Towers Floating in the Air

March 10, 2015 Y.B. ben Avraham 1 Comment

Several days ago my friend Claire Wolfe posted excerpts on an excellent speech prepared by the firebrand, Mike Vanderboegh. In this speech he drew parallels to the biblical scholar, and murderous traitor, Doeg the Edomite, with secular players we encounter today. If you will indulge me, I would like to expand briefly on this.

As many will recall, the Jews had been fighting against the vastly more numerous and powerful Philistine forces for years, and with mixed results. The Tribal elders wanted to emulate the Philistines, and all the other “great” nations in their midst, by crowning a king.

The Prophet Samuel, conveying the word of G-d, had given them stark warning about the stupidity of such a course. The Jewish People had been given a unique role in G-d’s creation and instead the sought to push that aside to be like those they were tasked to inspire.

Like any good father, G-d allowed their folly, in what might be seen as an act of “tough love”. Still, the Prophet Samuel, softening the inevitable blow, sought out someone who could both lead against great enemies, and yet, seemed reluctant to power. He found Saul, and anointed him King.

But power corrupts. After several stunning victories, King Saul began to believe his own press. Ascribing these victories more to his own prowess than the sanction of G-d, he became consumed with power. Yet some of that core personal insecurity remained.

At a critical juncture, the Jews now settled in their land, G-d gave a very specific instruction to King Saul. Through Samuel, King Saul was told that this was the time to utterly destroy the perpetual foe of the Jews; the Amalakites. Though many were killed, and the Amalakites were weakened for a time, King Saul (possibly at the urging of Doeg) refused to complete the task.

Samuel informed King Saul that this defiance had cost him his divine mandate. He may remain a physical King for a time; the “Spirit of the Lord” had departed his reign. Saul was overtaken by an “evil spirit”, which governed the rest of his days.

Consumed with power-lust “King” Saul became paranoid, devious, and vengeful. He sought out willing henchmen, and found them. Ultimately, his corrupted gaze fell upon the Slayer of Goliath, a young shepherd named David.

As Mr. Vanderboegh relates, Doeg, was a great scholar, a member of the Sanhedrin. Perhaps even once the High Priest. But Doeg was mostly adept in manipulating Torah in service of his own ends… and that of his patron, “King” Saul. Achitophel was his increasingly willing, and equally skilled, dupe.

Doeg’s “Three Hundred Confounding Questions” challenging David’s lineage (the Arizal leans towards the parallel reference citing FOUR HUNDRED) were never intended in any way to bring us closer to G-d, but merely to harness the great power of Torah to base, and often evil ends.

But G-d wants service of the heart.

And what of those questions? According to the Zohar, David’s son, the wisest of men; King Solomon answered each and every one.

Doeg’s skills have been described as flowing from the surface, outward. Doeg never internalized the Torah. For all his academic and rhetorical brilliance, he missed the entire point. No… Rather, he used his clever mind to simply ignore it.

Doeg’s story peaks with the vicious and traitorous slaughter at Nob.

In the end, Doeg’s choices catch up with him. G-d took back all of Doeg’s great gifts, and finally, in relative youth, he died away. His legacy is one of great potential and skill turned in the service of evil.

Uncategorized

Mr. Gottlieb: The invitation still stands

March 8, 2015 Claire Wolfe 7 Comments

On January 21, I hurt Alan Gottlieb’s feelings.

I never imagined I had the ability to do that, but he came here to say so and to tell me that if I really wanted to know what he was thinking I merely had to ask. I respect that he cared enough to come to a site that is (it’s hardly a secret) unfriendly territory for him.

So I asked. I responded by offering Mr. Gottlieb a guest post at TZP. And commentor Oregon Hobo swiftly came up with a cogent list of questions for him to answer, regarding his support for Manchin-Toomey and related matters. Realizing Mr. Gottlieb was unlikely to come back to read comments, I emailed him both the guest-post invitation and the link to Hobo’s questions.

I told him that while we hoped he’d answer Hobo’s questions, we’d run whatever he chose to submit, without editing.

On January 23, Gottlieb responded:

Thanks. I am at the SHOT Show in Vegas and will try to get you something in the next week or two. There is much on my plate right now.

