Four More Years!!

 

No, this is not a chant for repeal of Amendment XXII and reelecting President Obama nor is it a call for election of President Bill Clinton. We advise it to be the rallying call of conservatives who also plan on finding some way of coming to terms with this year’s election choices. Instead they need to choose one or the other of the current choices or find some workable alternative and not some pie in the sky on a wing and a prayer choice and dedicate themselves over the next four years to finally get organized and intelligent in their approach to the election of a President. With the current problems surfacing faster than one can track, let alone counter intelligently, we felt this article was seeing new life as it was not posted during the Republican primary season when first composed. That will also explain any idiosyncrasies.

 

Republican Candidates into South Carolina

 

Finally choose one and only one true and acceptable conservative candidate and not run seven conservatives against one interloper and then complain. Yes, there are a compliment of conservative candidates who all have sufficient qualifications making them promising as potential candidates for President and challenging Trump’s reelection bid or against Hillary Clinton’s reelection bid and any one of them would probably be an improvement. These are each best in one or two categories and they overlap each with the other in one or another of the categories and none are across the board head and shoulders above the rest but them all contending for the nomination results in exactly what we have seen for the past; it will be twenty years come next election cycle. When are the conservative public going to wise up and demand that the conservatives find one candidate to run and the rest please have a seat and support the selective choice as otherwise ten conservative running and one moderate, or worse, one left leaning candidate cleans up winning merely twenty-five to thirty percent and the conservatives all in single digits splitting the remaining votes between them. By the time sufficient of the conservative candidates are whittled out of the mix and a single individual representing the then conservative consensus is so far behind and the momentum of the least conservative or worse candidate makes them uncatchable and soon becomes the presumptive Republican candidate and that’s the end of that election season. We have watched at best moderate candidates lose while true conservatives who would have had the total support of the Republican base no questions asked sitting with their campaigns broken and in pieces as they had torn and ripped at each other’s support base until it was diluted and each fell one after the other and if even two are left the more liberal candidate walks off with the nomination.

 

The conservative base, the Tea Party, the NRA Second Amendment supporters, the pro-life supporters, the free-trade pro-business financial conservatives, the social conservatives and all the other identity conservatives need to swallow their pride and work as a team and not as a series of independent groups vying for complete control and superiority pushing their own candidate all other concerns aside. That is an equation for disaster and simply trying the same old comfortable paths to ruin one more time because this time it will be different and they will persevere and win the nomination. Instead, perhaps a conservative convention need be held where the different groups can all be represented and work and find a candidate which they all can agree upon. This candidate will not be the most desirable to a majority of groups as they will not come from amongst their ranks but then they will be more favorable to their cause than allowing a complete loss with no conservative candidate running for President and another four years of standing on the sidelines complaining about the primaries and how the entire system is broken. The system works just fine; it is the pride of too many individuals that is breaking the system as far as selecting the strongest conservative candidate. Stop trying the same thing expecting different outcomes which, according to Albert Einstein, is the definition of insanity. Work together instead of directly competing and dividing the votes of the base fracturing any possibility of fielding a candidate in the election. Is that too much to ask of groups of people who claim to be pragmatic, logical, organized, practical, realistic, reasoned and operating in the real world? This should have been obvious but somehow your demand on perfection and complete control leads conservatives to demand purity in the candidate and refuse compromise. Stop and stop now before the country swerves so far left that there is no path to return to the middle, let alone to a more conservative and reasoned legislating. Perhaps when working together there may be a candidate who, though not necessarily being chosen by any of the numerous groups and not possessing the purity of essence to any of the varied position still is supportive over the broadest spectrum of the desired causes. The conservatives need to understand something the left learned a long time back, the we will scratch your back and you all will scratch ours and together we will be stronger.

 

Four more years is the deadline for conservatives to find a way to communicate and relate such that a consensus candidate can be found to be the acceptable if not preferred candidate such that the majority of the different convictions, principles, values, philosophies and doctrines while also possessing the ethical, moral and principled beliefs and deeds with levels of accomplishments and achievements making them acceptable to the widest sets of viewpoints as possible. Not being capable of compromise the conservative interests may as well pound their chests as they wither and decline off into history as the center continues to drift further and further into the distant furthest left point on the political spectrum. The two presumptive candidates who survived with the most support despite often not being the majority vote getter are the perfect example of what a divided conservative base produces. Perhaps the theme song refrain should be (as sung in Where Have All the Flowers Gone) “When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?” (Song below)

 

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Real Reason for the European Union

 

Brexit is a great thing no matter what those experts on the left and right and in between are telling us. The entire political establishment is furious over the British vote against a unifying of Europe which eventually was to surrender to a unified world order. But that was not the reason the European Union was originally founded and nobody wants to talk about the real reasons behind the European Union (EU).

