So this is late, by more than a week late. But LIFE is intruding on my life right now, so while this column is late, it is no less sincere or grateful. The reason it’s more than a week late is that #ShukranDruze2020 is a week that is meant to coincide with Parshat Yitro, Exodus 18:1-20:23. Yitro (Jethro) was the father in law of Moshe. The man responsible for the organization of courts and administering justice to the new nation of Israel. Jethro of Midian is considered an ancestor of Druze, who revere him as their spiritual founder and chief prophet.
The Druzites form a religious minority in Israel of more than 100,000, mostly residing in the north of the country. In 2004, there were 102,000 Druze living in the country. In 2010, the population of Israeli Druze citizens grew to over 125,000. At the end of 2018, there were 143,000. Most Israeli Druze identify ethnically as Arabs. Today, thousands of Israeli Druze belong to “Druze Zionist” movements.
The Druze are Arabic speaking, their culture is their own, but they are not considered muslims and have been persecuted (like everyone else) by the muslims. They broke ranks with the mainstream muslim decisions in 1948 and followed their belief that G-d gave the land of Israel to the Jews. Since then they have served along side the Jews in the state of Israel. You can read much more about the Druze here.
In yet another stunning display of failure to carry out apartheid successfully Israeli Druze are members of Israeli society, they vote, they serve in the IDF and much more. According to the web site The Druze Veterans Association
The Druze of Israel are a tiny yet fiercely loyal minority who serve with pride and dignity and have sacrificed 505 of their brethren in the defense of Israel – with over 1,500 wounded. Out of a community of just 120,000 those are huge, unfortunate, and very telling numbers.
In 2014, when Jews were being massacred during their prayers at a synagogue in Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood, it was an off-duty Druze police officer who ran in to stop the terrorist.
When Israel launched Operation Protective Edge in 2014 to curb terrorism from Gaza, a Druze commander led the ground battle.
In 2017, two Israeli police officers were killed while defending tourists on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Both officers were Druze.
Israel’s Presidential Military Liaison is Druze.
The commander responsible for cross-border goodwill with Gaza is Druze.
The Surgeon General of the Israel Defense Forces is Druze.
Many other senior leaders in Israel’s security and judiciary infrastructure, past and present, are Druze.
The first responder at the Har Nof Synagogue massacre was a Druze police officer, and he was attacked. More recently the two police officers murdered on the Temple Mount by pieceful falestinians were Druze. While the leadership of Israel paid condolence calls to their families and mourned their loss, crickets came from the arabs. As Michael Cohen of Druze Vets points out the Druze have a religious belief that they are not allowed to kill, or lie and have a similar ethical code. But if they have to fight, they will go first and they will go hard.
Shukran in Arabic means Todah, or Thank you. So what is this Shukran Druze 2020 about? It was, again sorry this is late, a week of thanking the Druze for all the do for the state and citizens of Israel. They are Arabs living peacefully in Israel, as members of the Israeli society helping keep the citizens of Israel safe. They are proof that Israel has a poor grasp of the concept of apartheid. #ShukranDruze2020 and #ApartheidFailIsrael
My opposition to Red-Flag laws has been steadfast countenancing no exceptions. Until now. Liberal Time Magazine’s Girl, er um “Person”1 of the Year’s trembling quivering rage-filled Greta Thunberg, who should be starring in H. P. Lovecraft inspired movies, could be that one exception. Ghostwriters and Handlers, please, do not allow Greta near sharp objects or anything that goes bang. Perhaps parents should be scheduling counseling sessions rather than enabling Greta’s delusions of imminent human extinction. Scandinavia once gave the world Vikings. What happened?2
From the Great Depression, mass starvation, to man-created global warming, the Left needs crises with which to menace people. Only through scare tactics terrifying the masses can they evoke reaction based on emotion rather than reason. People who have lost their minds seldom make good decisions. Since the Second World War, the Left, either through ideological compatibility or supreme naïveté, has promoted notions the way to deal with adversarial nations (Communist dictatorships) and people is through non-violent appeasement. Leftists are moral relativists rejecting concepts of good and evil. Therefore global and personal conflicts result from misunderstandings not malevolent intentions. Because people have “issues”, not problems, conflicts can be resolved without anyone having to accept blame or facing consequences. All Stalin needed was a couch, a good listener, and a hug. Today, if the puny underweight wretched victim of bullying stands up to his tormentors, school administrators suspend him along with the thugs. Through its evangelists teaching in public schools, the Left has indoctrinated Americans to reject notions of self-reliance and taking responsibility for their own safety. Lockdowns, shelter-in-place, hide under your desk or in your home…Hence, they grow up to despise the Second Amendment. They are aghast at the idea citizens can own guns and decide when and where to use them in self-defense. Appearing on Fox’s Martha MacCallum Show in response to the Fort Worth Texas church shooting, Democrat strategist Doug Schoen argued people are not competent to carry guns for personal defense. This he added, should be left to the police who, coincidentally, were not there.3 The Left hates the Second Amendment for two reasons; first, it exposes their unwillingness to stand up to bullies and criminals whether on American streets or as heads of State. Think, Justin Trudeau. Second, it is an obstacle to the Great Project.
Whether taking the name Liberal, Socialist, Progressive, Central Planner, Democratic-Socialist, and so forth, Statists are determined to dismantle the Second Amendment either through abolition or redefining it out of existence. Until accomplished, it remains the single greatest impediment to The Project begun by 19th century American Progressives and European Socialists. Its central imperative is to bend the will of the individual completely to the volition of the State to plan, control, and regulate every aspect of human existence. And, the Left is the State. Because altering the Constitution has proven un-doable, the Left has chosen to redefine the Second Amendment as they did the Commerce, General Welfare, Necessary and Proper, and Supremacy clauses until they mean the opposite of their intent. For example they claim owning firearms is dependent upon membership in a federal (Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines) or State (“National” sic Guard) standing army. This claim could not be more wrong.4
Proponents and enemies of the Bill of Rights have debated the Founders’ meaning of “militia” ad nauseam. Rehashing it here would seem superfluous. That is, if its enemies were not using mass media, popular culture, and public dis-education to peddle lies conjoined with an American public too intellectually lazy to read and think for itself. As a recovering public school teacher, I can attest to the pervasiveness of this mental lassitude.
Mises Institute’s Ryan McMaken writes that the Founders’ idea of a militia was not one comprised of “unorganized amateurs”, called up by local authorities, to address insurrection or invasion. Instead, it was to consist of men between a certain age range, proficient in arms, possessing some degree of training in military discipline and tactics, a system of choosing officers, subject to call up by State or local authorities, and under civilian control.5 McMaken’s conclusion is problematic. In the 1740s, the French, perennially at war with England, established a large fort at Louisbourg near Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. From there the French threatened New England with invasion and provided safe haven for pirates and “cruisers” who raided its fishing villages and naval commerce. Finding the British unwilling to act, in 1744 New England raised an army of unorganized amateurs including commoners, farmers, merchants, fishermen, and so forth. With little or no experience, these New England boys executed a successful amphibious landing under difficult conditions, besieged the fort for three months, and forced the French to surrender.6 During the French and Indian War, the British could not have defeated the French without the assistance of colonial militia troops, amateur soldiers who fought as local units under American command.7
On 1 October 1768, in a lead up to what became the War of Independence, Britain dispatched 700 troops led by General Thomas Gage from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Boston. His orders were to suppress resistance to British commerce, trading, and tax laws.8 A month later (8 November 1768), King George III declared Bostonians to be in rebellion against English law and government. British political and military leaders drew up plans to subdue the insurrection.9 They employed their standard method of subjugation; round up, jail, and execute the rebellion’s leaders and door-to-door searches for arms and munitions in private hands. Colonials often stored gunpowder in storehouses outside of town due to its volatility. In order to prevent the Red Coats from seizing it, locals formed militias to guard them. In Virginia, Patrick Henry led the Hanover Independent Militia Company comprised of armed locals independent of the Governor’s control. They comprised the nucleus of resistance against British forces. Other colonies replicated this strategy.10
In 1774, British soldiers marched from Boston into the countryside to seize colonial supplies of gunpowder and weapons in Charlestown, Cambridge, Medford, and Salem. Forty thousand militiamen met the British, called “Bloody Lobsterbacks”, by locals, at Charlestown. These amateurs drove them back to Boston without firing a shot.11 British confiscation of private arms led to the “shot heard round the world”, the British march on Concord and Lexington, Massachusetts, to seize arms.12 Among the militiamen awaiting the British attack were farmers, craftsmen, mechanics, gentlemen, laborers, slaves, dairy farmers, and veterans of the French Indian War. Americans gave as good as they got forcing the British back to Boston.13
McMaken contends, “Gun Rights advocates fixate” on the latter part of the Second Amendment, “The people having a right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” as the rationale for private ownership of arms separate from militia membership. He asserts the Second Amendment’s purpose was to guarantee that States “would be free to raise and train their own militias as a defense against federal power and as a means of keeping defensive military force available to Americans while remaining outside the direct control of the federal government”.14 He is correct state militias are supposed to be outside federal control but his assertion the militia is the primary focus of the Second Amendment is incorrect. The Second Amendment clearly contains two independent parts that framers could have fashioned into separate amendments. In fairness to McMaken, his purpose was to demonstrate State Militias are to be independent of federal control and that the so-called “National” (sic) Guard is a standing army and a gross violation of the Constitution.
Drafters wrote definitions of a militia into State Declarations of Rights and later into the federal and State Constitutions from 1791 on. They typically refer to “the mass of ordinary citizens, trained to arms” who would be available for call-up by State or local authorities, and to which was often appended an age range for those subject to service. Founding Fathers from Patrick Henry, George Mason, John Adams to Thomas Jefferson made clear the purpose of the Second Amendment was “that every man” be armed.15 Was this not so that the people would be equipped for militia service if needed? True but only in part. The Founders clearly saw that as an auxiliary advantage. However, the stress was that all men possess the right to keep and bear arms and government in no way have the power to infringe on this right or disarm the people. During debates over ratification of the proposed Constitution (1788) at the Virginia Convention, Patrick Henry declared, “The great object is that every man be armed…Everyone who is able may have a gun”. Zachariah Johnson added, “The new Constitution could never result in religious or other oppression because ‘the people are not to be disarmed of their weapons”. Not militias, people. At the Massachusetts’ ratifying convention, Samuel Adams stated, “That the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience, or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms”.16 Again, these rights, freedom of speech, religion, and arms belong to individuals, not states or any other form of organized political entity including militias.
Many States, including Arkansas, Colorado, Missouri, and others specifically state people have an individual right to keep and bear arms and it is not tied to membership in a militia, military, or any form of security force.17 The Founders knew Americans opposed standing peacetime armies (as we have today) and that States were reluctant to cede any of their sovereignty to this new untried federal system of government. They also knew government, like an irresistible force of nature, attracts to it men of ambition, those craving power, and men with no moral scruples. Therefore, they added the militia phrase. States would retain the means to resist federal usurpations of their power and infringement against the liberties of people. Under the proposed Constitution, the federal government, facing a national emergency such as invasion or insurrection, could request the states call up their militias. Governors would send them to federal authorities who in turn would arm, equip, and organize them into a standing army. The States would retain the right to choose officers commanding their militia units. Once the crisis was resolved, militiamen would return to their respective states and mustered out of service. Constitution or not, efforts to “federalize” (actually, “nationalize”) State militias placing them under presidential control began almost at once just as so-called Anti-Federalists had warned.18 The individual right to possess arms was always a separate issue.
