The Jewish Libertarian Blog

Haredim Won’t be Drafted After All, Yair “Draft’m All” Lapid has a Fit

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So, surprise surprise, the Haredi politicians got back into the mafia and decided to shut down the whole “שוויון בנטל” garbage, where the logic is we should all be equally enslaved to our masters and no group should have more freedom than any other group.

There are few terms more twisted and causes more backward and opportunistic phrases uttered than “equality of burden”. It’s the perfect way to take the resentment of government slaves and turn them against citizens who do not enslave them rather than against the government itself. It’s the ruler’s way to divide and conquer, and Pretty Boy Lapid constantly uses this to get himself more votes on the back of enslaving entire groups of people for 3 years.

What I love about the Haredi parties is that they are a vacuum on government spending, forcing the state to spend more on welfare and less on other regulations. If the government is going to spend, it may as well be on welfare rather than more regulatory bodies or war.

No, I am not a fan of welfare, but I’d rather see massive amounts of welfare rather than massive amounts of military spending or “education” spending and general growth in the bureaucracy. Since Israel is at least sort of not horrid in balancing its budget (it’s bad, but not horrible) and the state needs the welfare to keep the Haredi votes, the more welfare the less government spending on worse things.

They believe in taking anything they can from the state but refuse to pay in by being drafted or being taxed, and that is a very good thing. This is the very “burden” that Lapid wants “equalized.” I would rather just see it lightened.

It’s like a bully saying “I have to steal $20 every day, and instead of it coming from you alone, it would be better ןf everyone contributed.”

I say, instead, just steal less please.

The haredim will never be drafted. Even if the law passes fully and finally, they won’t go. There will be riots. In the end all the negativity will result in the end of the draft entirely. That is the real and only solution.

More stabbings, more death, less feeling

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Another death today, a 21 year old woman standing by a bus stop stabbed. The saddest thing is I’m become numb to all this.

It’s hard for me to feel outrage or expectation or anything but sadness. Most people who believe in the government as protector can channel their rage to the cartel that is supposed to be their protection racket. They can rouse their emotions by protest and articles and all the yelling and venting that in the end does nothing anyway.

But I have no expectations from them to protect me, or anyone else, so there’s nobody I can yell at.

I cannot be mad at the government or demand that they do anything, because I know that if I do demand they do “something” it will only be a power grab and in the end will only make things worse.

All I can advise anyone to do is arm yourselves and learn self defense, because nobody is protecting you but God.

That, and repent, pray, and give charity. Perhaps it will avert the severity of the decree.

What you can actually do that will help is join Zehut now.

The State is not going to disappear, but there is one minarchist out there who wants to shrink it as much as possible, and actually has a decent plan to end this murder. Pay the Arabs to leave.

On Jonathan Pollard’s Release

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog

Those who know me or follow this blog know that I have always looked forward to Pollard’s release, and I thank God it finally happened. However, I don’t participate in the Pollard mythology, namely that he saved all our lives by giving critical information and he is therefore a hero.

He is a bit of a hero, for sticking the middle finger to the US government, but I’m not convinced he ever did anything all that important. Judging from the snippets I read of his personality, it seems more likely that the Israeli government simply took advantage of a sucker and they knew they could chew him up and spit him out when they needed, and that’s what they did.

If someone can provide evidence that he actually saved lives in Israel, then go ahead. I’m open to hearing it. The standard narrative is that he gave Israel “critical information” about the Iraqi nuclear reactor, which seems silly. It was no secret that Saddam Hussein was building it. No need for Pollard on that.

The true story is probably closer to some guy that the Israeli State thought it could take advantage of for some low level information, whatever it was.

States have no right to keep secrets. Any secret stolen from them is legitimate, Israel or America. Not that I am advocating that, and I would not do it myself because I do not take those kinds of risks or advocate that others should either. You can lose your life doing something like that, or at least 30 years of it. Don’t do it.

In any case, the lesson here is that we should hate Israeli politicians for setting the poor guy up and losing 30 years of his life probably for nothing. No surprise that the politicians are trying to spin themselves as heroes for this, when nothing can be further from the truth.

Jonathan Pollard is free. Thank God for that. But anyone who is asked to spy for the Israeli government should know that if you get caught, you will be left to rot by the Jewish State, or any other for that matter. And if you ever get out, it is that very State who will spin it like they are the heroes of the whole situation, when they are nothing but cowards. Pollard was just naive enough to be part of the show, and he paid for it.

