I would sincerely hope that Jewish American people would look around them, at their supposed "friends" and "allies" and also to the kinds of people they have all voted for since FDR and change their voting habits.
Will you, Candace? Will you stop voting for people in the Democratic Party who hate you, who hate Israel, who now feel free to let their actual antisemitism run rampant as they still lie to you that the actual real problem in this country is the less than 10K known white nationalists on the fringe of the Right and not the Woke Leftist antisemites who have captures entire institutions like media, academia, big tech, entertainment, and an entire political party?
Will you, and the rest of the people here at The Free Press stop listening to the lies fed to you by the DNC Apparatchik and see that giving your vote to them has actual real world consequences? Or no? Will American Jewish people still believe that conservatives are their enemies counter to everything they see with their own eyes for the last three weeks?
This is what I wonder. Sadly, I don't think they will change. Just like all the people who've fled California only to try to turn their new homes blue, I don't think American Jewish people understand the connection between their votes and the nonsense the profess to believe and all of the antisemitism we see in this country today enabled by how they've voted for 80 years.
As a conservative American Jew, I understand this post. And I’m sure I feel the pain and frustration expressed in it more than most. There seems to be a sea change in the Jewish community with the uncommonly overt expression of pure evil in the past weeks and we conservative Jews remain ever hopeful that clarity will become more widespread.
I would point out - and I and those who think like me are evidence - that Jews are no more homogeneous nor monolithic than anyone else. I have often looked at liberal Christians, those from churches espousing “liberation theology” and other “progressive” ideals, and wondered how that can be consistent with their other expressed beliefs.
I have to conclude that humans are, well, human. And there are times in history when evil comes out and declares itself plainly. And those humans are faced with declaring whether they support good or evil, publicly and for all to see.
“I have often looked at liberal Christians, those from churches espousing “liberation theology” and other “progressive” ideals, and wondered how that can be consistent with their other expressed beliefs.”
I agree with you. I could hardly stand all the BLM signs at churches in 2020. Even they didn’t catch on to its absurdity! That’s what I love about my Christian Orthodoxy. It’s the origin of Christianity since the Apostles. We’ve hardly changed a thing in 2000 years. No BLM, no reproductive health, no LGBTQRSTU. Although all are welcome, we don’t change our beliefs around groups of people.
The problem seems to be less about the group with which someone identifies and more about the relativity of their beliefs instead of absolute truths and morals.
One "advantage" you have is the NT doesn't have to go through the language filters from Koine Hellenic to English. You don't have a bowlderised G of Jn. kidding you. You can go straight to G. Jn 8:44 for instance and see the straight up anti-Semitism of that "Gospel" at a glance.
Cut the smug. You have even less excuse for ignoring the hate in your cult's "holy" books than the Roman "heretics" and their offspring.
That’s how a fundamentalist would interpret that passage - not a Christian rooted in tradition. Jn 8:39 should help with context. He’s not talking about “Jews”, but specifically Pharisees
I grew up going to a Baptist Sunday School every Sunday. I have always been taught that in this passage Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees, not to Jews in general. He was a Jew. His disciples were Jews, including John, the writer of the gospel. But your straw man comment isn't really about John 8:44 or some antisemitism you claim to have found in the Christian Scriptures. You're just lumping all Christians together and taking a big swipe at believers in general. How is your obvious distain towards me for what I believe different than the hatred you would impute to me without evidence?
BTW - Jesus was tortured and crucified by Romans - so Italians are Christ-killers. Don't that turn those tables upside down?
That's correct. I sat near two groups of fellow jews the other night, one was conservative the other was into their favorite subject ( trump). I have a close friend who can only utter two words when it comes to politics: Charlottesville and J6. He will no.longer engage with me although I hope but doubt the past few weeks has softened his hard heart. Other jews I know have started to THINK but whether they will revert to their political ideology come 2024 is up in the air in my opinion. Jewish communities in America especially reform synagogues need to have some open no holds barred debates. As you know the dangers facing American Jews dwarfs dangers (if any) facing left leaning Christians.
The unwillingness of people to admit that the are wrong about something is epidemic. Admitting that you are wrong and correcting views or behaviors is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of integrity.
Intolerant, closed minded and ignorant. Yes, with the emphasis on ignorant regardless of the letters after their names. Plus, utterly unable to spend any real effort in contemplative self-reflection in an attempt to sort out the hypocrisy of their stated philosophical worldview.
"Intolerant, closed minded and ignorant. Yes, with the emphasis on ignorant regardless of the letters after their names. Plus, utterly unable to spend any real effort in contemplative self-reflection in an attempt to sort out the hypocrisy of their stated philosophical worldview."
The problem (it seems to me) is they have never been taught or encouraged to do this.
Ignorance often results not wanting to know ( hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil). As for issues like the embassy, delusion and rationalization reflect how I see those folks. Then again if one is primarily a person whose ideology comes first the rest naturally follows
It may be the otherway round. One can't help but notice the adjacent to and/or direct responsibility for nearly all the worst idiotologies, especially for Jews, of Jews you can't say are stupid. Beginning with Xtianity. Ditto Islam. Socialisms, Marxism, Bolshevism, Critical Theory (The Frankfurt School were Jews fleeing Hitler), egging on and building The Bomb ( Particularly egregious: "Jewish Science"; not do-able on the his timescale; the shambolic Nazi state; and Heisenberg's active impedence meant Hitler was never going to pursue The Bomb in the first place), Civil Rights, US Immigration Law. That average 10% uptick in I.Q seems to turbo-boost the glomming on to really bad ideas and seriously impede realising they are really bad ideas. This seems to be a function of intelligence itself. See Lorenzo Warby's posts on his substack and Helen Dale's, and James Lindsay @ New Discourses.
"The instrumental strategy of linguistic game-playing works much better than it should because so many Very Smart People refuse to see a game is being played. As such Very Smart People typically want to be liked — and want to be seen as the Clever People Who Understand — the boo-word strategy works."
Can’t believe I have to respond to such an ignorant comment but it was always the most fringe and least committed Jews who took up these ideologies at the expense of the wider community.
Haha Xtianity. CHRIST actually ends with a T so through your seething atheism, you can't even take the name of CHRIST out of the word correctly. You need help....and God will provide it to you the same way He'll provide it to me....a very proud, content and an always truth telling CHRISTIAN.
I realize it’s much worse for Jews, but how/why did Dems come to hate Christians so much? And I say Dems because they make no effort to separate themselves from leftists. Think what they want but it’s the reason why this country is so morally messed up…and it continues to get worse. But then, they love it like that.
Part of the culture wars. Keep in mind also that religion is a target for Marxists and that on the left the state ( big govt) is the entity they worship as they believe they can create utopia here on earth if they only can get enough power
Maybe it’s time to stop debating whether Jews or Christians are in more danger and acknowledge the real battle is between progressives supporting the Biden/Obama regime’s goal of “fundamentally changing the country” and those who want to defend the rights and liberties that made this the greatest country in history.
There you go: those are Xtianities aims too, the virulent hate is because they want to be the new Xtianity. Just as Xtianity's virulent hate of Jews comes from wanting to be the New Covenant.
It's because Christians are forcing their beliefs on others. See, for example, the S. Ct. decision last term permitting organized prayer at public school football games.
Your comment makes no internal sense. You decry Christians "forcing" their beliefs on others and then decry a decision in the USSC "permitting" organized prayer at a public school football game (I assume you're talking about the coach being allowed to prayer on the football field after the game). No one - and least of all that USSC decision "forces" anyone to pray - particularly to engage in "Christian" prayer. The attendees at the football game are perfectly free to leave after the game without participating in the prayer session - they are free to ignore it or even to shout loud disapproval. The coach did not force anyone on his team to join him. The decision only upheld the right of an individual to prayer on a public football field. The "force" had been the school "forcing" the coach not to pray. Suppose that the prayer group had been Jews gathering to pray for the victims of the Hamas terrorists - or Muslims praying for the Palestinians killed in Gaza. Would that be okay? Or what if a local environmental activist gathered supporters together to chant to Gaia for the rescue of the planet from evil oil producers? Would that be all right because it wasn't an organized religion (although we could certainly discuss whether climate activists have become the equivalent of an organized religion)? If you claim that Christians are "forcing" their beliefs on others, you're going to have to come up with a far better example than the one you've offered - and you're going to have to explain why that's wrong, but it's okay for publicly funded colleges to "force" students to take classes in DEI or other left-wing subjects.
It would, naturally, be fine if the coach were demonstrating support for trans rights or some such. It's only forcing if it's any kind of activity that suggests some people are Christian. Just reminding anyone about Christianity is intolerable and must be bullied into hiding.
Permitting “organized prayer” is what I said and what I meant and what was at the heart of the Kennedy case. A coercive, organized public spectacle of Christian prayer in violation of the First Amendment’s non-establishment clause. And no I wouldn’t look any more favorably upon the same kind of spectacle promoting any other religion. I loathe the religious zealotry of Hamas but I also loathe the religious zealotry of Amy Coney Barrett and Samuel Alito. Who’s the hypocrite?
Ahh…and they’re considered the extreme right/maga (eye roll). Those cases are few and far between, and the left goes whacko when these cases come up. I would say dems are forcing their trans beliefs (and yes, it’s become a religion) on society even more so.
Indeed. And with far more lasting actual harm to the lives of young people who get caught up in it than sitting through a prayer for 30 seconds once a week for a football season.
their enemy seems to be order. They get stimulated and emboldened by chaos. I think it trips some primitive blood lust, which becomes contagious to others who are psychologically vulnerable.
You are so right about the so-called "Christian" churches that are really leftist la la lands and bastions only of the religion of the "woke." Laughable.
Liberal Christians are more liberal than Christian.
As a theologian, I say that objectively, not as a sound bite. Point by point, they align with the Enlightenment more than the Bible, or any Christian tradition or creed.
They cherry-pick Jesus's words for statements that support their Leftist ideology. Then they tell other Christians that they aren't *really* Christians if they don't support the Leftist ideology.
Michael, real Christians stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters. Like Roddie Edmonds said on that cold winter morning in the POW camp - "We're all Jews here."
The charlatan Christians have always made excuses for the Devil and his servants. As the temporizers do now. To look at the barbarism and savagery wrought on the innocents and make excuses for it is appalling. I despise them no less than do you.
Thank you Bruce. I have a number of Christian friends to whom I would trust my life. They are indeed true Christians. As I often write and say evaluate every person as an individual. Do not stereotype and do not assume. And when someone makes clear their hatred believe them.
Inappropriate "No True Scotsman" application. Scripture gives instruction on how Christians should behave and treat others, so obviously someone deviating in a significant way from those standards (to whatever degree you choose to parse it) is, in fact, not a Christian.
The institution of most liberal practicing Jews is the Reform Temple, or otherwise described as Democrats at prayer. We conservative Jews believe human nature is immutable and that we get the bad with the good. The bad seems to be more newsworthy these days. The prospect of a violent death does focus the mind on what survival requires. May my fellow Jews in Israel prevail in destroying those who wish to destroy them.