English philosopher John Locke’s Treatises On Government were widely read (1689) in the colonies. He argued man had a “natural” (G-D given) right to life, liberty, and property. Inherent in each is the right to the means of defending it.19 Under the supervision of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.20 Drawing on many widely held philosophical and theological roots; Jefferson wrote that all rights are individual and a gift from G-D. Among them are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (property, wages, and the fruits of one’s labor). Rights imputed by Divinity are inherent in the nature of each individual’s humanity. People are born already possessing these rights. A right to life presupposes a right to the means of defending it.21
The Second Amendment employs the words “right” and “shall not be infringed demonstrating it refers to “a right that is already assumed to exist” (which comports with the Declaration). It does not say, “The people shall have a right to keep and bear arms.” The amendment recognizes but does not grant the right” [emphasis in the original].22 Requirements to join the military, a militia, or engage in a government specified activity in order exercise a right would negate that right. Any regulation, red tape, or hoops one must jump through before accessing a right is a gross infringement and, again, negates it as a right. Governments can in no way qualify a right. No vote by a majority of one’s neighbors to limit a right in any way is legitimate. In addition, people cannot through constitutions or laws, “agree to an infringement on their rights”.23 This is because of the inherency of rights. Only Divinity can alter or abolish rights divinely created. So why does the Second Amendment continue to confound people?
George Mason’s proposed draft of the amendment read, “That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state”.24 Madison’s version read, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well-regulated militia being the best security to a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person”.25 Madison, like Mason and other Founders, wanted it understood that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right separate from membership in any form of militia. For example, those objecting to military service on religious grounds, still possessed the right to keep and bear arms. This would not be true had the right been dependent on being in a militia. Madison’s intent “is clear not only from his wording, but also from his notes for his speech proposing the amendment”. He states it pertains to an individual right which his “colleagues clearly understood the proposal to be protective of individual rights”. Massachusetts delegate Fisher Ames wrote that among other rights, that of bearing arms “to be inherent in the people”. Writing under the name “A Pennsylvanian” in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, Madison’s friend Tench Coxe argued that the delegates wrote the Second Amendment to “guarantee the right of the people to have ‘their private arms’ to prevent tyranny and to overpower an abusive standing army or select militia”. Madison read Coxe’s articles and agreed, the amendment pertained to an individual right.26
So much, did the Founders write about the Second Amendment; its meaning is beyond question. These documents and writings are available to anyone. On what basis can opponents of an individual right interpretation justify their position? Simple. The truth is unimportant. Only the Great Project matters. All narratives, including history, must be made to fit and support it. Like a starfish turning a clamshell over searching for a vulnerability by which to penetrate its defenses, so too do enemies of the Bill of Rights search for weaknesses. They find it in contemporary American’s unfamiliarity with grammatical construction.
It is important to keep in mind, of the Bill of Rights none refers to “States having rights”. Each refers to a right of the people. These are individual rights. To argue the Second Amendment applies only to members of a military organization turns it into a State not individual right. We have clearly seen that was not the Founder’s intention. If the Founders had intended military or militia membership dependency in order to own or possess arms, “Why would they say, ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”? Madison and those who shaped the amendment’s wording “chose to put the militia reference into a dependent phrase” choosing “the weakest possible construction by using the participle (word formed from a verb) ‘being’ instead of writing say, ‘Since a well regulated militia is necessary…” The militia wording’s weak form demonstrates its framers listed it as a right of states. “The main independent clause” of the amendment reads, “The people’s right to have guns ‘shall not be infringed”.27
An independent clause is a stand-alone sentence dependent on nothing. The militia part of the Second Amendment forms a dependent phrase. It cannot stand alone by itself containing a subject, verb, and complete thought. Therefore, it is secondary in importance to the main independent clause. The words; “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state” would mean what by itself? The words; “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” would mean what without the first part of the amendment? People have a right to keep and bear arms. By reversing this order, the amendment’s drafters made emphatic that the independent clause was its most important part. “The Founders correctly intuited that in a bill of rights (list), the last thing the reader should have ringing in his mind’s ear is the absolute prohibition on infringement of the natural right to own guns”.28
If the Bill of Right’s enemies read America’s founding documents and writings, they know the truth. None of that matters. What does matter to them is total disarmament of American citizens. The Great Project cannot culminate until that happens. Toward that goal, the end always justifies the means.
11 Unlike men and women since the dawn of time, those on the Left are stymied when it comes to determining their sex, of which, there are but the two aforementioned options.
22 As with the Marjory Stoned Man Douglass high school “useful idiots,” Emma Gonzalez, Cameron Kasky, David Hogg, et al, the Left cowardly uses kids as stooge props, their youth supposedly giving them and their terribly immature and uninformed rantings an unassailable immunity against critique. Isn’t this what Muslim terrorists do, hide behind children?
33 Martha MacCallum Show, FOX News, 31 December 2019.
44 Sheldon Richman, “Reading the Second Amendment”, The Freeman 2 (February 1998), 112.
66 Marvin Olasky, Fighting For Liberty And Virtue: Political and Cultural Wars in Eighteenth Century America (Wheaton, Illinois, Crossway Books, A Division of Good News Publishers, 1995), 93.
1616 Stephen Halbrook, That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right (Albuquerque, New Mexico, University of New Mexico Press, 1984), 73-75.
1818 Edwin Meese III, Matthew Spalding, and David Forte, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, (Washington, D.C., Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2005), 139-143.
2020 Clarence B. Carson, A Basic History of the United States, Volume I: The Colonial Experience 1607-1774 (Wadley, Alabama, American Textbook Committee, 1987), 182-183.
2121 Forrest McDonald, Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution (Lawrence, Kansas, University Press of Kansas, 1985), ix, 60-63. See also, Gary T. Amos, Defending the Declaration (Brentwood, Tennessee, Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Publishers, Inc., 1989), 35-74, 117-118.
2222 Sheldon Richman, “Properly Interpreting the 2nd Amendment” Human Events (June 16, 1995), 16.
“Antisemitism” as Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “Is the most ancient disease”.
Anyone familiar with Jewish history, perhaps with almost all of it, knows that irrational attacks targeted against Jews are just that, irrational. The word anti-Semite itself is a misnomer, having been invented in 1879 by the German agitator Wilhelm Marr. It was to designate the anti-Jewish campaigns under way in central Europe at that time.
Ultimately, all acts of maliciousness, including bullying or targeting any group or nation as a whole, originate from problems within the person or group-think doing the attacking. No rational thinker would ever assume that an entire group or nationality is intrinsically evil. Therefore, it is obviously an issue in the person or gang who is attacking.
As Jews, among the possible responses we have, there are these ten:
There is the common one, not to take it personal.
Fear. Anyone with any life experience realizes there can be, unfortunately a reaction of fear. As the word terrorism implies, it is there to frighten. Sadly, for those who succumb to the fear, the tactic must be deemed a “success.”
I personally took a pledge to never fear terrorism, for the consequence of fear is acquiescence.
This explains the timid fool, who instead of standing with the oppressed, takes the side of the oppressor! This is often seen in J Street insanity, in some sort of odd version of the Stockholm syndrome. To paraphrase Churchill, “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”
Need we mention that the Jews of Germany were more “German” than the Germans! (In fact Reform, which mimicked the church (placing in in the temple an organ etc.) started in Germany and initially took out all references to Israel feeling their allegiance was to the Fatherland. And as Einstein commented, seeing both Reform in America and Germany, that people respect those who have self-respect, not inferiority complexes.))
Compassion for mental instability. Friends of mine, a couple who came to our synagogue, related an incident to me. They were getting into an elevator in Colorado, and a man began hurling anti-Semitic slurs at them. The husband, with his Yarmulkah and beard, looks Jewish. I asked the wife, “How did it make you feel?” She said, “Well, I could see the person was obviously unwell, so I felt sorry for him.”
Don’t Imbibe Negativity. Never believe negativity. Even, perhaps especially, if it is about you. Perhaps most importantly, the essence of anti-Semitism is jealousy. We all have innate jealousy, our primary jealousy is when we become miserable (either malcontent, frustrated or anxious thereby affecting our self-image.) This causes (as Rabbi Sholom Dovber of Lubavitch, explains in a lengthy discourse, Heichaltzu) a subconscious jealousy/hate, which consciously manifests as logical rationalizations, justifying malicious demeaning. This is the subconscious cause of antisemitism, terrorism, bullying, in fact all radical hate. Their “cause/excuses” are masking a violent jealous hate.
Content people never use demeaning violence or language. One of the wisest of Jews on the subject of anti-Semitism, no less a personage than Albert Einstein, loosely quoted from his book “Out Of My Later Years”
“The Germans hated not the Jews, for they are a race; for Jews come from all races; rather the Germans who stood for power / brute barbarism (a predilection of those who have lost the pleasure of love and compassion) tried to extinguish those who stand for – as all Jews do – social justice – goodness and kindness.”
One of the primary stresses in America today – in fact psychologists say, the primary stress – is the American discord.
Two weeks before the 2016 election, I got so sick of the media circus, I went on what has been my most addictive diet – no news!
Michael Medved who is a syndicated radio show host, former movie critic, as well as a Yale graduate and returnee to Jewish practice, says, polls show that though people (in general) think that theirlife is good, they nevertheless think life is bad.
At a conference, sponsored by Chabad.org and the New York Public Library (a 24 hour marathon of positive speeches) Medved said, he believed the perception of a negative world, comes from the media.
Truth be told, I believed him not.
But a mere two weeks after I went on my “no media diet…” my entire mood shifted. The few friends of mine who have tried this have come to similar conclusions. Instead of seeing negative, instead of feeling miserable, one sees all the beauty, the wonderful country, the wonderful kind people… statistics show as never before, we live in the best of times! According to Gallup data, Americans are the second kindest nation.
Imbibe Positivity. On a practical note, I had the privilege of translating “Kesser Shem Tov,” the collected wisdom and teachings of one of the greatest Jewish Masters, Rabbi Yisroel Baal Shem Tov. As I went through the wisdom that forever changed Jewish inspiration into positivity, love, & joy, I realized, that the very core of his teachings (a very deep Kabbalistic concept) is that though naturally, we imagine that the world outside of us causes the world inside of us, it is actually the positive emotions we hold, that paints the world. Amazingly this is the great revelation of quantum physics, namely that the emotions we hold, affect the physical atomic “reactions.”
We create positive emotions by:
A. Expressing our gratitude to G-d for all the good He graciously bestows (particularly, every morning, for the first thought of the day sets the tone for the day) – in fact the very word Jew comes from the word to be grateful!
B. Our choice to unconditionally love and never fear.
C. Our confidence that Moshiach will soon redeem us all!
We see this prophecy clearly manifesting, with the return of Israel and millions of Jews to our homeland, and in general, how much more receptive the world is today, than ever before, to Jews, Judaism, human rights etc. Though the media may make one think we are always on the brink, studies show that we are actually progressively becoming less violent and more peaceful.
World Wide Battle Deathes
In America according to Pew, unbelievably the most respected religion is Judaism, and there is a 70% support for Israel. This figure is replicated remarkably in India, and in many other countries.
Beat Stress. Another very important and life transforming teaching of the Holy Baal Shem Tov is, “When you see the good in the bad, the bad will become good.”
When our inner world is filled with positivity, this will change the outer – so please, in response to the heinous unwarranted hate, increase exponentially in, (even “unwarranted”) grateful love, and faith. What if how you feel changes the world?!
There was a study done in Washington D.C. in which thousands of volunteers meditated for an afternoon – and based on 3,000 – previous studies it was predicted that it would drop the murder rate by 25%! which occurred.
Arm. It is also very important to not have a “battered wife” syndrome. Every single Jew should learn a form of defense such as Krav Maga, the Israeli Defense Force “judo”. As an example, a Arab terrorist came into a Jewish woman’s home in Israel and using Krav Maga, she caused him to flee. Where permissible carry Pepper Spray or a weapon. G-d-forbid to have to, but, as the same G-d who says “Do not murder” teaches, we must kill to prevent others from being killed. It says, “Do not stand by idly, when your brothers’ blood (including your own) is being spilled.” If the punks that are harassing innocent women and children get harmed (or when necessary, killed) the violence quickly, perhaps not totally, but in the vast majority of cases, ends.