Deep Libertarian Thoughts on Free Market Exchange

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Instead of seeing exchange as one event of give and take, see it as two distinct events: A gives B something. B gives A something. Two people are separately giving to each other. The reason for it is all in your head. Forget the reason. Just look at what’s happening. Two people are freely giving to each other, connecting, and benefiting.

We look at the event too much as a give and take, and that is what trips us up into thinking one is taking advantage of the other, or there is a more powerful and less powerful party to the transaction. But if we just observe what’s happening, we can get rid of all that. One person gives. The other person gives. The result is peace.

The only difference between charitable giving and a market exchange is that in an exchange, there are two givers, and they each have a reason for giving. In a charitable donation, there is only one giver, and only he has a reason for giving. The other party is passive.

The reason for a market exchange is a shared interest between the two. It’s what connects them. This puts market exchanges above simple charitable giving on a moral sphere, because the market connects humanity, while giving does not necessarily do so. It can, but giving does not have to connect giver and receiver. An exchange necessarily does. The market necessarily does. It requires reciprocation. Charitable giving does not.

Then why is charitable giving a mitzva? The only reason I can think of is a גזירת הכתוב. Which means there is no rational reason, which makes sense considering there is a Rabbinic limit to charitable giving at 20%. Any more and giving is considered a sin.

Rav Sa’adaya Gaon, at the beginning of אמונות ודעות, the Book of Beliefs and Opinions, pretty much the first complete work dedicated to Jewish philosophy ever written circa 800 CE – Sa’adya observes that if everyone stole from everyone else, there would be no productivity and all of humanity would starve.

That extends to charitable giving. The more people that give without reciprocity, the less production you have. The market requires production from both sides of the exchange in every exchange. Otherwise the exchange is not made. The more charity you have in the world, the less wealth, because charity does not require both parties to produce. It is unilateral. At a certain saturation point then, charitable giving harms humanity. Rabbinically, that point is 20%.

Visually too, indirect exchange through a monetary medium necessarily connects humanity, not just via the two making the exchange itself, but due to the nature of the monetary medium it forces the receiver of money to exchange with yet another person in the future.

If you see the specific good in the exchange as the point of a cone, and then the money as the funnel, the funnel of the cone sits over the seller of the good, who is the receiver of money. The point of the cone sits over the buyer. The buyer gives money to the seller. The cone opens up to a third person, because the money received must then be exchanged with another person. Otherwise the money is worthless. The buyer is in effect pointing the seller in the direction of someone else – anyone else really, urging him to further exchange and add wealth to humanity using the money he has just given the seller.

A quote from Chef, starring Jon Favreau, demonstrates this. The chef is talking to his son, who tried to lazily give a burnt sandwich to a customer:

“I may not be the best husband in the world and I’m sorry if I wasn’t the best father. But I’m good at this, and I want to share this with you. I want to teach you what I learned. I get to touch people’s lives with what I do. And it keeps me going and I love it. And I think if you give it a shot you might love it too. Now, should we have served that sandwich?”

Arab Ambulance passes up dying Jews, refuses to treat them

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog

Let’s swallow our disgust for a second and tell ourselves the truth. None of us really expect a Red Crescent ambulance to treat Jews. After all, why should they? I don’t mean morally. I mean, given the situation where they think Jews are stealing their land, why should they treat dying Jews?

The fact that a Red Crescent ambulance reportedly passed by the victims and refused to treat them is going to be a BIG propaganda piece for the next decade at least. It’ll be used to make arguers and debaters feel more self righteous about their already entrenched positions, and will cement the status quo even more.

The solution is we need to raise money voluntarily to pay these people to get out. And after this, nobody will be thinking of the solution. They will be thinking of how much they have been right about Arabs all along etc.

Does it prove that the Arabs are evil and we, the Jews, are good? In a superficial way, yes. It is certainly very primitive and inhuman not to offer assistance to dying people.

Do Jews have more of a potential for good than Arabs? Probably yes.

Is it conceivable that a Jewish Magen David Adom ambulance would pass by dying Arabs and not help? No, it is inconceivable. At least I cannot see it ever happening.

However, I can conceive of some groups of Jews who would not render assistance to dying Arabs, on the theory that they are all evil and probably terrorists anyway, and possibly using some religious excuse like “Helping an Arab living in Eretz Yisroel is assur, so if they’re dying you can’t help them or you’re over a lav.” I can certainly see this. Yes, with Arabs those groups are more dominant and mainstream and with Jews they are more relegated to the cultural gutter.

Then again, our government is is still the one occupying Arabs with a big army. And that really pisses people off and makes them want to murder. The longer an army occupies a group of people, the more they will want to murder. That’s how it is with humans. The solution is to pay them to get out, but nobody is thinking of that.

