Democrats Offer Rehash of Same Old Song

 

Rereleasing old songs, as if they were new, works well in Hollywood as we always hope the remake of an old favorite movie will offer more pizzazz and though some do, most just let us down and we leave the theater feeling hollow. The music industry does the same thing with old songs, often over and over, and still the original is often the one we prefer best. But at least Hollywood and the music industry choose successful movies and songs to try to modernize, and still they usually fail the test of time. The Democrat Party is trotting out their oldest theme which has worked by lulling the people with stories of getting everything for free and never having to pay. The electorate soon realizes that there is no free lunch and somebody has to pay. The sad reality is that often the people who were promised that everything was to be free are the exact ones who end up paying. But the Democrats believe that they can win the youth over with their message of redistribution of wealth and everything for free with only the wealthy paying. What the Democrats are not telling them is that anybody who has a job is the Democrat definition of wealthy.

 

The War on Poverty has failed which is proven through the Cato Institute study showing that the collection of federal and state welfare benefit packages could deliver over $30,000 to a family without them working or even seeking employment. Perhaps this free stuff is the incentive to remain taking all the free stuff offered rather than working as if done to the full extent, one could keep the family fed for free. Benjamin Franklin offered some brutal and painful truths when he stated, “I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.” Benjamin Franklin allowed for people who were new in poverty, such as those whose job was abolished by unforeseen calamity such as the workplace closing, to receive temporary benefits, as their newfound poverty was not of their making. But as with many such allowances, it comes with a but, and that but is these are to be temporary and none should be supported by other people’s labors permanently, especially over a prolonged period. Franklin firmly felt that making people uncomfortable with poverty was the best remedy for their situation and not making the life of those in poverty comfortable and wanting for nothing. Perhaps it was this position which had the mint place Ben Franklin on the $100.00 Bill pictured below.

 

Ben Franklin on the $100.00 Bill

 

Numerous studies have shown that those in the United States who are considered to be in poverty have a modern flat screen television, computers, a vehicle which is more often previously owned but some have new cars, a microwave and numerous other items which could be considered to be a luxury. We remember the first time such a study was released, which was before flat screens, so then it was just color televisions and stereo systems, we were left somewhat stunned as we did not own a microwave as they were still too pricey for a retail salesperson’s and a secretary’s salaries. We found that one reason was the poverty-stricken were residing in government assisted housing while we resided in the posh suburbs in a spacious two bedroom apartment. The italicized should be read with great sarcasm as the government assisted housing area was less than a mile away across the city limits inside Philadelphia while we then resided in Ben Salem just off Street Road, yes, that was the name of the road. This is not then a new problem as this refers to a survey performed in the 1970’s when even many Democrats feared that those in poverty had become too comfortable in their poverty.

 

The truth which needs repeating, and should be taught to students in their introductory economics classes and political science classes, but that would be considered detrimental and not aiding in the proper indoctrination of the student to expect and support full Europeanizing of the United States, is that socialism has and will always fail. Another item which bares repeating is that the United States was the nation, and even before nationhood, the region where one ran from Europe and its habits, to start a new world where if one worked hard they would succeed and not have governments dictate where their moneys were to be spent. The American Revolution was over a three percent tax on tea. Let that sink in, a three percent tax on tea. It was the principle that they were being taxed to support somebody else’s spending and that this spending was done without their even being allowed a vote to elect the government taxing them to cover its expenditures. Many people in America today did not vote for those who support these seemingly extravagant welfare related expenditures, especially to allow a family to collect a government provided allotment greater than their salaries after taxation. We can fully understand one taking the government handout and not working if in order to take home an equivalent sum annually would require, if our math is accurate, over $42,500 in salary per year. That requires being employed at over $20.00/hr working a forty-hour week. With such generosity provided by the government, one would be foolish to take employment at minimum wage, even if it was the $15.00/hr that the Democrats are pushing. With welfare and other subsidies offering such free money which exceeds even their dreamed of higher minimum wage, it is no wonder that employers are unable to fill minimum wage entry positions. Oh, and guess who pays for all of this largess? Anyone making over $20.00/hr, that’s who.