Since safety is the primary goal, Jewish communities should consider organizing and implementing a Shmira patrol group. Many of the recent spate of crimes were crimes of opportunity and a Shmira group would serve to reduce those. Additionally a new system designed by Israeli security specialists, “Gabriel”, are for communities to install. This will give law enforcement immediate visual info. It would also make sense (I have written to Zaka…) – to create an app whereby anyone needing “help” could ideally just say that, and it would connect to trained volunteers, as well as local law enforcement. If you are willing to sponsor please be in touch – go to “Contact,” on my website, LacademyofLife.org
Educate. Most importantly, we Jews are called to be “A light onto the nations.” We do this as the Rebbe teaches by being Jewish. We demonstrate, that man is not an animal – we are subservient to a higher code. In fact, G-d specifically chose, from all of humanity Abraham. As G-d says: “For I have known Him, because He instructs his sons and his household after him, that they should keep the way of the Lord to perform righteousness and justice;” In other words, specifically because we are a light onto the nations we were chosen. By nature, without law order and subservience to G-d, as all of human history shows, man devolves into a “man eat man” chaos. This was the primary reality before the flood, and then the light of Judaism civilized. As we call it, the Judeo-Cristian ethic. And hence, particularly now more than ever before, it is our obligation to share the Seven Noahide principles; which are the only way to ensure that the world is based on a bedrock of civility – the world needs you! Share AskNoah.org
Study Torah/Chitas. This Shabbos as I was studying, a hunch I had was confirmed. The Rebbe quotes from Zohar (page 164A)
“The protection of the Beis Hamikdosh (G-d’s Holy Temple) was done personally by G-d, as it is written “If G-d protects not the city, the watchman is useless;”
The Holy Letters (of Torah) Their Protection Is Like The Protection of The Beis Hamkidosh, through G-d Himself!
Wherever, a Tzaddik goes, G-d protects Him continually, as it states, “G-d protects both my going and coming.”
The Rebbe Explains: This is connected to the studying of Torah, meaning, through studying Torah, we are protected in the same manner as, “G-d protects both my going and coming,” just as a Mezuzah!
In other words – and something I personally have discovered, and I know others who do likewise find similarly, every single morning it is critical to study, or at least read the Daily Chitas. This is available in many apps, magazines such as Dvar Malchus, Chayeinu, or through Chabad.org.
Chitas was instituted by the Previous Rebbe, and it is, to read/study the daily Chumash, the Daily Tehhilim (as it divided into the monthly cycle) and the Daily Tanya.
Many times I wrote to the Lubavitcher Rebbe requesting help and the reply almost invariably was to study Chitas – to be honest I couldn’t see any connection.
However once my, perhaps laziness or whatever… wore off, and I started doing Chitas, my problems dissipated.
The most accurate way to explain this is to imagine if you are on a ship. Now you can either face stormy weather in which all your energies are spent simply surviving or you can have a beautiful ocean, and your little bit of effort results in a smooth meaningful sail.
The letters of Torah (particularly of Chitas) are ultimately Divine names which as Kabbalah teaches, through which the entire universe is sustained. To put it bluntly, the Holy Zohar teaches, that “The Ten Sayings through which G-d created the world (in Breishis/Genesis – the continual flow of Divinity, creating reality) depends on the Jewish people studying the Ten Commandments.”
In other words, as we even just say these holy words, we produce (like flipping the switch) the Divine positive energy! Please, for your and everyone’s sake, start; – give it a week, and see if you can feel how your life is smoother, indicating, like the Mezuzah, a daily protection.
10. Vote Right. Though I am loath to enter into the political arena, it would be foolhardy to ignore. You know a man told me in our Synagogue, that his grandfather was one of nine Jews in the Reichstag (German Parliament) who, are you ready for this? Who elected Hitler! : (
So it seems, that we Jews, particularly coming from love, have a very hard time understanding hate.
The truth of how people become antisemitic when as mentioned, the vast majority, particularly Cristian, particularly Evangelical, Americans have a positive view, is directly linked to the legitimizing of anti-Israel / anti-Semitic rhetoric. Some are unaware or ignore the consequences of the “pro-Palestinian” lobby, an army of millions of Muslims (with incredible overseas funding) who are behind the anti-Semitism, in Europe and, as we tragically see, on American campuses. The most egregious legitimizer was former President Obama. As for something to become mainstream, the “higher” its “authority,” the deeper it penetrates. Many amazingly still cannot recognize how his policies such as giving Hamas tens of millions of dollars each time they maliciously rained rockets on innocent Jews in Israel, supporting the radicals in Libya (still in chaos…) the radicals in Egypt (which their army had to overthrow…) radicals in Syria (causing over half a million deaths and millions of “refugees, which) were a deliberate tactic of ISIS to spread Islam. Jihad according to Islam is also through overrunning (as Islam historically has done) populations. Historically Jihad is responsible for at (the very least) 270,000,000 murders (the most violent ideology in history, as unlike all faiths that see everyone as potential converts (or in Judaism as potential Jews or Noahides) Islam classifies people into either Good Muslim (which as we see itself is in civil war since the year 700 (that’s over 1,300 years!) or bad Jew, Cristian, (which in a benevolent Islam, may live as a dhimmi (subjugated humiliated second class citizen with zero power) or as Infidel / idolater that must be killed (according to recent accounts, when Islam invade India in the medieval period, it caused the largest wholesale massacre in human history 400,000,000.) Furthermore not only did President Obama try to facilitate the ability of Iran to destroy Israel (and the west – as his bizarre nuclear deal which allows them to have the technology to know how to make a bomb and in 2025 make them! (for in fact, unbeknown – as most people don’t understand Islam – Obama never made a deal, he made a “hunda” (an Islamic term of a max. ten year “peace agreement” in which the Muslim country rearms to attack) giving your hard earned money to fund the murderous Iranian Quds international terrorist destabilizing group, operating in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and more clandestinely, practically everywhere. You didn’t know 50% of the money Iran received from U.S. was given to them?
According to the Pew Research Center, Obama’s radical ideology has become the opinion of 17% of Americans, representing 45% of the Democratic party. What is so disturbing, is that they are the most active, vocal and fanatic Democrats. Their ideology being an offshoot of a radical believes that the “end justifies the means.” Instead of the ideal of democracy and unity, namely the “consent of the governed”, radicals (as expressed by angry – hence evil) people, ignores protocol, law, order, justice, respect, & civility, in its desire (as we saw with Hitler in Germany) to implement its autocratic ideologies.
As Dr. Kulic, a preeminent psychiatrist told me, the desire to control others stems from a sadism.
Now far be it from me to accuse tens of millions of people (17% of our country) of all being malicious, however as disturbing as Hitler with his sadistic anti-social murderous desire was, because emotions and ideas, as mentioned descend from leaders to followers, it were the nazis – otherwise normal people – who actually fulfilled happily this intent.
Of-course, as we see clearly with Brexit, as well as perhaps with the almost majority that elected Trump, people resist totalitarianism.
It is impossible to ignore that the Democratic party has followed the ideology of radicalism, and as it relates to Jews, its benchmark, is seen in the support or denial of Israel. Those who deny Jews the freedom to live in their homeland, in peace and security, as Martin Luther King said, and is obvious to those whose heads are above the ground, are plain old anti-Semites.
Anti-Semitism as mentioned in the top of this article is a fake word – you see, as people become more “sophisticated”… it didn’t appear seemly, to single out a religious group. Hence newfangled cockamamie theories, such as Jews being hated for “racial reasons” or being hated as “they oppress the Palestinians,” were concocted. If this truly was the cause, people would be clamoring for equal rights of Palestinians, in the many Arab countries in which they live!
By way of example, Palestinians living in Lebanon are denied the right to own property, nor do they qualify for health care, and are banned by law from working in a large number of jobs, 75 professions!
Rami Khouri, a prominent Lebanese journalist, wrote in The Daily Star, that
“All Arab countries mistreat millions of Arab, Asian and African foreign guest workers, who often are treated little better than chattel or indentured laborers…The mistreatment, abysmal living conditions and limited work, social security and property rights of the Palestinians [in Arab Countries] are a lingering moral black mark.”
Unless, as one Arab writes in the Gates One Institute, the issue is anti-Israel, the inhumane treatment of Arabs by Arabs is of no concern.
This proves that those who are pro-Palestinian are simply using, as those who believed in the blood-libel, a convenient libel for their murderous intent.
Need we mention, that the African slave trade which inhumanly, ignobly and reprehensibly continues to this very day, was and is, perpetrated by Arab Muslims. There are an estimated 10,000,000 black slaves who died (though often those who hunted and kidnapped were blacks, supported by Arab traders) en-route or during raids from Africa.
In simple words, anyone who aligns themselves with “pro-Palestinian” is nothing less than a neo-Nazi or a naive timid appeaser. As is well known, the Palestinians, were offered numerous times a country; It is not their own country they seek, it is the lack of a Jewish country.
This is why the mere idea of a Jewish country caused murderous riots by Arabs through the middle-east (eventually causing 700,000 Jews to have to flee homelands (which they had dwelt in for often 2,500 years.)
The real reason for the Arab hate – as clarified to me by a former Arab terrorist who converted to Christianity and wrote the book “A Mind Of Terror” (in which he analyzed the Arab pathological hate) stems actually back from (amazingly as the Medrash – ancient Jewish teaching writes) the fact that, as the Bible tells us, Yishmoel, the ancestor of the Arabs, was both expelled from the house, as well as Israel; he went to live in Arabia (notice Arabia /Arab.) Though it may seem hard for one to imagine, that there is a four thousand year old grudge (and certainly I wish not to perpetuate negative emotions – for I wish on no-one shame) but this – as we see in countless societies the shame, say in the Balkans, Ireland (and the desire for vengeance) is centuries upon centuries, and reinforced generationally. In Judaism, as we attribute our loss to our sins, we see it not as shame, but something to rectify.
Those who think they can turn a blind eye to their brothers and sisters – hoping, as we mentioned, by ingratiating themselves to haters and neo-nazis…. are seeing, that antisemitism, like a disease – once going more mainstream, can become viral.
Bonus: Understand It’s Evil.
The ultimate goal of evil – as pretty much the goal of every force, is self-propagation – it does this, as we saw in the Holocaust, as we see in terrorism, and as we see in bullying, and antisemitic bullying; by shaming, which can include violence, but in a unpredictable manner… for if the innocent:
A. Believe they are guilty.
B. Become afraid; Then not only will they give power to the bully, but they will emulate it out of fear.
As the Talmud states “Mercy towards evil, is to cause, not only evil to the merciful – but to become evil!” For as one’s motivation is fear, which is self-protection, this then creates a subconscious desire… “If you can’t beat em’ join em’.” Of course as most protective subconscious desires, it is erroneous (for those who hate based on their irrational jealousy, won’t somehow start loving.)
To a large extent Obama, a product of radical ideologies from his childhood mentor, black radical Frank Marshall Davis, who was a known communist, who belonged to a party subservient to the Soviet Union… Many are unaware that the Soviet Union spent the majority of its budget on subversion, or as they call it “Disinformation.” The tactic of disinformation, as the most authoritative book on it, written by General Ion Mihai Pacepa, is to cause an internal collapse. Pacepa is the highest ranking Soviet General to defect and was head of the Secret Service of Romania where his career spanned 1951–78. In the art of war, Sun Tzu style – they have succeeded in their three highest propaganda goals. Remember this style of propaganda, is not by Soviets, rather by getting, or more accurately supporting disenfranchised radicals, who by entering into the consciousness of the society, will cause its collapse. 1. Pro-Palestinian, as Ion Mihai Pacepa says, the entire notion there ever was a “Palestinian state” was a Soviet idea, one in which he personally trained Arafat. Remember the Arabs fought three wars before they ever claimed there was such an Arab, called a Palestinian – Mahmoud Abbas got a “degree” from a Moscow “University,” and the list is endless. 2. Pro gay and lesbian. 3. Anti-American. It is amazing, that these three clarion calls, are the absolute hallmarks of “liberalism”.
