Conservatism and Judaism

Having discussed conservatism and some ideas to make it a relevant player in the political arena in North America, I would like to now turn to Israel and discuss the role it could play there.
The first thing to understand is that in Israel, right wing and left wing when applied to different political parties has a far different meaning than it does for North America.  In Israel, the labelled seem to be applied almost exclusively based on the party's position on the Jewish-Arab conflict.  Parties that look to accommodate Israel's enemies even at the expense of Israel's security are left wing.  Parties that seek to prioritize Israel's needs are right wing.  For example, let's say that tomorrow the Likud decides to embrace a command economy, increase the size of the civil service by 50% and increase taxes to match but at the same time finally rules out any two-state solution.  Despite the economic platform they would still be called a right wing party.  Labour, on the other hand, has moved far from its origins as a European socialist state that ran the country in its early years in a soft communist style.  Yes, it still coddles the Histadrut and embraces far more state control than the Likud does but why do we see it as a left wing party?  Because of its foreign policy.  Period.
This would suggest that conservatism has ample potential for parties linked to both the left and the right in Israel.  Based on the guiding principle I have been working with, responsibility before rights, both sides of the political spectrum could embrace conservatism.
Consider the idea that the state of Israel is not a country like all others.  Now, this seems obvious given the ample news coverage and the amazing history of the State.  However, what does one do with this fact?  Israel stands for something, although getting two Jews to agree on what that something is might prove difficult.  Is Israel a lifeboat for world Jewry?  Is it the first flowering of our redemption?  Is it the beacon of democracy in the dark Middle East?
Conservatism must step in and state that Israel, being a Jewish state, must identify with Jewish values.  The fundamental Jewish value is that of responsibility over rights, just as I've been saying about conservatism in general until now.  Anyone who learns Torah in a serious way knows that God expects obedience as a result of giving us life and limb.  We are rarely in a position to talk back to Him or question His ways and means.  Our job ultimately is to live according to the mitzvos and even when we hope for a reward, s'char b'hai alma leika.  We have no right to demand recompense for being good in this world.
That's not to say that there's no real payoff for being a good Jew.  A society that runs along genuine Jewish principles, including ones that frum Jews often ignore like chesed, tzedakah and gemilus chasadim, would be a fine one to live in indeed.
This is what conservatism in Israel should be encouraging.  We know that any pressure to morph Israel into a state run al pi halacha would fail.  There would be strong pushback from the secular crowd.  The Chareidi community would refuse to cooperate unless their "Gedolim" were in charge. (Even then, if it wasn't one segment's "Gadol" they'd still refuse to take part)  The animosity that such a push would create would be a chilul haShem.
However, who's to say that a partial push wouldn't be more productive?  Demanding people keep Shabbos will lead to a fight.  Demanding that they give tzedakah would be greeted differently.  A responsible Jewish citizen recognizes his part in society and contributes to it.  The Gemara famously tells us that fortune is cyclical, one generations wealthy may have descendants in the poorhouse.  Responsibility strongly suggests that by contributing to charity a person ensures security for himself and his descendants.  The same argument can be made for gemilus chasadim.  Imagine pushing school children and young adults to find time to perform acts of kindness.  Volunteering in hospitals, working at food banks and gemachs, all of these can be promoted for their Jewish content without any risk of coercion.
What's more, a target of this push could be the wealthy of the State.  It's well known that the gap between  the wealthy and not in Israel is one of the highest in the First World.  A society that cared about improving the lot of its less fortunate through providing economic opportunity as opposed to just tossing out welfare cheques might prove more successful.
Conservatism in Israel could therefore increase the Jewishness of the State in small increments without causing hostility.  This would have the potential to fundamentally change Jewish society in a positive way and serve as a good example for others.

The New Conservatism II

In the last post I discussed why the Right is on the defensive and losing ground in today's society.  I also noted that challenging the Left's underlying assumption for so much of its ideology, that government is a competent controller of society, needs to be challenged and debunked if the Right is to reverse that trend.
In this post I would like to discuss a further idea that the Right needs to build on in order to re-establish its influence in society and, oddly enough, it's a idea usually associated with the Left.
Modern liberalism, through the pervasive presence of the nanny state, emphasizes the idea of communal responsibility.  Certainly when it comes to taxing the successful members of society this concept is invoked: the rich have the responsibility to look after the poor.
The Right needs to co-opt this idea which I feel is surprising available for the taking.  While the Left talks about the community its encouragement of a culture of entitlements and rights actually promotes the community's fragmentation.  If all I really care about, as a citizen, is what's coming to me without concern for the consequences, then I develop a lack of global vision.  I want my benefits and I don't care if it means my neighbour will suffer.  Gimme, gimme, gimme.
In response, conservatives need to push a society vision which includes all citizens.  What is the goal of the society we live in?  What is the common purpose of our country?  What is the justification for its existence?  Why does the world need it around and how to we contribute to it?
Here's an example: US President Calvin Coolige famously said that the business of America is business.  As the centre of the capitalist world, America is about building capital, both personal and national wealth.  This idea, the complement to the slogan about being the land of opportunity, is lost when the Left's culture of entitlements and rights above responsibilities becomes dominant.  In a Leftist culture the predominant behaviour is the consumption of capital without thought as to how to produce it in the first place.  This is the antithesis of the worldview that led to the dominance of the Western world.
It sounds almost communist but the Right needs to start discussing the responsibility of the individual citizen towards sustainable productivity.  This responsibility can be promoted in ways that make it attractive to the greater society.
Using these ideas, the Right can challenge the Left on a host of social, financial and political issues.
Consider the health care system.  The idea that the state should fund and control a good chunk of healthcare is accepted by populations in the West.  Should government coverage be unlimited and free to all citizens like in Canada or targeted to the poor and elderly with the rest being privately covered like in the US?  Is the best model the European system of parallel public and private systems?  A conservative answer would be based on the idea that it is in society's interest to ensure that those who genuinely cannot afford healthcare are covered in order to promote public health.  It is also in society's interest to ensure coverage for healthcare for all citizens for common and serious conditions.  In the interest of encouraging responsibility in addition to rights, as mentioned in the last post, the conservative health care system may demand co-payments or a restricted access to resources for those people who engage in injurious behaviours.   This could take the form of special health taxes on those foods universally recognized to be unhealthy or access fees to the system for smokers when they have smoking related ailments.
Consider the welfare system.  Social assistance for the downtrodden of society is in the interest of the greater good.  Endless welfare payments for folks who have adjusted to the welfare lifestyle and have no intention of returning to work in any form is not.  Thus conservatives should support a welfare system that demands and funds retraining for the unemployed in order to return them to the workforce.
What about higher education?  In Canada there are two major post-secondary systems - university and college.  Universities are for higher education and the homes of professional schools such as medicine and accounting.  Colleges are trade schools teaching practical occupations.  There is no question that a college graduate is far more likely to find employment upon completing his degree than a university graduate is.   It would therefore be in the conservative interest for governments to fund colleges to the point that tuition levels would be affordable to the majority of the population while allowing university tuition to rise in order to discourage the vast numbers of students who are attending to get their BA in post-medieval English lit with a minor in basket weaving.
How this applies to Israel will be dealt with next.

