23 thoughts on “Jewish Democrats”

  2. That was rather upsetting, pro-Obama Jews refusing to let other Jews enter a synagogue lest they question the holiness of The One.

    I ran across a nice Latin phrase by Rich Lowry at National Review

    For most of the left, the highest principle of just-war theory is licet si Obama id faciat (it’s okay if Obama does it).

    I wonder if there’s a Hebrew translation handy?

  3. “…even though all denominations breach this behavior in excess and both partisan camps are represented in the breach.”
    .
    .
    I’ve seen this kind of statement before. And I not only doubt it’s happening in ‘both partisan camps’ in ‘excess’, I want to refute his statement with my own experiences.

    Not ONCE in the last 25 years have I heard a Right-Wing Christian Minister say one political thing from a pulpit. My experiences are from 3 different denominations, and I can’t recount the number of churches we’ve visited in that time. In point of fact, I’ve seen Right-Wing Christian Minister go out of their way to keep from making political noise because they feared loosing their tax Status, and I’ve heard all of them SAY SO from their pulpits.

    I’ve spoken to friends and fellow members of those congregations ABOUT becoming more politically active, and it ALWAYS get’s killed because of the Tax issue. I can tell you that among Right-Wing Christian Laymen this is an ongoing topic. How do we get our churches to speak up more and how do we drive our Clergy away from the constant fear of Tax Status being lost?

    Personally I’d love to know just where these ‘activist’ Right-Wing Christian Churches are, so I could check them out and learn something about them. Then, I can tell MY church, “…here’s how THEY beat the loss of Tax Status…now, when do we start do so?”

    So if anyone knows about such a church as this in central NC…I’ll be here.

  4. I’ve never been in a curch that preached politics but my experiences are limited by geography and denomination.

  5. Regarding the story about what happened in Boca Raton: I’m skeptical. It easy to believe that people were asked to leave because of disruptive behavior, but I find it very hard to believe that anyone was asked to believe because of dissent. Judaism, particularly Conservative and Reform Judaism, encourages polite but challenging and dissenting questioning of anything and everything.

    The author’s story about the congregant who interrupted the rabbi is completely consistent with my own upbringing – our rabbi loved it when people interrupted his service! Like any good teacher, he didn’t want people to sit like lumps listening to him – he wanted people to engage, argue, think for themselves, and share their thoughts with everyone else.

    But lets say that the story about the synagogue in Boca Raton was completely accurate. In that case, for whatever it is worth, as a Jewish Democrat, I completely condemn the synagogue’s leadership. They should have *encouraged* people to ask Amb. Rice challenging questions – it benefits everyone.

    That said, Rand, your headline is a slur. Shame on you. It is never right to use the bad actions of a few to condemn an entire group. It isn’t right when the group in question are gun owners, it isn’t right when the group in question is right wing bloggers, and given the history of Jews and persecution, it certainly isn’t right when the group in question is Jewish.

  6. Bob-1: So you’re a Jewish Democrat? Great. I keep wondering how you guys (and by “you guys” I mean Jewish or Christian “liberals”) get around “Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Goods”? Was some escape clause found in the Dead Sea Scrolls wherein Yahweh decided to allow coercive income re-distribution? Just wondering.

    1. Bilwick, I’m happy to answer you, but I want it to be clear that you’re the one choosing the “hijack the thread”, not me.

      Do I understand correctly that you believe God wants no taxes whatsoever?

      I’m an atheist (who was brought up going to synagogue) so I don’t think God issued any commandments. But I think the sentiment behind the commandment is a good one. Whether one supports a low tax rate or a high tax rate, whether one supports a flat tax or a tax that is more proportionate with a person’s ability to contribute, jealousy and covetousness isn’t the question. The question is how to create a society where people can collectively support institutions which benefit the whole. In the case of the Federal government, these institutions include the world’s strongest military, the FDA, the CDC, NASA, etc. If you think God is against funding the military, you’re in good company, I suppose. If you think God is against funding the CDC or NASA, well, that’s kind of interesting.