Additionally, Obama chose to listen to twenty years of radical anti-American vitriol, as a member of Reverend Jeremy Wright’s Church. As Stanley Kurtz writes: You don’t join a church when there are literally of at least a million others, unless it is the message you desire. As Kurtz writes in 2008 (so this was a prediction, and as they say hindsight is 20/20, published on CBS) “Far from purging its radical Left, however, the Democratic party is now just inches away from placing it in the driver’s seat. That is the real meaning of the fiasco at (Reverend Wright’s) Trinity Church.”
In conclusion: There is no nation that has crisscrossed civilization – lived with, been persecuted by… – those who hate the Jews, as no less a psychological personage, than Dr. Freud who replied when asked as to the psychological reason for anti-Semitism, “Miserable bastards;” It is in the nature of misery to – from jealousy –to seek to make others miserable through random acts of violence.
If four thousand years have taught us anything, the solution is never in contorting oneself to the whims of deluded maniacs, rather By Proudly Carrying The Torch of G-d, of Judaism, of Love, Hope, Giving, Kindness and Belief – The Moshiach Who Is Practically Here, Will Come!
I hear it quite often, “I’m not antisemitic, I’m anti-Zionist, I’m anti-Israel. Well, let’s just call that what it is, shall we? Horse-schiff. It is antisemitic.
There is one tiny Jewish nation, there are around 50 muslim countries not counting Germanistan, Francistan and Englandistan. No one seems to have a problem with this. Certainly the UN doesn’t. They should. When the UN replaced the League of Nations it agreed to take on all the League of Nations mandates and agreements. See, they were liars even back then. From Barry Shaw’s The View from Israel
The Europeans take no account of the fact that, prior to 1948, the so-called West Bank was Israel in territory that included Judea & Samaria, the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea down to Eilat.
They take no account that this was prescribed by the League of Nations (the forerunners of the United Nations) in 1922 in which they affirmed the 1920 decision of the Supreme Court of the League of Nations that “recognized the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.”
We need to question the European drift from the requirement to “secure the cooperation of all Jews who are willing to assist in the establishment of the Jewish national home” to a policy that is blatantly anti-Semitic.
….
As for “Illegal occupation,” it is not illegal for a nation to defend itself. Nor is it illegal for such a nation to hold onto territory seized in a defensive war against a congenital aggressor as Israel was against Jordan, both in 1948 and in 1967, when it twice invaded Israel in order to annihilate the Jewish state and to banish its Jewish population.
Evidence of this is seen in Jordan’s brutal occupation of Jerusalem in which they destroyed all the ancient synagogues and physically expelled all the remaining Jews, those they hadn’t killed, from the Old City of Jerusalem. That was when Jordan occupied Judea & Samaria and the Jordan Valley, which became known as The West Bank (of Jordan) between 1948 and 1967.
Nobody cried about “illegally occupying Palestinian land” during that period. The Europeans had nothing to say about calling on the Jordanians to withdraw from occupied Israeli land. They were silent when Jordan joined with other Arab armies to “drive the Jews into the sea,” from their vantage positions on the high ground overlooking the narrow coastal plain of what was left of Israel since their initial conquest of Israeli territory.
The Europeans silently expected the annihilation of the Jewish State. They did nothing. They watched and waited. Many were disappointed by the miraculous victory of a determined people’s army against the British trained and equipped Jordanian army who were driven back across the Jordan River as Israeli soldiers liberated Jerusalem and drove the Syrians off the Golan Heights.
They did nothing, they watched and they waited. Yep, just like the Holocaust. Why does this matter? In case you’re unaware, in December the Temple Mount, Beit HaMikdash is set to be renamed by the UN. In a final betray by barak hussein obama (may his name be erased) in UN resolution 2334 barry tried to erase Jews living in Judea and Samaria, they were an obstacle to peace. The peace of the UN and barak hussein obama will only be achieved when the Jews living in Israel, all of Israel are dead and gone. There is a good interview with Barry on the Tamar Yonah Show.
The UN gave its preliminary approval to a resolution that referred to the Temple Mount solely by its Muslim name of Haram al-Sharif.
The resolution passed at the UN’s Fourth Committee in New York 154-8, with 14 abstentions and 17 absences. It was one of eight pro-Palestinian resolutions approved on Friday, out of a slate of more than 15 such texts the committee is expected to approve. The UN General Assembly will take a final vote on the texts in December.
According to Barry Shaw this is not so much muslim countries pushing this, it’s western democracies. Not antisemitic? Horse-schiff, it is. While the Jordanian Wafkos control the Temple Mount, located in Israel, they limit access Jews and Christians have to go to pray there. In fact, Jews and Christians aren’t allowed to pray there. Only muslims, at their mollusk. Once a mollusk is planted, to muslims that area is now under muslim control. Thanks so much Moshe Dayan.
That makes Israel’s decision to allow muslims to re-open the Sidna Omar mollusk in the Jewish quarter baffling and heinous. The Sidna Omar mollusk is located along the main road to the Kotel (The Western wall which is not the holiest site in Judaism). But I’m sure unlike the muslims that control the Temple Mount, these muslims will not interfere with Jews and Christians on their way there. Horse-schiff.
Some Jews just don’t seem to realize that the alligator may eat them last, but it will eat them.
I don’t know if it’s an effort to prove they are “fair” towards the arabs or they are “woke”, but either way lunacy seems to weigh heavily on some of their statements and actions. Some may just be indoctrination. It is moral equivalence. Some I think is influenced by rejection of G-d, Torah and lust for power.
Bernie Sanders who campaigns with known anti-semite Linda Sarsour by this side? He is more communist that Jew I think. Communism is his religion.
Sanders curried favor by suggesting that Israel did not respect human rights, snapping, “I would use the leverage of $3.8 billion. It is a lot of money, and we cannot give it carte blanche to the Israeli government, or for that matter to any government at all. We have a right to demand respect for human rights and democracy.” He threatened, “My solution is, to Israel, if you want military aid you’re going to have to fundamentally change your relationship to the people of Gaza. I would say that some of the $3.8 billion should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza.”
Horse-schiff, he knows how that money will be used.
Now the students at Oberlin may just be indoctrinated, stupid or just being “woke”. But either way this is antisemitic horse-schiff.
Oberlin ignorance
I can tell them a bit of the bio of the people killed in the attack.
Notable Jewish groups such as J street, Jewish Voices for Peace (who aren’t) and If Not Now routinely attack President Trump, arguably the most pro-Jewish, pro-Israel President ever as being an antisemite. This too is horse-schiff. I also didn’t mention what those groups are notable for.
Any attacks against Jews are blamed on the President by the press, and they yammer on and on about it, despite the fact it’s not true. It’s #FakeNews horse-schiff.
Why do I say that? Because in the attack in Jersey City the media has portrayed it as shootout that started and just “happened to wind up at the Kosher Deli”. Horse-schiff.
Authorities are still investigating and have not indicated a motive for the attack. Before the mayor’s tweets today, investigators had said the store was chosen at random and was not indicative of a hate crime.
“Why did they say that when it is clearly untrue?” a community activity asked, speaking on condition of anonymity. “And why were there rumors of a drug bust gone bad and a homicide investigation when that was clearly not the case?”
But Mayor Steve Fulop said surveillance video of the attackers made it clear they targeted the kosher market, and he pronounced the bloodshed a hate crime against Jews, as did New York’s mayor and governor.
So, it’s not so much about dead Jews because the media is glossing over the deli was the target. And it can’t be about President Trump and his white supremacists because as it turns out the killers were black and part of a group called Black Hebrew Israelites.
Also, investigators believe the two dead attackers — who were thought to be a couple — identified themselves in the past as Black Hebrew Israelites, a movement whose members have been known to rail against whites and Jews, according to a law enforcement official who was briefed on the matter but was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
A pipe bomb seems to have been found in the rented van driven by the Buckets O’Chum.
Grewal said that within seconds of pulling up to the market, Anderson got out with a rifle and immediately began shooting, and Graham followed him into the store. He would not say whether Graham had a weapon.
A pipe bomb was found in the van, FBI agent Gregory Ehrie said.
Jersey City’s mayor said it was clear that the killers deliberately made their way toward the kosher market, passing many other possible targets along the way, and calmly and promptly opened fire.
I’m adding this video posted by Dov Hikind in because it is just so beyond belief. I heard about it from Ben Shapiro, and he said no media outlets are covering it. You need to see it. You really do.
“If they got shot dead, that was great”.
SHOCKING VIDEO: As Jewish bodies were still laying in cold blood after being murdered by terrorists in Jersey City, a rep of @AmericansAA captured spontaneous antisemitic tirades blaming Jews for their own murder & ppl cheering it on!
Liberal media’s bouffant coxcomb chattering class bemoans the fact most women elected to Congress are Democrats thereby suggesting Republicans are the party of sexist misogynists as claimed by bitter harridan Hillary Clinton. It is true most women in Congress are Democrats1 but what the princes of pompous pontification ignore is Republican women often lose to Democrat males in general elections. It’s not Republicans voting against them. Genitalia plays no part in my voting. I’d climb over a pile of limp celery stick Republican males like Kit Bond, John McCain, Jeff Flake, John Kasich, Mitt Romney, and Pot-Peddler John Boehner any day to vote for a Phyllis Schlafly.2 Female Republican candidates are likely to be conservative, a serious enough offense, but worse, some commit the unpardonable sin according to Leftist Holy Writ; they are Christians. Against this horrific threat, the Democrat Party Machine swings into action deploying its myrmidons; Hollywood’s Big Donors, spokesboob actors and actresses, radical environmentalists (Crypto-Marxists), feminists (Crypto-Marxists), radicalized college youth (Crypto-Marxists), liberal media, and union and race voters. Blacks and Hispanics in large urban areas typically vote against one of their own if she is a Republican. And who are the misogynists?
Liberals have accused conservative males debating liberal females of “picking on thegirl” if they “come on too strong”. Just ask Rick Lazio who lost to Hillary Clinton in their New York Senate race (2000).3 Conservative males now face an additional quandary. Do they “go easy” on liberal males in political debates? After all, with liberals, you never know when ‘he’ might come out a ‘she’. Lest anyone consider this an attack against Democrats on behalf of Republicans, read on.
Conservative radio talk show host Joe Pags recently interviewed Texas Republican Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick (23 September, 2019) about the latter’s support for universal background checks. Patrick proclaimed fidelity to the Second Amendment with a ‘but’…an affirmation followed by an equivocation is a negation…as was the case. Sure enough, Patrick argued in favor of total, 100%, universal background checks (UBC’s). His rationale was, since 90% of guns purchased already involve a background check, what’s the harm in extending it to the remaining 10%? In support of his proposal, Patrick claimed the people now avoiding background checks, presumably his 10%, do so because they cannot legally buy firearms. He said UBC’s would end this practice.4
Next Patrick asserted “gun-merchants” are getting rich selling firearms to persons who cannot legally buy them charging $4000 dollars for a $2000 dollar gun. Because of their ineligible status, “customers” have no choice but to pay huge markups. Patrick said UBC’s would shut these gun merchants down. In addition, he declared UBC’s would also stop and end public mass shootings because they would prevent the mentally ill from buying guns. Patrick believes suspects in recent mass shootings were legally able to buy guns even though health officials had adjudicated them to be mentally unfit. When Joe Pags (Pagliarulo) observed Second Amendment “hard-liners” might object to Patrick’s proposal, the Lieutenant Governor said the Second Amendment guarantees people the right to “bear” not “sell” their guns.5 Wow. Where to start? Trying to follow Patrick’s “logic” is like untangling twine after an explosion in a string factory.