I appreciate the invite.

The SHOT Show is definitely enough to occupy and wear out any gunperson. I waited just under a month. Having still heard nothing, I once again emailed the invitation. On February 17, Gottlieb wrote:

Thanks for the reminder. Life is real busy right now with Congress and legislatures back in session along with 30 plus active court cases that we have going on at the same time. In addition, I am getting booked on 3 or more TV and radio shows a day. I will try to get to it as soon as I can.

Again, understood. But since several people have asked, I’m here to say that is where matters remain.

After the recent unpleasantness between Gottlieb and (now former) JPFO contractor David Codrea, I admit there was some talk among the TZP team of rescinding the guest-post invitation. I also admit I was at least momentarily on the wrong side of that talk. But better heads prevailed and I’m glad they did.

So here’s an open message to Alan Gottlieb:

Mr. Gottlieb:

I won’t bother you again because I know you’re busy. And I understand that you might be reluctant to subject yourself to questioning by what is clearly a skeptical audience.

However, I want you to know that our invitation to write a guest post is still open. Specifically we hope you’ll answer Hobo’s questions, then stick around for follow-up questions. But I reiterate that I will post whatever you send, without editing and without any form of censorship. And if you don’t choose to answer comments, that’s up to you.

Your supporters have come to TZP several times, accusing us (and me, specifically) of fragmenting the gun-rights movement by being too radical or being hostile to you. You yourself, in your comment here, said I was harming the gun-rights movement. But like Oregon Hobo and a lot of others, I would rather see us, if not united, at least agreed in our opposition to victim disarmament. (We can disagree on tactics and strategy all day; I hope we can agree on the principles of freedom and gun rights.)

Whatever I or any other skeptic may think, there are readers here who would love to believe better of you than they have since Manchin-Toomey. This is a chance for you to build bridges by clearing up misunderstandings and explaining how your actions on Manchin-Toomey and last November’s Washington state initiatives further the cause of Second Amendment rights.

By accepting our offer of a guest post and by giving clear, open answers to the questions that so worry so many of us, you’ll be demonstrating your leadership and you could lay the foundations of those bridges.

If you just plain don’t want to set foot at TZP again, I’m sure everybody would understand. In that case, all you have to do is email me or leave a comment on this post to say so. But on our end, the invitation remains open.

Thank you.

Claire Wolfe

Uncategorized

The Modern Sons of Doeg

March 7, 2015 Claire Wolfe 7 Comments

Mike Vanderboegh was scheduled to give this speech at a Washington state rally in support of wrongly “detained” activist Anthony Bosworth. Weather and (participants suspect) other more unaccountable factors prevented Mike from reaching Washington to deliver it.

It’s very much in the spirit of The Zelman Partisans. So go. Read it. Here’s a sample. The story begins with Doeg, chief herdsman, willing agent, and liar-in-chief to the paranoid King Saul. Everything that follows is from Mike.

Excerpts from The Sons of Doeg by Mike Vanderboegh

….So Saul, already more than half crazy from fear and jealously, acted on Doeg’s lie and summoned the High Priest and his entire company and, in a rage, ordered them all killed. As the King James version states:

And the king said unto the footmen that stood about him, Turn, and slay the priests of the LORD; because their hand also is with David, and because they knew when he fled, and did not shew it to me. But the servants of the king would not put forth their hand to fall upon the priests of the LORD. And the king said to Doeg, Turn thou, and fall upon the priests. And Doeg the Edomite turned, and he fell upon the priests, and slew on that day fourscore and five persons that did wear a linen ephod.

Get that? Doeg, knowing it based on his own lie, killed 85 of the high priests of Israel BY HIMSELF. Now, the first thing you can conclude from that is that the priests should have been open-carrying. This verse is one of the most powerful indictment of arms control ever written. But that was not enough for Saul.

Note too that the King’s other retainers refused to obey the massacre orders. Only Doeg was willing to carry it out and carry it out he did with a vengeance. And this was millennia before the Nuremberg defense — “I was only acting on orders.”