I left one of those churches. The flying of the BLM banner. And no one would listen to the truth about that Marxist terror organization that enriched its owners from the largesse of white guilt and corporate DEI virtue signaling. I learned that many of the people at the church actually don’t believe in God. It’s a social circle and they like singing in the choir.
You’ve defined “cognitive dissonance” or the struggle between facts and emotions/beliefs. It is the hardest thing is to accept facts. As it turns out, when in pain, one is more likely to make a change (relieve pain).
I did thirty years ago. Even though the people who loved me thought it would be when I went to prison. Nope, it only happened when I put the shovel down and surrendered.
There was a study done by George Yancey that looked into the role politics played in ones faith for Christians on the Left and the Right. For Christians on the Left, or those who follow “liberal theology” or “progressive theology,” politics came first and their faith came second. In other words, they were highly involved politically and their politics informed their faith more than the other way around. For Christians on the right and those who hold to a more “classical” Christian theology, faith informed politics. They tended to be less politically involved and put their faith first and their politics second. Not only is this very telling about the difference of liberal/progressive theology, but I wonder if the same dynamic occurs within the Jewish faith.
For the record, many progressive ideals are not consistent with the classical/traditional understanding of Christianity, which is why progressive Christians have changed their theology and re-interpreted Scriptures to fit their political leanings. Many who find themselves on the Right with a more classical definition of Christianity look at progressive theology and conclude that some have departed so much from the traditional understanding of Christian faith that it is essentially a new, separate religion. It’s frustrating that they call themselves “Christians” when they really aren’t. (And I’m not sure why they want to.)
But of course, Christians are only bound by faith and not by ethnicity like the Jews. Which makes it odd, to me, why more liberal or even secular Jews would support political positions, parties, and persons who don’t support Israel. I can understand that a secular Jew has no faith, a liberal Jew may have a different faith than an Orthodox Jew, but it seems that the Jewish ethnic identity would bind them in support tighter than what we see on the Christian side of things.
Oh, if only that were true. I find your post very clarifying. As I read it, I felt you could simply substitute “Jews” for “Christians” and it would make just as much sense. As an Orthodox Jew, my faith informs my politics (and every other aspect of my life). For those who are less orthodox in belief and practice, I believe there is more “flexibility” in adapting religion to the “modern world”. As pointed out, we Jews are an interesting amalgam of religion and ethnicity - except we really aren’t. We gladly accept converts and believe that, spiritually, they stood with us at Mount Sinai to receive the Word of God. I’m not sure how much I have in common, culturally, with a Jew from Yemen - except for the fact that, despite having no common vernacular, we can easily pray together.
Ok, so it seems like you do have a similar dynamic with the Jewish faith. I can’t say I am very surprised, but saddened to hear it. Perhaps secular Jews and liberal Jews are not only putting politics first, but perhaps they have cut themselves off from any tie with their ancestors in the faith, and especially any ties with the land of ancient Israel. I find that very sad.
For both Christians and Jews, this re-defining of the faith is maddening. (Or at least I find it so.) Both the Jewish faith and the Christian faith makes it clear that following God should be the first priority in one’s life. If someone wants to believe and act differently, they are free to do so, but at least own it and don’t pretend that you are a person of faith.
Another interesting misconception, is that many assume Christians support Israel only from either: (1) some sort of feeling of solidarity or gratitude since Christianity grew out of the Jewish faith, and/or (2) because some Christians believe that the end times of Revelation will only occur when the temple I Jerusalem is rebuilt and they believe hat Israel has an important part to play at the end of days.
However, IMHO, these should not be the primary reasons why Christians should support Jews. I don’t personally know enough about end-times theology to know if point #2 is correct, but I also don’t think we can do anything to bring about the second coming of Christ-- God will do that on His time, we can’t influence that. I do feel a certain solidarity to my Jewish friends, from point #1, but I don’t think this should be the primary driver of support for Israel. The primary driver should be the recognition of the truth that Jews currently and historically have been subjected to terrorism, war, racist anti-semitism, and viewed as less than human. Christians should care about any group of people who suffer this way, because all are created in the image of God and because God is a God of both love and justice. Christians are called to care for the “downtrodden,” to care for those “being led to the slaughter,” and to stand up against evil. Therefore, Christians should stand up to stop evil terrorist attacks against Jews, against Rwandan genocide, against oppression of certain people groups in China, against modern day slavery and human trafficking, and even against the oppression of Arab and Muslims under inhumane Hamas rule and other Islamist extremist governments. It shouldn’t matter if the person is Jewish or not, Christians should care about those who real injustice and death are happening to. Any increase in support for Jewish people is mostly a reflection of the fact that unfortunately Jewish people have been disproportionately attacked.
And this is what I can’t understand-- obviously there are strong propaganda attempts against Israel, but a few seconds of critical thinking and a quick Google search can easily show people that Israel does not fit the definition of an apartheid state or a colonizer by any definition! So if Christians claim to be for those who are suffering and oppressed, but can’t seem to understand who is actually the oppressed and suffering group, (not excluding civilian Gazans and Palestinians, clearly they are oppressed greatly by their own government) they I would first assume ignorance- they simply don’t know the truth. But the truth is easily known and trying to be shared, and they refuse to see it. Which then leads me to believe that perhaps then those people who refuse to see the truth are not true Christians, and are not truly committed to standing up for people who suffer evil but committed rather to some other ideology. This is perhaps the truth of the situation and it is maddening.
I digress. But know that classical Christians stand with Israel and stand with you and the Jewish people all over the world. God is still good and vengeance with be His.
Agree about Christians caring about those who suffer, but I think Christian support of Israel goes deeper than that. We take to heart God's words to Abraham: Genesis 12:3, "I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." If we know our Scripture, we recognize Israel's special place as the apple of God's eye.
That’s a fair point. However, when you look at the whole Biblical narrative, one reason God preserved the Hebrew people was that he protected the lineage for Jesus. The New Covenant that Jesus ushered in expands the promises to Abraham to any who believe in Jesus, not just the Hebrew people. Galatians 3:29 says “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” So in this sense, yes we have a deeper solidarity with the Jewish people. However, what I am not sure about-- since the promises have now expanded outward from the Hebrews with the new covenant, is there any reason for God to continue to show favor to the Jewish people? That part seems unclear to me.
I appreciate you and this post. I completely agree. It’s a question of caring for all of God’s creation. Any people who are suffering and oppressed and simply desire to be free are deserving of help. I agree that this includes Palestinians in that situation (I have no idea how prevalent they are, but I do know they exist). I pray that God has mercy on all of us and redeems us from our current travails.
I think a huge part of the problem right now is that young people (and others) often get all of their information from social media, and if one's algorithm is pro-Palestinian that's all they're going to see. The amount of propaganda coming from the progressive left and the Arab world is mind blowing, until you realize how many Muslims there are in the world compared to the minuscule number of Jews. And those huge numbers of Arabs, along with their supporters, are all repeating the words "apartheid" and "colonizer" over and over again, so even though completely untrue, it has become lingo that no one seems to question.
I think much of the support goes back to the oppressed/oppressor mindset that so much of the progressive left and academia are obsessed with, even, it seems, when it comes to terrorists. I continue to be shocked that so many can turn a blind eye to the hostages being held and the atrocities of what Hamas did on Oct. 7. I cannot fathom what goes through the minds of people tearing down "missing children" posters. Of course, it has also become extremely "uncool" to be conservative on college campuses and in most elite circles for that matter, so no matter what one thinks (although not sure how much actual thinking is happening these days), if you're not a liberal social justice warrior, you can't let anyone know.
There are things religions usurping the Covenant can't do. One of them is to see the earlier religion as legitimate. For obvious reasons. There are things religions usurping the Covenant will do. One of those is persecute the earlier religion and its followeres. For obvious reasons.
Crack open any Abrahamic "scripture" from the TaNaKh to DiAngelo and you will see this creed.
I hope you don't mind that I'm copying this comment. I keep quotes/comments in one place to go back and read them. As a group of us works through a book study at my Catholic parish, your comment pinpoints a nagging issue. This distinction helps.
Where were these glassy eyed, foam at the mouth, brutal, antisemites, when Isis was murdering, torturing and raping the Yazidis and anybody that wasn't Sunni Muslim? The ISIS Muslims raped women, little boys and girls and men. They were equal opportunity rapists.
Where were these noble antisemite demonstrators when the religion of peace in Iran was murdering Bahais by the hundreds? Where were they when the Sudanese Muslims were raiding Christian villages murdering everybody except small children and women who they sold into slavery?
This is selective outrage directed at only one group and that is Jews. I thought left wing loons were Woke and all about DEI. Maybe these rioters need to include DEI counselors in each of their hate chapters all over the US.
I guess Woke and DEI counselors are for everybody except Democrat hate groups.
DEI only pertains to those "oppressed". I guess they think Jews have moved on from "oppressed" to "oppressors". Plus, Jews are "White", Palestinians are "POC". You gotta keep up with the rules, Lonesome.
"I have often looked at liberal Christians, those from churches espousing “liberation theology” and other “progressive” ideals, and wondered how that can be consistent with their other expressed beliefs."
The question is, what matters more for them. Being Christian or Being Liberal/Progressive? I suspect for many its the latter. This is also why "Mainstream" denominations have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. The sad thing is this ideology is now infiltrating the more "Conservative/Evangelical" denominations.
There are no monolithics; technically true dat. But there are several non-monolithics who persist in voting -- as a bloc -- against self-interest. Sorry.
Where were these glassy eyed, foam at the mouth, brutal, antisemites, when Isis was murdering, torturing and raping the Yazidis and anybody that wasn't Sunni Muslim? The ISIS Muslims raped women, little boy and girls and men. They were equal opportunity rapists.
Where were these noble antisemite demonstrators when the religion of peace in Iran was murdering Bahais by the hundreds? Where were they when the Sudanese Muslims were raiding Christian villages murdering everybody except small children and women who they sold into slavery?
This is selective outrage directed at only one group and that is Jews. I I thought left wing loons were Woke and all about DEI. Maybe these rioters need to include DEI counselors in each of their hate chapters all over the US.
I guess Woke and DEI counselors are for everybody except Democrat hate groups.
I have stopped going to church although I continue to look for a church home. The church I’ve spent my 70 year attending is no more than a non-profit, social justice movement for the very liberal crowd that has taken it over. During the pandemic, church services went virtual but the mask- wearing continues at now in-person services. I pray and regularly talk to God but now my church home resides in my heart, wherever I may be. I’m sure that my church prays for the Jewish community but I suspect a lot of it is lip service as they fall all over themselves to include the Palestinians in their prayers so they can be seen as “kind” and “accepting “.
That's very very true and was lost on the powers that be during COVID. MY parish church was only closed for about 10 weeks and even that was too much. As Catholics we believe that the bread and wine become the body and blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, so we don't want to miss the Eucharist.