The New Conservatism

Being conservative isn't easy right now.  On the Canadian side of the border people seem to be in thrall to the boy king, Justin Trudeau and his shirtless adventures.  Despite surviving the last election in better than expected condition, the Conservative party of Canada seems to become more irrelevant every day, its once talented benches now filled with boring, faceless members.  People are in love with Justin's meaningless bromides and laugh at his every joke even as he systematically dismantles every initiative from the previous Conservative government for the sole reason that it was an initiative by the Conservative government.
South of the border the situation is even worse.  Donald Trump has hijacked the Republican party and brought in legions of the worst sort, Neo-nazis and similar ilk in his attempts to destroy the party and throw the election to ensure Hillary Clinton wins despite her abysmal personal ratings.  Calling yourself conservative in the US seems to get you associated with these slack-jawed yokels and their despicable leader.
What is needed is a crushing defeat for the Republicans in November and some real soul-searching for the Conservatives in Canada in order to rebuild the parties along new lines.  Conservativism in the last couple of decades has morphed from a classical political movement into a reactionary ideology with limited ideas and a minimal vision.  True conservatives have to retake centre stage, oust the ideologues and reassert a proper program for the electorate to consider before they can court true electoral success and societal influence again.
What should this new conservativism look like?  Any movement needs an overall vision, something simple upon which to base all the various ideas and initiatives that will come after.  I propose the following: the current battle between Left and Right is a battle between rights and responsibilities.  The Left has been promoting an agenda for decades based on rights, on the individual taking from society without any need to pay back.  People are told they have rights and entitlements and are encouraged to line up and demand them at every opportunity.  As a result we have a society in perpetual debt.  People have lost the ability to budget, to self-constrain, to say no to themselves (although they retain a surprisingly strong ability to say it to others).  As a physician I see this all the time.  I want to prescribe a medication that is appropriate and the patient immediately inquires as to whether his drug plan will cover it, making it very clear that if it isn't he won't since he doesn't have the finances.  He smokes, drinks on a regular basis, has a cell phone and hi speed internet but doesn't have the money for medications and doesn't think he should because society has taught him to believe he is entitled to anything he needs medically.  Corporate North America has bought into this as well.  Once upon a time we had to wait until December 27 to begin Boxing Day shopping.  Now the internet allows people to begin their post-holiday shopping on the December 25 holiday itself.  Easy credit, don't pay for 12-18 months, put yourself into debt and with interest rates so low you never have to worry about digging yourself out of it.  You are entitled to that, says the Left.
The first difficulty of the Right is combating this attitude.  Obviously a head on confrontation is not appropriate.  Imagine a parent offering unlimited candy and no need to do any chores facing off against a parent who wants beds made, vegetables eaten and homework done on time.  We all know the latter parent is the better one and that following her advice will lead to better outcomes in the long term but if we've been raised as spoiled brats with no sense of self-denial we will side with the candy-toting parent every time.  A Right political party preaching about less government services, more self-reliance and the like will get pummelled in a general election by an electorate that is used to the two sides competing to see who can offer more free goodies.  Telling people to be responsible for themselves when they are already used to the gentle caress of the nanny state will lead nowhere.
Instead the Right needs to offer a different emphasis.  The first is to hammer home a simple message: government is not a better solution to anything.  We are often told by the Left as it seeks to expand government control over our lives that the nanny state is better at handling certain matters.  Obama's famous "You didn't build it" statement is the classic motto.  The assumption is that my business is successful because I use roads the government built, programs the government paid for, seek protection under government laws, and so on.  At every point the Left attempts to convince folks that the reason for their increasing encroachment is because of the rapacious nature of the private sector.  Yet time and time again we see examples of government corruption that dwarf any crimes the private sector could commit.  A look at Hillary Clinton's recent e-mail scandal in which the FBI admitted that she had committed criminal offences but that they weren't going to charge her (after her husband coincidentally met with the Attorney General, hmmmmmm) proves that.  The private sectors cuts services to maximize profit?  The government blows billions in kickbacks and diversions which leads to more national and provincial debt while becoming more incompetent at providing the basic services that it says only it can truly provide.
The first emphasis of the Right is to combat this myth aggressively.  When people talk about how great the nanny state is, there needs to be a pushback pointing out its waste, corruption and lack of ability to deliver on its promises.  Success stories from the private industry need to be put up against government graft and cronyism and people need to be told that their assumptions are lies they believe simply because they've been told them for so long.
With this first push the Right can get back into the conversation instead of playing defence while losing market share.
More to come....

The Coming Dictatorship

One of the recurring themes in Hollywood movies about political dystopias is how the nightmare future is dominated by an extreme right-wing government.  Based on the world's experience with fascism in the 20th century, we are treated to repeated examples of right-wing groups, sometimes neo-Nazis, sometimes religious fanatics, taking over the world and forcing their views and ideology on everyone.
Truth is that while fascism had a brief run in the sun between 1933 and 1945, it is the extreme form of left wing thinking, communism, that outlasted, out-controlled and out-murdered any other system in the history of civilization.  The same people who think that communism wasn't such a bad idea are usually in favour of movies that tell us the right wing is an imminent threat to our freedoms, usually as they advocate for a diminishing of those freedoms in the name of political correctness.
In short, they try to distract us with nightmares of a right-wing takeover while the worse left-wing one is in process.
In Canada this has recently taken a large step forward and I do believe that most Canadians don't realize what has happened.
Several months ago we elected a new government up here in the Great White North.  After 11 years in power the Conservatives were relegated to Official Opposition status while the Liberals under Justin Trudeau swept into power.
Who is Justin Trudeau?  He is the faithful son of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada from 1968-1983.  PET was a closet communist who admired the worst mass-murderer of the 20th century, Mao Zedong, as a great thinker and philosopher.  He made common cause with Fidel Castro, a ruthless thug who turned prosperous Cuba into an impoverish outdoor political prison.  He looked down on the United States with contempt and only admired those parts of Europe that shared his socialist vision.  Through the introduction of official bilingualism in the government and civil service he worked towards achieving his goal of a Canada run by Quebec since most Quebecois are functionally bilingual while the vast majority of non-Quebec Canadians are not.  He ran up huge deficits annually to support his vast socialist projects as well.
And Justin?  Well he's on record as saying that a Canada run by the Conservatives is not a Canada he feels part of and that if Canadians continued to support a Conservative government despite being offered the opportunity of having him as leader he would support Quebec separating from Canada.  He is also on record as feeling that the Chinese government is the best in the world, specifically because its authoritarian nature allows it to do whatever it wants with Chinese society without having to worry about things like elections and popular opposition.
During the election campaign one of the big issues he hit upon was electoral reform.  Canada currently has a Westminster-style parliament with the country divided into something like 338 ridings.  Each party runs a candidate in each riding and the candidate that gets the most votes in that riding, even if it's less than 50%, winds up getting that riding's seat in Ottawa.  Given that there are three major parties and one minor one across the country, that means a party that gets 40% of the overall popular vote can easily get a majority of 55-60% of the seats in Ottawa.  Whether or not that's good depends on who's in power.  When the Liberals are in opposition they tend to remind people that the Conservatives didn't really win a majority.  When they're in power they like to point out that they have a majority of seats so who cares about the popular vote.
Now they want to change that system on the excuse that they want a new one which will ensure that any government got into power by getting more than 50% of the vote, a true majority.  They are proposing a ranked ballot in which votes choose their number 1 and 2 choices.  If someone gets 50% of the votes in the riding, great.  If not, the top two candidates make it to the second round.  The electoral officer then counts the 2nd choices of the ballots of the rest of the candidates and applies them to the remaining candidates meaning someone will eventually get 50%. 
This all sounds nice until you realize one important thing: the Liberals know from their polls that amongst socialist and conservative voters they are almost always the second choice.  Now do the math.  Say in a given riding the Conservative gets 40% of the vote, the Liberal gets 35% and the NDP (that's our Socialist party) gets the last 25%.  The Conservative and Liberal go to the second round and the NDP candidate's ballots are counted to tally up the second choices.  Given that almost all the NDP voters will choice the Liberal as their second choice the Liberal candidate will now jump to 60% and take the riding. 
The math works the same if the NDP gets 40% and the Conservative gets 25%.  The Liberal wins again.
What this means is that other than a handful of dedicated ridings where the Conservative or NDP candidates usually get more than 50% of the vote, the Liberals will take pretty much every other riding in the country.  Short of a massive flub, like say the Liberal Prime Minister having sex with a donkey on the evening news, opinion won't shift significantly enough to change this.  As a result we will have a system where every  4 years we have what amounts to a token election guaranteed to put Justin and company back into power.  Remember his comment about the Chinese government system now?
Justin has already announced that there will be no popular referendum on this.  He will force whatever he wants through Parliament using his current majority.  Naturally there is a 10 member committee in Parliament studying this and naturally 6 of them are Liberals.  Any thoughts on their conclusions?
My only question is why most Canadians don't even seem to care.