—–

Surely Doeg must have had some help from sycophantic like-minded butchers for such an undertaking, although the Bible is silent on the subject. But when my brother mentioned the story of Doeg the willing executioner I could not help but think of all the other sons and grandsons of Doeg throughout history down through the ages to the Holocaust and, 22 years ago, to the massacre of the Davidians, their old men, women and children, by bullets and fire, first at the hands of the ATF and finally from the even bloodier hands of the FBI.

There are murderous spiritual sons of Doeg in every generation. Men — and women — who will play the part of the secret policeman, the assassin of the king, the willing toady of power — not because it is right but simply because it IS the power. Such sons of Doeg attacked Anthony Bosworth. Such sons of Doeg confront us here today — not merely in the open, but play the part of the clandestine spy, the lying snitch, the evil agent provocateur — and they know who they are, these evil men.

Many remember the self-destructive story of King Saul. Few remember the tale of Doeg, yet it is the sons of Doeg that we confront most often, most directly, those of us who wish to preserve our liberty, our property and our lives.

“Disappearing” David Codrea

March 6, 2015 Claire Wolfe 22 Comments

“Here today, gone tomorrow.”

As David says, KABA is Gottlieb’s site. He can do what he wants with it. But it’s also supposed to be a gun news site — which Gottlieb pledged not to nerf when he bought it.

The banned “Regrettable Announcement” was, of course, David’s post about leaving JPFO over … KABA’s banning of stories.

We now know that news is not news in the KABA world if it mentions Mike Vanderboegh. In the future will news not be news to KABA if it’s about or written by David Codrea? Only time will tell. But “disappearing” two of the most prominent figures in the gun-rights movement is … well, you know.

And war is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
We have always been at war with Eastasia
And Big Brother loves us.

duty, hatred of Jews, Inspiration, Israel, Jewish history, resistance, self defense

Purim Reflections

March 6, 2015 Sheila Stokes 5 Comments

If you are unfamiliar with Purim, why and what is being celebrated, there is a helpful video at the end. The story of Purim comes from the Book of Esther in the Tanakh, or First Testament. The name “Purim” comes from the word “Pur” which means “Lots” as Haman, the villain of the story cast lots to determine which day he would destroy the Jews. Haman became miffed at the Jews because Mordechai, Esther’s Uncle, would not bow down before him. Haman was quite impressed with himself. So this year’s Purim is very interesting to me, being a patterns person and all. So under the “The More Things Change The More They Stay The Same” banner let’s have a look.

One of the things one does on Purim is hear the reading of the story of Esther, usually in a Synagogue. Let’s contrast that with the Temple Mount, the one that is the holiest sight in Judaism. For sometime now muslims have been attempting to prevent Jews from going to visit the temple mount. They are already forbidden to pray there. The muslims have rioted near the area where the Jews are allowed to gain entrance to prevent them from entering. When they do enter, they are attacked verbally and lately, physically. Some of the muslims attempting to stop the Jewish visitors from seeing the temple mount are now children who shout “Allahu Akbar” Luckily the police were right there to stop it. Oh, wait, my bad. They were right there, they just didn’t stop it. Nor did they intervene when a member of the waqf guard assaulted a Jewish visitor. Physically, not just verbally. But, hey, good luck, because the Israeli police were right there this time and they sprang into action, and they.. oops, my bad again. They were right there, they just didn’t do anything. Ok, so this year reading the story of Esther on the Temple Mount was not a promising proposition.

Another part of Purim is a lovely meal, traditional food would include Oznei Haman or Hamantaschen filled with poppyseed filling. Although I have now seen a huge variety of filling choices I want to try. So let’s see what is of interest this year in the food category. Ahh, back to the Temple Mount. I see they are having a delightful FREE, yes FREE Al Aqsa Buffet. But wait, that can’t be, because that would be illegal. And calculated to offend, much like their playing football on the Temple Mount. Think of it as carrying on a lively soccer game in the House of Worship of your denomination. Not on the athletic field behind the building. In the sanctuary. To Jews the entire Temple Mount is holy, to muslims, not so much. Just the al aqsa mosque, which is why they have destroyed Jewish artifacts trying to erase the Jewish presence.