If an unknown number of people are not subject to background checks, how does Patrick know what percentage are, let alone 90%? What is 90% of an unknown number? Is this the “new math?” He didn’t say. Private transfers between family members, friends, and acquaintances are not subject to background checks and hence not recorded. Again, how can Patrick quantify an unknown quantity? This is an important question because he grounds support for UBC’s on the claim since so many people are already subject to background checks, no one would notice if extended to the rest. Sort of like being covered with poison ivy and getting one more bump. Even if Patrick’s numbers are correct, when has the “everyone else is doing it” ever been a compelling argument? Would it be valid to argue, because government has suppressed 90% of American’s First Amendment rights, what is the harm in surrendering the rest? At the risk of being crass, would a rescuer tell the victim of a shark attack; “Well, he got most of your leg so, you might as well let him have the rest”? Imagine its pre-W.W. II Berlin. Jacob hears a harsh banging on his door. He opens it to find goons standing there dressed in black uniforms trimmed in ominous silver runes.
“Your guns, give them to us now!” barks one of the goons.
“But why, gun ownership is legal” responds Jacob.
“Ninety percent of the other Jews have handed theirs over. What could be the harm if you do too?” says the goon.
If the people surrender any portion of a right to the government, will government ever cede it back? Would not any rationale for the government to seize a portion of a right also be equally compelling with respect to it taking the rest? Ten percent of a bad idea is still a bad idea let alone ninety percent.
I wish Pags had asked Patrick how UBC’s would force ineligible persons to submit to background checks. If a person is ineligible, they are ineligible. Most criminals obtain firearms through the black and secondary markets. This includes theft and straw purchases wherein eligible individuals buy firearms on behalf of those who are not. Who are Patrick’s “gun-merchants”? If he knows, why doesn’t he alert the Texas Department of Public Safety? Those willing to break the law selling contraband, be it untaxed cigarettes, bootleg music CDs, drugs, guns, and so forth, have and always will regardless of prohibitions and legal sanctions. Experience, history, and the facts contradict Patrick’s arguments. How could the number two man in the Texas Republican Party make such an ill-conceived and dangerous argument?
Contrary to what Patrick believes, the law already prohibits individuals from buying or possessing firearms if the Courts and or mental health officials have determined them to be mentally “defective”. In addition, the law requires officials to report such adjudications to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). Anyone purchasing a firearm through an FFL is required to fill out form 4473. This an affidavit swearing they do not fit in any prohibited class listed on the form (felons, domestic abusers, illegal aliens, drug users, mentally unfit, etc.). Lying on this form is a felony. The FFL then calls the FBI’s NICS who determine if the customer is eligible to purchase the firearm. How does Texas’ Lieutenant Governor not know this? If individuals, barred by law from buying firearms, resort to the black market already operating outside the law, how would they be stopped by universal background checks?
I like Joe Pags but have to ask; what is a Second Amendment “hardliner?” Are they people who believe in an individual right to keep and bear arms, that the Second Amendment means what it says, and that one cannot compromise rights endowed by G-d? ? I’m a homicide hardliner. I reject exceptions to laws prohibiting anyone from illegally taking my life. Am I extreme? Liberals use “hardliner” to cast opponents as unreasonable in order to soften up the rest of gun owners to accept compromises. With all gun laws, each compromise leads to a diminution of rights.
According to Patrick, although the Second Amendment guarantees a right to keep and bear arms, those arms are not your private property. If one does not have the right to sell his or her property, then someone else does. Who is that? Government? If the latter, your arms must belong to them. The Declaration states people have a right to life and it is a gift from G-D, not one created by man or his laws. Inherent in this right is also a right to the means to protect it. The Fourth and Fifth Amendments recognizes the individual’s absolute right to own private property and dispose of it as they see fit. Firearms are private property. Crypto-Confiscationists argue, however, because firearms possess an intrinsic potential for lethality, exceptions to Second Amendment and property rights are valid. Baseball bats, knives, ice picks, meat cleavers, hammers, hatchets, axes, arrows, staves, and so forth also possess intrinsic lethal potential. This is no facetious comparison. The FBI reports that murderers kill more people with knives, hammers, clubs, and feet each year than rifles. In 2018, 297 people were killed with rifles, 1,515 were killed by murderers using a knife, 443 were murdered by killers using hammers, clubs, and blunt objects, and 672 were killed with “fists, feet and other ‘personal weapons”.6 The law can impose harsh consequences for irresponsible behavior but government cannot abridge an individual’s 4th, 5th, and 14th Amendment rights based on potential lethality of property owned. More importantly, American government, constituted as “federal”, cannot pass “national” laws.7
James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” writing in Federalist #39 noted a national government has authority over the “individual citizens” along with “an indefinite supremacy over all persons and things.” Under this system, “supremacy is completely vested in the national legislature” that has total control over city, county, and state governments as well as all commercial and other activities within the states. However, the United States has a “federal” not a “national” government. Its jurisdiction extends only to powers delegated to it, and enumerated, by the states.8 In Federalist #45, Madison wrote; “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects such as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which the last, the power of taxation, will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concerns the lives, liberties, and properties of the people”9 [emphasis mine]. Oops, the “federal” government has no Constitutional authority to establish any form of “national” background check law in the first place! It is sad those calling themselves Republicans and conservatives know so little about the Constitution.10
Lieutenant Governor Patrick predicates his failure-doomed proposal on two false notions near and dear to liberals; 1) the mere existence of firearms “causes” violent crime and 2) Individuals engaging in “hate” or “hate-speech” are dangerous to others, mentally ill, and the ones who commit public mass shootings. In the first case, the solution is simple; eliminate firearms thus ending violent crime, so they say. In the second, “red-flag” and stop mentally unstable persons from possessing arms or have police seize those they possess.
First, there is no correlation between the degree of access to firearms and the degree of evil in a person’s heart. Intent to inflict pain, great bodily injury, and murder germinate from within the individual not from proximity to implements of harm. In addition, access to firearms, including by teenagers under 18, was relatively unregulated before the 1960s. People could purchase firearms through the mail. “Federal” (sic) background checks did not exist, yet public mass shootings, were rare. Each decade of the twentieth century, until the 1970s, “had fewer than 10 mass public shootings with one in the 1950s. The rise began in the 1960s with six, followed by 13 in the 1970s. This upsurge spiked in the 1980s with 32 public mass shootings jumping to an unimaginable 42 in the 1990s even though access to firearms was increasingly regulated and controlled by the government following the Gun Control Act of 1968.10 What changed?
It began in 1947 with Everson versus Board of Education (330, 1, 18, 1947) in which the Supreme Court illegally amended the Constitution inventing the doctrine of “separation of church and state”. Through the Court’s tortured interpretation, it granted Liberal Humanism the means to drive G-d, its greatest foe, from the public square.
In the 1960s, moral relativism, the notion that all values are “relative”, that there is no good and evil or right and wrong, or moral absolutes became the dominant philosophy in America. Books like, I’m Okay, You’re Okay and The Pathology of Normalcy became wildly popular along with the philosophy of “do your own thing”. Simon and Garfunkel’s prophets wrote, “G-d is Dead” on subway walls. The humanist left, the equivalent of cultural acid, declared concepts of right and wrong to be judgements and those holding to them to be judgmental. If notions of morality are relative, “who are you to impose your values on me” became the battle cry of those destroying Judeo-Christian based Western Society. In order to force cultural and moral relativism on everyone, liberal humanists worked through “modern” left teachers and the Courts to drive G-d and Judeo-Christian based values from schools. For decades, Public Dis-Education has taught notions of morality and even truth are merely social constructs. How then could the consequences surprise anyone? Religion’s decline in the role of people’s lives, disintegration of the family, loss of respect for law and order and spike in violent crime, massive drug use, wild promiscuity, murdering unborn babies, normalizing sexual perversion, school and public mass shootings, and a rise in suicides. And all this would be solved by more background checks?
Patrick’s claim that all public mass killers were/are known to have been mentally unstable and dangerous is problematic. Most recent mass killers, with exceptions, did not exhibit a “specific profile” that would have identified them as potential murderers. An FBI Study (2013) revealed only 25% of mass murderers had previously been diagnosed with a serious mental illness. However, many of the others had displayed behavior considered hostile and anti-social.11 Laws designed to prevent violent crime before it happens by nature must be anticipatory. They rely on “red-flags” triggering a response from the courts and police. Who and on what basis determines what constitutes a red flag resulting in the police seizing a person’s arms? Therein lies the rub. Short of actions requiring incarceration in the Puzzle Factory, what constitutes behavior triggering these responses? According to the “Left”, hate speech should be a “Red-Flag” because it is de facto “proof” of mental instability and potential for violence. But what is hate speech? The Left defines it as anyone holding to Biblical morality, opposition to the invasion of the US by illegal aliens, belief in limited government, and a demand government follow the original intent of the Constitution. In short, opposition to any part of the left’s agenda.
Criminals and the mentally unstable are already prohibited from buying and possessing firearms. Universal background checks will do nothing to stop the ineligible from obtaining them. Nor will they stop criminals from buying guns on the black market. UBCs serve two purposes. First, a misguided attempt to buy off Confiscationists through compromise. Second, when UBC’s fail in their intended goal, Liberals will argue it’s because gun laws didn’t go far enough and what is needed is total gun registration. This too will fail and again the Left will say it’s because “We didn’t go far enough”. Guess what they’ll call for next. Support no sell-outs regardless of political party.
22 Phyllis Schlafly was a giant in the conservative movement. She led the battle against “me-too” males in the Republican Party, fought the radical feminist and homosexual movement, and worked to expose leftwing bias in schools. The Left, in conjunction were their useful idiots in the liberal media, pop-culture, and public diss-education,have done all in their power to flush her down Orwell’s Memory Hole.
77 Teaching Government for years, I never encountered a student who knew the difference between a federal and national government or why it even mattered. Using primary sources, I addressed this ignorance for which I was summarily punished by Administration and colleagues in the SocialIST Studies Department.
88 Clinton Rossiter, Editor, The Federalist Papers (New York, N.Y., A Mentor Book from the New American Library, 1961), 244-245.
1010 I explained the difference and significance between a “national” and “federal” government to self-avowed conservatives for years. All listened, few cared. To one in particular stocking up on supplies because Constitutional abandonment will lead to collapse, I supplied primary source and scholarly articles. He refused to read them and called me, and those like me, “deranged a**holes.”
Yours, theirs, doesn’t matter. Progressives are all in for the ideology of control. Be it whether or not you can have a 32 ounce soda pop or an AR-15. And yes, Mikey Bloomberg financier of the astro-turf Everytown for gun safety, is gearing up to run for President. It’s about control because without control they don’t have the power they are striving for.
Soda Bans
They are trying so desperately to peddle the bill of goods known as “It’s for the children”. But it really isn’t you see.
All those “Red Flag” or Preemptive prove your innocence or extreme risk orders of protection? No matter what you choose to call it by, it stinks. It is gun confiscation without due process from someone who has done nothing. In most cases they are engaging in mind reading. Or in some cases, just vindictive behavior.
In the case of the Bucket O’Chum school terrorist at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, he had given a wealth of signs, but due to a policy put in place during obama’s term there had been no consequences for his previous criminal behavior. The same with Trayvon Martin. Recently there was a juvenile in Baker County in Fl. who had made threats against his classmates and teachers. He had a plan all written out. He showed it to another student who told authorities. He was taken into custody by authorities before he could carry out any of his heinous plan. But I found this interesting.
“MAKE SURE THE TEACHERS ARE DEAD,” he ranted in a notebook. “Then rinse repeat.”….
The boy’s plan described killing teachers and fellow students in chilling detail. To maximize the carnage, he’d deploy an arsenal of knives and guns at a pep rally or some other high-traffic venue. He calculated he’d have nine minutes before squad cars and medics could reach the scene. He wouldn’t be acting alone, he hoped, having recruited at least three schoolmates who, like him, were “100% down that they might die that day.”
