RUTHFULLY YOURS

How does despotism come to a modern democracy? Tocqueville thought it was by means of the regulatory state, which “extends its arms over society as a whole.”

[I]t covers its surface with a network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules through which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot clear a way to surpass the crowd; . . . it does not tyrannize, it hinders, compromises, enervates, extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd.

Exactly how would you go about doing this? Ask the acronyms, starting with the NSA and IRS (and let’s not forget the EPA). The NSA hoovers up information about everyone everywhere because you just don’t know who might turn out to be a security threat. (And given our government’s penchant for criminalizing behavior that only yesterday was considered innocent, the category “security threat” just grows and grows and grows.) The IRS, as we continue to learn, is only incidentally in the business of collecting taxes. At bottom it is a weaponized bureaucracy, deployed to intimidate, silence, and punish individuals and enterprises deemed to be at odds with the ruling nomenklatura in Washington.

IRS: that’s “Internal Revenue Service.” I think they may have to change their name soon: maybe “URS,” for “Universal Revenue Service,” for like many bureaucracies, the IRS just grows and grows and grows. A disturbing article [1] by Colleen Graffy in The Wall Street Journal shows how the IRS, emboldened by new legislation, has set its sights, and its intrusive, bureaucratic paws, on foreign domiciled Americans. The legislation is called FATCA (don’t you just love it?), the “Foreign Tax Compliance Act.” It is, as Ms. Graffy points out, a law of “breathtaking scope.” Imagine this scenario:

You were born in California, moved to New York for education or work, fell in love, married and had children. Even though you have faithfully paid taxes in New York and haven’t lived in California for 25 years, suppose California law required that you also file your taxes there because you were born there. Though you may never have held a bank account in California, you must report all of your financial holdings to the State of California. Are you a signatory on your spouse’s account? Then you must declare his bank accounts too. Your children, now adults, have never been west of the Mississippi but they too must file their taxes in both California and New York and report any bank accounts they or their spouses may have because they are considered Californians by virtue of one parent’s birthplace.

Senate Republicans plan to drop a report on Sen. Barbara Boxer’s (D-Calif.) climate change hearing Thursday highlighting flaws in the methodology used by the federal government to assert that the globe is catastrophically warming.

The Environment and Public Works Committee hearing titled “Climate Change: It’s Happening Now” includes two panels of research scientists and witnesses from environmental and industry groups.

The GOP report notes numerous examples of how actual temperatures have failed to meet the predictions put forth by models used by the president and his agencies to push climate-change policies. “The American public should be deeply troubled to learn that EPA is actively working to increase energy prices based on predicted global temperature increases without first undertaking efforts to determine if temperatures are actually increasing to the extent predicted by the climate models they are using,” the report states.

“If the computer models and predictions have been inaccurate, why is our federal government relying on these models to take unilateral action? If global warming has been ‘worse than predicted,’ why won’t the federal government provide the data supporting this claim? As it continues to be recognized that the Earth has not warmed for the past 15 years, will we see the term ‘global warming’ abandoned and replaced in its entirety by ‘climate change?’ Given that many of these models predicted warming trends well before China surpassed the United States as the largest GHG emitter, and given the fact that emissions continue to grow at a pace beyond what was originally incorporated into the models, shouldn’t the warming be far worse than what was predicted in the worst case scenarios rather than well below predictions?”

Mashiach Did Not Arrive — Again b

Mishpacha Magazine
July 19, 2013

I pray that the above headline will supplant “Dewey DefeatsTruman” as the classic illustration of the dangers of prediction. (I’m writing before Tisha B’Av.) But I’m pretty sure it won’t. Not after watching footage of police rescuing a chareidi man who made the mistake of wandering in his IDF uniform into Meah Shearim on the way to visit relatives. He had to barricade himself in a building after being surrounded by an angry mob, and required a phalanx of policemen to get him out.
The phenomenon of chareidi soldiers in uniform, or even out of uniform, being verbally accosted and made to feel otherwise unwanted has spread far beyond Meah Shearim. Wallposters against “chardakim” (chareidim da’at kal) can be seen in chareidi neighborhoods around the country, with religious soldiers in uniform portrayed as missionaries. These attacks by chareidim on one another recall nothing so much as the bitter internecine fighting in Jerusalem that preceded the destruction of the Second Temple.
Rabbi Ben Tzion Kokis once pointed out at a convention of Agudath Israel of America, that then too those attacking their fellow Jews did so in the name of their greater faith. The zealots destroyed the firewood and water that would have permitted Jerusalem to withstand siege for years, in order to force a direct confrontation with the vastly superior Roman forces, and they accused Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai and the chachamim of lacking faith in Hashem’s power.