So what else for Purim. Ah, costumes. I rethought my first choice, and came up with a better idea. I’m sure that’s common, thinking through the costume and what you want to do with it. Thankfully we’ve come many years from when a madman wanted to wipe every trace of Jews from the earth. Except we haven’t. A mere couple weeks ago a young man named Avraham Goldschmidt was attacked on his way to a wedding by a knife wielding manic. Avraham fought him off with his tefillin bag while shouting if someone had a weapon to “neutalize him”. It was Avraham’s good fortune that Nir Barkat is the mayor of Jerusalem and not someone like Bloomers, DeBlasio (is that still his name this week?) or any of the astroturf group Mayors Against Self-Defense. Nope Nir is cut from a different cloth. His bodyguards drew their guns and Nir rushed the terrorist after he dropped the knife. All this can be viewed on closed circuit TV. Which despite the videocams being right there did actual zip/nada to stop the crime. A thought for those that think those security cams are useful. Along with tefillin, Jews often wear a Kippah. Now that’s not part of a costume per se, but it is something that is part of Jewish dress. Unless you are a Jew in Ramallah Israel. NYC Councilor David Greenfield was asked by U.S. officials on his visit to Israel to remove his Kippah when he left the U.S consulate. To his credit, after first ascertaining he wasn’t placing the other members at risk, he refused to remove it. NYC Councilor David Greenfield is no shrinking violet, no he isn’t. That video is well worth watching too.

So, without giving away the end of the Purim story, let’s just say self-defense was involved. So, what is the application for today? Well, there certainly have been a plethora of attacks on Jews lately and antisemitism is on the rise all over the world. And the response from the leaders of the different countries has been a parade? Well, except from the U.S. In the U.S. the regime harfed that the correct response to terrorism is not to kill the terrorists, but to give them jobs instead. What a load of harf! Things are so bad, that as my colleague Y.B. has pointed out Rabbi Margolin suggested Jews at risk be granted a special permit to be armed. I would suggest that most people without a crystal ball are at risk, but that’s just me.

In the article Is it Just Fashionable to Hate the Jews? Rabbi Joseph Potasnik points out “It’s not a big deal to hate the Jews.” The author concludes “Jews are a nice easy nonviolent target”

But if Bibi Netanyahu is setting the tone for going forward, that could begin to change. From one of his speeches

And as Prime Minister of Israel I have a moral obligation to speak up in the face of these dangers while there is still time to avert them. For 2000 years, my people, the Jewish people, were stateless, defenseless, voiceless. We were utterly powerless against our enemies who swore to destroy us. We suffered relentless persecution and horrific attacks. We could never speak in our own behalf, and we could not defend ourselves. Well, no more! No more. The days when the Jewish people are passive in the face of threats to annihilate us, those days are over.

But hey, it’s not like Iran wants to destroy Israel or America! I don’t know what would ever make you think that! I mean Iranians love Israel and America, just look at this recent domino competition in which they prominently displayed American and Israeli flags. Nope, no hostility here!

Is it just me or does anyone else find the timing of Bibi’s speech to congress interesting. Not in terms of Israeli elections as the current regime has harfed, but in terms of Purim, when Ester spoke to the King on behalf of her people.

Purim celebrates the survival of the Jews against one of the attempts to wipe them off the face of the earth. There have already been many, there will be more. The attacks we’re seeing now are against Jews, Christians and other faiths, well, except for one. Wise people will be prepared, if they are someday there may be another holiday similar to Purim, because with Purim, none of the Jews died because Esther rose to the occasion, and so the Jews were allowed to defend themselves when the attackers came.

“They tried to kill us. We won. Let’s eat!”

Good deal. May we all do our best to rise to meet the occasions that come before us.

duty, Inspiration, Media

David Codrea has left JPFO

March 3, 2015 Claire Wolfe 1 Comment

David Codrea has left JPFO. He did so for the sake of his principles & I salute him.

David was one of three (along with fellow writer Kurt Hofmann and webmaster Chris) who stayed on when JPFO’s board sold it to Alan Gottlieb and the rest of us left to form TZP. The three all had good reasons for staying and they all continued to have our deep respect. But frankly a lot of us have been watching David ever since, guessing that he would be the first canary to drop in the coal mine.

More on this later. For now … just SALUTE! to David for his principles, his guts, and the solidity of his commitment to gun rights.