 

To figure out the real reasoning that formed the EU one needs to go back to the original concept and who were the nations pushing the hardest for an EU and who originally opposed it. The origins of the EU were formed and fashioned between Paris and Berlin, the two main engines to fuel the original EU. Britain was the original opposition and this was to be expected. What the EU was to be was the manner for Germany to finally conquer all of Europe this time instead of militarily to simply take over economically. The Euro was and remains most closely aligned with the German economy. It has little if anything to do with the more agrarian economies and was completely ignored until it became so dire that nobody could endure it any longer as the economic collapses of Spain and Greece and the near collapse of Italy and others signaled the depth the problem had reached. The EU did not take into its planning to any degree the needs of the former Soviet bloc Warsaw Pact nations when they entered the EU in near desperate need of massive infusions of funds to rebuild an infrastructure which was crumbling. Eventually some funding was made available and it was impressed as to how much Germany was sacrificing on their behalf. The assistance to Greece was another expression of German sacrifice and investment. Everything in the EU revolves around German economic power and its influence.

 

The EU really should have been named the Franco-Germanic Economic Empire. This has proven to be the preferred actions for the economic regulators in Brussels which ruled autocratically and approved actions unconscionable by any elected body elsewhere in the world. They overturned laws passed by elected parliaments and approved by the people but opposed by the controllers of this unelected hive mind of bureaucrats who decided they knew what was best more than the elected officials of member governments. The EU controlled trade relations and refused to allow member nations to make any trade deals or negotiate for mutual tariff relief with nations outside the EU. One example which will soon become very evident is now Britain will soon make deals with China, India, Brazil and others where they arrange to conduct free trade agreements, something Britain was barred from doing as a member of the EU because that would not be fair to other nations in the EU. This begs the question of why there was never an effort to have a free trade agreement between China and the EU. The reason is that Germany desired to have the advantage of free trade while blocking any competing nation entry into the German trade block which members of the EU were forced into by the bureaucrats who knew who paid their salaries and supported the main functions of the EU and would do anything and everything demanded to protect German trade relations and to increase the German trade advantage in Europe. With the Euro pegged to the German economy it further gave an advantage to German goods and services as the money used for trade was pegged to their goods and others who may have not quite matched German production paid the price.

 

It is kind of interesting that the EU headquarters was a stone’s throw from both Paris and Berlin, sitting in Brussels, Belgium which is sandwiched between Germany and France and has a history with both. That most nations in the EU were fully vested was in a manner their surrender to the economic drivers of the EU. The fact that the British also were a powerful economic nation, that their acceptance of the EU was conditional, and they kept their currency, the Pound Sterling, independent from the Euro and always available should things turn badly for the EU and Euro crash in value, Britain could fall back on their natural currency to continue to trade and deal with the rest of the world. That fall back will facilitate their departure making it all the easier. Still there are a number of hurdles which could still prevent Brexit from becoming a reality despite the vote by the people. The entire idea could still be presented to the parliament and they could decide that remaining in the EU is the wiser course and the Prime Minister, either Cameron or whoever replaces him after the elections could agree with the Parliament and that would be the end of Brexit so to speak. There is an even bet that the leaving of the EU could be brought before the Parliament as there are many politicians willing to oppose the popular vote and risk their, or enhance depending on their region and its electorate, seat in the coming elections.

 

Pound Sterling

 

One can bet that the many areas of Britain will vote their next election along the line of for or against Brexit and that Brexit will be the defining item in the minds of the people. The representatives of the London area and other major metropolises where the voters favored remaining in the EU will elect their parliament members accordingly. The more rural and suburban areas, where the people are somewhat more self-reliant, will vote for representatives who support independence from the EU, as they voted quite overwhelmingly, to the great surprise of almost every pollster and many of those predicting the failure of the Brexit proposition, to politely depart the EU. We are glad we supported Brexit for our British friends as we almost always will fall on the side of independence from bureaucratic dictatorial bodies, a.k.a. the European Union. Our best wishes to the British and we hope that others find their way clear of the overreaching arms of the Brussels Bureaucracy. Perhaps Brussels Bureaucracy, or the Double B, should have been the proper name for the EU as BB is even more simple an abbreviation and rolls off the tongue so much easier. Try it, BB or EU, EU sounds too close to something yucky, you know, ‘ew’ as an expression to an awful smell, rhymes with PU. Britain will hopefully be back dependent solely on the Pound Sterling and will soon arrange free trade with the China, Brazil, India and even United States, after President Obama exits office as he does not particularly like Britain as proven when he discarded the bust of Winston Churchill back to Britain as President Obama believes that the man who saved the world from Hitler was a despicable human being. If the British are seeking an honored place for that particular sculpture, we would love to give it a place of honor and show it off to our many British friends here in our little corner of the world. E-mail us if you are interested as we would be honored to have such a prized possession. To be able to say that we are hosting the bust of Winston Churchill that President Obama so ingloriously returned to Britain as a slap in the face and insult would make us prouder than a peacock in full plumage.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Free at Last, Meir Ettinger Will Soon Be Free at Last