 

So, where as those who have learned to live off the system may be receiving a free lunch, those who work and pay for it know that their lunch is far from free. We have heard about the degrading system which makes one wait in lines and the shame in paying for groceries with the government card and all the other horrible requirements made for people to collect these funds. We also know the other side of approaching half one’s paycheck being eaten by taxes, federal, state, county and city. Even FICA now goes directly into the general fund as the lock-box has been eliminated as the politicians found leaving little IOU’s on the “Social Security” lock-box far too tedious when stealing what was supposed to be set aside to pay for Social Security in the future. The politicians act like there still is such a lock-box, and there is, it is just no funds are ever inserted as all funds enter immediately into the main stream of cash flowing through Washington D.C. in order to pay for all the goodies they keep enacting. What the systems for eliminating poverty are now accomplishing is guaranteeing that once one reaches the stage of going onto these programs, they become all but impossible to leave simply because it would require quite a cut back in one’s lifestyle as at an entry wage one would have to take almost a one-third cut in their income.

 

Everyone remembers their first paycheck; they waited eagerly those first few weeks, regularly computing all the money they would get, all but spending it on music or the down payment on a super stereo (we were just beginning high school when we went through this calamity), and then we receive the envelope with the check with all our hard earned money inside. Then we opened the envelope and the sum in the box marked, pay to, and the shock went through our young bodies, the mind raced, we felt a little queasy and just knew something had to be wrong. We asked our go-to experts on all things in the real world, we knew them as Mom and Dad, and usually we asked Dad these questions, and Dad explained taxes and how as we were working part time we would get most of those withholdings back sometime next year. Withholdings, next year, whose idea was this rip-off, we wanted names and addresses so we could go and well, go and do something. Time proceeded along its pace and we stopped planning on spending our money until we actually had the check and even got to the point we could estimate what would be left for us. Then you are placed on the sales floor and are paid by commission against minimum wage, which made figuring out your paycheck became calculus. But that shock of the withholdings is one you never get past and when money gets tight, emergencies or whatever, it happens, that is when you really feel that the system is broken.

 

The reason is simple, by taxing the rich using the income tax you are missing their wealth as the truly rich invest, they do not work for a salary, and the average CEO gets stock bonuses and a car and chauffeur and other perks, not a big salary. They pay little to no income tax as income tax is the way the truly wealthy make sure no regular working stiff ever makes into their ranks protecting their status as those with all the power. They may eventually, if they do not reinvest their funds fast enough, have to pay capital gains taxes but only on the increased value of the stocks, the principle is never touched. Their initial wealth remains untouched and should they decide to buy another mansion, they buy it as an investment such that they get to use it as a deduction against their capital gains taxes. They often have all their expenses taken off their portfolio so as to use them as losses incurred and pay themselves some paltry salary as spending money off a trust fund set up to avoid paying taxes. The only way of touching these wealthy, the truly wealthy, would be a wealth tax, and that will never happen. Just for the record, ever wonder how Congresscritters become so wealthy on what is a mediocre income? The answer is so basic that it will really upset you, Congresscritters and their senior staff are immune from insider trading laws because they have so much insider information that they would not be able to control and invest their wealth if they needed to obey such restrictions. These are the people screaming that Trump is staying at hotels where he owns the property and they make insider deals knowing which company is about to receive billions in tax monies for some government program? Please, give us a break. They are all scoundrels.

 

The whole problem is that the monies one receives in the various welfare systems cannot exceed the take-home pay of a minimum wage earner or there is no incentive to go out and work. But the Democrats have a solution for that. Remember, their solution for high college tuition is for government to pay for college, free college, their solution to high medical bills is for government to pay the medical bills, their solution for the problem of the moment is for government to pay, their solution to all your problems is for government to pay; but the government does not earn any money, they just take it from those who work. We wish to close quoting Margaret Thatcher who once said, “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” That is exactly the problem that Venezuela is suffering, Greece is suffering, Italy is suffering and what eventually killed the Soviet Union and cripples Cuba and most of Europe. That is another reason for the United States not to go down the apparently perfect plan of socialism and instead to return to the Constitution and limited government with the powers accumulated in Washington D.C. being redistributed amongst the individual states where the people have greater control.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

What Should be Included as the New Western Ethic?