Pitiless and Pathetic

The recent terrorists attacks in Paris have led to quite a reaction in the Western world.  The death of a few hundred French have raised a stir that the deaths of tens of thousands of Arabs failed to accomplish.  Until recently the ongoing turmoil caused by the Islamic State in the Middle East was a limited news story, something happening to "them" that didn't very much involve "us".  The notion that the IS can strike in the heart of a Western capital with great success has changed that belief.  Speaking shortly after the attacks, French president Francois Hollande made his intentions very clear.  France would wage open war with the IS and they would be "pitiless".
One would like to be encouraged by this development.  Until recently the IS was operating freely with only token opposition by the US to slow it down.  Despite posing a threat to multiple countries and despite the presences of armed forces in the region like the Kurdish Peshmerga willing to strike back if given the right arms and support, the West seemed strangely disinterested in attacking the IS.  President Obama, with his usual cluelessness, referred to them as a junion varsity team and, quite naively on the morning before the Paris attacks, implied in an interview that their most effective days were behind them.  But now the combination of bombing a Russian airliner and attacking Paris has seemingly awoken the fury of both the French and Russian militaries, something no ragtag group of thugs might want to do.
So why am I not worried for the IS?  Well so far both Russia and France have limited their "pitiless" total war to bombing raids on the IS capital.  Sounds impressive until you open the history books and look for the list of wars won by airpower without an accompanying land invasion.  In fact, there is only one: NATO's illegal attack on Serbia in the late 1990's. 
Serbia is not the IS.  It's a second world country with a developed economy and a participatory electorate.  Bombing its army and industries had a definite effect on the populace and its government leading to a succesful conclusion to that campaign.
In contrast, the IS is not a country but rather a large terrorist group that controls territory.  All it cares about are the oil wells it has because of the money they bring the group.  Russia and the West could raze every city it controls to the ground without slowing them down. 
As Conrad Black pithily notes in his latest column in the National Post, there is a factor of Western malaise here that will prevent the West from actually defeating the IS in any meaningful way.  As he writes:

What ensued was a desultory effort to train the battered hulk of Iraq’s Sunni military and a Western air campaign in the tradition of the Yugoslav Wars: bombing from such high altitudes it was a war worth killing for but not worth dying for.

The Western refusal to actual insert a decent number of special forces into IS controlled territory means that all the sabre rattling from Paris and Moscow is merely that.  The fighters of IS are willing to get down, dirty and dead to win their war.  The French don't want so much as a spot of grease on their shiny uniforms. 
(I won't even mention that the list of important French military victories over the last 300 years is about the same length as the list of wars won by airpower)
In the end all that being said about attacking and destroying the IS is bluster. Bombs will be dropped.  Claims of degrading the IS' military power will be made.  Congratulations will be crowed.  And the IS will go right on killing and conquering left and right while the West returns to its habit of condemning Israel for every attempt it makes to defend itself against terrorists just as ruthless but much closer to home.

Socialism Is Infantalism

The Greek tragedy that is, well, um, Greece, continues to unfold before the eyes of an alternatively horrified and bemused world.  Grexit, the involuntary exit of Green from the EU end the Euro creeps closer sending financial markets into spasm of uncertainty.
What is most fascinating to watch is the behaviour of the guilty parties in this crisis, specifically the Greek government and their supporters in the public.  Greece didn't enter this position of bankruptcy overnight and without warning.  Rather the situation was created by multiple governments that paid steadily rising benefits to an increasingly less productive workforce.  It was assisted in this by a tremendous sense of entitlement on the part of the Greeks themselves.  They were quite happy to take the money their government didn't really have but when they were asked to cut back to alleviate the situation they weren't so generous.
At the national level the current government has been acting the same way with its creditors.  Sure we may owe hundreds of billions of dollars, they have told an annoyed Angela Merckel, but since we can't repay it you should just write it off and then loan us more!
The final laugh, if you will, was the referendum last weekend in which a majority of Greeks voted to refuse the austerity terms of a further financial buyout. The Greek government, bolstered by the result, insisted that Europe and especially Germany must acknowledge the democratic voice of the Greek people.  The German response was classic: well we also have a democratic voice and it has said that it wants its money back.
They say maturity occurs when a person realizes his parents were right to force him to eat his spinach when he was young.  In Greece it seems they're still having ice cream sundaes for breakfast, lunch and dinner while resenting any suggesting that they might benefit from fruits, vegetables and bran.
Now as Jews we have a long history with Greece and especially Greek culture.  There has been an entwining of theirs and ours for over two thousand years, ever Alexander the Great stopped over in Yerushalayim on his tour of the MiddleEast and south Asia.  Our Chazal held a special respect for the Greek language and a special loathing for its culture.
As opposed to Judaism which emphasized the spiritual and rejecting physical hedonism as a valuable goal, Greece seemed to philosophize its way into a culture in which physical perfection was everything.  A great example of this was Greek opposition to Jewish circumcision during Maccabean times.  For Jews circumcising is a final step towards perfecting the body that God left in our hands to perform.  For the Greeks it was simple mutilation.
This Greek philosophy seems to have found its way into the culture of its descendants.  Modern Greece as it collapses today is the final end run of a philosophy that demands physical gratification without consideration of its cost.  The Greeks have been happy to take hundreds of billions of Euros for their pensions but refused to believe that the tap would be turned off if they refused to be accountable.  Faced with the consequences of that idiocy they simply insist they should not have to be "punished" and demand more free candy from the story.
Why does this matter to us?  Because the Green attitude is contagious.  In any prosperous society there is a greedy tendency to demand entitlements from the government but resent any attempt by the government to receive the finances to pay for those entitlements.  We are instead subject to moronic statements like "Well just tax the rich more!" and "Tax the corporations!"  Tax anyone, just not us!  For the West Greece (and soon Spain, Portugal and Italy) is an advanced warning as to what happens when governments allow their populations to become spoiled brats who want a five star society while paying one star rates.  As citizens of the West we ignore this vivid warning at our peril.
But worse and perhaps very ironically, the Greek attitude has infected the part of the Torah observant community that styles itself as the true vanguard of the Jewish nation against assimilation and outside influence - the Chareidi community.
Take a look at the Chareidi community in Israel, especially that segment that sits and learns all day long while living on outside donations but more significantly, on Israeli government largess.  Look at the behaviour of their politicians, especially over the last few years when they were in opposition and forced to deal with cuts to their entitlements.  The resemblance to Greece couldn't be more obvious. Give us the money, they and their representatives shout, but don't expect anything back from us, not even a 'thank you'!  The degeneracy and immaturity of the socialist entitlement system has created a culture of dependency that is not to be ignored.
When the very community that imagines itself exemplifying the opposite views to Greece is itself displaying those values we need to seriously appreciate the power afflicting the Torah community and the battle that will be needed to overcome it.