Karen and Billy Vaughn are the parents of a fallen Navy Seal, Aaron Carson Vaughn. I met with the Vaughns when I spoke to a sold-out Tea Party event in Fort Lauderdale in June. The Vaughns are extraordinary heroes. Their courage to speak about Obama’s crippling rules of engagement is to be applauded.

The Vaughns have exposed the delusional U.S. military “rules of engagement” policy that led to the takedown of a Chinook helicopter, Extortion 17, by the Taliban. All 38 people on board the Chinook — 15 SEAL Team Six members (including Aaron Vaughn) and seven Afghan National Army commandos — were killed. The attack on Extortion 17 came just three months after the Osama bin Laden kill, and both Obama and Biden had identified the team that took OBL out. Retribution was inevitable.

The Vaughns were also one of the families that released the video that revealed the incredible fact that military brass invited a Muslim cleric to their children’s funeral in 2011 — an imam who “damned to hell” our fallen soldiers, in line with Islamic doctrine for infidels. Video here.

Now Billy Vaughn and U.S. Army Major General (ret.) Paul Vallely have teamed up to write a shocking new book: Betrayed: Exposing the High Cost of the War on Terror (coming in August from Hugo House Publishers). It tells the story of how on August 6, 2011, Taliban jihadists ambushed Extortion 17 as it was transporting American forces to an area where Army Rangers were engaged in a firefight.

Power politics is not about the good, the bad and the ugly. It is about hawks, doves, and ostriches. Hawks and doves can be good or bad, depending on the circumstances. Ostriches are always ugly.

Hawks are assertive and even aggressive, while doves are responsive and even submissive, but the ostriches always stick their heads in the sand. Ostriches ignore real conditions on the ground, and they dig in. They wave their tails in the air, hoping they will not get bitten in the rear.

In the Mideast, where the sand is hot, getting one’s head stuck in the sand is not an optimal strategic position, but sometimes it’s a great pose.

High-level poseurs, like European Union (EU) representatives, like group pictures with world leaders. Their book of achievements is never more than a picture portfolio. “We call on all sides to show restraint,” is the caption on the photo of the ostrich at the White House , the EU or the State Department preaching to the rapists and those they raped, telling Iranian protesters not to offend the ayatollahs, urging Egyptians not to insult Muslim Brothers, and bloodied Syrians not to be mean to Uncle Bashar.

If you want to see humans imitating an ostrich look at Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, or EU officials repeatedly ignoring realities in Syria, Libya, Iran, and Egypt and concentrating their attention on that great Middle Eastern mirage known as the “Israeli-Palestinian peace process.”

This week, the EU declared guidelines for its 28 member states banning any funding, cooperation, or awards to Jews in the West Bank and “East Jerusalem.” The EU feels that this helps peace or at least shows it loves peace as much as John Kerry, who has been jetting around the Mideast to advance the “Israeli-Palestinian peace process.”

How many Americans remember learning about the Boston Massacre when they were school children? I wonder, does anyone truly understand why we are required to learn about incidents like this in our school’s curriculum? In the aftermath of the Boston Massacre, John Adams agreed to represent the British soldiers who were forced to defend themselves against an unruly mob. This was not a popular position to take; yet John Adams was not one who would concern himself with such things. He took on the challenge because of his understanding of and respect for the law.

Below, is an excerpt from John Adams’ speech at the Boston Massacre Trial.

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence: nor is the law less stable than the fact; if an assault was made to endanger their lives, the law is clear, they had a right to kill in their own defence; if it was not so severe as to endanger their lives, yet if they were assaulted at all, struck and abused by blows of any sort, by snow-balls, oyster-shells, cinders, clubs, or sticks of any kind; this was a provocation, for which the law reduces the offence of killing, down to manslaughter, in consideration of those passions in our nature, which cannot be eradicated.”

As explained in John Adams and the Massachusetts Constitution ,

Adams contended,

Because the evidence was unclear as to which soldiers had fired, it was better for the jury to acquit all eight defendants than mistakenly to convict one innocent man. “The reason is, because it’s of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished.” He believed that the soldiers had a right to a fair trial.