They try to hoodwink us, telling us there is no time to spare to ensure someone’s rights are upheld, Baker act won’t do. Must have confiscation without due process, without facing your accuser in court.
So about those nine minutes.
At the recent attack at Saugus High School, the Bucket O’Chum began firing and his pistol jammed. Although according to the Daily Mail he used a .45 caliber semi-automatic rifle, which he removed from his backpack. Heck of a backpack. But they are British, and MSM, so #FakeNews. What do they know about firearms? But it was a regular semi-automatic pistol. And it jammed. He cleared the jam and safely continued on firing secure in the knowledge he had plenty of time. He counted his shots saving the last one for himself. Help was only moments away,
Three off-duty police officers, who had just dropped off relatives at the school, were the first responders on the scene: a detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and police officers from Inglewood and Los Angeles.They were joined within a minute by uniformed deputies on duty from the sheriff’s station in Santa Clarita, as well as a sheriff’s deputy who works at the school as the school resource officer.
But the help was needed within seconds.
This being Kalifornia, I wonder if the off-duty police officers will be reprimanded for carrying their weapons into the school? The school resource officer was one of the last to arrive. I’m not criticizing him. He is one man, he can’t be everywhere. He’s not like Scott Peterson, the “Coward of Broward” who stood by outside the building, or former Sheriff Steve Israel who supported him. He was just the last to arrive. When seconds count the police are only moments away. If it saves just one child, right Mad Mommies? Right harridans of The View? Well, yeah, as long as it doesn’t involve anyone but the bad guy having the gun. How much quicker could the response have been had there been an armed teacher near by?
Laurens County, Georgia doesn’t intend to ever have to look back and wonder. They have began arming and training their teachers. They intend to do everything, politically correct or not, to protect the children from harm. I like the sign outside the school.
Outside every school building in the county is a yellow sign that reads, in part: “Warning. Staff members are armed and trained. Any attempt to harm children will be met with deadly force.”
Seem straightforward to me.
Like the shooting in a Duncan Oklahoma Walmart parking lot recently. The first two victims died, then a good guy with a gun put a stop to further carnage. But, there was a good guy, a regular citizen there, with his gun. Or as the Daily Mail would call it, his semi-automatic rifle.
But to progressives, it’s not really about protecting children, if it saves just one life is a bunch of schiff. What is the message taught at schools? Violence is always wrong, if there is a fight and you defend yourself, you get in trouble (and suspended) same as the person who started it. Don’t fight back, just tell a teacher. Since Jews are being attacked all over the world now, some just for wearing a Kippah and the charges are often ignored, or even dropped. This is not working out well. I recently heard an interview with Schmuel Hacohen “Super Jew”, on the Tamar Yonah show. He relates a story about his father decking a man when he was young. His dad was a scientist, but he still knew how to fight. Afterwards when young Schmuel was bubbling over about it, he father told him he was not proud of what he did. “Violence is not a good thing, it is not always a bad thing, sometimes it is a necessary thing.” We now have generations of children who only use violence to bully and intimidate, those that would stand up for themselves against it are vilified. And just in case someone would be inclined to fight back, or step in, they must have you disarmed and deprived of your most effective defense weapons. Only criminals are allowed to have those.
The episode of the Tamar Yonah show that followed was an interview with Eitan Fischberger, Israel Campus Coordinator for CAMERA on Campus and Aviva Rosenschein, CAMERA’s International Campus Director. They told of what it’s like on college campuses for Jewish students and those that would stand up for Israel against the lies being told, and against the bullying. Sometimes by their professors. They address the false information being put out by Jewish Voices for Peace, Peace Now, the BDS BS movement, J-Street, If Not Now and others. Far too many Jews have become disconnected an apathetic about Israel. There is one Jewish Nation, if you allow it to be destroyed, where are you planning on going as antisemitism increases? France? England? Have at it.
But some young Jews are defying the herd. And doing it brilliantly. The fact that he needs to write under a pseudonym is too bad. But I understand why he feels he must. The lad is a student of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, HY’’D. Rabbi Meir’s father was close friends with Zev Jabotinsky. My Shimshon’s middle name is Zev. Many many of Rabbi Meir’s predictions have sadly come to pass. He believed Jews should be living in Israel, and that Jews should be able and willing to defend themselves. The writer laments that Betar is no longer around. I do as well. I’m an American Jewish teen and believe we need to teach self defense. It’s a good column.
My one and only (so far) multimedia column for The Zelman Partisans is a reading of a letter by Rabbi Meir Kahane, Dear World
Progressives see the same events we do, but they are determined to double down on their policies of leaving the innocent helpless and at the mercy of someone else showing up to help them. It doesn’t matter if it is there children, your children or parents, or you. No one must be allowed to defend them. They continually attempt to force law-abiding gun owners who have committed no crime to pay the consequences of people who have already committed several. It gets in the way of their ideology, and they love that way more than anything or anyone else. Why are they willing to sacrifice innocent souls on the alter of their ideology? Power.
Today, November 11th was Veteran’s Day. The day brave men and women who have served our country in the military are honored. I’m personally not sure enough can ever be done to honor them. I have only the highest respect for those that chose to put their personal lives on hold to protect us, and our country. They chose to go to other countries to fight evil, and to fight for those that could not fight for themselves.
November 9th and 10th is the anniversary of Kristallnacht, or the night of broken glass. We have some articles on the event if you might care to read them. There are more than just these two.
And it was brave men and women, sometimes really boys and girls that went and fought the Germans, Austrians, Poles, and any others that decided this was an opportune time to rid their fair cities of the Jewish presence.
I think the fact that the two days fall so close together, for me at least, doubles the sense of wonder and gratitude.
I was thinking about the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier the other day. Probably something I had read, maybe the weather, I don’t know. But I was thinking about the guard’s dedication to duty. The requirements to be a guard are quite stringent.
For a person to apply for guard duty at the tomb, he must be between 5′ 10″ and 6′ 2″ tall and his waist size cannot exceed 30″.
Other requirements of the Guard:
They must commit 2 years of life to guard the tomb, live in a barracks under the tomb, and cannot drink any alcohol on or off duty FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES. They cannot swear in public FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES and cannot disgrace the uniform {fighting} or the tomb in any way.
After TWO YEARS, the guard is given a wreath pin that is worn on their lapel signifying they served as guard of the tomb. There are only 400 presently worn. The guard must obey these rules for the rest of their lives or give up the wreath pin.
The shoes are specially made with very thick soles to keep the heat and cold from their feet. There are metal heel plates that extend to the top of the shoe in order to make the loud click as they come to a halt. There are no wrinkles, folds or lint on the uniform. Guards dress for duty in front of a full-length mirror.
The first SIX MONTHS of duty a guard cannot talk to anyone, nor watch TV. All off duty time is spent studying the 175 notable people laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. A guard must memorize who they are and where they are interred. Among the notables are: President Taft, Joe E. Lewis {the boxer} and Medal of Honor winner Audie Murphy, {the most decorated soldier of WWII} of Hollywood fame. Every guard spends FIVE HOURS A DAY getting his uniforms ready for guard duty.
Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year the guards suit up, show up and do their duty. They have studied for this, trained for this and committed to this. And that’s how they were chosen for this post. Most that apply do not make the selection. These soldiers were willing to make the commitment, and do the work, even in a hurricane.
Part of the conditions that allowed Anti-Semitism to rise to such a level as to produce a holocaust was the complaint that the Jews were “chosen”. Chosen for what? Chosen to receive the Torah, to spread the knowledge of G-d in this world. Of his love, of his instructions of how to live a life pleasing to the creator of this world. To share knowledge of the mitzvot, commandments. Holy little bread crumbs if you will, a way of helping people find their way back to G-d, or to find G-d.
But according to the Midrash, Israel was not the 1st nation that G-d offered the Torah. They were however, the one that accepted it. Now, if you would like a rather humorous story about how this went down, I can help you out. And it is worth reading, it’s funny. I’ll give you the first paragraph of The Bargain and the Jew
The story you are about to read is true. Some names have been changed to protect the guilty. Some names have been omitted to protect us from the grumpy. The story first started thousands of years ago, when the world was young…
These days it seems the Holocaust is so far behind us, and that such an event could never happen again. But that could be wrong. I listened to a talk show today, and the host Howie Silbiger pointed out that the late Rabbi Meir Kahane predicted almost 30 years ago that there would be another holocaust. In North America. Rabbi Kahane was assassinated 5 November 1990, in the first Al-Qaeda attack on American soil. The bucket of chum assassin got off killing Rabbi Kahane on a technicality. The FBI harvested buckets of information from his apartment. Which apparently they ignored and that allowed the bucket of chum to roam freely about and participate in the first bombing of the World Trade Center. The second Al-Qaeda attack on American soil. Many things I agree with Rabbi Kahane, he is the one who founded the Jewish Defense League, and wanted to change the image of the Jews from weak to strong fearless fighters.
The JDL also focused on the plight of Soviet Jewry, and coined the phrases “Never again,” and “every Jew a .22” to emphasize that Jews would no longer passively ignore the plight of their foreign brethren.
Howie pointed out in this episode that crimes against Jews in NY have risen dramatically. Violent crimes, Jews are punched, pinned against cars and physically assaulted. For which the perpetrators are charged with, “harassment”. Seriously. The culture has changed enough as well. When Netflix has a show called “The Roast of Ann Frank” in which hitler roasts the teenage Jewish girl that was one of the victims of the holocaust is disgusting and despicable. I think that Howie, and Rabbi Kahane could be right. Far too many Jews push for disarmament, too many cities are easy pickings with their progressive policies of only allowing criminals to have guns. And people keep voting for these politicians. Sigh.
But as the constant attacks on Israel continue, against Jews living in Judea and Shomron, and Jews living in New York rise, I fear that the next brave soldiers to fight in the North American holocaust may be you and I. The excuses given for such attacks vary of course, but one of the things that was a complaint and excuse in Germany was this status of being “chosen”. I would maintain that their “chosen status” is much like that of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknowns. It was a mission offered and accepted, even though aspects were unknown. Its sad that rather than admire and respect those that strive to follow the path, those that disagree with it will chose to tear it down, belittle and obliterate it. There are other choices of course, but they choose to ignore that.
I do not relish the thought of a Kristallnacht in North America, but with the #FakeNews, and the state of academia where BSD-BS with it’s anti-Jew and anti-Israel bias thrive, the mass importation of people raised to hate Jews, I could see how it could be. If it comes to pass, we will be more grateful than ever for those that have experience, and can mentor. Our Veterans.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.~~ Edmund Burke
Admittedly, this column is a bit behind the times, I apologize. Parshah Shoftim was a few weeks ago. And part of the Parshah really hit home. Probably because if I spend any time at all listening to the news, all I hear is impeachment, impeachment, impeachment (said is the best Jan Brady whine). The secret Soviet style hearings which include only progressive #Demoncrats, the liar Adam Shiff-less., and lots of leaks, lots and lots of leaks.
Shiff-less
But here’s the relevant portion of the Parshah that got me to thinking
Part of Parshah Shoftim
This is from Deut./Devarim דברים
19:16.
Haven’t all of the women hired to attack Kavenaugh recanted? After they and their complicit media tried to ruin his and his family’s lives. Of course.
Honest law-abiding gun owners, judged guilty for the acts of criminals.
And as Sammy “The Bull” Gravano points out, the mob will always have guns. You only have to listen to the first couple minutes if you want.
Well, the mob and #Bozo’s armed guys he would have sent in to make sure American Citizens complied with his rules, so they could “recover” the AR-15s and AK-47s. Recover? Were they missing before they were stolen by #Bozo?