      1. Maybe he means in the OWS sense of eat the rich and seize all their property for the greater good of Democrat redistribution policies.

        Envy: Greed’s bastard brother.

          1. For whatever it is worth, I think most of OWS is stupid. I’m in Illinois’ up-for-grabs 10th district, and I was happy to help moderate Brad Schneider defeat progressive Illya Sherman in the most recent primary. Sherman worked for Move On, Schneider is a management consultant. Just as there different kinds of Jews, there are different kinds of Democrats.

          2. See Titus, Bob said OWS looks like Jesus when OWS was cool. Now OWS isn’t cool, so Bob thinks it is stupid. You’re right, Titus, we need to stop rubbing it in, because Bob just wants to be cool and popular.

        2. Wodun, when people complain about “coercive income re-distribution”, shouldn’t I conclude they are complaining about any and all taxes? The word “coercive”, by its nature, seems like the most important part of the phrase, and taxes certainly are coercive. Complaining about coercive taxes is common on this blog, but advocating zero taxes seems rather rare.

          2. Yes, I guess we do. But lets include Bilwick1 or anyone who agrees with him. Is the primary complaint the “coercive” nature of taxes?” For Fletcher, below, the answer appears to be no. He only describes taxes as “taking money at gunpoint” for taxes he doesn’t approve of, but he approves of taxing for public goods, and he must understand that all taxes are taken gunpoint. Do you agree with Fletcher’s position? Bilwick1, do you? Is the primary problem waste and corruption, or is primary problem the coercive nature of taxes?

            I ask because everyone is against waste and corruption. The OWS people certainly are.

            And finally, about covetousness: It is a red herring. I personally don’t support in wealth redistribution for its own sake; in fact, I probably agree with most of your beliefs about “wealth” and “rich people”. But that doesn’t matter! Even if some foolish person (like an OWS protester) is thinking along the lines of Robin Hood and wants to redistribute wealth to promote wealth equality, they’ll describe it as a public good. It doesn’t matter whether they are motivated by “covetousnous” or just a deluded communist ideology — we should argue about policy, not motives!

            So the question for me still comes down to whether taxing for public goods can be conducted at gun point, and if so, then, of course, we’ll argue about what’s in the public’s best interest — a lighthouse, a strong military, the CDC and FDA, NASA, or even Harrison Bergeron-like crippling taxes for their own stupid communist sake.

      2. Bob,

        How can you be an atheist if you care about your fellow man, since it’s your fellow man who has to suffer the inevitable consequences of your lack of belief? The pattern has been repeated countless times: Jewish man doubts God. God tests Jew. Bizarre story gets added to the Old Testament.

        For the next thousand years, half of humanity will sit through sermons trying to find a cosmic moral lesson in the story of Bob-1, the donkey, and the two lesbian pole dancers in the burning strip club. Generations of young children will hector their parents with theological questions like “Why didn’t Bob put the two lesbians on the donkey and have them use the pole as a battering ram to charge through the fire and escape from the face-eating Philistine zombies? — and what’s a lesbian?”

        And it all can been avoided if you’d just have a little faith.

        BTW, when this happens, and it will, and an epiphany hits as the light of the Heavens shines down upon you, try to slip in an anti-tax message and say something supportive of two-for-one drink specials.

          1. 😀

            In the movie version, Bob-1 can’t be played by Charlton Heston, of course, but maybe Hugh Grant or Zac Efrom?

            Still, Heston would be good.

            “You want a cover charge? I have only five words for you: From my cold, dead hands.” Then later, “Tear down these poles and get the dances free!”

    2. I sometimes wonder how leftie jews and christians deal with “I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me” when dealing with the cult of (the state | the new emperor | gaia | fill in the blank).

