal law. The reshaping of our political dialogue in recent months has correlated with a significant increase in hate crimes and violence that cannot be readily explained by any other causal factor. If political rhetoric can push the trendline in one direction, what basis do you have for asserting rhetoric can’t push it in the countervailing direction?
Like · Reply · 1 · 2 hrs · Edited
Rafi Farber
Rafi Farber I do not care about the constitution at all. Condemning sure is free speech, but politicians should not be allowed to condemn the free speech of others. Their rights should be restricted because they are public officials. They should not be allowed to condemn the speech of others because they live off the money of others.
Like · Reply · 2 hrs
Rafi Farber
Rafi Farber You use academic legal language a lot. I don’t understand lawyer talk. I’m pretty stupid, as you can see. When I read that congress shall make no law restricting free speech I think that’s what it means. I must be wrong though. I just don’t see the point of getting politicians to say things when it’s already illegal to hit and harass innocent people.
Like · Reply · 1 hr · Edited
Albert Cahn
Albert Cahn Because ever since a certain Republican politician started saying very inflammatory things a whole lot more people started getting attacked, even though it was just as illegal as before he started talking. Words have impact.
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Rafi Farber
Rafi Farber Which politician? I don’t follow politics.
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Albert Cahn
Albert Cahn You’re joking right? I’ll give you a hint, he’s brash and orange.
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Igor Pedan
Igor Pedan Rafi “politicians should not be allowed to condemn the free speech of others… because they live off the money of others.” First, only elected official actually live of the money of others. Second, pretty much everyone who is employed lives off the money of others. Third, what other things should politicians not be allowed to say? Is there a list somewhere (maybe in the Constitution?) that lists these banned topics for politicians only?
Like · Reply · 1 hr
Rafi Farber
Rafi Farber Igor, I said before I don’t care about the constitution. And no, only politicians live off the money of others because they force others to give them money by threatening to kill them if they don’t give the money. Other private people engage in voluntary exchanges, so the money they make becomes theirs on the exchange. Everything politicians do, from their sex lives to going to the bathroom should be recorded 24/7. If you want to be a public official, your life should be 100% public, all of it, everything, no exceptions whatsoever. This way they won’t have any secrets whatsoever. If people want to watch it should be on C-Span.
Like · Reply · 1 hr · Edited
Rafi Farber
Rafi Farber If it were up to me politicians should not be allowed to say anything at all.
Like · Reply · 1 hr
Igor Pedan
Igor Pedan Then how would you know what they stand for?
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Rafi Farber
Rafi Farber I wouldn’t. I don’t care what private people stand for as long as they don’t hurt me. If politicians have no power over us what they stand for doesn’t matter.
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Igor Pedan
Igor Pedan So you are against voting? Against Democracy? Against government (ala Sumolia)? What you just said make so little sense, it’s comical.
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Rafi Farber
Rafi Farber I’m not against voting. I am against democracy, and I am against government. If you want to vote, vote, but there’s no difference. Whoever leads will spend more money and kill more people than the guy before.
Like · Reply · 1 hr
Igor Pedan
Igor Pedan That ends this discussion. Hope you never have to call the police, fire department, need to use roads, airports, etc.
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Rafi Farber
Rafi Farber Those should all be privatized. Then I wouldn’t have to complain to politicians who don’t care and have no responsibility when more people are killed on their roads than in all US wars combined.
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Igor Pedan
Igor Pedan There wouldn’t be any roads.
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Rafi Farber
Rafi Farber If there’s a market demand for roads there would be roads.
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Igor Pedan
Igor Pedan That’s blatantly false.
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Rafi Farber
Rafi Farber read the book, get back to me later
Like · Reply · 1 hr
Rafi Farber
Rafi Farber and I’d rather have private security directly responsible to me personally than a police force that locks people up for smoking pot and kills black people randomly.
Like · Reply · 1 hr
Igor Pedan
Igor Pedan And someone with a bigger private security force will just kill you with no repercussions.
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Rafi Farber
Rafi Farber they’d have to answer to my force. And wars between private police forces is much less scary than nuclear war between huge countries.
Like · Reply · 1 hr
Albert Cahn
Albert Cahn Rafi and Igor if you’d like to have a separate discussion about the merits of representative democracy versus anarcho-capitalism, i’ll gladly show up and bring the popcorn, but I’d respectfully suggest that this is not the preferred forum for such a debate.
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Rafi Farber
Rafi Farber OK signing off. Your wall.
Like · Reply · 1 hr
Igor Pedan
Igor Pedan Albert, feel free to delete this thread. I didn’t realize Rafi prefers to live in Sumolia and that this conversation was headed there.
Like · Reply · 1 hr
Rafi Farber

Rafi Farber Agree, delete the thread and I should move to Sumalia. Though I’m not sure how. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumalia

Sumalia – Wikipedia
Sumalia is a genus of butterflies found in Southeast Asia ranging from the Indian…
EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Some Irrelevant Rabbi Says Its OK to Rape Arabs in Wartime, And For Some Reason People Care

rafifarber Humor, The Jewish Libertarian Blog

As is my wont, when checking the mainstream news, which I only do for safety reasons in case there is an attack or advisory, I only read headlines. Apparently now, some Rabbi guy with a beard who looks very Jewish and who is some sort of next in line head Rabbi Honcho of the government’s army, has said that it’s halachically permissible to rape an Arab woman to keep up soldier morale.

I wonder why people care what some government Rabbi who collects a tax paycheck for doing nothing says about anything. He has no authority even if he becomes “Chief Rabbi” of the army. He’s paid my money to preach about whatever. He would never be able to implement his rape teshuva, so why not just make him chief Rabbi of the world? Why not the solar system? Tell him he has the ability over every planet to preach whatever he wants. He can even paskin to the Oort Cloud as far as I care.

As long as he’s in a position where he can’t do anything or force anything and he’s only נהנה מהגזל then he’s doing less damage that he otherwise would if he were in a position of power. I say take all the Rabbis with state power over people’s lives and make them all Chief Rabbis of the Known Universe. We can divide the universe into however many sections and give each of them quadrillions of miles of space to Rabbinify. Pay them from the tax pile to paskin to space so long as they have no power to do anything or force anything on any human being on this planet and I’m all for it.

Whoever This Rabbi Is for Chief Rabbi of the Omegaquadrant of the Milky Way. Congratulations Rabbi. Keep blithering. If you have to take my money, take it for doing nothing and just saying whatever it is you want to say.