But the real hypocrisy of liberals is on full display in a fairly recent bill proposed by Sen. John Cornyn -Rep of Texas. He proposed a bill to “combat mass shootings”. He proposed to do this by
It would expand resources for mental health treatment, facilitate the creation of “behavioral intervention teams” to monitor students exhibiting disturbing behavior and offer new tools for law enforcement.
The bill’s school safety proposals are a response to years of school shootings perpetrated by young people described as isolated and troubled.
What is their objection you ask?
Privacy experts and education groups, many of which have resisted similar efforts at the state level, say that level of social media and network surveillance can discourage children from speaking their minds online and could disproportionately result in punishment against children of color, who already face higher rates of punishment in school.
“This is all very frightening,” an education policy consultant, who has been tracking the legislation, told The Hill. “There’s no real research, or even anecdotal information, to back up the idea … that following everything [kids] do online is really a way to determine that they’re going to be violent.”
Now, I’m not a fan of monitoring or big brothering anyone. But this is hypocrisy at it’s finest. And if you don’t believe me, you could ask Alexandria Keyes. She was suspended from school for five days after she posted a picture of herself with her brother.
The two are shown holding guns and the photo is captioned, “Me and my legal guardian are going to the gun range to practice gun safety and responsible gun ownership while getting better so we can protect ourselves while also using the First Amendment to practice our Second Amendment.”
Oh the shock, the horror, the carnage! Oh, wait there wasn’t any. The girl and her brother just went to the range practiced marksmanship and harmed no one. But panties were being twisted into a bunch at a rapid rate, and Alexandria was suspended for disrupting school. Huh? She wasn’t at school, she didn’t use a school computer to post the picture. Sen. Cornyn’s bill only monitors online activity while the students are using school computers.
Abbe Smith, Chief Communications Officer for Cherry Creek School District, told me that the decision to suspend Keyes “involved multiple social media posts that concerned the school community and resulted in multiple parents keeping their kids home from school out of concern for safety.” Smith said that federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act protections prevent her from discussing the details of the case, including disclosing the other photos the district allegedly considered in Keyes’ suspension.
More about this
The school’s policy references Colorado law, which defines the grounds for suspension as “behavior on or off school property that is detrimental to the welfare or safety of other pupils or of school personnel, including behavior that creates a threat of physical harm to the child or to other children.”
… According to Cherry Creek School Board policy, the school district reserves the right to suspend students who “[repeatedly interfere] with a school’s ability to provide educational opportunities to other students.” Over the phone, Smith noted that since multiple parents kept their children home after becoming aware of the post, Keyes’ photo could be viewed as an impediment to the school’s ability to educate, even if the district didn’t ultimately make its decision based on the chances that Keyes posed a physical threat. Does this mean parental fears can be a mechanism for the school district to veto a teen’s extracurricular activities?
Is Cherry Creek not worried that this is going to prevent Alexandria from speaking her mind online? Maybe Cherry Creek never got the memo from the educational policy consultant that monitoring online activity of children is not effective in determining if they are going to be violent later?
And those sanctimonious sniveling parents that bullied the school into suspending her? They have accused her falsely. She has done nothing wrong. They have left a mark on her school record because of their hoplophobic tiny minds. They have allowed their lack of education and knowledge to deprive her of five days worth.
What should then be their sentence?
False statements given to police because someone wants someone’s guns seized in a storm trooper operation because they are A) mad at their uncle B) don’t like how someone voted C) don’t think people should be allowed to own guns D) ___________________ for whatever reason. Police show up, guns are seized and sometimes, sometimes, people die. Red Flag laws, the height of hypocrisy coming from progressives.
What then should be their sentence? And what should their sentence be if it results in the death of an innocent gun own, exactly as they intended it would?
“Labour thou under the notion I believe there be not significant exceptions to the narrative contained herein? Forbear it not for this is certainly untrue.”1
Author
It was Sunday and the church was awash in a sea of color supporting the local NFL team taking afield that day. Noticing I was not similarly attired, a church member asked me why. I no longer watch the NFL because I am a retired police officer was my reply. Looking puzzled, he walked away saying nothing. How can anyone watch the NFL? Players, receiving enormous sums simply to play a game, use it as a platform to trash America’s police, military, and the flag. “Program Directors” have replaced pretty pom pom and baton twirling girls leading college marching bands at halftime with male dancers clad in unitard body suits prancing about trailing long multi-colored scarves. Female singers, more aptly described as “sexual livestock”, belt out paens to bedroom partners and political causes. What does any of this have to do with football? How can people of faith watch the NFL? Like Mafia enforcers, the NFL uses coercion and extortion threatening to take the Super Bowl from states daring to pass laws stipulating males and females use sex-appropriate bathrooms (G-d made them male and female, two sexes, not “genders”) a disgrace for which the NBA is equally guilty. How far must those who hate this country push until Americans fight back? Had the churchman stayed to listen, I would have explained my disgust for athletes who take a knee (group-hug in the case of the Seattle Seahawks) during the National Anthem. A fundamental problem also exists with respect to the role of sports and America’s institutions of higher learning.
The human race established it as the “natural order” from the start. Those winning the genetic lottery, the more attractive and athletically talented kids, grow up treated better by parents, teachers, peers, and society as a whole. Those fortunate to embody both attributes come closest to approaching divinity on earth. In the movies Carrie and Christine, based on Stephen King novels, a star athlete hangs out with friends who are awkward nerdy social outcasts. Not likely. If this was the norm, movies like She’s All That, starring Freddie Prinz, Jr., and Rachael Lee Cook (1999) or The Duff (Designated Ugly Fat Friend), starring Robbie Amell and Mae Whitman (2015), wherein on a dare or bet, school hunks attempt do-overs of girls deemed by peers as unattractive outcasts,2 wouldn’t be wildly successful. These are modern Cinderella stories people wish were true. Should kids, based on looks, receive preference in college admissions? Most people would answer, no. Should universities extend admission preferences to children of the rich, the connected, and athletes there primarily to play sports? They do. Each takes a slot from non-scholarship kids who worked hard earning grades for admission. Should athletes uninterested in scholastics be able to trade on the names of academic universities using college as training camps for professional sports where they will enjoy lucrative salaries? These questions are perhaps more profound than the controversy of athletes taking a knee during the National Anthem.
Full disclosure; I love football. I always have going back to Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts. I grew up watching every game possible dreaming of the day I wore the blue quarterbacking the Colts. Alas, it was not to be. I tried two sports in high school and one in college but I was never meant to be a jock. Standing 6’ and weighing 120 pounds my high school senior year, I might have made a good javelin for someone to throw. I had no negative opinion of athletes whatsoever but then came high school.
Like flour, my first high school sifted kids into one of three sections; Academic: college bound, Commercial: junior college, maybe, and General: kids warehoused until graduation because they were too young to be tried as adults. Classes for each were completely different. Before my defenestration from the Academic Section, I met a kid named Thurman. He was a walking stereotype; brainy, large glasses, unkempt clothing, whose closest brush with exercise was getting on and off the bus. He posed no threat nor physical challenge to anyone. Nevertheless, high school football players singled him out for torment and persecution. Distances between classes at my large sprawling high school afforded jocks, patrolling the halls like packs of ravenous hyenas, ample time to spot prey. Separating Thurman from the herd, the jocks soon ran him down. They tore textbooks from his hands tossing them onto the breezeway, threw his lunches in the trash, broke his glasses, roughed him up, and shoved him inside the full sized lockers…regularly. The Phys-Ed department divided the 10th grade course into short units covering sports from basketball, vaulting, volleyball, flag football, gymnastics, to climbing ropes where, hanging exposed, the jocks yanked Thurman’s shorts down in front of the girls. Coaches teaching the class did nothing. Thurman had no idea who they were. Sometimes they got others and me too but I had no glasses or lunch and General Section courses weren’t big on textbooks.
Kids soon learned wealthy kids from the North end’s Country Club, cheerleaders, and jocks were demigoddesses and demigods, untouchable. Jock cafeteria behavior was often obnoxious, they acted out in class, bullied lesser males, and forced others to allow them to copy homework and off answer sheets during tests. Was it because victims feared a beating if they snitched, other kids worshipped them, and teachers were indulgent that jocks seemed to suffer no consequences for their actions?3 At times students, usually girls, spoke out against their behavior. Jocks argued they were entitled to special treatment because of sacrifices they made in practice and games.
In my freshman gym class was a gangly uncoordinated white kid who towered 6’7’. He had no interest in sports. Our gym teacher, the basketball coach, asked him to try out for basketball but he said no. From that point on, the coach encouraged, pressured, then cajoled, mocked, and harassed the freshman until he broke and went out for the team. He was terrible. He showed up in gym class bruised and battered from practices. He attended basketball camp over the summer and returned a much better player. From then on girls hung on each arm of his Letterman’s jacket like Christmas ornaments. He no longer spoke or associated with his former freshman gym class chums.
Because I was “non-verbal” (a consequence of living in Philadelphia, a story for another time), my grades suffered. Summoned to the guidance counselor’s office, he waved my grades over his head like a Grand Jury indictment asking what I wanted to do after graduation. When I said, college, he laughed saying I had no chance of ever getting in. Anywhere. Upon his recommendation, the school humiliated, summarily dismissed, and sentenced me down to the General sections. School administrators and guidance counselors were notorious for relegating kids with emotional and behavioral problems, and those deemed “slow”, into those classes. Every student understood General Section meant “dummy classes”. For example, there were no labs, beakers, Bunsen burners, formulae, or experiments in Hoodlum Chemistry. I earned an A writing a short story detailing science problems astronauts would encounter going to Mars, including fighting lizard men living beneath the sand.
The high school football team’s field goal kicker sat behind me in Hoodlum English. Because I never said a word, teachers used me as a “buffer” to separate kids that would not shut up. It was Friday and a frustrated and very pregnant teacher admonished the class if any of us so much as said a word, she was giving us an F. She caught the field goal kicker talking and goofing off but gave him a pass because he was playing that evening. Anyone else would have been staring at a big fat red ‘F’. Then my family moved.
What passed for my second high school in Dog Patch, Appalachia, had a soccer and baseball but no football team. It was too small. Had poaching deer and guzzling Hillbilly beer been Olympic sports, they would have realized their dreams of glory. However, they did have homeroom based intramural flag football teams.
In my senior year, homeroom teacher Mr. ‘P’ announced he was posting a flag football sign-up sheet during lunch. We could choose any position on a first come first served basis. Back from lunch before anyone else, I signed up for wide receiver. Although skinny, I was fast and good at throwing and catching a football. Then the jocks got their hands on the list. By the end of the day, each “skill” position; quarterback, running back, tailback, field goal kicker, punter, and wide receivers belonged to jocks who played school sports. I was no longer a wide receiver. Soccer players Rodger (co-captain), Don, and other jocks erased mine and wrote in the name of a teammate. Six-foot nothing and one hundred and nothing and I was now an offensive lineman? My appeal to Mr. ‘P’, citing his first come first served rule, fell on deaf ears. He refused to overrule the jocks. I quit the team. At first, no one cared. Then coach ‘P’ and the jocks realized, with kids playing both sides of the ball, they needed every boy they could get their hands on and asked me to reconsider. I wouldn’t budge. They offered a compromise; I could play tight end and they would throw me the ball. Tight end means offensive lineman. Jim, a defensive lineman and jock twice my size, knocked me into the dirt so many times I looked like a crash test dummy. This was supposed to be flag football. Team hotdogs, the jocks, took complete control of the team, deciding on plays and who did what. No one else had a voice. Ask yourself why their sense of entitlement came so easily to them. Rodger was naturally the quarterback. The only time he threw me the ball was when he’d been flushed from the pocket and was about to be sacked in our end zone. I caught and took the ball all the way back to the line of scrimmage before being pile driven into the ground by defensive linemen. I never found out who punched me in the jaw on the way down. We made it to the championship game but the superstars were off their game that day. With nothing going right and backed up in our own territory, an angry Rodger insisted on being the punter and proceeded to kick the ball backward, over his head, into our end zone. Opposing players fell on the ball and it was game over. We lost.