John Adams won the acquittal of six British soldiers and two defendants received convictions for the lesser charge of manslaughter, for their role in the deaths of five colonists.

EU, the European Union, same folks that brought us Hitler, this week boycotted and sanctioned the Jewish State back to Auschwitz borders. So, ever so humbly, this column needs to be recycled: J.E.

Frankly, given a choice, I prefer the skinheads and other brutes who express their anti-Semitism openly. In such places, we know the enemy.

But please spare me the pieties and the righteous indignation of those “good people” protesting throughout Europe
You called it “peace” as long as the Arabs were doing the killing and the Jews were doing the dying.
against Israel’s defensive operation in Gaza. True, thousands have taken up banners in support of Israel and Jews all over the world are expressing support. At the same time, however, the streets of Europe (and even some in America) are in an uproar. These are the “humanitarians” – the good, the noble, the refined, who chant “peace.”

Now you’re up and about? Now you speak? Where were you when, throughout the years, thousands of jihadist bombs fell on Israel? The streets of Europe were empty. There were no pictures in the newspapers of grieving Jewish mothers and fathers, of frightened old people and children. You called it “peace” as long as the Arabs were doing the killing and the Jews were doing the dying. All was well with the world.

Suddenly, as Israel answers back, you found your Cause; and how self-righteous you are in your Cause.

You are the best and the brightest of Europe. You are educated. You attended the finest schools. You care for the birds, the bees, the bears, the trees. You favor free speech and freedom of religion. Strange it is that the one and only place in the Middle East that shares your world-view is Israel, and it is Israel that you slander.

Israel is a Jewish State. Is that your problem? At the first hint of Jewish self-defense, how quickly you show your true colors.

I’ve seen the photos of your candlelight vigils along the streets and boulevards of Europe, all of it; all these tears in the service of those terrorists whom you call your brothers. Indeed you are related to Hamas (and Fatah) as once before, a mere generation ago, you were related to Hitler’s stormtroopers. Your angelic faces are touching – and disgusting. Your hypocrisy is transparent and nauseating.

You speak of disproportion. You want proportion? Give Israel a population of 300 million residing in 22 countries, similar to the Arab Muslims who surround and ambush Israel – instead of six million Jews in one single country. There’s plenty of “proportion” coming from your BBC, which delights in presenting one side of the story and picks up where Der Sturmer left off. Now, with this type of “news”, we know how Europe was conditioned for a Holocaust.

Already we see Nights of Broken Glass. Thank you, Europe, for reminding us why America was discovered just in time (and why Israel was redeemed many generations too late). You dare judge Israel? In your deportations, your expulsions, your forced conversions, your inquisitions, your pogroms, you have no moral authority over Israel or even within your own borders. You gave all that up from 1492 to 1942.

To those on the Left who sought peace, well, dear peace-lovers, peace brought this on. “Land for Peace” made this happen, as Land for Peace became Land for Jihad. “Painful Concessions” caused this war. “Goodwill Gestures”
You have no moral authority over Israel or even within your own borders.
backfired. Want more “peace”? Give up the Golan Heights. Give up the entire “West Bank”. Give up Jerusalem. Imagine the “peace.”

One aspect of American foreign policy that remains a mystery in London is Washington’s manifest desire for Britain to play a leading part in maintaining and strengthening the EU. Every U.S. President since Eisenhower has taken the view that a British withdrawal from the EU would be a disaster for the West, but none has given a detailed explanation of why. The time has come for Washington to make its position clearer, as Britain will soon hold a referendum on whether to continue its membership in the EU. Current indications suggest that a “No” vote will carry—and by a large margin.

The British public, as opposed to the political and financial establishments, has never been keen on the European experiment. And now that financial opinion has turned against it—a result of consistent attempts by the Brussels bureaucracy to marginalize the City of London through hostile regulations—there’s no force left to push for the country’s remaining in it.

There is also the lamentable and continuing spectacle of European leaders failing to agree upon a response to the global economic downturn, which has been particularly severe in Europe. If the EU was designed for any specific purpose, it was to meet such a crisis and solve it—or, at the least, mitigate it.