No, You're Not Charlie

In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings there has been a spasm of support from the world of journalism and the faux-journalistic blogosphere.  We have been encouraged to post graphics from the magazine to show our defiance of the terrorists.  We are all up in arms about freedom of speech.  There must be the right to mock religions freely without fear that some religious nutjob will want to shoot us!  The outrage is palpable.
It's also completely hypocritical.
First, let's look at Charlie Hebdo.  This is a magazine that makes a living by mocking, and it doesn't mock with any subtlety.  It plays to sterotypes, it stoops to low levels, it plays to any negative stereotype it can find.  Such a publication is now the vanguard of Western civilization?  It's like claiming Jennifer Lopez's semi-stripper performances are the pinnacle of Western dance.  Oy lanu ki chatanu.
After all, anyone who knows comedy knows that it's easy to get a laugh from mocking.  What separates the excellent comedy and satire from the good versions is the desire to avoid insults and denigrations.  Any stand-up comedian can get a laugh by making fun of the Catholic Church or insulting trailer trash.  It's too easy and should be seen for the cop-out that it is.
Then there's the journalistic reponse.  As the eloquent Rex Murphy notes, here the hypocrisy goes through the roof:

Where was this “we” when a video critical of Islam was mendaciously identified as the “cause” of the terror attack on Benghazi? Where was “we” when Hillary Clinton went on Pakistani television to declaim against this “reprehensible” video and revile its maker, and at the Benghazi victims’ funerals said: “We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.” Where was “we” when the filmmaker was arrested, while to this day the butchers of Benghazi roam the Earth unmolested?

Where is this We of the Hash-tags when whole swathes of the press, and some political leaders, refuse to call acts that are plainly terroristic by their proper name? Can those who refuse to say the word “terrorism” after a terrorist act now claim they are Charlie Hebdo?
And where was We of the Hash-tags when President Obama made the inexplicable declaration at the United Nations that “the future does not belong to those who slander the Prophet?” More than anything else, that sounds like a fulsome statement of accord with those who denounce cartoons and videos and editorials about the “Prophet,” who riot after he is “traduced” by someone in the West. There is no “We are Charlie Hebdo” in that statement. There is surrender instead.
And what about our prophets, of the Enlightentment and democracy, who made free speech the core of our lives and politics? We are notoriously timid in defending them, and almost tumid with the desire to speak up for those who despise them. Why do we wallow in some shallow hollow of factitious guilt, moaning over our failings to “understand” after 9/11, after Mumbai, after London, after Ottawa, after Paris this week, rather than laying the guilt on the real perpetrators and the ideology that fires them?
Our universities bleat about inquiry and free speech, but they are feeble and craven, caving in to protestors and special interests, pleading “sensitivity” and the “wish not to offend” any time some topic or speaker threatens to “hurt” the professionally agitated on campus. Where was “we” when a band of fatuous progressives protested former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice giving a convocation address at Rutgers University? She worked for Bush, so free speech be dammed.
Where was We of the Hash-tags when Ann Coulter was pre-emptively cautioned about what she could or should say by officials at the University of Ottawa? Where was “we” when Ayaan Hirsi Ali was humiliated and an honourary degree invitation revoked after campus activists at Brandeis University — faculty and students — protested? Brandeis mounted a defence of free speech that would have Patrick Henry drooling with envy: “[Ali] is a compelling public figure and advocate for women’s rights. … That said, we cannot overlook certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values.” A Presidential Medal of Freedom for that wonderful “that said.”

You want to show defiance on your blog?  Find a copy of one of the famous Danish cartoons and post it on your blog.  Note that the biggest defender of Muslim demands for supression of freedom of speech is the President of the United States and call him on it.  Ask why a poster of an actor playing Moshe Rebeinu, a"h, clad only in a bathrobe and getting out of a taxi with his genitals visible and an art exhibit offensive to Chrisians are expressions of freedom of speech but it's okay to quietly avoid anything similar when it comes to ol' Moe the supposed prophet?
But more than that, demand civility.  Yes, we should have the same right to mock Islam as we do other religions but beyond that we have to remember to rise above mockery in general.  Saying you're Charlie Hebdo is fine but can't we do better than that?