So are Jews better people than Arabs generally? Like pick a group of 10 randomly from each and I’ll get better more moral people in the Jew column? Probably yes. But passing by dying people and letting them die when you can help them is still not a uniquely Arab thing. Som Jews advocate this, too.

We should all just keep that in mind.

השם יקום דמם.

Mass Murder Rampage in Paris – Why not Switzerland?

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog

So yes, to get over the obvious, murder is evil and civilians who have nothing to do with their governments’ policies do not deserve to die because of things that their governments do in other countries.

Nevertheless, the French government is heavily involved in bombing Muslim countries. That doesn’t make what happened any less murderous, but France’s government should stop doing that if they want to take away an obvious motivation for Muslim criminals to murder civilians in their territory.

Challengers of this assertion must ask themselves one serious question. Why don’t Muslims ever attack Switzerland?

(Shhh, come close and I’ll tell you…it’s because Switzerland is neutral and doesn’t go around bombing other countries.)

 

How to Defend Army Privatization

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Today some guy who heads the Israel Defense Forces, I forgot his name and I don’t care to look it up, had the great idea (really great idea, no sarcasm) of getting rid of Army Radio.  It’s causing a stir here because people here think it’s normal for an army to control the media. Literally. The army has its own radio station. On it, idiots blather about all the dumb nonsense that all the politicians say all the time.

Now, that an army should not manage a radio station is shooting fish in a barrel. It’s mainly there to stick unwilling draftees who don’t want to do anything so they sit at Galatz and doodle pictures of fish or something.

The harder thing is to argue for a private army. Some guy commented on a post I wrote a long time ago on why the IDF should be privatized. He said the following:

I thought you were cool.  A private army would make a lot more money just confiscating people’s houses than on the people’s generous donations.  That’s why there is an elected civilian making these decisions.

This is how I responded.

It’s hard to confiscate houses when there are competing companies that are equally armed, protecting their clients’ houses. It would start a war, and that would deplete capital, wouldn’t work. What could work though if they wanted to confiscate houses is they could all work together and form a single army and then there would be no competition. They could just take the houses then, but it would be more efficient if they just took a cut of everyone’s salary in a giant protection racket, letting them keep their houses so as to live off the production.

They could even rename the protection racket a “social contract” and call the theft “taxes” and everyone would cheer them and thank them too.

Gosh that sounds familiar.

Let’s all realize that we already are conquered by our own governments. The only way competing private armies could possibly take over your property is if they teamed up together as a monopoly. And the only way private armies would team up in a cartel is if a government forced it. They can and often do take your property, especially in Israel. Consider 2005 Gush Katif and the northern Shomron where the army destroyed an entire city and left 10,000 people homeless.

They can do it. They can do it with impunity. Because it is a cartel. They can do it because there is no competition. Just wholesale destruction and suicide.

If Gaza’s Jews had their own private army to protect them against the government’s IDF, the IDF would have backed down. They would not have risked a civil war with Gaza’s Jewish community. The vast majority of Jews would not have stood for it, and the invading IDF would have laid down its own weapons rather than slaughter Gaza’s Jews. In the end, nothing would have happened. It would have been a standoff, and then it would have been over, and Gush Katif and the North Shomron would still be standing.

Except in the current scenario, where the government has a monopoly on the army supply, the entire community has been destroyed.

So if you want the army to be able to just take your property and destroy it, make sure it is a monopoly army controlled by an elected official. Otherwise, go private.

 

Israeli Pigs Save Day, Arrest Doctor for Prescribing Cannabis

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How many more stabbings today? Who cares! The police got their man and did something important. They arrested a doctor who sold cannabis prescriptions for money. And the self righteous amoral drones had a press conference about it, as if it was some big thing and they did a good job. Meanwhile people are getting stabbed and run over by crazed Arab motorists.

But at least Dr. Avraham Dotan will be behind bars for selling a plant! We’re saved.

Thank you police, who protecteth us from evil plants.

The next time someone gets stabbed and goes to the hospital, I hope you don’t arrest the doctor first if he happened to sell a medical marijuana prescription.

 

Stabbing at Nabi Elias…No Words

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog

Well is my face red. Just when I finished writing a post about how I shop at Nabi Elias on principle, there is a stabbing at Nabi Elias. I go to NRG and see a kid from my neighborhood on the front page, mamash my neighbor, he’s the EMT taking this guy to the hospital.

When shopping at the Arabs, it is a good idea never go get out of the car or let the windows down too far. I never get out of the car when I shop there.