 

Meir Ettinger will finally be allowed to go home after being released from an ordeal which stole from him over nine months of his youth. Meir was detained, arrested, held without charges or even suspicions of having committed any crime beyond holding political views outside of those considered rational and safe by people in the Shin Bet security police and is a member of groups of young dreamers calling themselves “The Hilltop Youth,” a name which they may have taken due to media labelling them as a disruptive group known for camping on hilltops overlooking Jewish settlements and known rock throwing vantage points. Meir was arrested without charge back in August of 2015 during the investigation into the deadly firebombing of a Palestinian house in the village of Duma. Subsequent to Meir Ettinger’s arrest two others were charged with having committed the crime but that did not affect Meir’s detention. Despite all of this, Meir Ettinger and Evyatar Slonim, who has since been released without charge, were placed under administrative detention as being a security risk though for what they posed such a risk was never released nor were they charged with any criminal act or intent of criminal act. Meir spent much of this time in solitary confinement, a mental strain and a form of punishment which has left lesser individuals permanently scarred and some even driven insane. The Shin Bet accused Ettinger of being the leader of an extremist collective nicknamed “The Revolt.” Meir was amongst a large dragnet of nationalist youths with whom the left leaning leadership of the Shin Bet and other agencies of the government, a shadow enforcement arm of such a self-serving security police with obvious extra-judicial powers, all in the hopes of cracking members of these idealist activist youth and getting their suspected criminal. That some were detained even after they presumably got their confessions, Meir was chosen for particular treatment.

 

Meir Ettinger

 

What exactly was Meir Ettinger’s criminal intent? He desires a stronger and more self-believing Israel which faces down threats from forces he sees as evil and claims all of the lands promised between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. He would like to see the Temple rebuilt in its proper place and the return of Davidic Rule, the monarchy, something we pray for three times every day right after we pray to rebuild Jerusalem. He and any friends have never been shown, let alone proven, to house any thoughts of revolt against the elected government and only wishes for some changes that they see as necessary. Meir desires better protection for the citizens of Israel from terrorist acts with the rock throwing which has proven fatal a number of times to be properly prevented and the perpetrators arrested for their criminal acts. He has differences of opinion as to what the state could do if only they desired and had the will to do and wishes for leadership which would live up to the hopes and realizes the dreams of its people. Oh, and worst of all he belongs to a long line of trouble makers as he is a grandson of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane who was assassinated in 1990 for his controversial views that one day if Israel did not address challenges to its security the terror war would grow out of control, rocks would be hurled at motorists, stabbings would take place on the street, bombings would ensue in restaurants and other venues and public places and called for the transfer after buying out those Arabs who desired to leave and live elsewhere if only they had the funds and the expulsion of those deemed a threat to the nation and its people. For these crimes of association Meir was even denied permission to attend the Brit Milah, circumcision, of his first born son as well as missing his wife’s pregnancy and delivery of this precious child. The fact that Meir was held for just over nine months has this added element of mental stress and torture added onto everything else. Imagine being held for political reasons and due to your family heritage and missing almost all of the pregnancy of your wife, the delivery of your first son, his religious ceremony dedicating him to the Covenant with Hashem all because you are suspected of holding political views and being the grandson of an assassinated Rabbi with strong Torah views and great foresight and now you have a son who you can only fear will some day face the same torturous treatment. Let me display his thoughts which he included in a poem, not the greatest of poems and the greats need not fear Meir replacing them in any future great books of poetry, but it captures his essence which is what is most important. Meir Ettinger’s poem: as published in Arutz Sheva

 

You know, it’s not easy for us to be heard
The media hardly allows us a word
And he who dares say that the media’s wrong
Is ground into bits by their teeth and their tongue.

 

They have a system that’s oiled to perfection
One schemes, one directs, then they pen a confession
And he who dares question their machinations
Will find out that his past needs “investigations.”

 

Still, we will try to explain a thing or two
In the hope that you’ll realize it all rings true –
No, I don’t mind repeating our story to you
I’m in prison for months, there’s nothing to do.

 

If you’ve listened to all the distortions of truth
Then you shudder at hearing the words “hilltop youth.”