  7. Bob-1: I don’t think anyone here advocates zero tax. However, there is a difference between two types of tax; the type that is levied for essential purposes such as national defence, upholding the law, and perhaps maintaining essential infrastructure such as roads – and benefits everybody. The other type of tax is the Robin Hood variety. Taking money at gunpoint off someone who has earned it, to give it to someone else who has not.

    The second includes IMHO tax money given to bureaucrats for doing non-essential “jobs”, and also tax money given to prop up banks (and other companies laid low by the dishonesty, greed and/or incompetence of their own staff. In the UK, the last of these has so far amounted to approximately £100 billion since maybe November 2008. I can think of an awful lot of better things do do with that sort of money than supporting City spivs.

  8. Bob-1: Was I hijacking the thread? If so, my apologies for an incursion into thread-hijacking, the usual bailiwick of “liberal” commenters attempting the “shifting sands” argument, one of their ol’ reliables. To answer your question, I wouldn’t know whether Yahweh wants taxes, since I don’t believe in Him. (And if he does exist, I wouldn’t put much credit in his policy on taxes, given all the stupid and/or evil stuff he does in “His” Book.) I’m just interested in how “liberal” Jews and Christians, who presumably believe the Decalogue is the word of God, get around the coveting your naeighbor’s good commandment. I don’t see that you’ve actually answered that question I mean, I can see from your comments how you, as an individual, weasel out of it; but if anyone’s hijacking the thread (or at least the sub-thread) here, I think it’s you/ You want to dodge the covetousness issue but getting into the tax issue..

    (And yes, my primary problem with taxation is its coercive nature, since no one has ever given me a logical explanation of why they or their gang have the right to initiate force against me. They usually come up with explanations why they think society would be worse off if they didn’t have the right to pick my pocket, but that essentially is the logical fallacy of the “argument from pity.” Yes, I’m willing to contribute to armed forces that defend me from foreign bad guys, and to police forces Besides, the question of zero-taxation is pretty much academic. As a libertarian friend of mine once said, “If the day ever comes when the main debate is between limited-government, Lockean-Jeffersonian conservatives on one side, and zero-tax, Rothbardian anarcho-capitalists on the other, we’ll be living in what I would consider Utopia.”)

    Even if “liberals” are not individually coveting someone’s property for their own private benefit, they certainly are pushing a philosophy that is based on covetuousness; certainly on fomenting and encouraging it in the voting populace. “Hey, Peter, you need X, Y and Z! But you have no money for X, Y and Z! But rich guy Paul and middle-class Mary do have the money for X, Y and Z! Elect me [or “elect the guy I’m supporting”] and we’ll take their money and buy you X, Y and Z.” Or am I misrepresenting, and by “taxation” you actually mean “passing around the hat for voluntary contributions”?

    If the latter, then my congratulations to you. I’ve always thought that if “liberals,*” instead of spending all their time and effort on promoting politicians and political policies based on coercive income redistribution (forcing Smith and Jones to give money to C), they could just take all that money they now donate to the DNC and to socialist “activist” groups, and just give that money to poor people. George Soros, the Kennedys, the Hollywood Left and the Park Avenue Pinkoes could probably buy every homeless person in the USA a serviceable wickiup, and buy them basic medical insurance, to boot. But they don’t because alleviating misery isn’t the real “sine qua non” of modern “liberalism.” Power is.

    *and by “liberal” I mean, of course, “tax-happy, State-humping coercion-junkies.”

  9. One more thing, Mr. Bob-1: It all depends, IMHO, on what you think “waste and corruption” actually means. I would include the giving of generous benefits to people in perfectly good physical and mental health who have made a career of having babies rather than even attempting to get a job. I would include the buying of votes by promising to continue doing such. I would include the giving of tens of billions of (insert currency unit here) to failing companies that happen to have an unelected constituency that gives money to the party in power. Examples are GM in the USA and RBS Banking Group in the UK.

    Contrast this to highway maintenance (probably) and military/police/firefighting (definitely).

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