At both high schools, kids complained teachers who were also coaches exhibited favoritism toward athletes in their classes. Girls made the same complaint about teacher-Cheerleader coaches with cheerleaders sitting in their classes. Sour grapes? Jealously? Possibly. I witnessed and heard the same later as a teacher. Just me? Maybe, but if true, you would have to explain the 1984 smash hit, Revenge of the Nerds. On to the university.
In college, a friend who double-majored in English and French, tutored at the University of Maryland. Most of her tutees were jocks. She described one as dumber than a sack of rocks, an insult to paper and minerals. He went on to enjoy a successful career with the Dallas Cowboys. My girlfriend at the time was a Parks and Recreation major. Jocks packed out her requisite classes. Coaches typically taught them and, naturally, they preferred “group” work. She was the “g to the p” in “group”, doing all the work. Nevertheless, phantom jock members received the same grade as her. Dark rumors circulated on campus about Jocks getting girls plastered at parties and taking turns having their way with them. In addition, it is common for students to become acquainted with professors in their discipline. Several confided in me that administrators pressured them to pass star athletes, especially those with scholarships, whose academic level wasn’t worthy of a high school freshman.
I tried sports my sophomore year. Too skinny for football, I chose a new sport, rugby, thinking it would help me meet girls. Practices were rougher than actual games and it was there I blew out my left knee. Orthoscopic surgery did not yet exist and I was terrified of needles so I chose home-rehab exercises. My limp lasted a year. As a final insult, the University Year Book staff left my name off the team photo. Outside of sports facilities, I rarely if ever saw a jock. So few, if any, college athletes were enrolled in the Art, History, and Science courses I took (I graduated three universities) the following observations are by nature anecdotal. Perhaps others saw it differently.
During Rugby tryouts the next year, my knee buckled like Jell-O. I hung up the cleats. The knee still bothers me. After Christmas break my junior year, I discovered a secret cabal of non-jocks had commandeered and turned the attic storage room of an old building into a weight room. Although I had never touched a bar or dumbbell, I asked to join them still hoping to rehab my knee. It was January, the attic unheated, and the equipment antique heavy-duty Anglo-Saxon stuff. Floorboards were warped, clouds of chalk hung in the air like fog, barbells rusted, and paint on plates was a distant memory. Risk of tetanus be damned, I loved it. Then came big news my senior year. The University closed our medieval attic gym but opened a multi-million dollar sports complex featuring an Olympic pool, tennis, volleyball, and basketball courts, and a fully fitted weight room. And it was heated. Although designed for all students, in no time power-lifter and football players migrated from their facilities soon taking over the Sports Complex weight room as their own. They did all in their power to intimidate and make non-jocks feel as unwelcome as possible. Lines for the bench presses, one of the few exercises performed by power-lifters, were always long. Jocks made their displeasure vocal and known over having to wait so long between sets because of us pencil necks. Their sense of god-like entitlement, probably germinating in elementary school, was on full display. They mocked and ridiculed us spaghetti armed and legged men unable to lift weight they manhandled with ease. My journey up from pencil-neckdom began by working out with five fellow spaghetti-men. One by one, jock intimidation drove them away. Not me.4
Over Easter Break, the weight room was deserted. A miracle. A young football coach came in and, in a rude manner, told me because of a water main leak, the facility was closed and to leave. I asked why that was a problem. Because there is no water for the showers, he said. I explained I lived off campus and never used the showers but he was unable to grasp this concept, became irate, and yelled at me to get out as if the Sports Complex belonged to him and his football players. My last semester arrived and, dilly-dallying too long looking for off-campus housing, I found none available. Football coaches had gone door to door snagging up everything for freshman athletes who had yet to attend a single class. Because a Maryland State Trooper finished rehabbing a house at the last minute, I found a room. Thanks Fred.
I often wondered why Monday Night Football announcers introduced players by giving their name and the university they attended. What difference did their college make? It’s a football game. Whether at work, shopping, or at places of worship, do the rest of us automatically tell people we meet the name of the college we attended? “Hi, my name is Tim, Auburn U”, or “I’m Sally; The Ohio State”. At least our speech would be comprehensible. It finally dawned on me. Professional football players were identifying the NFL Farm Team in which they had trained. Wow. Was I naïve or what? I thought colleges were scholastic institutions of higher learning not training camps for the NFL. Every “student” attending college to play sports, if they do not belong, displaces one who does. Taxpayer-subsidized Colleges deny deserving kids, admission to the university of their dreams, because they place so much emphasis on sports. Jocks, whose goal is raking in millions as professional athletes, take advantage of the “system”5. Some go on later to “tweet” while driving exotic SUVS costing more than most middle-class homes; America is a racist and unjust country.
Embarrassingly ignorant of history and fueled by the lies of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and their allies; liberals and self-loathing white people, NFL players began spitting, metaphorically, on police officers and America’s soldiers past and present by taking a knee during the National Anthem. Spokesmen for BLM have advocated violence and murder of cops claiming it is self-defense against a war of extermination waged by police officers on behalf of the white race. In previous articles, I documented that this narrative is false, myth, and a massive lie orchestrated and coordinated by the Left. Because public (dis)education so poorly serves today’s pop-culture saturated Americans, they believe this claptrap. Because so many of today’s youth lack any degree of inquisitiveness, and are scandalously gullible, they are oblivious to the fact their ignorance renders them accomplices to attacks on men and women who wear the blue.
Colin Kaepernick, multi-million dollar former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, a team notorious for involvement in anti-2nd Amendment causes, became the face of BLM’s lie in 2015 when he took a knee during the National Anthem. Marcus Peters of the Kansas City Chiefs, and others soon copied him. Journalists reported Kaepernick was under the tutelage of girlfriend, Nessa Diab, an MTV-DJ, Islamic “activist”, and strong supporter of BLM. Kaepernick began posting quotes on social media from Malcolm X, communist mass murderer Che Guevara, communist Black Panthers founder Huey Newton, and cop-killer Assata Shakur. He celebrated Muslim holidays and wore T-shirts depicting Malcolm X and Fidel Castro with slogans deriding America’s police.6
Forty-Niners coach Chip Kelly refused to stand up for America’s police and military. He framed Kaepernick’s disgraceful and buffoonish attacks as a free speech issue7 as did most in the ESPN-Jock sports media Howard Cosell derided as the “Jockocracy”.8 Apparently, Kaepernick’s cheerleaders in the fawning liberal media and the Jockocracy are unaware 1st Amendment speech protections are predicated upon one owning the platform from which he speaks. No one has the right to pop off on any topic tickling their fancy at their place of employment any more than in a neighbor’s living room. NFL players do not own the playing field, bleachers, locker room, training facility, stadium, and so forth. The NFL has hard and fast rules with respect to what players may wear or attach to their uniforms during games. Owners, general managers, and coaches maintain and enforce rules for proper behavior on and off the field, just ask Kareem Hunt (Kansas City Chiefs) and Antonio Brown (New England Patriots). NFL policy requires players to stand, helmet in left hand, and face the flag during the playing of the National Anthem. The NFL spells out disciplinary consequences for violators. But the NFL refuses to enforce these rules and is unwilling to stand up for the country whose citizens lavish millions of dollars on it and its players including tax-payer financed and supported stadiums. Instead, the NFL punishes with fervor any state daring to take a stand against what Archie Bunker called “sexual-preeverts”, men dressed as women, who insist on violating women’s bathrooms. NFL spokesmen claim respect for 1st Amendment free speech rights motivates their tolerance for players kneeling during the National Anthem. Really? Ironically, the same vertebral-challenged NFL prohibits players from possessing or storing firearms at any location associated with the NFL including training facilities, in vehicles on parking lots, team planes, buses, and you name it. The same applies to fans. For the NFL, some rights are more rights than others. In a shameless display of hypocrisy, the craven NFL refused to allow the Dallas Cowboys to wear decals on their helmets honoring the five Dallas police officers gunned down in a BLM inspired ambush.9
Perhaps huge profits, salaries, mansions, and exotic automobiles has blinded NFL panjandrums, team owners, and players to the fact that football is just a game. It possesses no inherent social value. Perhaps copying actors trying to deflect attention away from their mahoosive salaries and aristocratic lifestyles, teams exploit people’s emotions by sporting colored ribbons supporting the current cause de jure. Following public outrage over players taking a knee during the National Anthem, some teams, like the Seattle Seahawks, tried to have it both way by standing arm in arm instead of kneeling or placing hand over heart. Gutless. Kansas City Chief’s tight end Travis Kelce, who graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a degree in “Exploratory Studies”, and has a 5-year contract worth $46 million dollars stooped even lower placing hand over heart and kneeling. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t honor those who despise this country while standing up for this country. Journalists rank teams on a “Thug-Scale” based on the number of players arrested for DUI’s, drug charges, assaults, domestic violence, rape, and even murder possibly explaining player’s dislike of law enforcement.10 Attempting to clean up their image, the NFL ran commercials with players telling us not to hit our spouses. Who are they to give moral advice to anyone?
A lifelong fan who grew up watching every college and professional football game possible, it pains me to give it up. I am no longer able to stomach the hypocrisy of the NFL. Sports has perverted the purpose of colleges and universities. Scandals involving players who coasted through high school and now college with grades they never earned, graduating with diplomas they can barely read, and the cover-up for athletes who pawed and mauled girls too humiliated and intimidated to go public, has gone on for far too long. Players, who grew up treated by schools and society as demigods now inject themselves into politics supporting causes determined to destroy values and beliefs Americans hold dear. I watch no more.
11 Please forgive my shabby attempt to channel Sir Walter Scott. Published two hundred years ago in 1819 and purchased in 1983, I am finally reading his novel, Ivanhoe. It is refreshing to rediscover classic literature and sad to realize Americans are too lazy and intellectually flaccid to tackle literature, formative of their culture, as what remains of Western Civilization slides beneath the waves.
22Spoiler alert: Neither girl in either movie is fat or unattractive, quite the contrary which evoked criticism from girls who, sadly, believe they are both. The notion weight and unattractiveness are mutually inclusive is terribly wrong and has destroyed the lives of many young people.
33Unbeknownst to me, a jock copied off my test answer sheet in biology. Other kids lied and told him I knew he was copying and purposely put down the wrong answers. Twice my size, He cornered me in a hallway and threatened to beat the *BEEP* out of me if this turned out to be true. He would have if this had not been a lie. I still remember his white T-shirt and size of his arms as he grabbed my shirt and slammed me against the wall.
44 I never touched steroids, (lifters called it “juice” and “the sauce”) or any form of sports enhancing drug ever. Yet, several years after college, I was able to hit 350 on the bench, one rep-lock outs too, 425 deep squat, and 10 lock out reps with 185 pounds on the military press. My weight went from 120 to 225 eating food, not drugs.
55 at https://work.chron.com/much-money-nfl-player-make-year-2377.html. The median salary for NFL players is $860,000 per season with rookies starting at an average of $450,000. However, this does not take into account their haul from endorsements, commercials, team merchandise, and so forth.
1010 “Which NFL teams have the most player arrests? Bengals, Broncos, among longest rap sheets since 2000”, at http://blog.masslive.com/patriots/2017/05/nflarrests_which_teams_have_t.html. Updated May 12, 2017. The top 10 were: 1. Minnesota Vikings, 2. Denver Broncos, 3. Cincinnati Bengals, 4. Tennessee Titans tied with Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 5. Indianapolis Colts tied with the Jacksonville Jaguars, 6. Cleveland Browns, 7. Chicago Bears tied with the Kansas City Chiefs, 8. Miami Dolphins, 9. Baltimore Ravens tied with the Seattle Seahawks, and 10. Los Angeles Chargers tied with the San Francisco 49ers out of 32 teams.
Jews. Guns. No compromise. No surrender.
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