 

There is an obvious pushback against President Trump throughout the Western World. Many areas of Europe, Canada, Australia and especially the United States in complete authentic meltdown over the prospect that Trump might succeed. This criticism of anything outside of the new ethic being modeled for the past seventy years or so has reached the point where accepting a speaking engagement could cost you your health if not your life should anyone start a rumor that your beliefs are unacceptably conservative or old fashioned. Take the reception Charles Murray received as he was almost lynched at the liberal college of Middlebury College in the state whose motto is “Live Free or Die,” Vermont. What was his crime? Well, he wrote the controversial book “The Bell Curve” which made claims that some people were more gifted than others and that there was a distribution of intelligence with a large median area and a slope downward from there in both directions. How absolutely horrid and insulting not recognizing that we are all equally gifted, just each of us differently. Nobody is smarter or faster or better at anything and we all deserve a trophy because we were there whether we engaged or just sat in the corner dreaming, we get a trophy. Our new age does not believe in competition, keeping score, recognizing winners or shaming losers to try harder, we just accept everybody and whatever efforts they feel they need to contribute today.

 

That is the one set of ideas which must be thoroughly erased from society, the work ethic, the idea that there are winners and losers, competition as a way of improving, striving to better oneself, making money, capitalism, actually defining words and having accepted correct spelling, standards, and the belief that some ideas and societies are superior to others and that freedom is something which is not only worth defending but requires defending because there are those who would subjugate the world forcing it to be ruled under their autocratic thumb. Wait, one of those groups are the elitists who are so against the ideals and ideas of Western culture and believe that Western ethics and culture is oppressive and evil. They find it based on violence because it has defended its freedoms and ideals from those who would have subjugated and destroyed their world. They claim that Western culture and society was responsible for World War II and the Cold War and that had they simply not fought to keep their culture everything would have been so much better. Sure the Nazis were not exactly friendly but did the world really need be turned into a shooting gallery just to defeat the Nazis and the equally disturbing Imperial Japan? Of course not as the Western nations should have negotiated with them. Those claiming such forget that there was this little thing called the Munich Agreement which Neville Chamberlin signed with Adolph Hitler as well as Georges Bonnet of France and Joachim von Ribbentrop for Germany, Benito Mussolini for Italy and declared as “Peace in our time.” The main detractor was Winston Churchill who was called the crazy old man and was ostracized by the leftist pacifists of that day who just like the modern leftists saw nothing to be gained by war and saw little need to defend against the Nazi threat because a treaty had put an end to the menace and Hitler was appeased. Well, not quite as Hitler next demanded Poland and divided it with the Soviets under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. That act finally was more than the French or British were willing to permit and they went to war. Unfortunately, with the time given to the Nazis they had built a formidable war machine with which they came within a razors edge of winning World War II before the United States entered the war. Had they defeated the British and then turned against Russia successfully, the world would likely be speaking German today and there would be no Western culture to speak of and the modern leftists would have their dream, a socialist fantasyland where under the heel of dictators all would be perfect. Venezuela is one of the modern examples of where such thinking eventually leads.

 

 

Let’s imagine the United States after it has adopted the most easily recognized ideas which are favorites of the college educated elitists, not the professors, even though they are the purveyors of these concepts. We’ll use what the protesting students do, the ones who decide who is permitted to speak and what any speaker may present on their campuses. They proclaim that government must provide free education to all at all levels for as long as or at any point in time or point in their lives which people may desire, not require, simply desire. Further, all people, regardless of quality of their health, preexisting conditions, level of exercise, diet, weight or other physical, mental and psychological conditions should be granted equal coverage. The government must provide all citizens with a livable wage. Further, anybody within the borders should be granted citizenship. Everyone who desires to come to the United States should be granted entrance and citizenship because all people are equal and must be respected and given equal rights and treatment despite place of birth. The wealthy must be made to provide to pay sufficient taxes even if it means taking part of their wealth to provide government services which the people are entitled to as citizens. The people should be educated to understand and accept these concepts and the rest of the ideals of proper governance which includes freedom of gender identification, equal treatment of all sexual preferences, equal treatment of all people regardless of gender, identity, race, sexual preferences, nation of origin and a lengthy list of other identifiers as identifiers are evil and must be erased. When asked exactly how the society, actually the government, is supposed to afford these benefits and their reply will always be the same mantra, tax the rich, the wealthy will pay for it. What they refuse to understand is that in such a society there would be no wealthy as they would either leave for someplace where sanity ruled instead of feel good leftists or would have lost their wealth and joined the poor. Such a social arrangement for building a nation would result in a failed state where the average norm would be people taking courses, even if they had to take basket weaving, or simply party or enjoy long walks on the beach or through the park and collect their living wage as anything else would be punished with an unaffordable tax.

