Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

The biggest issue in Israeli/Jewish US politics is saying anything critical against the state of Israel makes you look like a bigot against Jews. I was raised culturally Jewish, and I was shocked that some American Jewish voters (like my father) are perfectly ok with having laws that arrest people who say anything critical about Jews/State of Israel (cause f**k the first amendment they said).

Quite frankly, I'm sick of Israel getting special treatment from the United States. I'm sick of my taxpayer money flowing to the Israeli government. Israel is not a poor country at all, they don't need discounts on getting stuff from the US at this point. I'm also sick of both pollical parties trying to pander me as a Jewish voter to vote for them with special treatment. In FL they passed a law over a year ago that increase fines/punishment for college students saying anything bad about Jews. If you say anything Pro-BDS, that is also a punishment. I was appalled by the FL GOP trying to f**k around with the first amendment so they can give a certain group (for this one Jews) special treatment on certain things. I'm sorry, I'm Anti-AA and any law that gives any group special treatment. I pissed off so many local Jewish folks that I know because they love this law. The sad thing is that they are ok with having Americans not giving support to poorer countries, but on Israel we love them 100% and we will never say anything bad about them. I'm so sick with the pandering, but as always a lot of Jewish voters do voting based on fear. I'm 100% American, and I'm not willing to lose some of my principals just because of my background.

Quite frankly, when America and the UK got involved with the Middle East many moons ago, they fucked it up huge.

 

This seems a little hard to believe. What specific law are you referring to? Seems like a bit of 'spin' is being put on an anti-discrimination law of one sort or another...

 

The problem with Israel is that the powers that be (after WWII), decided to make a country in a place where people are already living without giving a f**k what those people wanted. Naturally some of those people living there were happy (Jews) and some (Arabs) were not. That's a major cluster no matter how you look at it.

As long as different groups think they are the chosen ones (Jews, Islamists, Christians, white supremacists, whatever ), there won't be peace anywhere. People are dumb as f**k and their concept of the world is as narrow as a mite's asshole. We all live on one rock and we can figure out how to get along or kill each other off.

Ultimately it doesn't matter. Global warming (regardless of whether or not you believe it) is coming and doesn't give a shit who's right or wrong or anyone's opinion. The ultra rich, be they Jew, Arab, Chinese, black, white, will be fine. The rest of us are not.

 

Sad, but true. They either don't go there, or they think they're conservatives lol.

I don't always have the stomach for it, but I know it actually does matter. All part of being a person. If you can't manage your mental health while also at least pursuing what's really happening, how mentally well off are you really? Maybe that makes me crazy. Never been too sure. I think of it kinda like this. If you had a horrifically bad acid trip, would you still be okay? Better be, cuz the world has worse in store.

However, I might add another reason. Anybody with any sense isn't championing answers for real reasons. Namely that it's too complex to peg like that. If you think you know, you're probably wrong. A big part of the problem with the general public is that they aren't inquisitive enough. They don't think critically about what they're taking in and makes them vulnerable. No shortcuts here. People want it all to just be over and it's never going to go that way. They're selling themselves up the river. Cynicism is a healthy response when the world is fucked up. The challenge there is packing that up and making it actionable in a positive way, without losing your mind or sense that people are just people.

 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/after...or-signs-bill-against-anti-semitism-into-law/

The law: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2019/741

Where I was wrong is this is for K-12, not college. I was also wrong since they did not list BDS on the bill. However, some of the items in the bill can be used if someone is discussing BDS in a high school campus. Its been a hot minute since I read the bill, so I apologize for any possible spin. I was super pissed off that this shit is law. Why my group is getting special treatment in our school system and have no issues going over first amendment rights. Since they did it, do something similar for Muslims and other minor religious groups. They could had just added religion as a protected class and leave it alone. However, they did not and gave "Anti-Semitism" its own section.

However, the bill was done to pander the Jewish voters so they could perhaps vote GOP in our elections. No Democrat dared to vote no on this because it would make them look bad in the public. No one had the balls to say no to this bill due to how silly it was.

 

From another Floridian, @YMO is speaking a lot of truth about it lol. We're really out here, man. It's something to behold.

What fucks me up more, is that people leave cali to come here. Not because I think cali is better, but because it's already so strange here. It's hard to imagine a stranger state. And then I'm like "Right. California..."

 

From your second link above:

"...the bill requires public K-20 educational institutions to treat discrimination “by students or employees or resulting from institutional policies motivated by anti-Semitic intent in an identical manner to discrimination motivated by race...”

Nobody in America (except the extreme right and left, so what the fringe 1%? the fringe .1%?) argues against an ever expanding anti-discrimination regime based on the race model of the 1960's. If there is any unity left in America politics/culture, it's the moral formula:

"discrimination = bad/evil"

In other words, it's an political/intellectual orthodoxy that you question (even tangentially) to your political and social doom.

 

I will say nothing, but will refer all to two books that inform all of my political beliefs.

 

Israel made their own country. They won. The Palestinians and surrounding Muslim states don’t like it. States have ceased to exist throughout history. Shit happens. The Palestinians lost, the Arab states lost, and the Muslim countries with significant Jewish populations in the Middle East used the opportunity to expel their Jewish populations, almost doubling the Israeli population, giving them more men.