(H/T CB — who has his own take on it here.)

defense of others, guns, Political philosophy

Gunning For Your Rights: Data Vs. Rights-Based Deductive Reasoning

March 2, 2015 Ilana Mercer 1 Comment

When motivating for the individual, natural rights to life and property always proceed from an argument from rights and not from a utilitarian, outcome-based position. After all, individual rights are not predicated on an optimal statistical outcome.

With respect to the Second Amendment right of self-defense: Ample empirical data exist of a statistically meaningful correlation between a well-armed citizenry—i.e., in middle-class neighborhoods as opposed to in gangland—and lower crime rates, in aggregate. New Hampshire is an example of a heavily armed, low-crime state.

Moreover, the benefits of a well-armed population redound to the non-carrying crowd. David Kopel is one of the most respected 2nd Amendment scholars in the country. About these “free riders,” Kopel writes the following in the Arizona Law Review, Summer 2001, Symposium on Guns, Crime, and Punishment in America:

American homes which do not have guns enjoy significant “free rider” benefits. Gun owners bear financial and other burdens of gun ownership; but gun-free and gun-owning homes enjoy exactly the same general burglary deterrence effects from widespread American gun ownership. This positive externality of gun ownership is difficult to account for in a litigation context (since the quantity and cost of deterred crime is difficult to measure), and may even go unnoticed by court–since the free rider beneficiaries (non-gun owners) are not represented before the court.

In other words, the unarmed owe the armed among you a debt of gratitude. We substitute your safety. Read on.

However, what if this were this not the case? What if, for some weird, wonderful, unlikely and inexplicable reason, arming yourself, commensurate with your right to defend your life, increased the aggregate crime rate in your community? Would this hypothetical empirical data somehow invalidate your inalienable, individual right to protect your life, loved-ones and property?

No! It would so do only if you accept that, de facto, you do not posses an inherent right to life and property.

For, at the risk of repeating what ought to be obvious:

… a right that can’t be defended is a right in name only. Inherent in the idea of an inalienable right is the right to mount a vigorous defense of the same right. If you cannot by law defend your life, you have no right to life.
By logical extension, Britons are bereft of the right to life. Not only are the traditional ‘Rights of Englishmen’—the inspiration for the American founders—no longer cool in Cool Britannia; but they’ve been eroded in law. The great system of law that the English people once held dear, including the 1689 English Bill of Rights—subsumed within which was the right to possess arms—is no longer. British legislators have disarmed their law-abiding subjects, who now defend themselves against a pampered, protected and armed criminal class at their own peril. Naturally, most of the (unnatural) elites enjoy taxpayer-funded security details. …

resistance, spirit of rebellion, Voting

On Refreshing The Tree of Liberty

February 24, 2015 Ilana Mercer 3 Comments

With respect to “If this be cowardice, be glad we’re cowards” by our own Claire Wolfe: Anything that denies that the oppressed have a right to mete justice to the oppressor is bound to crackle with unease, if not contradiction. Being a careful thinker, Claire escapes this predicament, of course, advocating for peaceful change. However, given the size and power of the American State; given that a vast number of people and interests have bought into state propaganda and are vested in it—meaningful change is unlikely and improbable. The idea of change through the ballot box, moreover, is a fantasy.

While it seems obvious that the minority in a democracy is openly thwarted, the question is, do the elected representatives at least carry out the will of the majority?

The answer is no. The People’s representatives have carte blanche to do exactly as they please. As Benjamin Barber has written:

It is hard to find in all the daily activities of bureaucratic administration, judicial legislation, executive leadership, and paltry policy-making anything that resembles citizen engagement in the creation of civic communities and in the forging of public ends. Politics has become what politicians do; what citizens do (when they do anything) is to vote for politicians.

In Restoring the Lost Constitution, Randy E. Barnett further homes in on why the informed voter has little incentive to exercise his “democratic right”:

If we vote for a candidate and she wins, we have consented to the laws she votes for, but we have also consented to the laws she has voted against.
If we vote against the candidate and she wins, we have consented to the laws she votes for or against.
And if we do not vote at all, we have consented to the outcome of the process whatever it may be.