 

In order to collect sufficient funds to provide these benefits, the government would have to tax any income over the livable wage at near, if not above, 99%. Simply defined, if the living wage was set at thirty-thousand dollars a year, then with the above mention 99% tax on any income earned above that rate would have somebody earning thirty-five-thousand dollars a year would end up having a mere fifty dollars additional over those who settled for the livable wage. That begs the question, why bother working for a nominal wage when you would only receive a penny per dollar above the livable wage earned. Well, perhaps if you earned enough it would be different. What if you earned $250,000.oo? Well you would end up with $2,200.oo more than the livable wage. Now realize how much you would need to work as most people making a quarter of a million dollars put in over sixty hours a week at the office and another thirty at home and spend much of their free time thinking work. Then ask if a life of near constant working is really worth just over two thousand dollars or would the idea of taking courses or simply chilling with friends and take the livable wage be better. How bad could the livable wage life be compared to working your guts out for an additional two thousand dollars? The pull to avoid a punishing taxation and simply go with the majority would eventually result in the end of wealth as we know it. Additionally, if the livable wage proved not to provide sufficient life enjoyment and with likely the majority of the society collecting the livable wage, then it is likely that within a relatively short period of time they would vote to increase the livable wage. Politicians would place their jobs on that promise as they would not care as their salaries would either be tax exempt or sufficiently high such that their lives would be very comfortable, after all, they simply need to vote to increase the livable wage and also to raise their own salary.

 

Once again, look to Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela and the Soviet Union and the same thing becomes obvious to any discerning observer, they all have failed miserably. What makes this even more distressing is that Venezuela was a profitable nation with a capitalist economy until they elected a feel good socialist who decided that elections needed adjusting. He basically became President for life and he kept enacting more and more social safety net programs until Venezuela became a socialist utopia until the oil revenue could no longer support the social spending when the price of oil dropped as the United States discovered the means of retrieving shale oil through fracking. This led to Saudi Arabia to open up their spigots forcing the price of oil to the point where fracking was no longer profitable. This also placed pressure on Iran whose oil is of a lesser degree as it is very thick and needs more processing thus requiring more expense to process thus making their profit margin require a higher price than the result from the Saudi Arabian price pressure to a low level. Russia also has run into problems with the lowered price of oil which has proven that heavy social spending or other considerations can make a lower price for crude oil economically ruinous which has been the weapon used by the Saudis for years. The problem for Venezuela was more spending than lowered oil price; the oil price simple exacerbated their situation.

 

There is a reason why socialism will always fail while capitalism will usually work provided government spending is kept in check. The founding fathers chose an entrepreneurial based society for a reason, human instincts. There is one disposition in human behavior which can be counted upon in near all situations regardless of the governance, greed. Yes, being greedy is considered a negative personality trait but if we are honest, we will almost all admit that given no punishment for acting greedy, we will be greedy. Given a choice between a regular hamburger or a double hamburger for the same price, face it; we will most likely take the double burger. Make that three scoops of ice cream versus four scoops of ice cream for the same price? Four scoops, right? Let’s make it even easier, you are offered two jobs, both requiring you to clean up a football field which are across the street from one another with the one on the north side paying twenty dollars an hour and the one on the south side paying fifteen dollars an hour and both allowing you five hours of payment no matter how long you take, which job would you take and you can only do one or the other. Obvious, you take the north for the extra twenty-five dollars. Why these seemingly stupid questions, you ask? Well, capitalism counts on people being greedy, well, not exactly greedy but willing to work harder to gain additional wealth. Sure there are those who like me prefer a job which was interesting but when I worked on commission I worked far more diligently and faster than when I was paid simply by the hour. Perhaps that is why when department stores paid their salespeople by commission the service was so good and when they switched to hourly rate the service disappeared and, if you were fortunate, you could find a cashier to take your money. When my team of roofers were paid by the hour it took half a day to roof one townhouse but when our job paid by the length of roof we completed we managed to finish three townhomes by lunchtime, remarkable, right? That is called the capitalism effect.