Israel is most developed state in the Middle East, has the most powerful military, and serves the United States’ geopolitical interests like none of their neighbors can.

Israel is surrounded by multiple failed states and states who can’t even dig their own shit out of the ground and sell it like Australia and Mongolia. Other people have to dig it out for them. Those states and their rulers would cease to exist in less than a year if the United States pulled their military protection and if international bodies stopped guaranteeing the right to territorial integrity. Their governments are corrupt, they have no economies, and their armies all suck ass despite buying modern weaponry. Saudi Arabia hasn’t really done shit to Houthi tribesmen despite widespread atrocity and forced starvation. If these states start being gobbled up by foreign powers then the USA and Europe will have to gobble them up. Slaughtering people to take their stuff tends to work but is very expensive, politically unpalatable, and can backfire. It makes perfect sense to support Israel and prop up the Persian gulf states as their replacement for the British Empire. Letting the Turks or Persians take their shit would be a worse option.

If these governments created a well-trained army, the army would quickly realize that after a military setback that their opponents weren’t the problem. The kings and dictators were the problem. And that problem can be solved dirt cheap. With bullets. So their armies suck balls.

Governments are much more likely to be overthrown by their own military than a foreign one. Take England. How many times was England invaded and successfully taken over by foreigners since the Romans left? About three. Vikings, Normans, and the Dutch (without a fight). How many times did the king get shanked by someone with a big army who thought he should be in charge? A shitton. There can only be one.

 

You overlooked this part in the bill:

What the bill should had done is just add religion and that's it. Adding a special section for a group of people is wrong. Since you don't live in FL, the idea of the bill was from the FL GOP with support of Jewish Dem members of our FL Legislature. When the bill was being heard, my State Senator (who is a D) raised questions on why we need to add Anti-Semitism to the bill (which she made very good points). However, GOP State Rep Randy Fine did the usual Dem Anti-Israel talking tropes and end of the day my State Senator gave up and voted yes on the final version of the bill.

After the bill was into law, I remember my religious friends were confused why the Jewish Region was given special treatment on this one. Some of my Muslim friend were talking to their House Rep to see if they can have special protections since they practice Islam (they wish there is a special section that telling someone who is Muslim to eat pork is Discrimination). Others are thinking about doing the same thing for their special religion. If you give one group special treatment, you need to give them all the same treatment (which is not the case here).

It isn't about doom, it's about making good policy. From the start of this bill from our elected FL officials talking about this bill in the State of Israel it was done as simple pandering to a group of people, it is that simple. A lot of First Amendment folks were questioning how this bill is legal. Of course trying to fight it puts you in a very serious negative night.

 

Well, all the (pandering) political details of FL or anywhere else, all the tension with first amendment, all the real struggle with good public policy and virtue - all this and more was absolutely crushed under the weight of the planet sized sacred cow of "discrimination = bad/evil". Nobody really overlooks these things, they just calculate their worth in comparison to the orthodoxy, and the suffering of even appearing to go against it. The vote says it all (from your second link above):

Vote: Senate 40-0; House 114-0

 

I know dude. Remember, it is all about the votes.

 

Even politicians do not control government bureaucracy, it has life on it's own and can choose whether to support an elected government or not.
That's I think why in the countries with very large government bureaucracy elections are becoming meaningless and the cornerstone of real democracy, which is a peaceful transition of power, is almost impossible.

 

Yup, politicians don't control shit. The money behind them does via them.

 

LOL.

 

OK. Couple things. In mainstream economics, both "clearwater" and "saltwater", the general thinking is that despite the apparent "novelty" presented by the philosophical positions expounded by FA Hayek and Mises it is pretty well regarded as just that, philosophy. Which is fine, as long as we don't confuse certain parts of philosophy with the soft sciences, and specifically with macro and micro economics, .

Modern econometric policy prescriptions from both conservative and liberal contemporary think tanks don't bother with anything coming out of the Austrian school due to the fact that it rejects econometrics and therefore can't be modeled or offer any predictive analytics or descriptive statistics.

Mises is hand waving and philosophy, and deceptive at best. I'd doubt that if anyone wanted to get a job at Mises.org, that they'd be well served by presenting their CV only containing The Road to Serfdom and a smattering of of LVM papers.

 

Oh, my side, such as it is, has definitely lost the political battle. But I still don't think we were wrong. Thankfully, I will be dead before the inevitable comes to pass.

 

I don't know much at all about Mises, economics as an academic/professional enterprise and "science", though I am familiar with Hayek as a political philosopher. @Senorx12562 specifically mentioned his inspiration from these two works was political and thus philosophical - first principles and "worldview".

From a philosophical and "meta" cultural/historical view, there are several reasons why Classical Liberal thinkers such as Hayek end up doing what is in fact moral and anthropological philosophy in a (over)emphasized "economic" and political key/vein. In short, when you follow the Cartesian metaphysical account of man, all you have at your disposal in an relational and 'objective' sense are these pseudo Kantian categories.

How all this fits into the academic/professional discipline known as 'economics' I am not sure, except to say any "science" is the handmaiden of philosophy and meaning

 

Point being is to say that the only two positions which should inform one’s political perspective are FAH and Mises is like taking two gulps of Coors Light and declaring yourself an alcoholic.