The Dictator In Waiting

Many Canadian voters don't seem to remember Pierre Elliot Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada from 1968-1983 (minus 9 months somewhere there in the late 1970's).  For those who don't it's worth recalling who the man was. 
PET, as he was unaffectionately known, was a very intelligent man.  Unfortunately he also had a good dose of narcissism and the belief that he was not only very smart but was the smartest man in the country.  He balanced this with a sense of comptent for all those who were less intelligent than him; his cabinet ministers, his caucus, and the great unwashed masses of voters who were, unfortunately in his eyes, necessary to ensure he remained prime minister because, after all, no one was as well qualified as him for the job.
Those of us who actually remember his rule and aren't dependent on the hagiographizing the CBC did after he left power and turned him into some kind of saint remember that his rule started with "Trudeaumania" and ended with corruption, binge government spending and a sinking of Canada's reputation in the world.
His was the government that introduced mandatory bilingualism into the civil service, thus ensuring French Quebecois dominance of that area.  He is remembered for effectively fighting the separatist forces in the 1980 Quebec referendum but, as author George Jonas as noted in The National Post on more than one occasion, that was because he was trying to deliver the whole country to the French, not just one province.
He was also morally corrupt, seeing virtue in mass murderers and autocratic thugs like Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro which heaping disrespect on American presidents and the Queen of Canada, Elizabeth II.
And now, decades later, we in Canada are faced with the possibility of another Trudeau ascending "the throne", as it were.  PET's son Justin, the current leader of the Liberal party, is currently sitting pretty in the polls.  There is no federal election scheduled until next year but if the current numbers hold there is a good possibility of him becoming the next prime minister.
What do we know about Justin?
Well, unlike his father who had an actual long-term career before entering politics Justin really hasn't accomplished anything.  He taught here and there for short periods of time and.... well that's about it.  No prior history of leadership positions.  No real deep experience with national policy making. 
Then there's his beliefs, something he's very happy to share.  He has let us know, for example, that he admires the Chinese government because they can inflict their policy on the population without having to waste time with such annoyances as consulting that population.  He sees tremendous potential for this model when it comes to implementing environmental policies, for example.  Democracy, it would seem, is as much an annoyance for him as it was for his father.  It's silly to rely on the general voting public because they might not make the right decision, ie. the one he wants to make.
He's also very selective on who he thinks a real Canadian is.  He looks to Quebec and its famously permissive and moral simplistic culture and has opined, again publicly, that if the rest of the country develops a more conservative bent then Quebec would be justified in seceding from Canada so these liberal values of theirs aren't affected.  In other words, he's a loyal Canadian only as long as Canada reflects his values.
There was his publicity stunt in which he fired all Liberal senators from his party in order to show his seriousness on Senate reform.  Now, for my American reader(s), it is important to understand that the Canadian Senate is not equivalent to the American one.  It is a house of patronage, a place media celebrities and failed politicians go to retire and suck off the public teat until their turn 75.  It rarely does anything productive and if it disappeared into a giant sinkhole its absence would take weeks to be noticed. 
On the surface, then, Trudeau's stunt was a good one.  We don't like senators, so his party no longer has them.  Unfortunately he made this decision without telling any Liberal senators, some of them good party members since his father was prime minister.  Few of them agreed and they still call themselves Liberals and feel they're part of the party.  A great stunt that changed nothing.
Finally there's his most recent announcement.  Again, for my American reader(s) it's worth noting that Canada has not had any laws regulating abortion since the late 1980's when the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the existing ones.  Any attempt to bring up the discussion of some kind of regulation or at least oversight brings out the usual crew of harpies who scream "You hate women!  You're all fascist arseholes" and the like.  In this regard I'm jealouse of the USA.  The discussion there may be heated but at least there's a discussion.  In Canada no one wants to bring up the subject because they don't want to deal with the histrionics.
And Trudeau is fine with that.  So fine, in fact, that he announced that anyone who is pro-life is persona non-grata within the Liberal party.  Yes, he clarified that he doesn't expect people to change their personal beliefs.  Pro-lifers can still join the party but once they are members they must publicly support abortion just like he, a good Roman Catholic, does.
All this before the man has achieved an ounce of power.  Can you imagine the demagogery he'll unleash once he actually does?

Remembering Who's Really Worst

Mayor Rob Ford has made the news around the world for the last few weeks.  The cicumferentially-challenged chief officer of Toronto has become famous for being caught abusing crack with known felons, then lying about it, then getting caught, then sharing vulgar thoughts on his marital life with the press.  With each passing day the city's embarrassment grows as Ford continues to refuse to step aside and go gently into that good night.  The left, which was outraged by his even winning the election a couple of years ago is now nearly apopleptic at his insistence on remaining in his position.  What's the point of gleeful jubilation if the target refuses to quietly accept his downfall?
But after all the articles have been written and all the pundits have had their say there is something more to consider.  Let's remind ourselves of the former premier of the province of Ontario, one Dalton McGuinty.  During his 10 year tenure McGuinty expanded the size and cost of government to record levels.  During his first term at premier he broke almost every single pledge he made during the election campaign.  He treated the citizens of Ontario the way one might treat a developmentally challenged child by  constantly introducing new safety regulations that gave the impression that Ontarians are clutzy morons that have to be protected by the nanny state lest a sense of personal initiative lead to some form of harm.
Worst of all are the financial scandals he left behind.  Just to name a few: one billion dollars blown at eHealthOntario, the government's initiative to increase electronic medical practice.  Tens of millions of dollars spent with little to no oversight at the provincial air ambulance agency.  Another 1.2 billion dollars to move two gas plants because not moving them might have cost him a couple of ridings in the last election.  When news of that scandal hit the papers he shut down the provincial parliament, then retired and announced that he had nothing to answer for because he was no longer premier.
In short, he was patronizing, incompetent and corrupt.  But who's getting the front page treatment?
Now, I'm not excusing Rob Ford's behaviour.  As a now-former supporter of his I also wish he'd just go away and leave the spotlight to someone lest demonstrably vile.  He's made a mockery of the mayor's office, which is quite an achievement for an office previously inhabited by Mel Lastman.  He's disappointed and disillusioned Ford Nation, his rapid cadre of supporters.  He's a complete letdown.
But when he came to work he worked hard.  His foibles didn't affect his citizens.  He wrestled with costs and always tried to let the beset interests of Toronto guide his agenda.  He might have been a stoned and drunk boor after work but while on duty he was all business.
Dalton McGuinty, on the other hand, probably doesn't have a single personal vice to his name.  He probably drinks in extreme moderation, if at all and is probably a loving father and husband who would rather die than embarrass his loved ones.  And he's also a corrupt politician and a liar with a disdain for democracy.  If Ontario is a financially precarious situation, something that affects almost 10 million people it's definitely his fault but there's no sign he's prepared to take an iota of responsibility.
So who's really the worse person here?

"And Moshe spoke unto the heads of the tribes of the Children of Israel saying: This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded.  When a man voweth a vow unto the Lord or sweareth an oath to bind his soul with a bong, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth." (Bemidbar 30:1-3)

Rashi on this section states that the unusual formulation of speaking to the heads of the tribes was meant to teach us that he was giving a special honour to them by teaching them halachos first and then the rest of our ancestors after.  As well it came to tell us that a single expert in vows can annul a neder just like a plain three-man beis din.  He then specifically excludes the possibility that Moshe Rabeinu, a"h, was only transmitting this section to the princes.
However, I saw written (by a roshei teivos I didn't recognize) that in fact this is exactly what we're supposed to get out of this special formulation.  Not that we should think that the rest of our ancestors weren't told all these rules but that the reason for the emphasis on the heads of the tribes was for a specific purpose.
This is especially relevant considering we are once again into a presidential election campaign south of the border.  As this source notes, when people are running for office they are quite quick to make any and all promises as to what they'll do if you'll vote for them.  Once they actually get into office, however, the promises are quickly tossed aside for various reasons.  Maybe the state's finances aren't what the politician thought they would be, or perhaps circumstances prevent some of the plans, or perhaps the politician is - gasp! - an old fashioned liar.  Perhaps what the Torah is hinting at is that leaders have to be accountable to their flock.  Promises, promises, promises, is simply not an acceptable strategy for achieving and maintaining a leadership position.
One must wonder what kind of shape the Western world would be if politicians running for office were to heed the Torah's advice and only promise those things that are in their power to fulfill.

