Ron Paul

Ron Paul’s Swords into Plowshares, Outlander, and other Amazon Orders

rafifarber Foreign Policy, The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , ,

I’m headed to America on July 20th with my family. We’re planning on splurging a bit since we don’t have to buy food or electricity or water or whatever else it is we buy on our own that we won’t buy when we’re at our parents’ places. And I’ll still be working, so nothing lost there.

My first mass purchase was based on Bob Wenzel’s post for Ron Paul’s new book Swords into Plowshares. The truth is, these days, I generally find Ron’s commentary somewhat boring because I know it all already. But I love him so much that I am compelled to support him in anything he does, and I urge you to do the same. The man is a Tzadik Gamur, 100%, (a perfect righteous person) one of a handful left on the planet. I am not one. I do not claim to be one. But I can recognize one. Ron Paul is one. And we must support everything he does on the condition that it is just. We can assume everything he does is just until proven otherwise.

So while on Amazon buying Swords into Plowshares, which I will read immediately upon receiving it, I also bought the Game of Thrones books, some Injinji toe socks, a pair of pants because my wife complains there are too many holes in my current pairs of pants, and the Outlander series of books.

Here’s a blurb about each of these purchases. First of all, you’ll notice there are no affiliate links here, at all. That’s because you can give all the money to Bob, Click on his amazon links and give him money. He’s more productive than me so he can use it more to promote the libertarian cause. Maybe one day, with God’s help, I’ll overtake him, but right now I’m still a baby.

Swords and Plowshares, the point is to support Ron over all everyone else calling for more war and bombing, which is most people, including those I hang out with and daven with in Minyan. Everyone wants to kill everyone, for one reason or another. (Again, it’s a wonder I’m still religious.)

As for Game of Thrones, I watch the show because it is anti government. And entertaining. Even the supposed good guys are sometimes evil.

Injinji socks, I have a pair of Vibrams I wear on Har Habayit, and when I’m not suffering from plantar fasciitis due to my flat feet. If anyone has any remedies for that, let me know. I like toe socks.

Most interestingly, Outlander. I got into this show totally accidentally, when one of my wife’s friends recommended it. At first I wasn’t so impressed. Something about stupid magic stones that transformed someone into the past or some nonsense. But towards the end of the season things got really intense.

It ended with a male rape scene that was very difficult to watch. I can handle most violence, but this was a first for me. Watching a male rape scene was horrible. Probably the worst thing I’ve seen on screen. It was not pornographic, they did not show those parts. But emotionally it was something new, because I’ve seen female rape scenes. I do not like them, but being a male I don’t identify with female rape as much as women do. But this I did, and it hurt watching it.

The most real thing about it was, the guy was so abused that at the end, he just acquiesced because there was nothing else he could do about it. Being married to a woman, he felt guilty that he let it happen without fighting at the end, and even liking it because he was no longer being tortured. And he felt he could no longer be married to his wife when he was finally rescued, because he did not fight until the end.

That opened my eyes up to something new. I never even considered the fact that women who are raped may be (and probably are) often biologically compelled to let it happen, on an animalistic level. The human in them fights it, but sexual response is often automated, especially when there is no way of fighting it off physically. The prospect of allowing a rape to happen, and then being forced to biologically respond to it is horrifying. It strips you of your humanity completely, and leads to incredible guilt.

As a man, I have never considered this before. But now I (at least think) I know part of the horror of rape. In the end he recovers, but not without suicidal thoughts.

And that’s why I bought all those things. Hooray for trade.

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Can Ron Paul really win this thing?

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

It has always been my opinion that Ron Paul will not have any sort of surge. Those who think he will do not understand that the anti Paul vote is much stronger than the anti Romney vote.