Maybe give it another try at another Christian or Catholic church.
Pro Palestinian sentiment has been on the rise in academia for at least the last decade. And that has been concurrent with rising anti-semiticism. But somehow this message has only now reached the American jewish community. Odd because they've been sending their kids to college all this time. I guess the New York Times failed to mention it.
Many Jews seem to be 100% convinced by the Left's propaganda that has convinced them that Republicans are infinitely more antisemitic than anyone on the Left. It's going to take more than what's happened so far to convince them that this isn't even remotely true.
My mother (aleha ha-shalom) could never get over the fact that I became a Republican (and it was my college experience that made me so) and no evidence of leftist anti-Semitism going back to Jesse Jackson would convince her otherwise.
Well, the MSM has been calling everyone on the right things like Nazis for quite some time. So the label gets stuck on. Even if it is other groups that doing that actual Nazi things. I mean, think about it. The MSM LOVES to blame everything on QAnon and Proud Boys...but I have not seen a single things about them lately. Shouldn't there be all kinds of Nazi marches by these deplorable groups? These are the real racists and supremacists, right?
Well that's just it! Those groups could easily throw on a face mask and join the protests and "get away with it". It's the perfect opportunity and yet, they aren't. Hmm.....
I’ve broached this conversation with a Jewish friend but was told, Please, let’s not talk politics. We are on opposite sides. I replied, No! we aren’t, don’t you see?! She refuses to see. Sigh.
Maureen, I live in California and many of my friends are on the left. They know where I stand as a conservative who left their liberal political ranks years ago. They have no curiosity about why I shifted and no desire to open their minds even as they complain about the decrepit state of Los Angeles - homeless defecating on the sidewalks, increases in crime, etc, all a result of our one-party state D government and their own voting patterns. Double sigh.
We have friends like that. When we socialize, discussion of politics is verboten. One wonders if they truly believe what they espouse, or actually find it necessary to gain acceptance among their other peers.
Well, it'll die from the lack or have to be put out of its misery. Why not skip that and just shoot the horse when it baulks the trough in the first place? /s
Steve, I would. I have before. But she has redeeming qualities, it’s not so simple this time. I am trying to live my faith better. One commandment is to love your enemies. She’s not an “enemy”, just someone who has lived in a bubble of like minded sheep and I think is afraid to hear things that challenge her comfort zone.
Point of truth. 16 House members voted no or present to the resolution supporting Israel’s right and responsibility to defend itself from the terrorist Hamas. 15 were Democrats.
Called it! - "Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) also joined, writing on social media that the measure would “call for sanctions on a foreign country” and force “an open-ended promise of military support that is so broad.”"
He’s in the House, and I’d ask you…….Let’s assume in your house you are conservative with your funds. Do you withhold from your family insurance, medications, food? No matter the cause?
David Mamet has a recent piece on this very topic, how the Democrats the Jews tend to vote for have betrayed them: “How the Democrats betrayed the Jews” - unherd.com.
I wonder how many of these people - in the name of their own survival - will vote for the Republican nominee for President in 2024 - and that increasingly looks to be Trump.
I don't care how tightly they have to hold their noses. Whoever the Republican nominee is will keep them alive. Everything else is secondary. It's beginning to look more and more that leftist/Democrat control will become a literal death sentence sooner or later for American Jews.
And, what’s even worse is people don’t even realize the really good things Trump did for thiscountry especially in forging peace in the Middle East. They are so brainwashed with all the media lies about Trump which has caused them to stick their head in the sand and sing “na, na, na,na, na”
This is one of my main issues with Trump. For real reasons or not, many people that might otherwise vote against the dems also hate Trump. The MSM has done such a great hit job on him (and he made is SUPER easy) that some people just can't vote for him.
He is running as an independent and will get Biden elected if Trump is the Rep candidate. Most of the votes RFK gets will be from never Trumpers in the Rep party.
Long ago, I think it was Nathan Podhoretz who said that Liberalism is the great religion of American Jewry. It is tough to give up your religion. Part of their religion is that the Republicans are a bunch of racist Nazi KKK types.
Having said that, if you look at other nations, Jews HAVE moved away from leftist parties they once supported - British and Canadian Jews now vote overwhelmingly for their respective Tories, and French Jews largely voted for Macron and not the Socialists.
Same for the majority of African Americans. They vote blindly Democrat because that is what their predecessors started doing in the 60s. They don’t recognize the changes in the party and don’t do anything but ignore, or worse, belittle prominent Black conservative voices. Comprof is an excellent example.
Brilliant comment, Mathew. It seems sometimes that Americans have become observers of the world around them as if they were attending a fantasy movie with like-minded friends. A movie that, while interesting, has no physical impact on them personally. An old cliche seems apt - “when people say they mean to kill, believe them.”
I agree! We Americans have become excessively complacent in our indulgent lives. Even the poor in this country would be middle class in any country South of the US.
As a Jew, I will go so far as to say that liberal Jews are often thankless of our supporters and pander to our enemies. They don't appreciate Nikki Haley enough when she often singlehandedly supported Isreal at the UN. I still have more liberal views than conservative. But one thing I know is you need to recognize your friends as well as your enemies and vote accordingly.
It is baked in. All human societies seem to privelige this sort of strife to their own detriment. There was a civil war raging in Jerusalem even as the Romans besieged it and we only know this because Josephus decided Vespasian was the Messiah!
There's a widely circulating video that shows a Jewish woman being subject to a torrent of anti-semitic abuse by a motorist. She's on her bicycle and her child is visible in front. The abuser is black. After it became widely circulated and people wanted the abuser to be held accountable she asked people not to do that, that she saw no good that could come from that. And when asked, she said she did have his license plate number but she didn't want to reveal it, because she didn't want anything bad to happen to him. This is how white nationalists get the idea that it's not anti-Semitism Jews object to but it's hatred of whites. Because I would agree that if this guy seemed to be a right-wing white racist she would not have had a problem with having his identity revealed and sharing his license plate number. But I don't think it comes from anti-white hatred, because if the abuser had been a man wearing a yamuke with a fair complexion, and abuse victim was a black man, I suspect if she had his license plate number she would have gladly shared it. There is this odd need to protect some demographics from the responsibility of their actions. I don't know how much of this is a Jewish thing and how much of it is a progressive thing. I do have a gay friend, not Jewish, who was a victim of a hate crime by a black man, and did not want to report it for fear that the perpetrator would become a victim of police brutality. So maybe it's more of a progressive thing than a part of Jewish culture? I don't know. I grew up ethnically, but not religiously Jewish. But I notice progressive Jews do very little self-advocacy, maybe they don't want to give in to the stereotype of being overly self-serving? But I mean damn, even when Jews were targeted in Jersey City and people openly praise the killer the Jon Stewarts of the world saying nothing. But they have plenty of time to defend Ilhan Omar and criticize the pro-Israeli crowd.
So do these people realize if the perpetrators suffer no consequences for their actions they will continue to do harm? The next person could be their family member and may not be so lucky. What is wrong with these people?
I feel just frustrated with them. And angry, because they're enablers too. And it's partially, not entirely though, responsible for the disparities and how anti-Semitism versus anti-black racism is treated. Black activists come out like a ton of bricks for any perceived slight by a Jewish person. Jewish folks are very quick to try and be good-natured over abuse by blacks and to frame it in a way that makes it seem like a misunderstanding. I kind of see why this is. But it's exploited. And ultimately it's delusional. And ultimately it's exceedingly harmful to Jews.
Well said. I’m a libertarian, so I think I have some objectivity here.
It doesn’t take much to see that leftists in this country are truly evil. The sad thing is that the Democratic Party has let themselves be bullied into supporting evil. There is no way to describe what the woman tearing down these posters is other than evil. She is a tool. A product of the extreme left in this country. It shows their ability to exploit vulnerable people. There are millions like her, but tens of millions are revulsed by her and her kind. If they are a Democrat they are afraid to say so.
Conservatives speak out against the extreme right. They do not cow to white supremacists. They do not hesitate to call out those that spew hate. They don’t tend to think in lockstep like I see today’s liberals do.
The pendulum might just be starting to swing back. The Republican Party is more and more becoming the “big tent party.” Let’s hope so before it’s too late.
Of course I can always hold out hope that the libertarians will field viable candidates…..
If I have I didn’t know it. I do tend to disassociate quickly with people who say racist things, so I guess there may be someone I jettisoned before finding out.
If one listened to the MSM one would think anyone in the conservative universe is just spewing racial epithets all day. I’ve actually heard more racist talk from liberals who couch their statements very carefully.
The fears of white supremacy taking over the country has always seemed hyperbolic to me.
I've met a few, but I don't associate with any of them.
The latest was after a traffic accident I witnessed back in August. A high school student was driving across Main St. with the green light in her favor (I was very much aware of the light's status, since I intended to turn left onto Main after she got through the intersection). A minivan driven by a girl in her 20s zoomed through the intersection on a red light and slammed into her.
Immediately after the accident, the similar-aged female passenger in the minivan (a cousin of the driver, as far as I could determine) jumped out and started screaming. At first I thought she might be injured, but she wasn't. She was screaming at the girl in the car, saying that SHE had been the one to run a red light. This girl never stopped screaming at everyone. She ended up spitting at a man who had also witnessed the accident and told her that she was wrong. She was even screaming profanities at the cops as soon as they arrived.
A guy showed up wearing a wife-beater (a sleeveless t-shirt); turned out he was the father of the screamer. He took off his shirt because he wanted to mix it up with the guy his daughter had spit at (admittedly, the guy had lunged at the screamer after being spat on and was pulled back by other men who were present).
Across the screamer's dad's back was a HUGE "White Power" tattoo.
It is painful enough to discover that people next to you, of whom you thought as normal, are actually blood-thirsty scum, perfectly willing to sacrifice your life on the altar of their ideology.
However, it causes even more disappointment in humanity to see people who are victims or potential victims of these monsters being unable to extricate themselves from the grip of the same sinister, bankrupt ideology that their tormentors use to justify themselves.
I'm now on the threshold of elderly, a product of mid-century attitudes and culture. Our fathers served in "the" war, mine in the South Pacific, my childhood friend's in Europe. The latter, a warm Italian-American man, was in an army division that liberated a death camp. Afterward he kept a manila envelope with large B&Ws that recorded what they first encountered, and he would give it to the kids to take to school for show & tell. "Show them what they did." Not your standard stamp collection. At school we read "The Diary of Anne Frank." We watched "Judgment at Nuremberg" and thought, how awful, but at least this could never happen again. What is happening now, in American streets and on American campuses is something I can't believe I'm seeing.
What to my mind is most amazing is that this death virus is taking hold in the midst of plenty. The Nazis drew on the resentment of a nation that had suffered terrible privation during and after World War 1. German propaganda had made it seem they were winning, then the next thing they knew they had lost. They lost militarily, but Hitler blamed the Jews, and of course many believed him.