 

Someday we will tell you about the machine
That processes facts and decides what they mean
But for now, here’s a message we hope will hit home
(We’re writing our story in rhyme, like a poem.).

 

The hilltop youth – you won’t hear in the news –
Have hearts filled with love for their fellow Jews
And when they noticed the emperor’s clothes were awry
They couldn’t, like others, just let him pass by.

 

In their young minds many questions arose
When they saw that the emperor lacked more than his clothes
True, they had no proper contacts and methods and means
But were willing to try – after all, they are teens.

 

The truth they were missing, that is what they sought
To fill the lacunae in what they’d been taught
To them life was simple, they needed no frills
They went out to find truth on the bare, rocky hills.

 

Down below was erudition, with all degrees listed,
Could that be the reason so much had been twisted?
Only when young can this search be undertaken
We could step back from the crowd and try to awaken.

 

Families murdered on roads? In our land? – we asked why
We know it’s preventable, if you really try
Perhaps someone up there has a head that is hollow
That doesn’t keep him from leading – but why do you follow?

 

And when no one could give us a good explanation
It deepened our fear for the state of our nation
And led us to feelings of isolation
If matters so crucial are covered in plaster,
It’s no wonder foundations just crack all the faster.

 

Then many fine youths came to join and do good
Feel the pain of the nation – as all of us should
The establishment shunned them and on them heaped blame
And everyone else rushed to join in the game.

 

The youth on the hilltops were stunned by this ploy
Why the unleashed aggression, the need to destroy?
How could adults abrogate their own rules
And behave towards their children in ways that were cruel?

 

At first they had gazed on the children in wonder
But when truth posed a threat, they tore them asunder
For they know by themselves what we know very well
That power and honor is what makes their hearts swell.

 

We must have stumbled on some great mystery
Maybe someone is trying to rewrite history
Otherwise there is no way to fathom
What led them down to this moral chasm.

 

How turn evil into good and good into evil?
They gathered against us as if we’re the devil
Why create a new story every few days?
When we’d watch the news, we’d be simply amazed.

 

True, we do dream of ending our people’s disgrace
Hoping one day to see the Temple in its rightful place.
We believe that all of Israel is our eternal possession
And want our leaders to say no to secession.

 

This is what Jews prayed for throughout the years
Through gas and fire and blood and tears
So why do they treat us as if we’re deranged?
What Jewish aspiration has changed?

 

Why did they arrest us with such needless violence?
And leave us to languish in cells of silence?
Police made a mockery of the law
And when they caused us pain, broad smiles we saw.

 

Why does terror continue despite Tzahal forces
While the world keeps silent and its media endorses?
Our leaders with stopping the terror just toy
But command the army, “Settlement hilltops destroy!”

 

This policy did not emerge out of the blue
With every new government, it’s resurrected anew
Once again the British White Paper comes to pass
As each new government hopes that their power will last.

 

If someone notices that the emperor is sans his attire
He becomes a threat to be extinguished like fire
All the media join to burn the witch at the stake
With all of the threats and wild claims they can make.

 

You may feel that I am too rash in penning these words
But what we have here is a theater of the absurd.
Just one last question allow me to bring:
If my being free is the threatening thing

 

Maybe something very fundamental is the matter
If I, a singer at heart, am deemed the Mad Hatter.

 

All right, enough, I will silence my breath
Lest jailers administratively detain this bad poet to death.

 

That is his poem and perhaps frames his “crime against the state,” desiring it become a better place for which he was willing to live as an example of what could be while never calling for any overt or criminal act. He was admired partially because of his revered Rabbinical grandfather and because he was a leader and a figure respected by the others who believe as he does. I have never met Meir but would be honored to do so though not sure I would last too long at one of their campsites. Yes they have built temporary structures which have all been summarily razed within a week at the most by the authorities though he was at home when arrested, not sitting on some cold and unforgiving hilltop. His treatment will only have given him a more dedicated following if he so chooses and may have accomplished the exact opposite of its intents while quite possibly steeling this young man to lead more vigorously. He might even reestablish his grandfather’s political party though a new name would be in order as Rabbi Kahane’s party was permanently banned from running for election as it appeared to be garnering a following, cannot have a new political party which challenges the status quo and possibly even one or more of the establishment parties. That would reek of democracy. Nope, cannot have too much of that and did not the people realize the danger of voting for people they honestly believed in and wished to follow, nope, not that much democracy.

 

Meir, welcome home and may you live a fruitful life with joy and blessings of Hashem and all the merit you deserve and earn. Thank you for your stout heart and strong mind. Enjoy your new baby son and may you never be removed from his side ever again and may your tormentors be forgiven their transgressions as I feel confident you too wish for their souls and consciences.

 

Beyond the Cusp