Let’s take someone like Santorum for instance. You have your average voter that’s looking for someone on his team, the “Republicans,” but he’s looking for the best player, the one who can go the most yards and beat the “Democrats” and their quarterback Obama. To the average voter, this whole election is just a game. It’s not about issues and who you think will be best for the country. It’s who can win the game for your team so you feel like you’re a winner if you’re on that team. That’s pretty much it.

Surges can only happen for candidates who are pretty much the same as other candidates, because any real difference in issues will force a voter to think that maybe something he votes for will ACTUALLY change the country in a real fundamental way, something he’s not willing to do. So the mob will turn from one candidate to another, so long as they’re pretty much the same.

If you’re waiting for Ron Paul to surge, keep waiting. He won’t. There are only two ways he can win the Republican nomination. The first and most obvious is that everything he has been saying for the last 40 years comes true and the dollar falls and chaos ensues. That would take voters out of their cheerleading stupor and start to think about real issues.

But the other way is a la the story of Gideon in the book of Judges, chapters 6-8. He’s the guy that led the Jews against Midian with 300 people, a group that God purposely whittled out to prove that victory is His and not an army’s.

The Republican nomination process is just so convoluted in a way that Ron Paul could actually win without getting a significant percentage of the popular vote. If Paul supporters stack the delegate deck and we end up with a brokered convention, for example, and after being released if they are pledged to another candidate, they vote for Paul in a second or third round.

This could theoretically happen.

As regards a face-off between Obama and Paul, that would just be electrifying. Seriously, I would crave every debate, every face-off, it would be absolutely fantastic. You’d have two people that really, essentially, stand for absolute opposite things. Obama for state power, Paul for individual freedom, and of course in the end Paul would win easily, because the difference would be so stark it would wake up droves.

Then why not wake up now? Because with the possibility of having just a cheerleading game, the team players won’t go for something real. But when it’s right in front of them, then the whole game changes into one that’s for keeps.

Tom Woods on 26 Things Non Ron Paul Supporters Appear to be Saying

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog ,

I couldn’t resist this one. It’s awesome. From Tom Woods blog.

(1) The American political establishment has done a super job keeping our country prosperous and our liberties protected, so I’m sure whatever candidate they push on me is probably a good one.

(2) Our country is basically bankrupt. Unfunded entitlement liabilities are in excess of twice world GDP. Therefore, it’s a good idea to vote for someone who offers no specific spending cuts of any kind.

(3) Vague promises to cut spending are good enough for me, even though they have always resulted in higher spending in the past.

(4) I prefer a candidate who plays to the crowd, instead of having the courage to tell his audience things they may not want to hear.

(5) I am deeply concerned about spending. Therefore, I would like to vote for someone who supported Medicare Part D, thereby adding $7 trillion to Medicare’s unfunded liabilities.

(6) I am opposed to bailouts. Therefore, I will vote for a candidate who supported TARP.

(7) The federal government is much too involved in education, where it has no constitutional role. Therefore, I will vote for a candidate who supported expanding the Department of Education and favored the No Child Left Behind Act.

(8) Even though practically everyone was caught by surprise in the 2008 financial crisis, which we are still reeling from, it’s a good idea not to vote for the one man in politics who predicted exactly what was bound to unfold, all the way back in 2001.

(9) I am not impressed by a candidate who inspires people, especially young ones, to read the great economists and political philosophers.

(10) I am concerned about taxes. Therefore, I will not vote for the one candidate who has never supported a tax increase.

(11) I believe it is conservative to support bringing the Enlightenment to Afghanistan.

(12) Even though I lost half my retirement portfolio when the economy crashed from the sugar high the Federal Reserve’s artificially low interest rates put it on, I would like to vote for someone who is not really interested in the Federal Reserve.

(13) Even though 50 years of the embargo on Cuba did nothing to undermine Fidel Castro, and in fact handed him a perfect excuse for all the failures of socialism, I favor continuing this policy.

(14) If someone has a drug problem, prison rape is the best solution I can think of.