In the French Revolution there was hunger, and there an actually unjust system to which they were reacting.
But here, in America, our young have somehow convinced themselves they are oppressed, despite having the highest standard of living in human history, the most rights, the most opportunities.
In my view, it is precisely the EXTENT of the lying needed to build such resentment and ridiculous sense of privation in the midst of plenty that presages--if enough people don't wake up quickly enough--truly terrible atrocities. Once you build the habit of lying, the world vanishes, along with all the people in it. All that are left are the projections of their own inner viciousness, which has the unpleasant effect of making them angrier at their enemies the more vicious and unfair they themselves are.
And its worth noting the Gazans have TV and internet and video games. They are not left out of this global resentment project, and of course their local media feeds hate every chance it gets, nakedly, obviously, and with the malicious intent that has manifested often in the past, even if never worse than on Oct. 7.
The Gramscian project of marching thru the institutions has, by their terms, been a smashing success. I am thankful that I grew up, raised a family, and had a successful career in saner times. I fear for my progeny.
It's always appropriate to fear gradualism combined with fanaticism, which is what those sorts of people employ.
A fanatic, as I think Churchill said, is someone who redoubles their efforts, having lost sight of the goal. The goal, in principle and at the outset, was a more just society. But the people who claim they want a more just society are rationalizing the rape and murder of unarmed young women, and the torture and murder of families in front of young children, who are then kidnapped.
It's a game. The rules of this game are simple: you give up all ability to reason--which perhaps most importantly includes a sense of proportionality--and we will give you a reason to live. We will tell you what to do, what to say, what to believe, and that will make you MUCH better than all those ridiculous people out there who only know what to do, say and believe because of Right Wing Propaganda.
You get the good coffee, the ironic combat boots, and the EASY sense of moral superiority that is unassailable. Untouchable. You stick with us, you are ALWAYS in the right. Always. And you don't even have to do anything or learn anything. Just let us do the talking.
You take stupid kids who were callow going in, marinate them in this for a few years, and only a swift kick in the nads by reality is ever going to wake them up, and even that is patently not enough for most. It's a lifelong deal, and that deal works year in year out to diminish human light, human flourishing, human joy, human beauty, and human cultural creativity.
"But here, in America, our young have somehow convinced themselves they are oppressed, despite having the highest standard of living in human history, the most rights, the most opportunities"
This. They know nothing either about history or other countries.
I think a big part of that is about perception. Yes, they have more than 99.9% of humans ever. But they are constantly shown the people at the very tip top and how they live. This normalizes wealth in their minds. So, when they don't have access to the best things, the best jobs, etc, they assume it means that the whole system is broken and that means someone has cheated them and must be dealt with.
And I think this mentality is only strengthened by how coddled our youth have been. They don't really know what hardship or struggle is. So every small inconvenience is a huge slight against them. You can see this in that video going around with the Gen-Z gal who simply cannot handle a 9-5 job and the tons of people agreeing with her.
We have made generations of spoiled people who increasingly need to turn to an authority figure to save them. And I am pretty sure this is by design.
Gen Z's concerns about work life balance is actually something I admire about them. I've watched my grandfather and my dad's best friend completely dedicate their lives to careers at the expense of their wives, children, and overall spiritual health. The fact that Gen Z finally understands that a career won't provide you with healthy relationships or the meaning of life is a GOOD thing, especially since most companies show almost no loyalty to their workers in return. So even though that girl on TikTok didn't take the best approach, she had some valid concerns. But yeah, this doesn't solve the monsters who are ripping down these posters in the name of "justice." I don't know how the same group of people who got so mad about Diary of Anne Frank or Mauz getting banned from school libraries could be silent about this.
Work life-balance is one thing. I certainly don't bust my butt to get ahead. The inability to work for 40 hours with having a breakdown is another. Through most of human history work was a given. Most people couldn't follow their dreams...there were none to be had. You were born a farmer, or hunter and you died a farmer or hunter. So the idea that if someone has to work a 40 hour work week, largely sitting still in a comfortable room getting paid more than people who slave away for 10+ hours a day across the globe, they are somehow overworked and so stressed they can't have a life is downright privileged and spoiled to me.
Gen Z has the worst mental health of any generation. So perhaps their need for so much work-life balance is the problem not a symptom.
Why are you surprised at what is happening in times of plenty, a thing unprecedented in history? When you needn't worry from whence comes you next meal, your mind can become hideously unfocused. Soft time breed soft men and all that -- so much more than a cliche.
This demonstrates that poverty and privation are not the only causes. It is difficult in social sciences, to the extent they are sciences, to demonstrate that one factor is the sole cause of a particular effect.
There is rarely ever ONE cause. Probably never. But poverty and privation are arguably not even A cause for any of this lunacy in our country. Even our poor are richer than most of the world, and our legal system is vastly more just and inclusive than those anywhere else in the world.
Similar product. Almost everyone’s Dad was a WWII or Korea vet. Most of the males in my family were too. They did not toss around ideas of killing/maiming/“cleansing” other people. They’d seen it first hand. One of my great uncles married a Polish girl he’d met who was in a DP camp after wars end (they merely worked Poles to death rather than exterminating them). “Crazy” Heddi never held back around us kids about her 1940-45 experiences. I fully appreciate that now as an adult.
I’m the generation after you - almost everyone’s grandpa was a WWII or Korea vet. The emotional impact of what they went through seems to have made its mark on two successive generations, but not on the twenty-something’s who didn’t know them personally.
Unless they had Holocaust survivor grandparents or parents. That severe generational trauma lives on in DNA as a continuing existential crises the same as an “ordinary” cancer does. It’s in remission lying just below the surface. Then something like this happens and you realize the cancer was never really cured, but lives on, somewhat dormant until the next time. While all of it is shocking beyond comprehension, so painful has been bearing witness to people who I thought were friends/colleagues that have remained silent or worse. It’s clear to me now that any one of those would “out” me or family members if the new Nazis come calling. As MLK said, “We remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
Yes. I'm probably close to your age (late Gen-X, both granddads were WW2 vets) and we grew up with their stories. We were also old enough that there were still a lot of Holocaust survivors, and it was common in schools to have an all-school assembly where a survivor came in to tell their story. As those survivors and veterans die, the younger generations lose the personal link to that history that so marked Boomers and Gen X/early millennials.
I’m likely your age. I was raised on WW II literature. I CAN believe what is going on because that’s EXACTLY what happened then, as had happened throughout human history. Demonize, dehumanize, then destroy. The Classics taught us this. Social Justice Theory doesn’t.
Candace Mittel Kahn, I don’t know if you read these comments, but this article was one of the best I’ve read. It touched me deeply. I have friends who went the way Sarah did and it hurts so bad. You made me feel less alone. I hope with all my heart that these people - the ones we know, and all the others - one day very soon find morality and basic ethics.
Heartfelt, Matthew. But what we are seeing is the paucity of quality education - from grade school through to the end of university. Critical thinking, the ability to put an issue into perspective, to criticize, to doubt, to see beyond the noise - that is what is lacking. Ideology buries ethics and morality - but the ability to critically think through a problem using all your mental tools buries ideology. Sarah never had the underpinnings to see through the ideology. She might one day, but not today.
That was heartbreaking. The past few years have revealed too much about people who we know or even considered friends. Were they always like this, or did college indoctrination and urban group think warp their minds?
“People all over the world—especially young, cool-looking people, with nose rings and neon backpacks—are ripping them down.”
Call they for what they are - anti human leftists. The same people like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot who have slaughtered millions over the past century. You cannot reason with a demoralized person, my namesake tried to warn us in 1984...
College - and earlier educational institutions like primary/secondary schools - have converted many people to the woke, intersectional religion which has now decided that Jewish people are too privileged. However, I know many older folks who have had their minds warped in these same ways. Do not discount the effect that CNN, NBC, CBS, NYT, WaPo, The New Yorker, etc can have on people. Same with cinema and other entertainment industry products that have been subtly conditioning people with messages.
They are actually one step away from being Manson acolytes! Reading of the horrors that were inflicted upon the Jewish families on 10/7, I can't help thinking "Helter-Skelter"! These loons pulling down posters would've fit right in on the Spahn ranch!
How little did we learn in the high-school civics class/es? It was mostly inert info about the Constitution, Bill of Rights, government structures and activities.
It would have been enlightening to perform a half-dozen learning role-plays of civilization processes that depend on adherence to common-sense rule-of-law examples to accomplish America's intentions to make The Golden Rule a natural part of American culture, communities, businesses, families, everyone.
This is where slippery slopes lead—when you accept the premise that some groups are "oppressors" (comparatively affluent, largely white looking Israelis) while others are the victims (poor, brown-skinned Palestinians) then you've drawn a morally black and white line in the sand that is based on ethnic groups. It is not a big leap to say that the bad guys, the "colonizers" are simply getting what they deserve, if you accept the prior premise. The only way to avoid this is to view people as individuals, not faceless masses of people to whom you can assign collective guilt to.
I cannot imagine any slippery slope leading to decapitating babies. I think probably you were talking about the woman tearing down the posters, and true she sounds not very intelligent and probably hasn't considered the truth. No slippery slope leads to what Hamas has done, that was a steep, evil hill those people climed.
No, I do in fact mean it's a slipper slope into evil. Evil comes slowly, then all at once when a tipping point is reached. The Nazis didnt open up concentration camps their first day in office, nor did the Soviets start their revolution with intentionally starving millions of people—you have to slowly acclimate people with new ideas, then push the boundaries again and again each time they get comfortable with the new low moral bar that's been set. The question begged when you start to normalize describing some ethnic groups as the evil "oppressors" and others as the virtuous "oppressed", is what is to be done with the so-called oppressors? Surely it can't be anything good. As some radical leftists have been so infamously saying in the aftermath, "what did you expect de-colonization to look like?".
True but also unfortunately impossible to do not least because we are also, inevitably and by nature, also part of our team. I am, as much as anyone can be, colourblind but at the same time I have to view people and make assumptions based on how they look and act when I meet them. To not do so would be stupid and increase the chance of me being a real victim.
I'm with you there—i dont think there can ever be a world without some stereotyping. In the absence of information, one must run the odds and make assumptions until new information can be aquired. But that is not the same as creating a kind of academic framework to support the claim that some ethnic groups can be best categorized as oppressors, while the others are victims—that is akin to scientists in the 1800's coming up with fake science to justify why other races were inherently lesser than the white race. The big difference in thinking is one of causation vs correlation—saying that you notice a correlation between X immutable trait and Y behavior, and acting accordingly cautious, hurts no one and is different than saying that everyone with X immutable trait shares collective blame for Y behavior, regardless of if they have ever directly participated in Y behavior themselves.
