Mitt Romney

Solving the conundrum of posthumous Mormon baptism

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog ,

Ynet published an op ed by Rabbi Levi Brackman where he says that Jews should stop freaking out about the Mormon practice of baptizing long dead Jews so they can call them Mormon and they can pass the big Mormon gatekeeper at heaven after having waited at the Mormon gates of Heaven for 70 years or so.

Well, the Mormons are pretty damn late if it took them so long to finally think of us that maybe we need a little holy water sprinkled on something so we can get past the Mormon Heaven bouncer. But Rabbi Brackman is right, and I support any pundit who goes all out on Abe Foxman and the ADL, which is arguably the most useless and even damaging Jewish organization in existence today that actively encourages the very anti Semitism it is trying to quash by whining about everything and making every Jew on the planet look like a giant wuss.

The conundrum here though is that posthumous baptism on dead holocaust victims enrages us because it shows that not even death can stop the inquisition anymore. And Christian love can turn to hate at any moment as we all know. A hypocritical sick twist of love and hate, a passive-aggressive act of contempt of Judaism that  makes us nauseous. But then again, we don’t want to take it too seriously as if to imply that it actually works and all the Jewish Holocaust victims are all “Mormon” now, partying away with Brigham Young in the sky and doing ecstasy.

So the best thing to do, in my opinion, is make the ADL useful and have them publicly mock the practice by inventing a “special Jewish spell” taken right out of something like Harry Potter or whatever and announce that the Jews have made a special baptism repellent powder we had our best Rabbis sprinkle through all the Mormon air vents to prevent the baptism from working. Or something stupider. The more asinine the better.

The dumber you can make this thing, the more respect we’ll get rather than screaming that the Mormons are sprinkling water on our dead and Mormonizing them as if that actually had some metaphysical effect.

No amount of Jesus fairy dust is going to do squat, so my top childish idea is to pour some sewage in their baptism water. I suggested this to the friend who sent me the Rabbi Brackman article, and she responded with an ingenious line:

Quick! Last one to take a %#$^ in the baptism water’s a Mormon!

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Romney can’t win without Ron Paul

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog ,

Call this wild speculation. I’m not sure if it’s possible, but on the off chance that Romney wins the nomination and Paul comes in second, I see this as a possibility. I wrote this originally at World of Judaica News.

After Ron Paul’s strong second place showing in New Hampshire last night, it looks like Mitt Romney is the clear front runner in the race for the Republican nomination, and that Ron Paul is Romney’s only hurdle. However, this is not just any old two-man race. This is a different thing entirely. That is because the vast majority of Ron Paul’s supporters are not Republican Party cheerleaders and partisan hacks that will go any which way so long as the party remains in power. Meaning, if Romney does win the nomination, Ron Paul’s voters will not necessarily, or even likely, support Romney in the general election against Obama. No – these people actually support a certain set of ideas: actual cuts, a federal budget that is actually balanced, an end to overseas undeclared military adventurism, sound money instead of fiat currency…and they will not vote for any candidate that would violate these policies.

In the end, on Republican National Convention day, even if Romney comes up with the requisite amount of delegates to secure the nomination, without Ron Paul’s supporters, he cannot win the presidency. All major polls point to Paul taking about 20% of the vote if he decides to run third party, which would leave Romney obviously short of victory, since those votes would mostly be taken from him.

Romney is not the only one in trouble here either. It’s the entire Republican party that cannot win without Ron Paul. The liberty movement is already a bona fide force in American politics. It has too much young energy to be overlooked. These are a new brand of voters that actually care about real issues, and they are uncompromising. No republican candidate, present or future, can win the White House without them.

So what to do?

If Mitt Romney does win the nomination, which is certainly not a done deal yet, then if he actually wants to be president, he will have to let Ron Paul run the ideological show. This could take the form of a Paul vice presidency, on the condition that Paul is guaranteed certain changes in monetary, fiscal, and foreign policy. After all, Ron Paul doesn’t really want to be president in the sense that he doesn’t really care about holding the office to satisfy his ego. What he wants are his policies in place.

It’s Mitt Romney who’s the flip flopper, meaning he’ll adopt whatever policies he has to in order to sit in the Captain’s chair. What does he care? Health insurance mandate, no to Obamacare, abortion, pro life, TARP bailouts, no TARP bailouts, whatever. He’s just Mitt Romney. He’ll do the smiling and make sure his hair is combed, and let Ron Paul tell him what to do.

Seem a stretch? Think of it this way: Mitt Romney really wants to be president. Ron Paul really doesn’t care. He just wants to change the country, but couldn’t care less about the title he holds. The man has no ego. It seems weird, but then again, it’s pretty weird that a man of pure principle like Ron Paul, who is so incorruptible that he won’t even take a Congressional pension, is actually a contender for the Republican nomination in the first place.

Could the ultimate flip-flipper be the perfect match for the ultimate unbending man of principle? Sounds like symbiosis. Talk about the odd couple, but it might just work.

Article contributed by Rafi Farber and published on World of Judaica.