(15) Even though the Constitution had to be amended to allow for alcohol prohibition, and even though I claim to care about the Constitution, I don’t mind that there’s no constitutional authorization for the war on drugs, and I will punish at the polls anyone who favors the constitutional solution of returning the issue to the states.

(16) I believe only a “liberal” would think it was inhumane to keep essential items out of Iraq in the 1990s, even though one of the first people to protest this policy was Pat Buchanan.

(17) The Brookings Institution says Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract with America was an insignificant nibbling around the edges. I favor people who support insignificant nibbling around the edges, as long as they occasionally trick me with a nice speech.

(18) I am deeply concerned about radical Islam, so it was a good idea to depose the secular Saddam Hussein — who was so despised by Islamists that Osama bin Laden himself offered to fight against him in the 1991 Persian Gulf War — and replace him with a Shiite regime friendly with Iran, while also bringing about a new Iraqi constitution that makes Islam the state religion and forbids any law that contradicts its teachings.

(19) Indefinite detention for U.S. citizens seems like nothing to be worried about, especially since our political class is so trustworthy that it could never abuse such a power.

(20) Following up on (19), I believe Thomas Jefferson was just being paranoid when he said, “In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

(21) Even though the war in Iraq was based on crude propaganda I would have laughed at if the Soviet Union had peddled it, and even though the result has been hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, four million people displaced, trillions of dollars down the drain, tens of thousands of serious injuries among American servicemen and an epidemic of suicide throughout the military, not to mention the ruination of America’s reputation in the world, I see no reason to be skeptical when the same people who peddled that fiasco urge me to support yet another war as my country is going bankrupt.

(22) I do not trust the media. But when the media tells me I am not to support Ron Paul, who says things he is not allowed to say, I will comply.

(23) I know the media will smear or marginalize anyone who would really fix this country. But when the media smears and marginalizes Ron Paul, I will draw no conclusion from this.

(24) I want to be spoken to like this: “My fellow Americans, you are the awesomest of the awesome, and the only reason anyone in the world might be unhappy with your government is because of your sheer awesomeness.”

(25) I think it’s a good idea to vote for Mitt Romney, whose top three donors are Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, and Morgan Stanley, and a bad idea to vote for Ron Paul, whose top three donors are the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Air Force.

(26) I have not been exploited enough by the cozy relationship between large financial firms and the U.S. government, and I would like to see it continue.

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.

To Ron Paul Supporters: Reflections from Israel on the Iowa Caucuses

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

To my dear American patriots and fellow lovers of liberty and freedom,

I’m writing this to you to give you what they call “chizuk” in Hebrew, or strengthening. Before I get on to it, Ron Paul came in third in the vote count last night, but he came in tied with Romney and Santorum for delegates to the convention, and possibly even first due to the dedication and love of our liberty soldiers in Iowa who volunteered to be delegates after the voting ended. We will know for sure in the coming days whether Ron Paul actually won the most delegates. Nonetheless, a third place showing is emotionally difficult for all of us. I will try to explain to you now why it should not be, and actually isn’t for me.

I am first and foremost a Jew. I am only an American in name in that I feel no national bond with America, though I do love the country as being one of the most spectacular to ever have existed, if not the most. And I want her to be healthy and strong and free. So I am telling you this as a Jew, not as an American, because I cannot separate my Jewish consciousness from anything I think about, as it is so integrally entwined with my psyche.

There is a Rabbinic lesson written in a book called Midrash Raba, which is basically a collection of Rabbinic exegesis on Biblical verses. Commenting on the story of Creation, the Rabbis note that redemption was preprogrammed into the universe. Redemption, meaning humanity being restored to its complete, most fully functional form. That form is freedom. The drive toward freedom is unstoppable and inevitable. This is the very first thing you have to keep in mind at all times. In pushing humanity toward freedom, you are literally partnering with God in furthering the very purpose of creation, because what you are fighting for is absolutely real and true, and nothing can change that. Nothing.