And I'm trying really hard to see these liberal leaving college students as individuals too. My sister (who has had more experience in academia than me) has reminded me that many of the friends and professors I see being silent right now are likely being silent out of discomfort. Up until now, it's been easy for them to take the most woke position on everything because it was easy to make that position seem compassionate (and to make Conservatives look heartless by comparison). As what Hamas actually did to these people comes more to light, it's getting harder and harder to take that position uncritically. So I pray that the silence I'm seeing is actual character development on these liberal's part. Sure the silence is cowardly, but that's better than openly wanting Jews to die. (Also if the unconfiness of this makes more liberal think tanks like Stanford and the WGA ACTUALLY commit to staying neutral about politics, that'd be better for society as a whole. I'm done with every brand and college trying to lecture me about morality, just sell your freaking product!!).
I agree with this. I think colleges should stay neutral on issues that are not directly questions of how academia should being teaching—I am annoyed, like everyone else it would seem—that they have only just now discovered the value of neutrality when it suited them, but if it teaches a lesson and changes how they act in future it will be worth the hypocrisy. We also most remember that most on the left are not evil—most do not wish for the death of innocent Jews—they are just simply receiving a completely different narrative in their little bubbles than the rest of us, and have been brainwashed with bad ideas such as CRT for years leading up to this.
I see video of these people ripping down posters, or cheering at such barbarism committed against the Jewish people, or openly showing their hateful antisemitism & I just feel like they have gone mad. It has been supremely disorienting to me at a time where, as a life-long California liberal, I have felt in a frequently disoriented state since 2020, where I look around at the people that I used to “get” and just say to myself “how could you? What happened to you?” .
How can they attempt to dehumanize these victims? I am grateful for the incredible reporting the Free Press is doing right now. I realize it is taking an enormous emotional toll on you all. Thank you & please don’t stop.
To me it actually seems reminiscent of the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers starring Donald Sutherland. If you haven’t seen it, check it out. It’s uncanny.
It's not an attempt at dehumanizing. It's what they're actually doing. Just like the fisherman who chum the waters in an attempt to attract a feeding frenzy. Anything to do with Israel, or Palestine, the media is the first to chum the waters hoping for a feeding frenzy.
As pessimistic as I am (and have long, long been) about human nature, it is agonizing to watch people demonstrate how deeply evil they really are.
It isn't that I didn't know that humans are capable of evil. It's that most humans try to wear a mask of respectability that only occasionally slips off.
Now we are seeing hundreds of people ripping off those masks of respectability and stomping on them. And claiming that the monsters they've revealed underneath are really the only "righteous" people in the world.
The boldness with which they flaunt the evil and dare us to challenge them is stunning. Hopefully, not stunning enough to invoke the fear they wish to instill in us. The worst thing we can do is stay silent. We must push back unapologetically in the name of human decency. Articles like this one from TFP are vital to expose such blatant hateful acts.
This: "It's that most humans try to wear a mask of respectability that only occasionally slips off."
Exactly. And we’re at one of those moments where the masks are slipping off - ironically off many of the same people who were enthusiastically masking themselves recently for a different purpose.
I wonder if this is a slight upside in social media. It makes people so comfy in their bubbles that they don't just let their masks slip, they rip them off in broad daylight.
Ultimately that is one of the points in favor of Free Speech. It helps you know where the bad people are.
A lot of evil has been done in the name of Righteousness. Many like to point at all of the things religions have done in the name of righteousness. I think this shows that the evil wasn't from the religion necessarily. It is in US. When we allow ourselves to see ANY other human as less than, we can and will allow ourselves to do horrible things to them. And when we convince ourselves that what we are doing is holy, blesses, on the right side of history, it absolves us of responsibility in our heads.
I worry that we are creating so many rifts that will allow violence that we may not be able to fix it. Societies run on trust. And we are increasingly showing that you can't trust anyone.
The reality is the evil people will use whatever ideology is available to support the evil things they wish to do. Religion is only one of the ideologies that have been employed for that end. The millions of people murdered by Communists are not less dead because the murderers were atheists.
One of the things that the Enlightenment of Western Civilization managed to accomplish was the recognition that ideology is not a sufficient excuse for committing violence.
Which is, of course, why the violent ideologues of the Left want to burn Western Civilization to the ground.
How much of this new dystopia is the result of self-serving amoral news media?
They appear to be only interested in shouting incendiary 'stories' to divide the 60% rational people in the middle, and attract eyeballs and advertiser $ for themselves.
In some cases you are likely right. But I think that many of the individuals that work at these places are purposely pushing specific narration and agendas and they are doing it ideologically, not capitalistically. If it were just about money, companies like Disney wouldn't keep making the same choices while their profits keep shrinking.
Candace, she is not your friend, she is antisemite. She is the ultimate proof on how DEI/ Ethnic degrees / postcolonial studies and the universities supporting them (with our tax payer money) are a machine to create radicals. She checks all the boxes (bonus for the pronoun).
The universities are really the last bastion holding free thought, they are in free fall and failing, if they fall that's it. They will be creating more Sarahs...
I’m not sure non-Jews and ordinary passersby understand how painful this is...
You don’t have to be Jewish or even religious to understand how heartbreaking it is to know that children have been abducted and are now in the hands of Hamas.
But you do have to be human and value other human beings. You do have to have a heart...
I am not a Jew...I guess I am just a "passerby"...but I DO understand how painful this is...not just in Israel...but in my country...when people can believe these lies...when people can say and do these things...my heart grows heavy...I wish I could do something...to make [or help] people understand...I try...but..."A man hears what he wants to hear...and disregards the rest"...I will keep trying...I will keep hoping...
Spouse (Jewish) and I (not) have simply, gently, stopped communicating with our admittedly limited circle of friends. We have already heard too much.
On the surface, it sounds reasonable to express sorrow for Gazans whose homes are being bombed. But I do not think very many Brits, after having lost 40,000 to the Luftwaffe, worried much about Germans. I do not think that the wives and mothers of those murdered at Pearl Harbor particularly considered the fate or feelings of the Japanese. Nor did most Americans for the next four years.
And I can tell you that my young father, steaming towards Tokyo Bay for what would have been a mortal engagement with a military and population for whom surrender was high shame, was, like his fellow sailors and America at large, inordinately grateful that the Japanese were forced to surrender at last -- and mind you, only because the emperor made that decision after not one but two atomic bombs.
Some Palestinians lost their homes in 1948. Many more Jews lost their homes in Egypt, Syria, and other Arab lands over the next 10-15 years.
Close family friends, Greeks living in Istanbul and other largely Greek towns, had to flee Turkey in the 1920s, taking with them nothing but their memories of their homes, in the so-called exchange of populations: None spent the rest of their lives plotting murder.
Our friends are far too broad minded for us to be comfortable with them just yet. Perhaps when the hostages are released . . . Perhaps after Hamas has been crushed . . . .
Hamas will never be crushed! Sure, you can crush the current leaders, but when you marinade your children in hatred, to believe that their sole purpose is wage jihad and die for Islam you can't just wave it away. We seemed to have forgotten that we were born into a fallen world, where evil, and hatred, lives alongside love, and compassion. Evil is among us, and has been from the beginning of time. You can't eradicate it. Sure, you can tamp it down or drive it underground, but it's still with us. When people who show you their evilness believe them.
I feel for you. Two years after I left Law Enforcement to become a therapist the BLM riots kicked off. It broke my brain. I lost so many friends and was isolated from my coworkers. I asked my own brother point blank if he thought all cops were racist and if he thought it was an inherently racist system. He refused to answer the question.
In times like these people show you who they really are. It sucks, i’m sorry your former friend has been radicalized.
All the normal people feel for everyone in law enforcement. I can't imagine how much worse metro areas can become with prevailing attitudes. And how hard it will be to attract people to essential law enforcement jobs.
Repeating a post I left above...
How much of this new dystopia is the result of self-serving amoral news media?
They appear to be only interested in shouting incendiary 'stories' to divide the 60% rational people in the middle, and attract eyeballs and advertiser $ for themselves.
the MSM are both cause and symptom. I've heard conspiracy theories about why - why do people with power want to destroy society, civilization, and none of it really makes sense. It's like mass stupidity without a cause. I really don't understand it. I pointed out one day to a well-meaning white liberal that most black Americans are not living in poverty and are not criminals - and she looked surprised! Sometimes I think maybe this is related to the breakdown of antitrust laws - too much segregation between the wealthy and everyone else, not enough mixing, and stagnant waters breed mosquitos.
This is the sort of “product” and attitude that caused me to terminate any further giving to Northwestern eight years ago after examining what was being taught in these new “studies” disciplines.
And if you choose to arm yourself, get training and practice regularly. Like any other tool a weapon is only useful if you know how to use it and are comfortable doing so.
I don't think that an actual human being will ever be comfortable doing so. Perhaps I'm speaking for very few, but the only thing that scares me more than having to use it, is not having it. And -- of course! -- being practiced in the thing itself.
I would sincerely hope that Jewish American people would look around them, at their supposed "friends" and "allies" and also to the kinds of people they have all voted for since FDR and change their voting habits.
Will you, Candace? Will you stop voting for people in the Democratic Party who hate you, who hate Israel, who now feel free to let their actual antisemitism run rampant as they still lie to you that the actual real problem in this country is the less than 10K known white nationalists on the fringe of the Right and not the Woke Leftist antisemites who have captures entire institutions like media, academia, big tech, entertainment, and an entire political party?
Will you, and the rest of the people here at The Free Press stop listening to the lies fed to you by the DNC Apparatchik and see that giving your vote to them has actual real world consequences? Or no? Will American Jewish people still believe that conservatives are their enemies counter to everything they see with their own eyes for the last three weeks?
This is what I wonder. Sadly, I don't think they will change. Just like all the people who've fled California only to try to turn their new homes blue, I don't think American Jewish people understand the connection between their votes and the nonsense the profess to believe and all of the antisemitism we see in this country today enabled by how they've voted for 80 years.
As a conservative American Jew, I understand this post. And I’m sure I feel the pain and frustration expressed in it more than most. There seems to be a sea change in the Jewish community with the uncommonly overt expression of pure evil in the past weeks and we conservative Jews remain ever hopeful that clarity will become more widespread.
I would point out - and I and those who think like me are evidence - that Jews are no more homogeneous nor monolithic than anyone else. I have often looked at liberal Christians, those from churches espousing “liberation theology” and other “progressive” ideals, and wondered how that can be consistent with their other expressed beliefs.
I have to conclude that humans are, well, human. And there are times in history when evil comes out and declares itself plainly. And those humans are faced with declaring whether they support good or evil, publicly and for all to see.
“I have often looked at liberal Christians, those from churches espousing “liberation theology” and other “progressive” ideals, and wondered how that can be consistent with their other expressed beliefs.”
I agree with you. I could hardly stand all the BLM signs at churches in 2020. Even they didn’t catch on to its absurdity! That’s what I love about my Christian Orthodoxy. It’s the origin of Christianity since the Apostles. We’ve hardly changed a thing in 2000 years. No BLM, no reproductive health, no LGBTQRSTU. Although all are welcome, we don’t change our beliefs around groups of people.