 

Now let’s look at a socialist utopia where you are guaranteed a livable wage which would be relatively generous. Additionally, healthcare is free so you do not need a job to be covered. Housing is fixed at an affordable rate and there are price controls on food, vehicles, and other niceties. Entertainment is inexpensive or free. Education is free for all levels and you can remain in school taking courses all your life and even the dorm room is free as is the cafeteria. Most jobs are likely to be employing people from foreign countries as they would be willing to work for a wage as other costs in such a society make doing so easier to send money home to their families but these people work for a few years, make what their needs were back home and leave. Most of the citizens simply take the livable wage, stay in school and live a carefree life. Now let’s add one last item to the mix; anybody is permitted to enter the country and become a citizen simply by requesting such. Now how long will such a nation survive? Decades, years, months, weeks, until the first million people arrive? Face it, such a nation is doomed from the onset and there is no way around it even if there are oil wells as far as the eye can see. Even the oil sheikdoms limit their wealth and generosity to the indigenous peoples and guard citizenship for the precious fortune it is for their people who never need toil if they choose not to and foreign workers are brought in to do everything. Imagine if they allowed for open citizenship for just a week. Their ability to afford to continue their generosity would vanish and the goose that was laying the golden oil eggs would no longer be capable of supporting the expanded population as everyone who could get there, would get there and take the free income for life or for as long as it lasted. There can be no open border socialist utopia and even with a closed border it eventually will collapse, even Kuwait which has the luxury of an oil well for every ten people or something ridiculously close. Without near endless supply of wealth, the sole means of running a nation successfully is to take as much advantage of the one constant, greed. Using greed to power the country is far more successful than using the country to satisfy greed.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Rabbinical Congress for Peace Demand for Next Government

 

The Rabbinical Congress for Peace met with the last Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein (Likud) to convey their feelings and the demands of Torah concerning peace negotiations and what sacrifices if any are acceptable and how the new government after the March 17, 2015 elections needs to pursue any future deals as well as any demands from the European Union, the United States or any other outside pressures. The Rabbinical Congress for Peace (RCP), which is comprised of around three-hundred-fifty prominent Israeli Rabbis, out of a total group of one-thousand-two-hundred Rabbis from the United States, Canada and Israel, have recently stepped up their counseling and advisories to the political class of Israel pushing for any further peace propositions, offers, stipulations, arrangements, evacuations, concessions or releases be made under the governance of Torah and traditional teachings of Judaism where peace is a highly valued and precious ideal that it is to be approached with great respect and dutifully sought after with defined and exactly defined precautions and specific stipulations distinctly defined steps, allowances and permitted sacrifices well defined in traditional Jewish texts and thought. The Rabbis most recent discussion held with the past Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein was of much interest as the Rabbis stated in no uncertain terms that the next government, regardless of who is chosen to form a ruling coalition, must obey the Torah and traditional Jewish teachings are essential to guide any peace negotiations and pressed that the Rabbis themselves should be consulted before taking any steps to assure they receive their blessings and are not against the teachings. So, what are the ideas, demands, sacrifices and offers these Rabbis are demanding be made and what ones are they refusing to give their blessing for is the next question and the first thing that curiously leapt into my mind.

 