Welcome to Obamanation

Liberals in the US are in ecstasy now that President Obama and his sidekick Joe Biden have endorsed homosexual marriage.  Long considered the primary goal to be accomplished by the left, they see these announcements, while lacking any meaning in a legal sense, as an important step forward in their campaign to change the definition of marriage for everyone.
What many of them don't realize is that they are being used by Obama and his 2012 campaign team and the outcomes won't be pretty.
Think about it.  So President Obama announces that he has no problem with homosexual marriage.  So what?  Despite what he might prefer, his presidential musings have no legal force.  He does not rule by fiat.  Heck, his sole ability to influence the law making process is through vetoing the hard work of Congress.  He accomplishes nothing practical by stating he thinks marriage can be about Adam and Steve in addition to Adam and Eve.
What's more, he shows disdain for a large portion of the American electorate that still quite passionately opposed the redefinition of marriage.  In multiple state referendums the proposal to legally change the definition of marriage has been defeated time and time again.  Do the outcomes of those referendums mean nothing or does Obama share the view of the typical leftists that democracy only counts when the correct side wins?
If Obama has endorsed homosexual marriage one can be sure that it's not because he cares about it.  The president has, through his actions during his political care, made it quite clear that he cares only about one thing: himself.  If he is making this statement it's because his pollsters and strategists have determined that to do so will increase his election strategy.
Yet on the face of it the move might seem to backfire.  Coming as it does on the heels of a North Carolina referendum rejected accepting gay marriage as legal one wonders if a portion of the electorate that might quietly have no problem with gay civil unions but still care about the definition of marriage will turn and reject him.
This will probably not happen though because Obama's opponent, the man named after winter handwear, will likely stumble into the trap the president has set for him.
Consider that the real issues in the upcoming election are the economy, the imminent bankruptcy of the United States and the need to deal with increasing hostility from the very countries around the world Obama has been sucking up to over the last three years. Legalizing homosexual marriage is a priority issue for only a very small part of the country and if that small part had any clue about the trouble America is in they'd also put it aside for a while.
But on all these issues Team Obama is a losing proposition.  Despite trillions in stimulus unemployment remains high, manufacturing hasn't recovered and the outsourcing trend has not reversed.  Obama cannot campaign on his ability to manufacture bipartisan cooperation in government.  He cannot trumpet his foreign policy which has reduced America's influence and prestige around the world.  He cannot talk about his health care plans which will never see the light of day. He did try the class warfare card a few months ago but that tactic burned out when the Occupy Wall Street protesters went home for the winter.
It would seem then that this is all he has left: declare his approval for gay marriage, wait for Romney or some redneck Republican official to oppose it and then start painting his opponents as hicks, savages and fools.  If the Republican campaign has any discipline then they will see this coming and take a page out of Bill Clinton's book, shouting "It's about the economy, stupid!"  I don't have high hopes they'll be this bright.
And if the tactic doesn't work, expect the next strategy to be "If you don't like Obama, you're a racist!"  After all, if one has nothing positive to campaign about, why not sling the mud?

Religion and Politics

One of the most consistent things about elections and the Jewish community is that the vast majority of observant Jews vote for the right-wing party and the vast majority of non-observant Jews vote for the left-wing party.
For many, there seems to be an invisible connection between religious observance and politics. Strict Orthodox observance pushes one to the right while heterodox or non-observance push one to the left. Some might explain the non-religious leftist trend as being due to the form of religion they do accept, one in which social justice and other politically correct values are treated as authentically Jewish. This means that leftist parties reflect what they believe are ideals consonant with Judaism.
However, that doesn't seem to explain why Orthodox Jews generally vote to the right. Now, not all observant Jews do. There's a piece in Yediot Acharanot today from a self-styled left-wing Orthodox Jew on why there should be no connection between one's religion and one's politics.
I think an analysis of what consitutes left wing and right wing nowadays is in order to understand this phenomenon.
The classical definition of liberalism goes as follows:
Central to the classical liberalism of the nineteenth century is a commitment to the liberty of individual citizens. Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly were core commitments of classical liberalism, as was the underlying conception of the proper role of just government as the protection of the liberties of individual citizens. Also central to classical liberalism was a commitment to a system of free markets as the best way to organize economic life.
Curiously, trying to track down a definition of classic conservatism is far harder. At any rate, perusing the definition above leads to a clear but potentially confusing conclusion - the values mentioned are not associated with liberals today but with conservatives! After all, when one looks at the greatest assaults on freedom of thought, religiou, press and association, the sources all string from what are now defined as left-wing politically correct groups. Somewhere in the last 100 years, liberals and conservatives swapped definitions.
Unfortunately most people didn't get the memo on this. If you assert to someone who today identifies as a "liberal" that he must therefore be in favour of censorship, social engineering and thought control, he would vigorously disagree. If you defined a conservative as someone who advocated a laissez-faire approach to society, you'd be told you were wrong. However, this is precisely where liberals and conservatives find themselves in today's society.
Seen this way, the voting breakdown in the Jewish community now seems to make sense. Consider that most dominant secular views are diametrically opposed to traditional Jewish ones. Pick a topic - abortion, euthanasia, birth control - and one quickly sees a great divide between "them" and "us". For non-religious Jews, the divide isn't there. Having defined being Jewish as being a good "liberal" there is no contradiction in voting for left-wing parties. On the other hand, right wing parties that oppose the leftist positions resonate more with traditional Jews.
So can an Orthodox Jew vote for a left-wing party? For me, that's an entirely separate issue. It is my personal opinion that most left-wing groups, especially when it comes to Israel, represent nearly or openly anti-Semitic positions vis a vis Israel's right to exist within secure and defined borders. If one can find a left wing party that preaches Jewish values regarding social justice like helping the poor but that opposes abortion on demand and supports Israel against its enemies, then one might have a case. But since most left wing parties accept "the total package" it makes no sense for a traditional Jew to support such a group.