Two criminals apparently just stabbed the Jewish guy and ran into the village. The guy was not in his car at the time. I’m also pretty sure the merchants are pissed and these guys will be lynched. The guy drove to the army checkpoint down the hill who gave him first aid and he is in serious condition.

This doesn’t change the valid point that business lowers attacks. However, I do understand the side that refuses to shop at the Arabs out of fear for their safety, and I don’t criticize people for avoiding doing that. I also do not criticize people for preferring Jewish labor over Arab labor. I myself prefer Jewish labor to Arab labor at equal prices. I just don’t appreciate those who badmouth Jews who shop at the Arabs.

I also understand the impulse that says not to allow Arab labor in the Yishuv. It’s a normal reaction. I just think it’s wrong, and if you want to protect yourself, stay armed at all times.

I’ll have to think about the timing of this. I am aware it is very disturbing.

More Arab Workers, More Arab-Jewish Business Ties, Less Stabbings

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My family that is still in America is worried that I’m going to be stabbed any day now. Maybe I will, but I doubt it. The general reflex when attack waves happen is to clamp down. Arab workers are no longer allowed in my town. That is really bad timing because the community pool just started undergoing renovations, and then the stabbings started, so now the pool is unusable and won’t be finished any time soon because Arab workers may not enter.

The local butcher, Basar HaShomron, is looking for Jews to replace its own Arab workers.

This is when the nationalists start coming out of the woodwork and accusing anyone who uses Arab labor of being a self-hating Jew. And endangering the community.

I shop at the Arabs. There’s a village called Nabi Elias (Eliyahu HaNavi in Arabic) that has little hole in the wall shops of vegetables, eggs, meat, a little 7-11 type Arab Kwik-E-Mart. I don’t buy the meat obviously, but we get eggs and olive oil there, mainly. Sometimes vegetables, though I haven’t lately because of Shmitah and I don’t know where they come from exactly.

Beyond the money-saving, I shop at Nabi Elias on principle. The more business between Jews and Arabs, the less stabbings and attacks in general. This is not the inane Shimon Peres theory that if you give them luxury they stop attacking. In other words if you take money from Jewish taxpayers and give it to an Arab government, everyone will be happy. No no. No peace results from one government giving money to another government. Shopping at the Arabs is based on the common sense theory that business owners want to make as much money as possible, and therefore will protect their businesses and customers from attack.

There are no rock attacks or shooting attacks in the area of the Nabi Elias market because if some stupid Arab kid dares throw a rock at passing cars in the vicinity of shop owners looking for customers, the shop owners will beat the snot out of the kid for ruining business. The rock attacks usually take place around Azun, or between Azun and Nabi Elias on the stretch of road with nothing on it.

So Thursday I was coming back from a meeting in Herzliya and decided to go shopping for eggs. I get 120 eggs at a time for 80 shekels. That’s 66 agorot an egg, because there is no State supervision on them, no minimum price controls to support egg farmers, and no sales tax. Eggs stamped by the State cost a shekel and a half usually, more than twice what I pay. And I eat between 3 and 5 whole eggs a day, so it’s not trivial. I also got olive oil, which is much more hearty than the industrialized Jewish stuff and 33% cheaper.

That’s the usual. Thursday I decided to get something extra. I bought a live chicken and had the guy put it in a box for me. Then I drove home and put it on the balcony. Then I quickly did a rerun of hilchos shechita in the שמלה חדשה, prepared my knife, checked it, got some dirt, shechted the chicken, defeathered it and gutted it, washed it and salted it, and we had chicken soup for Shabbat.

I’ve had my knife sitting in my drawer for years and finally decided to use it. My girls got to see a real shechita and pluck some feathers, and my wife got to do the mitzva of כיסוי דם, covering the blood with earth, for the first time.

Back to the Arab point, a good way to reduce attacks is to promote business. Where there is business, there are less attacks. Not that attacks and murders have not happened around joint Arab/Jewish business, but most happen in no-man’s land where there is no trade going on.

Therefore, just empirically, a good solution to lessening attacks is to buy Arab. It’s understandable if this makes you scared or uncomfortable, and I don’t mean or recommend going over to Shechem and painting the refugee camp red. Within reason. More importantly, the State, both local and national, needs to loosen restrictions against Arab labor, not tighten. If you object to that, then at least the State should get rid of welfare and minimum wage so Jews will do these jobs instead, but the state makes that impossible for Jews so Arabs must be hired instead.

Ultimately, Jews and Arabs should be allowed to build and settle wherever they want and trade and exchange between each other without interference, so that if I wanted to, I could buy land or real estate in Azun, and some Arab in Azun could buy real estate in Karnei Shomron.