This was where I was pleasantly surprised as initially seeing a title of the name this groups of Rabbis gave their groups of Rabbinical Congress for Peace seemed so very close to the names of so many of the extreme leftist groups which can always find some manner of twisting the realities in order to make the Palestinians blameless in any situation while finding some twisted path for laying all blame on Israel. We have seen even Jewish and Israeli leftist peace groups, who only have peace in their names and spite in their hearts, always adopt the Palestinian narrative and rush to defend their financial interests by agreeing with every European accusation against Israel largely because the vast majority of these leftist peace groups may have many Israeli leftists members, the funding is almost entirely coming from Europe and often straight from some European government or groups of governments and possibly even from the European Union while the most extreme also have been proven to receive funding from Arab nations, Muslim groups and even from Palestinian terror groups. Yet these peace first and who would willingly sacrifice all of Israel and move to Europe or the United States if that is what their European masters demanded they force on their own country and they wonder why a majority of Israelis are so frustrated at their naiveté and mindless obedience even to demanding the surrender of their nation one piece after the other. The facts that the majority of the Rabbis of this group came from the United States and other places outside of Israel my suspicions were heightened. My initial trepidations were only heightened when I read the initial commentary from Rabbinical Congress for Peace Director Rabbi Abraham S. Lewin where he said, “When dealing with Jewish Law there is no left or right.” And then commenting the upcoming March 17, 2015 elections he stated, “When entering the polling station to vote one must consider only one thing, will your vote help to prevent the establishment of a government that will continue negotiations on further withdrawals and concessions to enemies of Israel which is a danger to life.” Imagine my relief and the big breath of air I took as I almost swooned from the shock. Finally I was reading the words I have always expected to hear from Rabbis but after hearing for too many years Rabbis at so-called peace rallies in the United States over the years since the Oslo Accords go further and further into the lands of lost minds calling for Israel to heed the wisdoms coming from Europe or from the United Nations or expounding the virtues of the most recent demands made out of the White House which called on Israel to make the sacrifices everyone knew they must make in order to prove that Israel truly desired peace. I never ceased asking at what point will it be the Palestinian turn to make some gesture for peace other than demanding more from Israel with the encouragement and full support of Europe and the United Nations.

 

Commenting on the pitfalls and fallacy of peace negotiations with no backing or affirmations through actions from the other side Minister of the Knesset and the former Speaker wrote, “There is no doubt in my mind that empty words like ‘negotiations’ or ‘peace agreement’ that have no backing other than preparedness by Israel to concede without getting anything in return is futile.” He continued pointing out that, “certainly, from a strategic point of view such declarations can weaken our position against terror elements and extreme Islamists who refuse to accept our presence here as a sovereign nation.” This coming from a Likud member should not be as surprising at it still managed to appear to this writer. Perhaps I have become too jaundiced in my expectations after the slides taken by all so many former Likud ministers and even a Prime Minister who formed his own political party, Kadima, in order to execute his nightmare we all know as the Gaza disengagement. Then there is another former Likud Minister who also joined Kadima and then formed her own party, Hatnua, so she would head the ticket and finally be crowned Prime Minister as she obviously feels she is destined for leading Israel and reaching that magical deal making peace with the Palestinians. I have wondered if her great plan will leave Israel with more than just North Tel Aviv along the coast to Netanya. Now she has completed her slide and is running teamed with Labor and frighteningly enough, if the polls are accurate and hold their current numbers, she just might get her shot after all.

 

There are other former Likud politicians who have left and either joined other parties or founded their own party and usually these defecting ministers make comments such as the Likud has lost its soul and no longer cares for the little guy. What they mean when saying such drivel is that they plan to run their campaign totally on economic matters and will only talk about raising minimum wage, creating jobs, lowering the price of cottage cheese, cares, and whatever else and that they understand the sacrifices and difficulties the middle class are facing and they will do what is necessary to appreciate the difficulties of the middle class and help the poor allowing them a better life. These ministers do not know what it is like to be middle class, let alone living on a pension, and are not concerned about anything other than garnering votes on the cheap. The first rule is that the government does not create jobs as the government does not create anything, the government takes and takes and anything it ever gives to anybody it must first take that from somebody else. The government cannot create jobs in the private sector, it can only get in the way and make that more difficult. Next time one of these holier than thou makes the promise that if their party is controlling the next Knesset they will do whatever it takes to create jobs, ask them exactly what they plan to do to create jobs. If they answer anything other than remove regulations and lower corporate taxes and reduce the roll of unions, then they are lying about creating anything but their own election because whatever government does to create anything only creates paperwork and the necessity to waste time, efforts and money on meeting whatever plan the government had for creating jobs which will result in less job creation. Simply look at it logically. If the government makes some rule to create more jobs then they also have to make some reporting agency requirement to track and record these jobs in order to prove they exist which means that any employer who after these rules and regulations are enacted now needs to fill out gobs of paperwork, possibly arrange for inspections to verify the claims on the paperwork, must also fill out more forms denoting that the new hires received the appropriate salary, hours, insurance and other stipulation required by the regulations and then establish the inspections to prove these claims are true if deemed necessary. Now, if you ran a factory and needed to hire a dozen new workers for a new production line and because of these requirements on new hires in order to permit the politician who made the grand promises about jobs to have the proof that these jobs were his doing, which they very likely were not, then after taking the time and effort and investing the money to have people research the requirements and do everything to make sure beyond any doubt that all the correct forms and papers were filled out correctly and returned to the correct agency in the government, then how many new hires will this employer now hire for his new line and how many employees he already has on payroll will he simply transfer from other positions to make up the remainder of the positions when he can no longer afford to hire the entire dozen people after losing so much time and money meeting the government requirements and assuring he met the regulations before hiring even one new worker. Government does not create jobs, only unfetter businesses make jobs.