The consensus is that the EU leadership’s countless meetings on the issue have actually made matters worse. This is partly because of the characters of those involved. The French president, Francois Hollande, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, don’t get along. Hollande is overwhelmed by his own internal problems, particularly the evidence of corruption and rule-breaking by members of his government. Merkel is disgusted by the way Hollande runs his affairs and can barely hold her temper when they meet. Hollande’s failure has stiffened Merkel’s resolve to stick to her formula of spending cuts and austerity, which, she insists, is the only way to eliminate the EU’s enormous deficits.

Poland is the latest country to ban kosher slaughter on the spurious grounds of humane treatment of animals. Last Friday, the Polish parliament rejected legislation from the Polish government that would have permitted kosher slaughter. New regulations from the European Community requiring animals to be stunned electronically before slaughter made it necessary for national governments to create an exception for religious practice. To its disgrace, Polish legislators refused to do so. This elicited condemnation by Jewish organizations and protests from the Israeli government.

No English-language media–and none of Jewish blogs–reported that the Polish Catholic Church defended the right of Jews to practice kosher slaughter — as did the Dutch Catholic Church when the same issue came up last year in the Netherlands. A friend in Poland sent me the statement of Bishop Mieczyslaw Cislo, President of the Polish Episcopate’ Committee for Dialogue with Judaism, defending the Jewish position: “Ritual slaughter in accordance with centuries-old religious Jewish tradition does not have to be in conflict with the principle of humane treatment of animals. […] In case of conflict between modern sensibility to the rights of animals to be treated with dignity and the right to freedom of religion, you have to opt for the priority right to religious freedom because of its fundamental character.”

The Catholic Church as well as the Polish government are defending Jewish religious freedom. The persecutors of Jewish religious practice are the Polish left-wing parties. Commentary’s blog got that part of the story right:

The two main Polish political parties that opposed the government bill are not, as might reasonably be expected, populated by snarling right-wing skinheads. One of them, the Democratic Left Party, or SLD, was co-founded by Alexander Kwasniewski, who served as Poland’s president from 1995-2005. Throughout his time in office, Kwasniewski was feted by Jewish groups, particularly in the United States, for his strong stand against anti-Semitism; after leaving office, he was one of the backers of the European Council for Tolerance and Reconciliation, an organization that is unlikely to share the SLD’s revulsion for shechita.

Midfield Virtuoso Finds His Perfect Pitch
Never, in two centuries of either classical music or organized sport, had a major player crossed from one to the other and back—until Israeli soccer player Elisha Abas returned to the piano.

Another day has gone by and the island of Cyprus is no closer to reunion. The north was invaded by the Turkish army 39 years ago, driving out 200,000 Greeks and perpetuating an illegal occupation that somehow escapes the world’s attention. Greek Cyprus this year was hit by a second disaster, a Euro bank raid that drained the life savings of ordinary citizens and precipitated economic depression. The Pharos chamber music festival I am here to attend is going ahead only because the artists are playing for free and a Russian bank is paying the rent.

On a forlorn street that hugs the frontline, a former shoe factory has been privately converted into a recital space. Inside, the audience sits in a semi-circle, arena fashion, around and above the performers. The place is packed tonight, with extra chairs dragged in from other venues and more than a hundred ticketless customers turned away at the door. It’s a big night in Nicosia, the debut of a much discussed pianist with a peculiar pedigree.

Elisha Abas, 41, is a descendant of Alexander Scriabin, the mystic Russian composer who believed he was the Messiah and died of a mystery bug in 1915, leaving behind five symphonies and a never-ending drama. Scriabin’s eldest daughter Ariadna moved to France, converted to Judaism, fought for the resistance in an armée Juive against the Nazis and was shot dead in an ambush in 1944; she was Elisha’s maternal great-grandmother. Her brother, Julian, a boy composer, drowned at the age of 11. A cousin, Vyacheslav Scriabin, changed his surname to Molotov and became Stalin’s trusted hatchet-man. Not many musicians have a composer, a war heroine and a mass murderer in their bloodline. In an age obsessed with celebrity, Elisha Abas has enough snaps in his family scrapbooks to keep him perpetually in headlines.

The family history pales, however, beside his personal story. As a child of four, Elisha was told he had a unique talent. Leonard Bernstein embraced him, Isaac Stern invited him to New York, Arthur Rubinstein predicted a glittering future. Elisha’s father, Shlomo, gave up his job in Jerusalem to move the family to Hod Hasharon, close to the exacting teacher Pnina Salzman. For ten years, Shlomo took Elisha to lessons, while developing a second life of his own as Israel’s best-selling children’s writer.