The problem seems to be less about the group with which someone identifies and more about the relativity of their beliefs instead of absolute truths and morals.
Maybe it’s a “which came first?”.
Very well said.
Amen! I also go to church that preaches the bible and it has been my rock.
One "advantage" you have is the NT doesn't have to go through the language filters from Koine Hellenic to English. You don't have a bowlderised G of Jn. kidding you. You can go straight to G. Jn 8:44 for instance and see the straight up anti-Semitism of that "Gospel" at a glance.
Cut the smug. You have even less excuse for ignoring the hate in your cult's "holy" books than the Roman "heretics" and their offspring.
To put John 8:44 in context, you need to read the complete chapter 8. Jesus is not talking about all Jews. He is addressing the Pharisees.
John 8:44 tells us the source of all earthly evil, including antisemitism.
That’s how a fundamentalist would interpret that passage - not a Christian rooted in tradition. Jn 8:39 should help with context. He’s not talking about “Jews”, but specifically Pharisees
I grew up going to a Baptist Sunday School every Sunday. I have always been taught that in this passage Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees, not to Jews in general. He was a Jew. His disciples were Jews, including John, the writer of the gospel. But your straw man comment isn't really about John 8:44 or some antisemitism you claim to have found in the Christian Scriptures. You're just lumping all Christians together and taking a big swipe at believers in general. How is your obvious distain towards me for what I believe different than the hatred you would impute to me without evidence?
BTW - Jesus was tortured and crucified by Romans - so Italians are Christ-killers. Don't that turn those tables upside down?
Amen, Amen Linda!
That's correct. I sat near two groups of fellow jews the other night, one was conservative the other was into their favorite subject ( trump). I have a close friend who can only utter two words when it comes to politics: Charlottesville and J6. He will no.longer engage with me although I hope but doubt the past few weeks has softened his hard heart. Other jews I know have started to THINK but whether they will revert to their political ideology come 2024 is up in the air in my opinion. Jewish communities in America especially reform synagogues need to have some open no holds barred debates. As you know the dangers facing American Jews dwarfs dangers (if any) facing left leaning Christians.
Im a conservative Jew also and i hate to say it but you cant fix stupid
Fair point but these are not stupid people. They are intolerant and closed minded . Of course many are ignorant too.
The unwillingness of people to admit that the are wrong about something is epidemic. Admitting that you are wrong and correcting views or behaviors is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of integrity.
it certainly is. I keep waiting for people to admit that the sold solution to C virus was worse than the problem.
Intolerant, closed minded and ignorant. Yes, with the emphasis on ignorant regardless of the letters after their names. Plus, utterly unable to spend any real effort in contemplative self-reflection in an attempt to sort out the hypocrisy of their stated philosophical worldview.
"Intolerant, closed minded and ignorant. Yes, with the emphasis on ignorant regardless of the letters after their names. Plus, utterly unable to spend any real effort in contemplative self-reflection in an attempt to sort out the hypocrisy of their stated philosophical worldview."
The problem (it seems to me) is they have never been taught or encouraged to do this.
Does "ignorance" cover unwillingness to see objectively measurable proofs? _Actually_ moving the embassy to Jerusalem, for one<
Ignorance often results not wanting to know ( hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil). As for issues like the embassy, delusion and rationalization reflect how I see those folks. Then again if one is primarily a person whose ideology comes first the rest naturally follows
It may be the otherway round. One can't help but notice the adjacent to and/or direct responsibility for nearly all the worst idiotologies, especially for Jews, of Jews you can't say are stupid. Beginning with Xtianity. Ditto Islam. Socialisms, Marxism, Bolshevism, Critical Theory (The Frankfurt School were Jews fleeing Hitler), egging on and building The Bomb ( Particularly egregious: "Jewish Science"; not do-able on the his timescale; the shambolic Nazi state; and Heisenberg's active impedence meant Hitler was never going to pursue The Bomb in the first place), Civil Rights, US Immigration Law. That average 10% uptick in I.Q seems to turbo-boost the glomming on to really bad ideas and seriously impede realising they are really bad ideas. This seems to be a function of intelligence itself. See Lorenzo Warby's posts on his substack and Helen Dale's, and James Lindsay @ New Discourses.
"The instrumental strategy of linguistic game-playing works much better than it should because so many Very Smart People refuse to see a game is being played. As such Very Smart People typically want to be liked — and want to be seen as the Clever People Who Understand — the boo-word strategy works."
Lorenzo Warby: https://www.notonyourteam.co.uk/p/trapped-by-philosophys-worst-features
Can’t believe I have to respond to such an ignorant comment but it was always the most fringe and least committed Jews who took up these ideologies at the expense of the wider community.
Haha Xtianity. CHRIST actually ends with a T so through your seething atheism, you can't even take the name of CHRIST out of the word correctly. You need help....and God will provide it to you the same way He'll provide it to me....a very proud, content and an always truth telling CHRISTIAN.
I realize it’s much worse for Jews, but how/why did Dems come to hate Christians so much? And I say Dems because they make no effort to separate themselves from leftists. Think what they want but it’s the reason why this country is so morally messed up…and it continues to get worse. But then, they love it like that.
Part of the culture wars. Keep in mind also that religion is a target for Marxists and that on the left the state ( big govt) is the entity they worship as they believe they can create utopia here on earth if they only can get enough power
Maybe it’s time to stop debating whether Jews or Christians are in more danger and acknowledge the real battle is between progressives supporting the Biden/Obama regime’s goal of “fundamentally changing the country” and those who want to defend the rights and liberties that made this the greatest country in history.
Of course that's the real battle but the immediate danger is clear especially on campus and in large cities
You’re right, thank you!
There you go: those are Xtianities aims too, the virulent hate is because they want to be the new Xtianity. Just as Xtianity's virulent hate of Jews comes from wanting to be the New Covenant.
It's because Christians are forcing their beliefs on others. See, for example, the S. Ct. decision last term permitting organized prayer at public school football games.
Your comment makes no internal sense. You decry Christians "forcing" their beliefs on others and then decry a decision in the USSC "permitting" organized prayer at a public school football game (I assume you're talking about the coach being allowed to prayer on the football field after the game). No one - and least of all that USSC decision "forces" anyone to pray - particularly to engage in "Christian" prayer. The attendees at the football game are perfectly free to leave after the game without participating in the prayer session - they are free to ignore it or even to shout loud disapproval. The coach did not force anyone on his team to join him. The decision only upheld the right of an individual to prayer on a public football field. The "force" had been the school "forcing" the coach not to pray. Suppose that the prayer group had been Jews gathering to pray for the victims of the Hamas terrorists - or Muslims praying for the Palestinians killed in Gaza. Would that be okay? Or what if a local environmental activist gathered supporters together to chant to Gaia for the rescue of the planet from evil oil producers? Would that be all right because it wasn't an organized religion (although we could certainly discuss whether climate activists have become the equivalent of an organized religion)? If you claim that Christians are "forcing" their beliefs on others, you're going to have to come up with a far better example than the one you've offered - and you're going to have to explain why that's wrong, but it's okay for publicly funded colleges to "force" students to take classes in DEI or other left-wing subjects.
I’m always amazed that these people don’t see their hypocrisy. You pointed it out well.
It would, naturally, be fine if the coach were demonstrating support for trans rights or some such. It's only forcing if it's any kind of activity that suggests some people are Christian. Just reminding anyone about Christianity is intolerable and must be bullied into hiding.
Well said
Permitting “organized prayer” is what I said and what I meant and what was at the heart of the Kennedy case. A coercive, organized public spectacle of Christian prayer in violation of the First Amendment’s non-establishment clause. And no I wouldn’t look any more favorably upon the same kind of spectacle promoting any other religion. I loathe the religious zealotry of Hamas but I also loathe the religious zealotry of Amy Coney Barrett and Samuel Alito. Who’s the hypocrite?
Ahh…and they’re considered the extreme right/maga (eye roll). Those cases are few and far between, and the left goes whacko when these cases come up. I would say dems are forcing their trans beliefs (and yes, it’s become a religion) on society even more so.
Indeed. And with far more lasting actual harm to the lives of young people who get caught up in it than sitting through a prayer for 30 seconds once a week for a football season.
Do you actually think Christians lack power in this country? What evidence do you have for that?
I don't believe anyone is forced to participate in that if they don't want to. So it's not forcing beliefs.
If anyone is forcing their beliefs on others, it's the left. See: Pride Month.
their enemy seems to be order. They get stimulated and emboldened by chaos. I think it trips some primitive blood lust, which becomes contagious to others who are psychologically vulnerable.
Did you point out to friend who obsesses on the evil Trump that is was the evil Trump that move our embassy to Jerusalem.
I left the ELCA (Lutherism) because of their silly liberal values.
You are so right about the so-called "Christian" churches that are really leftist la la lands and bastions only of the religion of the "woke." Laughable.
Liberal Christians are more liberal than Christian.
As a theologian, I say that objectively, not as a sound bite. Point by point, they align with the Enlightenment more than the Bible, or any Christian tradition or creed.
They cherry-pick Jesus's words for statements that support their Leftist ideology. Then they tell other Christians that they aren't *really* Christians if they don't support the Leftist ideology.
It isn't that they embrace liberalism; but that they now celebrate arrant madness.
As I noted above those Christians do not face the dangers now present for American Jews. In fact some of them are part of the danger
Michael, real Christians stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters. Like Roddie Edmonds said on that cold winter morning in the POW camp - "We're all Jews here."
The charlatan Christians have always made excuses for the Devil and his servants. As the temporizers do now. To look at the barbarism and savagery wrought on the innocents and make excuses for it is appalling. I despise them no less than do you.
Thank you Bruce. I have a number of Christian friends to whom I would trust my life. They are indeed true Christians. As I often write and say evaluate every person as an individual. Do not stereotype and do not assume. And when someone makes clear their hatred believe them.
Christians know that the Jews are God's chosen people.
You did just stereotype: "some of them are part of the danger."
No True Scotsman. You need to revisit your epistemology, mate.
Inappropriate "No True Scotsman" application. Scripture gives instruction on how Christians should behave and treat others, so obviously someone deviating in a significant way from those standards (to whatever degree you choose to parse it) is, in fact, not a Christian.
I know you're a smart guy Steven, but honestly, some of your comments elude me completely. Talk down, brother. Some of us are a bit denser.
The institution of most liberal practicing Jews is the Reform Temple, or otherwise described as Democrats at prayer. We conservative Jews believe human nature is immutable and that we get the bad with the good. The bad seems to be more newsworthy these days. The prospect of a violent death does focus the mind on what survival requires. May my fellow Jews in Israel prevail in destroying those who wish to destroy them.
That position is equally daft.
I left one of those churches. The flying of the BLM banner. And no one would listen to the truth about that Marxist terror organization that enriched its owners from the largesse of white guilt and corporate DEI virtue signaling. I learned that many of the people at the church actually don’t believe in God. It’s a social circle and they like singing in the choir.