 

Back to the Rabbinical Congress for Peace and what they stand for and how they reached their positions. These Rabbis reached their decisions the best way possible, they sought guidance from the Torah and other writings of scholars, Prophets and Rabbis through the ages. Rabbinical Congress for Peace Chairman Rabbi Yosef Gerlitzky wrote that the precept of Jewish law stated in the formative legal text Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim, 329), states that surrendering land increases danger to human life, thus he is advising Israel to adopt this Jewish law as the state’s guideline for peace and security. He further wished to have any future government officially state it will refrain from negotiations suggesting future withdrawals of lands by Jewish residents. Returning to Rabbinical Congress for Peace Director Rabbi Abraham S. Lewin who stated, “We will bring this basic principle to the attention of every Jew in Israel and pray that the future government will be a stronger government that will follow the instructions of the Torah; thereby we will merit the promise in the Torah ‘I will grant peace in the land.’” Researching the past rulings and commentary from the Rabbinical Congress for Peace, I found some astonishing and astounding statements and other findings which were such music to my ears and a melody for my soul. It was noted that they base their philosophy upon Jewish law, or Halacha, and much of it on the most authoritative text on contemporary Jewish law: the Shulchan Aruch. They quote particularly the passages and rules in the Orach Chaim (329:6), the section dealing primarily with the laws of the Sabbath and festivals; the Shulchan Aruch tackles the question of whether Jewish communities which find themselves under siege or attack on the Sabbath can violate the holy day to wage war. The ruling states that “If the assailants, attackers intent was financial gain, the Shabbat (Sabbath) laws should not be violated because of the attack. On the other hand, it continues; if their intent was against Jewish lives, or if they lay siege without any stated intention, or if there is a sense that they are coming for Jewish lives, then even before they come – and are only mobilizing themselves – it is a mitzvah (Torah commandment) to go out and attack them with weapons of war and violate the Shabbat laws. These requirements have to do with every inch of lands which are part of the Jewish state or even if the lands in question are part of the promised Jewish state by international treaties. Much of this and the rest of these Rabbis teachings and arguments have as their crucial tenet that the concept of pikuach nefesh: that preserving lives takes precedence over nearly all other commandments of the Torah – including the Sabbath. The sanctity of life outweighs all other consideration and if an act will by its consequence jeopardize a single life, then that act is an abomination and thus is an act against the whole of the Jewish nation. Rabbi Lewin explains that this ruling is fundamentally important because it clearly categorizes the surrendering of land or even property to enemies as by definition pikuach nefesh; something which endangers lives and is thus forbidden by the Torah.

 