Decline of the Obamanation

For some, orators who seek to create a cult of personality around themselves are a godsend. Many people out there are looking for the next secular messiah and latch on to whoever they can. Hence the enduring popularity of the foibles of the rich and stupid, even off the movie and television sets.
Hussein Obama has been no different. Emerging from nowhere, not even having completely a full term as senator he appeared on the national and international state with an incredible self-assuredness. Forget Hillary Clintons famous "Well I can't think of anyone who'd make a better president than me" declaration. Obama knew he was meant to be president and that confidence was infectious to his supporters. How else to explain how a man who may not have been born in the United States, who never worked in a real job in his life, who hung around with discontented radicals and was the congregant of a racist preacher could vault from nowhere to the Oval Office in almost no time at all? "We are the change we seek!" How many people ever stopped to ask "What the hell does that really mean?"
Unfortunately, Spock already noted what will be the ultimate cause of Obama's downfall: Having is not as pleasurable as wanting. Obama was energized when he wanted to be president and now he has to deal with the lack of excitement actually running the country entails. His supporters were excited when he was on the campaign trail but now that they're getting a chance to see what a dud he's turned out to be, other than pitiful syncophants who will defend him even if he orders the army to nuke Israel, they're starting to lose the faith.
Much to the glee/dismay of those still paying attention, his poll numbers have fallen faster than any president except Gerald Ford, and Ford could pin the blame on his pardening of Richard Nixon. Obama, on the other hand, has stumbled back and forth once he realized that just because he's the president doesn't mean he can wave his hand and make people do what he wants. Health care, the stimulus plan that worked like 5 year old Viagra, and his grovelling to the Muslim world while attacking Israel, all these idiocies have combined to bring his popularity ratings to within striking range of {gasp} Bush II's.
Now, the mark of any good demagogue is to notice that one isn't doing so well in the polls and that one's plans aren't foundering and to immediately blame someone, anyone else. Thus repeated statements about how the mess Bush II left him, the repeated accusations that Israel alone is responsible for all that is wrong in the Middle East and the smear tactics against his political opponents despite having campaigned on a platform of changing how politics would work. It's not his fault he's unpopular. If his enemies weren't in the way, he'd have 95% approval (and those 5% are all disgruntled old white folk so they don't count).
Thus his latest idea, beaming his face into every classroom in the U.S. on opening day. Of course it makes sense to him. Convinced beyond argument that he's the most amazing guy in the world, he cannot understand why eveyr school child wouldn't be inspired to see and hear him all at once. For others, it's a little more concerning, a possible prelude to the creation of a low-level cult of personality. As Mark Steyn notes:
The Omnipresent Leader has traditionally been a characteristic feature of Third World basket-case dumps: the conflation of the man and the state is explicit, and ubiquitous. In 2003, motoring around western Iraq a few weeks after the regime's fall, when the schoolhouses were hastily taking down the huge portraits of Saddam that had hung on every classroom wall, I visited an elementary-school principal with a huge stack of suddenly empty picture frames piled up on his desk, and nothing to put in them. The education system's standard first-grade reader featured a couple of kids called Hassan and Amal — a kind of Iraqi Dick and Jane — proudly holding up their portraits of the great man and explaining the benefits of an Iraqi education:
"O come, Hassan," says Amal. "Let us chant for the homeland and use our pens to write, 'Our beloved Saddam.'"
"I come, Amal," says Hassan. "I come in a hurry to chant, 'O, Saddam, our courageous president, we are all soldiers defending the borders for you, carrying weapons and marching to success.'"
Pathetic, right?
On Friday, Aug. 28, the principal of Eagle Bay Elementary School in Farmington, Utah — in the name of "education" — showed her young charges the "Obama Pledge" video released at the time of the inauguration, in which Ashton Kutcher and various other big-time celebrities, two or three of whom you might even recognize, "pledge to be a servant to our president and to all mankind because together we can, together we are, and together we will be the change that we seek."
Altogether now! Let us chant for mankind and use our pens to write, "O beloved Obama, our courageous president, we are all servants defending the hope for you and marching to change."
And, unlike Saddam's Iraq, we don't have the mitigating condition of being a one-man psycho state invented by the British Colonial Office after lunch on a wet afternoon in 1922.
Any self-respecting schoolkid, enjoined by his principal to be a "servant" to the head of state, would reply, "Get lost, creep." And, if they still taught history in American schools, he'd add, "Oh, and by the way, that question was settled in 1776."
To accompany President Obama's classroom speech this week, the White House and America's "educators" drafted some accompanying study materials. Children would be invited to write letters to themselves saying what they could do to "help the president."
My suggestion: "Not tell people what I really think about his lousy health care plan."
Well, after the unwelcome media attention, that exercise was hastily dropped.
For the rest of us, the president does not yet require a written test from grown-ups after his speeches, but it's surely only a matter of time. The New York Times managed to miss my point: Far from "accusing" the president of "trying to create a cult of personality," I spent much of my airtime on Rush's show last week "accusing" the president of doing an amazing job of finishing off his own cult of personality in record time. Obama's given 111 speeches, interviews and press conferences in which he's talked about health care, and the more he opens his mouth the more the American people recoil from his "reforms." Now he's giving a 112th — to a joint session of Congress — and this one, we're assured, will finally do the trick. That brand new Chevy may be rusting and up on bricks by the time he seals the deal but America's Auto Salesman-in-Chief will get you to sign in the end.
The president has made the mistake of believing his own publicity — or, at any rate, his own mainstream media coverage, which is pretty much the same thing. They told him he was the greatest orator since Socrates, but, alas, even Socrates would have difficulty playing six sets a night every Open Mike Night at the Soaring Rhetoric Lounge out on Route 127. Even Ashton Kutcher's charms would wane by the 112th speech.
The disconnect has grown. The more Obama feels the love for himself, the more he turns others off. And the more his poll numbers (inexplicably, as least to him) drop, the more he'll try to win others over, not always with the most upright of strategies.
The one benefit of this is for Israel. Amongst other things, Obama has decided he will be the president who ends the unending conflict in the MiddleEast, even if he has to place all the blame and pressure on the less-guilty side of the conflict. But as things fall apart for him at home he'll have less time and moral authority to meddle abroad. As Bush II discovered after Iraq went sour, if your own people no longer follow you, why should anyone else listen?

Another One Who Doesn't Know When to Retire

No one will ever accuse Edgar Bronfman of being a self-hating Jew. As this article from Ynet notes, he has spent most of his life fighting the good fight on behalf of our people. Despite not having much in the way of an actual Torah or Jewish education, he has felt a strong sense of connection and used his considerable personal resources to better our lot in society.
Yet like many good activists, it seems that in his old age he has decided that it is not time to sit back and bask in the glory his considerable achievements have brought him. Rather, having helpd secure some level of safety and prosperity for world Jewry, he has now turned his attention to attacking Judaism with the same zeal he had previously reserved for attacked its enemies. As the article notes:
The strict approach to conversions advocated by the rabbinic institutions in Israel and abroad infuriates Jewish billionaire Edgar Bronfman, the man who for nearly three decades led the World Jewish Congress. Anyone who declares himself Jewish should be accepted to the Jewish people, he says. Or else the Jewish people would cease to exist.
I have no difficulty with the first sentence in the paragraph. I, along with many others, have been infuriated by the Chareidi leadership's various efforts to delegitimize other Torah obsevant movements and their efforts to validly convert people to our nationality. It is his conclusion which is so bizarre and off base that I cannot help but question his mental status.
Open membership to the Jewish people based on a declaration of adherence? Is he serious? And the Jewish people would cease to exist if this approach, which is rejected by all Jewish movements except so-called secular Judiasm and the left side of the Reformers, is not adopted?
"Judaism belongs to every Jew," Adam Bronfman declares. According to him one does not have to belong to a certain religious denomination, believe in God or attend prayers. "Many of the Israelis who define themselves secular are in effect detached from their people's tradition. In Hillel we enable them to create a connection with their tradition in various ways."
Yes, Judaism belongs to every Jew. Mr. Bronfman is quite correct in that regard. But the right to become Jewish does not therefore belong to any person. It is one thing to reach out to those who are already Jewish and work towards bringing them back to the faith of our fathers. For this I said: kol hakavod. It is quite another thing to say that anyone who has a momentary hankering for gefilte fish can simply announce "I wanna be Jewish!" and join the club.
As Rav Shimshon Rafael Hirsch, zt"l, notes (somewhere) in his commentary on the Chumash, Judaism is not a religion, but rather a nationality. Because of our nearly 2000 years of exile, we have forgotten we are not Canadians, Americans, French, Germans, who happen to be of the Jewish religions. Instead we are Jews who happen to hold citizenship in various countries but who's primary citizenship remains that of Judaism.
The government of Canada demands certain things before it will confer citizenship on an immigrant to the country. Simply showing up at the border and announcing "I wants to be a Canad-jun, eh?" is not acceptable. Does Mr. Bronfman get infuriated about this?
Furthermore, an American who does not vote, doesn't particularly hold capitalism in high regard and doesn't like apple pie is not stripped of his citizenship despite his failure to follow the major values of his country.
Mr. Bronfman seems to be taking the path of other great Jewish political leaders and philanthropists who, after a lifetime of positive achievements, seem to relish in attack their own people and heritage. It's a strange syndrome but one that should be regarded with paternalistic sympathy rather than outrage.