You’ve defined “cognitive dissonance” or the struggle between facts and emotions/beliefs. It is the hardest thing is to accept facts. As it turns out, when in pain, one is more likely to make a change (relieve pain).
When the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.
Yes, “hitting the bottom”!
I did thirty years ago. Even though the people who loved me thought it would be when I went to prison. Nope, it only happened when I put the shovel down and surrendered.
There was a study done by George Yancey that looked into the role politics played in ones faith for Christians on the Left and the Right. For Christians on the Left, or those who follow “liberal theology” or “progressive theology,” politics came first and their faith came second. In other words, they were highly involved politically and their politics informed their faith more than the other way around. For Christians on the right and those who hold to a more “classical” Christian theology, faith informed politics. They tended to be less politically involved and put their faith first and their politics second. Not only is this very telling about the difference of liberal/progressive theology, but I wonder if the same dynamic occurs within the Jewish faith.
For the record, many progressive ideals are not consistent with the classical/traditional understanding of Christianity, which is why progressive Christians have changed their theology and re-interpreted Scriptures to fit their political leanings. Many who find themselves on the Right with a more classical definition of Christianity look at progressive theology and conclude that some have departed so much from the traditional understanding of Christian faith that it is essentially a new, separate religion. It’s frustrating that they call themselves “Christians” when they really aren’t. (And I’m not sure why they want to.)
But of course, Christians are only bound by faith and not by ethnicity like the Jews. Which makes it odd, to me, why more liberal or even secular Jews would support political positions, parties, and persons who don’t support Israel. I can understand that a secular Jew has no faith, a liberal Jew may have a different faith than an Orthodox Jew, but it seems that the Jewish ethnic identity would bind them in support tighter than what we see on the Christian side of things.
Oh, if only that were true. I find your post very clarifying. As I read it, I felt you could simply substitute “Jews” for “Christians” and it would make just as much sense. As an Orthodox Jew, my faith informs my politics (and every other aspect of my life). For those who are less orthodox in belief and practice, I believe there is more “flexibility” in adapting religion to the “modern world”. As pointed out, we Jews are an interesting amalgam of religion and ethnicity - except we really aren’t. We gladly accept converts and believe that, spiritually, they stood with us at Mount Sinai to receive the Word of God. I’m not sure how much I have in common, culturally, with a Jew from Yemen - except for the fact that, despite having no common vernacular, we can easily pray together.
Ok, so it seems like you do have a similar dynamic with the Jewish faith. I can’t say I am very surprised, but saddened to hear it. Perhaps secular Jews and liberal Jews are not only putting politics first, but perhaps they have cut themselves off from any tie with their ancestors in the faith, and especially any ties with the land of ancient Israel. I find that very sad.
For both Christians and Jews, this re-defining of the faith is maddening. (Or at least I find it so.) Both the Jewish faith and the Christian faith makes it clear that following God should be the first priority in one’s life. If someone wants to believe and act differently, they are free to do so, but at least own it and don’t pretend that you are a person of faith.
Another interesting misconception, is that many assume Christians support Israel only from either: (1) some sort of feeling of solidarity or gratitude since Christianity grew out of the Jewish faith, and/or (2) because some Christians believe that the end times of Revelation will only occur when the temple I Jerusalem is rebuilt and they believe hat Israel has an important part to play at the end of days.
However, IMHO, these should not be the primary reasons why Christians should support Jews. I don’t personally know enough about end-times theology to know if point #2 is correct, but I also don’t think we can do anything to bring about the second coming of Christ-- God will do that on His time, we can’t influence that. I do feel a certain solidarity to my Jewish friends, from point #1, but I don’t think this should be the primary driver of support for Israel. The primary driver should be the recognition of the truth that Jews currently and historically have been subjected to terrorism, war, racist anti-semitism, and viewed as less than human. Christians should care about any group of people who suffer this way, because all are created in the image of God and because God is a God of both love and justice. Christians are called to care for the “downtrodden,” to care for those “being led to the slaughter,” and to stand up against evil. Therefore, Christians should stand up to stop evil terrorist attacks against Jews, against Rwandan genocide, against oppression of certain people groups in China, against modern day slavery and human trafficking, and even against the oppression of Arab and Muslims under inhumane Hamas rule and other Islamist extremist governments. It shouldn’t matter if the person is Jewish or not, Christians should care about those who real injustice and death are happening to. Any increase in support for Jewish people is mostly a reflection of the fact that unfortunately Jewish people have been disproportionately attacked.
And this is what I can’t understand-- obviously there are strong propaganda attempts against Israel, but a few seconds of critical thinking and a quick Google search can easily show people that Israel does not fit the definition of an apartheid state or a colonizer by any definition! So if Christians claim to be for those who are suffering and oppressed, but can’t seem to understand who is actually the oppressed and suffering group, (not excluding civilian Gazans and Palestinians, clearly they are oppressed greatly by their own government) they I would first assume ignorance- they simply don’t know the truth. But the truth is easily known and trying to be shared, and they refuse to see it. Which then leads me to believe that perhaps then those people who refuse to see the truth are not true Christians, and are not truly committed to standing up for people who suffer evil but committed rather to some other ideology. This is perhaps the truth of the situation and it is maddening.
I digress. But know that classical Christians stand with Israel and stand with you and the Jewish people all over the world. God is still good and vengeance with be His.
Agree about Christians caring about those who suffer, but I think Christian support of Israel goes deeper than that. We take to heart God's words to Abraham: Genesis 12:3, "I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." If we know our Scripture, we recognize Israel's special place as the apple of God's eye.
Absolutely. Both you and K.B. have represented Christianity beautifully.
That’s a fair point. However, when you look at the whole Biblical narrative, one reason God preserved the Hebrew people was that he protected the lineage for Jesus. The New Covenant that Jesus ushered in expands the promises to Abraham to any who believe in Jesus, not just the Hebrew people. Galatians 3:29 says “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” So in this sense, yes we have a deeper solidarity with the Jewish people. However, what I am not sure about-- since the promises have now expanded outward from the Hebrews with the new covenant, is there any reason for God to continue to show favor to the Jewish people? That part seems unclear to me.
I appreciate you and this post. I completely agree. It’s a question of caring for all of God’s creation. Any people who are suffering and oppressed and simply desire to be free are deserving of help. I agree that this includes Palestinians in that situation (I have no idea how prevalent they are, but I do know they exist). I pray that God has mercy on all of us and redeems us from our current travails.
Agreed. Peace to you and yours.
I think a huge part of the problem right now is that young people (and others) often get all of their information from social media, and if one's algorithm is pro-Palestinian that's all they're going to see. The amount of propaganda coming from the progressive left and the Arab world is mind blowing, until you realize how many Muslims there are in the world compared to the minuscule number of Jews. And those huge numbers of Arabs, along with their supporters, are all repeating the words "apartheid" and "colonizer" over and over again, so even though completely untrue, it has become lingo that no one seems to question.
I think much of the support goes back to the oppressed/oppressor mindset that so much of the progressive left and academia are obsessed with, even, it seems, when it comes to terrorists. I continue to be shocked that so many can turn a blind eye to the hostages being held and the atrocities of what Hamas did on Oct. 7. I cannot fathom what goes through the minds of people tearing down "missing children" posters. Of course, it has also become extremely "uncool" to be conservative on college campuses and in most elite circles for that matter, so no matter what one thinks (although not sure how much actual thinking is happening these days), if you're not a liberal social justice warrior, you can't let anyone know.
There are things religions usurping the Covenant can't do. One of them is to see the earlier religion as legitimate. For obvious reasons. There are things religions usurping the Covenant will do. One of those is persecute the earlier religion and its followeres. For obvious reasons.
Crack open any Abrahamic "scripture" from the TaNaKh to DiAngelo and you will see this creed.
I hope you don't mind that I'm copying this comment. I keep quotes/comments in one place to go back and read them. As a group of us works through a book study at my Catholic parish, your comment pinpoints a nagging issue. This distinction helps.
Don’t mind at all! Glad you found it helpful!
How does that old quote go? The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is to do nothing?
You make an excellent point, and hopefully more people begin to pull the self-imposed wool from their eyes and the cotton from their ears.
Where were these glassy eyed, foam at the mouth, brutal, antisemites, when Isis was murdering, torturing and raping the Yazidis and anybody that wasn't Sunni Muslim? The ISIS Muslims raped women, little boys and girls and men. They were equal opportunity rapists.
Where were these noble antisemite demonstrators when the religion of peace in Iran was murdering Bahais by the hundreds? Where were they when the Sudanese Muslims were raiding Christian villages murdering everybody except small children and women who they sold into slavery?
This is selective outrage directed at only one group and that is Jews. I thought left wing loons were Woke and all about DEI. Maybe these rioters need to include DEI counselors in each of their hate chapters all over the US.
I guess Woke and DEI counselors are for everybody except Democrat hate groups.
DEI only pertains to those "oppressed". I guess they think Jews have moved on from "oppressed" to "oppressors". Plus, Jews are "White", Palestinians are "POC". You gotta keep up with the rules, Lonesome.
Thanks for enlightening me. I will try to improve in the future.
"I have often looked at liberal Christians, those from churches espousing “liberation theology” and other “progressive” ideals, and wondered how that can be consistent with their other expressed beliefs."
The question is, what matters more for them. Being Christian or Being Liberal/Progressive? I suspect for many its the latter. This is also why "Mainstream" denominations have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. The sad thing is this ideology is now infiltrating the more "Conservative/Evangelical" denominations.
There are no monolithics; technically true dat. But there are several non-monolithics who persist in voting -- as a bloc -- against self-interest. Sorry.
Where were these glassy eyed, foam at the mouth, brutal, antisemites, when Isis was murdering, torturing and raping the Yazidis and anybody that wasn't Sunni Muslim? The ISIS Muslims raped women, little boy and girls and men. They were equal opportunity rapists.
Where were these noble antisemite demonstrators when the religion of peace in Iran was murdering Bahais by the hundreds? Where were they when the Sudanese Muslims were raiding Christian villages murdering everybody except small children and women who they sold into slavery?
This is selective outrage directed at only one group and that is Jews. I I thought left wing loons were Woke and all about DEI. Maybe these rioters need to include DEI counselors in each of their hate chapters all over the US.
I guess Woke and DEI counselors are for everybody except Democrat hate groups.
I have stopped going to church although I continue to look for a church home. The church I’ve spent my 70 year attending is no more than a non-profit, social justice movement for the very liberal crowd that has taken it over. During the pandemic, church services went virtual but the mask- wearing continues at now in-person services. I pray and regularly talk to God but now my church home resides in my heart, wherever I may be. I’m sure that my church prays for the Jewish community but I suspect a lot of it is lip service as they fall all over themselves to include the Palestinians in their prayers so they can be seen as “kind” and “accepting “.