So often it has been stated that the Rabbis and Torah do not have any place when it comes to politics in this modern age. Where with all too many Rabbis I might tend to agree, but that is solely due to the fact that the Rabbis whom I have known that I would feel uncomfortable in having them even act as advisors to people in the government is largely due to their pursuit of items not found in Torah but instead found in the precepts of liberalism and socialism which they misappropriate as being those pursuits which will repair the world and fulfill tikkun olam. These Rabbis had adopted the leftist mantras by which they had mixed a warped combination of politically correct standards with various amounts of ecological fanaticism and animal rights even to the point of claiming that only free range animals can be raised for food no matter what that would do to the supply and thus the price (most of these Rabbis were vegans and thus were not concerned with the price of meat) additionally including gender sensitive issues such as promoting acceptance and even supporting of same sex marriage, understanding of gender identity disorder (also called gender confusion), socialist collectivism, livable wage, wealth redistribution, affirmative action, racial sensitivity and a good measure of Western guilt which they claimed demanded that the industrialized Western world was obligated to make up for the sins of the past due to colonialism as well as the vandalism caused by the theft of the natural resources of the third world nations by which they inferred that the industrialized nations stole the natural resources which led to these nations being poor in the current age and that such poverty was almost exclusively due to the sins of the wealthier nations. The anti-wealth concepts of these Rabbis were simply frightening and they apparently never thought their concepts for elimination of poverty through to their inevitable ends. They would sermonize that those with wealth were to be held responsible for caring for those who were mired in poverty. They were referring to those people in the United States who lived below the poverty level being given the ‘excess’ wealth of the top ten percent or even twenty or thirty percent, whatever amount it would take until those at the lowest end of the scales of wealth were brought up to a level on par with the middle class. Never mind that most of those who qualify as poor in the United States, outside of those homeless and those unable to care for themselves who would be cared for in a hospital for the most severely mentally handicapped had the sanitariums not been driven out of business by the latest concepts that the people in such state run institutions would be better cared for as out-patients and pressed to live within society. Never mind that this resulted in many of these people who found themselves tuned out on the street never bothered to check in and receive, let alone take, their medications and too many fell through the cracks in a system not ready to care for or even account for these unfortunate people who truly required help, not to be guinea pigs in some grand social experiment gone horribly wrong. Further, if we were to honestly take from those who are part of the most wealthy and redistributed their excess monies to those who are truly needy and are at the lowest end of the financial world, we would be taking the welfare paid to the poorest Americans and sending it to somewhere in Africa, Asia or South America as almost every last American is wealthy beyond the wildest dreams of many throughout the world where true poverty exists and exists in great numbers. Many of these Rabbis misused Torah as a tool to expound on the leftist, socialist and even communist theories and often taught from their positions things which are not only not found in Torah but things which were totally against the teachings of Torah which was very disheartening to me and I am sure numerous others.

 

The fact that the Rabbinical Congress for Peace use Torah and its teachings about the obligations the Jewish people have to settle the lands as best as we are able and defend that land, not give it away as if it was not precious and belonging to the L0rd and we are simply those given to be the caretakers who will live with abundance from these lands permitting that we serve the L0rd and obey Torah learning to treat every man honestly and as kindly as we would wish to be treated unless that man proves to be working to destroy the Jewish people or defile the lands which belong to Hashem. If only the Rabbinical Congress for Peace were to expound on the need at this point for the Arabs to start to make concessions and sacrifice for every time they do not negotiate honestly. That is the practice whose time had come. No longer can Israel continue to backpedal eventually leading to our walking to Gibraltar across the Mediterranean Sea. The Jews of Israel must put an end to this constant flood of accusations against our people, our lands, and our destiny to liberate the lands granted us by the San Remo Conference and originally declared as our land to care for in the name of Hashem and not to fritter away our birthrights. The Arabs continuously demand that we return to the lands from where we came, to what they claim are our traditional lands. Well, it is time to exclaim to the world that we have the original deed that was filed with Hashem and is registered in Torah and we are not going to negotiate a single inch of it away and as long as the Arabs residing here accept the rulings of the San Remo Conference which calls for their being autonomous having the rights to own and till their farmlands, work their businesses and worship as they please but were not guaranteed any political rights as those were reserved for the Jewish people alone and as such they can grant such rights to others as they prove not to be a threat to the supremacy politically of the Jewish people on these lands. That is the international law as it was written in 1920 in San Remo, Italy and signed by the allied powers that had defeated the Ottoman Empire. These same victors not only drew up new borders and formed new nations in the Middle East but also did the same in Eastern Europe. All the Jewish People desire is to have their one sliver of land at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea and in exchange the Jewish people will continue to make great strides in numerous fields and share the bounties and advantages of their inventions and in exchange they ask simply for their rightful lands and t to be left in peace and they will not break that peace as long and the rest of the universe does not attack our lands and simply permits them their peace, nothing more, just peace.

 

Beyond the Cusp