This is all nice and good, but how do we overcome a third place showing? The same way the Jewish people overcame virtually everything. You just have faith in God. And if you understand that you are doing the right and true thing, you do the absolute best you can while realizing you cannot control everything. We cannot control everything and we are not the masters of the universe. We are only subordinate partners with the True Master.

Remember, there are men who love power, and there are men who love freedom. Freedom is uncontrolled. Power is control. So if you do the best you can and understand and internalize the truth that freedom means you can’t control everything, then you inherently leave the final step to God. If you think you can control everything, you are treading into the dangerous alleys of the power mind. Your hard work and dedication and love of humanity did not go unnoticed in the heavens. Now have faith and keep going.

Going back to the Exodus from Egypt for a second, before the Israelites finally left, they were commanded to do the ultimate act of defiance against Egypt right in front of the Egyptian people. That is, tie a sheep – the Egyptian god – to a bedpost, leave it there for 4 days, then slaughter it, smear its blood all over their front doors, roast it completely whole over an open fire, eat it, and burn all the leftovers, bones and all – and only then could they get the hell out of Egypt.

That is, they had to demonstrate one act of complete freedom in defiance of the Egyptian establishment before they took the final step. And then they were out forever. Just one act of freedom, and that was enough to earn them a ticket out.

You, my friends, have demonstrated so many acts of freedom already. You deserve your freedom and you WILL win it, because unlike any other cause to get some soulless guy in the White House, your cause for freedom is the very purpose of Creation.

What you all need to do now is first, understand that you WILL win. It is programmed into the Divine fabric of the universe. Second, understand that you cannot control exactly HOW you win. If you could control it, you wouldn’t be free. In order never to be seduced by power as so many human beings are, in order to be truly free, you have to ultimately let go and have faith. You must realize you cannot control ANYTHING. The only one who can is God, the source of freedom itself.

And third, keep going full speed.

The ultimate test of our own liberty is when we are deflated and depressed, what do we do? Do we give up and say that since we couldn’t control this one event absolutely and it didn’t come out as we personally envisioned it, then we may as well give up on the whole thing? That would prove that our conception of liberty was only self-aggrandizement, only a form of power lust for absolute control.

So what are we going to do? Are we going to go home? Or are we going to take the lamb of slavery and government control where they can now arrest us without trial or charges, slaughter it, smear its blood all over our door posts and BURN the damn thing?

Not every soul will be activated. It will not happen. We WILL win, but we CANNOT know how. What we CAN know is that God is with us in our fight because it is TRUE.

We won the MOST delegates even though we didn’t come in first. And you know why? Because the people that voted with us are FREE! In Iowa, we didn’t have the most men. But we had the FREE men, and that’s why we won.

Now on to New Hampshire! God bless you all!

 

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

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.

Ron Paul is NOT anti Semitic and neither, amazingly is Michael Scheuer

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , , ,

In a previous post asking whether Ron Paul is anti semitic, I asserted that he is not, but made the claim, which I now realize is false, that Michael Scheuer, a Ron Paul supporter, is.

I realized today that I was absolutely wrong. Scheuer knocked even further sense into me with a clip I saw today from the Freedom Watch show on Fox Business. What follows is the video that convinced me that Scheuer is anti Semitic. Watch it, cringe a bit, but then continue to the next video and you’ll understand the point:

Watch the latest video at video.foxbusiness.com

Now, watch THIS:

Watch the latest video at video.foxbusiness.com

The conclusion, my friends, is this. Israeli hasbara, and ALL the political activity that the American Jewish community does in the US on behalf of Israel is not only unnecessary, but it is harmful. Even people like Scheuer, who you could swear was an anti semite after first video, are obviously not after you watch the second. What they’re sick of is not Jews, but Jews whining.

This means AIPAC is a disaster. It should be disbanded and boycotted. I would not have said that even yesterday. But the worst thing America can do for Israel is keep giving her money.