This “rigged contest” Barnett describes as, “‘Heads’ you consent, ‘tails’ you consent, ‘didn’t flip the coin,’ guess what? You consent as well.'”

Democracy is a despotic affair.

Should they occur, and however peaceful—secessionist movements across the country the federal government will greet with brute force. It’ll be 1861 all over again.

Thus the objection I see to the sentiment that prompted Claire’s post—“We ARE a nation of cowards. Proof: Holder is still breathing”—is more utilitarian than principled. In other words, one will not win against the Federales, but only come to grief. Therefore, one should tread with great trepidation. Is prudence tantamount to courage? No. Neither is it cowardice.

Fear is simply a facet of tyranny.

The “long-time, much-respected freedomista” who made the quip about Holder was probably using a bit of hyperbole. Thomas Jefferson, however, was perfectly serious when he said:

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

Jewish history

Islam Enmeshed In America Since Founding?

February 24, 2015 Ilana Mercer

Written mostly at an eighth-grade level (as measured by the Flesch-Kincaid readability test), Barack Obama’s ramblings are getting harder and harder to address seriously. The ISIS-is-un-Islamic absurdity overwhelmed all else in his latest address on “extremism”—so much so that another of Obama’s absurdities on that occasion has been neglected. Said the ass with ears: “Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding.”

That’s news to this writer. It’s true about the Jews of America, to whom George Washington promised peace and goodwill in a 1790 address to a synagogue congregation in Newport, Rhode Island. “The highest ranking Jewish officer of the Colonial forces was Colonel Mordecai Sheftall.” Why we Jews even had a Confederate colonel, Abraham Charles Myers.

In any event, “[a]fter President Barack Obama said this week that ‘Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding,’ Glenn Beck asked historian David Barton to come on his radio program” and get to the bottom of this fiction:

“In all the reading I’ve done, thousands of books, there’s nothing there,” Barton said on Friday. “I mean, we know that Muslims were the folks who captured the slaves sent to America, largely out of Africa. … The Muslims did the slave hunting and the slave trading, et cetera. The first Muslims came to America as a result of the Muslims capturing them and sending them to the Dutch traders.”

Barton said that beyond their heavy involvement in the slave trade, America was at war with the Barbary pirates shortly after the founding of the country, but those were “the two biggest contributions.”

“This is the fabric,” Beck said with heavy sarcasm. “I mean, it’s practically the whole blanket.”

Barton added that there were a number of Muslims whose activities were recorded in the 1800?s, but it might be a stretch to say they are part of the “fabric of the country.” One such Muslim helped the American military raise camels, he said.

MORE.

Timeline in American Jewish History

History of the Jews in the United States

defense of others, gun control, self defense

Oslo’s New Human Shields – Updated

February 22, 2015 Y.B. ben Avraham 6 Comments

Yesterday, in a show of compassion and not a small amount of savvy public relations, over one thousand Muslims reportedly formed what amounted to a human shield around a synagogue in Oslo,Norway.

Norway has the dubious distinction of having the highest level of Jew Hated in all of Scandinavia. Indeed “Jew” is a common curse among even non-Muslim Norwegians. Violence against Jews is quite common.

The primary organizers of the event, described as a Peace Circle, went to great pains to declare that Islam is a “Religion of Peace” and to try to draw distinctions between those few “Jews” living in Norway for whom they feel kinship (Norway has only thirteen-hundred Jews.) and those other “Jews” who live in Israel, for whom said kinship is demonstrably less vigorous.

Bloggers “Aussie Dave” and “Carl in Jerusalem” have more on the event and organizers here and here.

Norway’s Chief Rabbi , and long-time left-wing political activist, Michael Melchior was “visibly moved” by the turnout.

Still, the Police were taking no chances. They were there in force, despite claiming that there was no particularized threat to which they were responding. They even had snipers positioned in vantage-points on buildings adjacent to the synagogue.

Since Norwegian gun laws administrators almost never accept “self defense” as an acceptable reason for gun possession (despite statutes theoretically allowing it) these Jews and their new-found friends, are utterly reliant on those policemen to be everywhere, and all the time.

What a plan.

Update: According to Breitbart, the “Thousand” Circle participants was only twenty. What a SCAM. (Thank you, Mr. Baker )