P.S. For my sarcastic take on this article, check out the scholarly Daat Torah blog.

Meet the Meat

From my privileged position up here in the Great White North, I've watched the growing scandal over Agriprocessors in the United States with a mix of outrage and amusement. Outrage over the seemingly never-ending stream of new charges and allegations along with the typical "circle the wagons and condemn the state" attitude of their defenders.
But it's amusing to watch all the blogs talk about how the fall of Agriprocessors is a major crisis for American Jewry since it imperils their supply of kosher beef.
Full disclosure: I have a great supplier of meat and other fine kosher products around the corner from where I live. I eat beef at least two to three times a week and enjoy it immensely each time. So read the following comments with this caveat in mind.
And that is: since when did meat become such an essential staple of life that its threatened absence is reason enough for pushing the panic button?
Seriously, I could understand this level of distress a few decades ago when there were really no good alternatives to kosher beef on the market. In recent years, however, the vegetarian market has expanded to include lots of relatively decent products that, if prepared correctly, can easily replace beef in the diet.
Yet, as FailedMessiah notes in his latest post, the politics of beef in the U.S. are causing major legal issues as well as consternation amongst kosher beef consumers.
People, people, do yourself a favour. Try more chicken (it's healthier) or veggie products. And if you really have a strong hankering for the good stuff, come up to Canada. Our beef supply is fine and at this time of year you don't need a fridge. Just leave the stuff outside overnight. It'll be fine.

Time for a Turnabout

Over the last little while, a video featuring comedienne Sarah Silverman has been circulating through the Web. In it, Silverman encourages young Jews to call their presumable more conservative grandparents and tell them they should vote for Barrack Obama in the presidential election. As Rav Yonasan Rosenblum notes in his recent piece on this:
The website for the intitiative, www.thebigschlep.com, features comedienne Sarah Silverman instructing Jewish youth in Lysistrata-style tactics: Threaten to withhold future visits unless Granny agrees to vote for Obama. Here’s another suggestion: Tell them that if they don’t vote for Obama, “the goodest person we’ve ever had as a presidential choice,” it can only be because they are racists.
Now, Sarah Silverman has never been mistaken for someone who exemplifies traditional jewish values and observances. In fact, the only traditional stereotype it wouldn't be a stretch to identify her with is the self-hating Hollywood Jew who uses his/her ethnic name to legitimize anti-Jewish statements and beliefs. Just like Woody Allen who perpetrated all sorts of anti-Semitic caricatures in his movies and was never held to account for it because, after all, he's just so Jewish, Silverman uses her name and her questionable credentials to present an "authentic" Jewish position on the upcoming vote.
All this is natural considering that the entertainment industry in the United States has succeeded in creating a youth-obsessed culture. Watch any major television show or movie and the stereotypes shine out: young people are vibrant, imaginative and full of ideas. Old people are either demented, dementing, a pain to have around or secretly evil.
It ties perfectly with why Barrack Obama, a man whose sole accomplishment in life is to promote himself, is leading in the polls over John McCain, a man with decades of military and political service at a time when inexperience in leadership will plunge the United States and the world into a terrible recession.
Youth today (which unfortunately means anyone under 35) have no perspective with which to view world events. As Rosenblum saliently notes:
The grandchildren will seek to prove that Obama will is good for Israel, but their identification with Israel bears no relationship to that of their grandparents. For them the Holocaust is the stuff of history books, not a living memory. Ditto the U.N. vote on Israel’s creation. They did not huddle anxiously around TV sets listening to the U.N. debates leading up to the 1967 war, when a second Holocaust seemed all too possible and 10,000 graves were dug in Tel Aviv in anticipation of war casualties. Many have never heard of Entebbe.
Is it then any wonder that these Jewish grandchildren would naturally see their bubbie and zaidie as apple sauce-sucking incompetents who have to be told to vote for?
I have one piece of advice for any bubbie or zaidie who is threaten by their grandchildren that they won't come to visit if that grandparent votes for McCain: Either the grandchildren vote for McCain or they're out of the will. Period.

Offering Voters A Real Choice

Up here in the Great White North we are heading into another general election, something like the tenth in the last eleven years or at least that's what it feels like.
One of the problems with elections in Canada, like many other places in the Western world, is the low voter turnout. Part of it is ignorance - people don't know what the issues are or don't realize how important it is to participate. But for many, the reason is voter apathy. Unlike the United States and United Kingdom, for example, both major parties in this country are essentially identical to one another on the big ticket issues like foreign relations, economics and health care. The only real difference is that the Liberals want to raise government spending to decrease the amount of control we have over our lives by an obscene amount while the Conservatives only want to raise them by a very large amount.
In light of this, I have always thought that there should be an option on our ballots to reflect this foolishness. Many people spoil their ballots as a protest against our lack of real choice in government but that doesn't solve any of the problems. After all, a spoiled ballet doesn't say "I don't think any of you jerks are worth voting for". It merely implies you couldn't figure out that it's an "X" you have to put in the box, not a happy face.
Therefore, I suggest that all ballots should have a new line placed at the bottom under the list of candidates for the riding. This line should be labelled "None of the above".
What's more, "None of the above" should have legal meaning other than just being there to express protest.
Thus, if "None of the above" gets 40% or more of the vote in a riding, then the results would be thrown out and a byelection featuring an entirely different slate of candidates would have to be held, with "None of the above" remaining an option on this new ballot.
And if "None of the above" gets 40% of more of the national vote overall, then an entirely new election would have to be called with entirely new candidates, meaning the former prime minister, his cabinet and all the contenders would have to retire permanently from politics, at least at the federal level.
(And if "None of the above" gets over 50% we get to throw the bums into Hudson's Bay in January!)
Yes, there is a potential for the "None of the above" to bring about a great deal of chaos. The government might be paralyzed for weeks to months. Of course, that runs othe risk of people figuring out that this country would probably run better without them but still... Consider the alternative - political parties would suddenly realize that they now actually have to put forth quality platforms instead of the usual "Here's how I intend to bribe you to vote for me using your money". It would bring about a revolution (probably literally) in the way Canada is governed, and probably for the better.
Anyone in Ottawa listening? Probably not. And that's why we need "None of the above".