Open your Bible and find your way through that. There are lots of apps and podcasts to help until such time as you find a church.
I agree, though not a complete substitute for the outreach and sense of community a church provides , especially after a lifetime of being in the pew!
That's very very true and was lost on the powers that be during COVID. MY parish church was only closed for about 10 weeks and even that was too much. As Catholics we believe that the bread and wine become the body and blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, so we don't want to miss the Eucharist.
Maybe give it another try at another Christian or Catholic church.
Pro Palestinian sentiment has been on the rise in academia for at least the last decade. And that has been concurrent with rising anti-semiticism. But somehow this message has only now reached the American jewish community. Odd because they've been sending their kids to college all this time. I guess the New York Times failed to mention it.
Many Jews seem to be 100% convinced by the Left's propaganda that has convinced them that Republicans are infinitely more antisemitic than anyone on the Left. It's going to take more than what's happened so far to convince them that this isn't even remotely true.
My mother (aleha ha-shalom) could never get over the fact that I became a Republican (and it was my college experience that made me so) and no evidence of leftist anti-Semitism going back to Jesse Jackson would convince her otherwise.
So very sad.
Well, the MSM has been calling everyone on the right things like Nazis for quite some time. So the label gets stuck on. Even if it is other groups that doing that actual Nazi things. I mean, think about it. The MSM LOVES to blame everything on QAnon and Proud Boys...but I have not seen a single things about them lately. Shouldn't there be all kinds of Nazi marches by these deplorable groups? These are the real racists and supremacists, right?
Well that's just it! Those groups could easily throw on a face mask and join the protests and "get away with it". It's the perfect opportunity and yet, they aren't. Hmm.....
I’ve broached this conversation with a Jewish friend but was told, Please, let’s not talk politics. We are on opposite sides. I replied, No! we aren’t, don’t you see?! She refuses to see. Sigh.
Maureen, I live in California and many of my friends are on the left. They know where I stand as a conservative who left their liberal political ranks years ago. They have no curiosity about why I shifted and no desire to open their minds even as they complain about the decrepit state of Los Angeles - homeless defecating on the sidewalks, increases in crime, etc, all a result of our one-party state D government and their own voting patterns. Double sigh.
We have friends like that. When we socialize, discussion of politics is verboten. One wonders if they truly believe what they espouse, or actually find it necessary to gain acceptance among their other peers.
It takes courage to swim against the woke stream!
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. Sad isn’t it?
Well, it'll die from the lack or have to be put out of its misery. Why not skip that and just shoot the horse when it baulks the trough in the first place? /s
If only we could! 😂
I'll say it again: get some actual friends and drop these toxic douches.
Steve, I would. I have before. But she has redeeming qualities, it’s not so simple this time. I am trying to live my faith better. One commandment is to love your enemies. She’s not an “enemy”, just someone who has lived in a bubble of like minded sheep and I think is afraid to hear things that challenge her comfort zone.
Point of truth. 16 House members voted no or present to the resolution supporting Israel’s right and responsibility to defend itself from the terrorist Hamas. 15 were Democrats.
Who was the Republican??
Massey probably. He always opposes all spending, no matter the cause. The best politician in the senate.
Called it! - "Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) also joined, writing on social media that the measure would “call for sanctions on a foreign country” and force “an open-ended promise of military support that is so broad.”"
He’s in the House, and I’d ask you…….Let’s assume in your house you are conservative with your funds. Do you withhold from your family insurance, medications, food? No matter the cause?
Massie, KY
Massie from Kentucky
Massie. His tweet: https://x.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1717270096710603198?s=20
Isolationist.
Thank you for pointing this out! Needs to be recognized
David Mamet has a recent piece on this very topic, how the Democrats the Jews tend to vote for have betrayed them: “How the Democrats betrayed the Jews” - unherd.com.
Not to mention his wonderful piece frim the village voice years ago ‘why i am no longer a brain dead liberal’
Thank you. Great article. I subscribed.
Powerful article. Thank you.
I wonder how many of these people - in the name of their own survival - will vote for the Republican nominee for President in 2024 - and that increasingly looks to be Trump.
I don't care how tightly they have to hold their noses. Whoever the Republican nominee is will keep them alive. Everything else is secondary. It's beginning to look more and more that leftist/Democrat control will become a literal death sentence sooner or later for American Jews.
And, what’s even worse is people don’t even realize the really good things Trump did for thiscountry especially in forging peace in the Middle East. They are so brainwashed with all the media lies about Trump which has caused them to stick their head in the sand and sing “na, na, na,na, na”
This is one of my main issues with Trump. For real reasons or not, many people that might otherwise vote against the dems also hate Trump. The MSM has done such a great hit job on him (and he made is SUPER easy) that some people just can't vote for him.
RFK Jr is an excellent compromise. He’s a classic liberal and supports Israel.
He's OK on free speech issues, but his radical environmental stand will impoverish us all. He's preferable to Biden, but not to any Republican, IMHO.
Bat barf. So was Mr Perot, and he gave us Mr Clinton.
RFK is still a Democrat no matter what sheep’s clothing he is wearing. Don’t be fooled.
He is running as an independent and will get Biden elected if Trump is the Rep candidate. Most of the votes RFK gets will be from never Trumpers in the Rep party.
Unfortunately I see plenty of Jews still supporting the Democrats...the excuses are out of this world
They might be out of this world, but their blindness is willful, and that is what makes them evil.
And, do not succumb to their/he/she/it/etc. siren calls and their/he/she/it emotional blackmail. Evil is evil even if it is well disguised.
Evil deserves no quarter.
Long ago, I think it was Nathan Podhoretz who said that Liberalism is the great religion of American Jewry. It is tough to give up your religion. Part of their religion is that the Republicans are a bunch of racist Nazi KKK types.
Having said that, if you look at other nations, Jews HAVE moved away from leftist parties they once supported - British and Canadian Jews now vote overwhelmingly for their respective Tories, and French Jews largely voted for Macron and not the Socialists.
Same for the majority of African Americans. They vote blindly Democrat because that is what their predecessors started doing in the 60s. They don’t recognize the changes in the party and don’t do anything but ignore, or worse, belittle prominent Black conservative voices. Comprof is an excellent example.
Brilliant comment, Mathew. It seems sometimes that Americans have become observers of the world around them as if they were attending a fantasy movie with like-minded friends. A movie that, while interesting, has no physical impact on them personally. An old cliche seems apt - “when people say they mean to kill, believe them.”
I agree! We Americans have become excessively complacent in our indulgent lives. Even the poor in this country would be middle class in any country South of the US.
As a Jew, I will go so far as to say that liberal Jews are often thankless of our supporters and pander to our enemies. They don't appreciate Nikki Haley enough when she often singlehandedly supported Isreal at the UN. I still have more liberal views than conservative. But one thing I know is you need to recognize your friends as well as your enemies and vote accordingly.
Not so singlehandedly; her boss also.
Fair enough. And UN watch - Hillel Neuer. But the point is she fights for Jewish people who don't appreciate enough of what she does.
👏👏👏👏
Said as a conservative Jew! My fellow Jews who always vote democrat drive me nuts!
Exactly!
It is baked in. All human societies seem to privelige this sort of strife to their own detriment. There was a civil war raging in Jerusalem even as the Romans besieged it and we only know this because Josephus decided Vespasian was the Messiah!
Perfectly said
There's a widely circulating video that shows a Jewish woman being subject to a torrent of anti-semitic abuse by a motorist. She's on her bicycle and her child is visible in front. The abuser is black. After it became widely circulated and people wanted the abuser to be held accountable she asked people not to do that, that she saw no good that could come from that. And when asked, she said she did have his license plate number but she didn't want to reveal it, because she didn't want anything bad to happen to him. This is how white nationalists get the idea that it's not anti-Semitism Jews object to but it's hatred of whites. Because I would agree that if this guy seemed to be a right-wing white racist she would not have had a problem with having his identity revealed and sharing his license plate number. But I don't think it comes from anti-white hatred, because if the abuser had been a man wearing a yamuke with a fair complexion, and abuse victim was a black man, I suspect if she had his license plate number she would have gladly shared it. There is this odd need to protect some demographics from the responsibility of their actions. I don't know how much of this is a Jewish thing and how much of it is a progressive thing. I do have a gay friend, not Jewish, who was a victim of a hate crime by a black man, and did not want to report it for fear that the perpetrator would become a victim of police brutality. So maybe it's more of a progressive thing than a part of Jewish culture? I don't know. I grew up ethnically, but not religiously Jewish. But I notice progressive Jews do very little self-advocacy, maybe they don't want to give in to the stereotype of being overly self-serving? But I mean damn, even when Jews were targeted in Jersey City and people openly praise the killer the Jon Stewarts of the world saying nothing. But they have plenty of time to defend Ilhan Omar and criticize the pro-Israeli crowd.
So do these people realize if the perpetrators suffer no consequences for their actions they will continue to do harm? The next person could be their family member and may not be so lucky. What is wrong with these people?
I have ceased to have any pity for Leftists who refuse to identify their attackers when those attackers are not white.
I feel just frustrated with them. And angry, because they're enablers too. And it's partially, not entirely though, responsible for the disparities and how anti-Semitism versus anti-black racism is treated. Black activists come out like a ton of bricks for any perceived slight by a Jewish person. Jewish folks are very quick to try and be good-natured over abuse by blacks and to frame it in a way that makes it seem like a misunderstanding. I kind of see why this is. But it's exploited. And ultimately it's delusional. And ultimately it's exceedingly harmful to Jews.
So well said. Thank you. My God wake up people.
Well said. I’m a libertarian, so I think I have some objectivity here.
It doesn’t take much to see that leftists in this country are truly evil. The sad thing is that the Democratic Party has let themselves be bullied into supporting evil. There is no way to describe what the woman tearing down these posters is other than evil. She is a tool. A product of the extreme left in this country. It shows their ability to exploit vulnerable people. There are millions like her, but tens of millions are revulsed by her and her kind. If they are a Democrat they are afraid to say so.
Conservatives speak out against the extreme right. They do not cow to white supremacists. They do not hesitate to call out those that spew hate. They don’t tend to think in lockstep like I see today’s liberals do.
The pendulum might just be starting to swing back. The Republican Party is more and more becoming the “big tent party.” Let’s hope so before it’s too late.
Of course I can always hold out hope that the libertarians will field viable candidates…..
I've been a Conservative most of my life (except I voted for Carter in my first election) and I've never met a White Supremacist.
If I have I didn’t know it. I do tend to disassociate quickly with people who say racist things, so I guess there may be someone I jettisoned before finding out.
If one listened to the MSM one would think anyone in the conservative universe is just spewing racial epithets all day. I’ve actually heard more racist talk from liberals who couch their statements very carefully.
The fears of white supremacy taking over the country has always seemed hyperbolic to me.
Well clearly the majority of Black people being murdered are not by White Supremacists.
I've met a few, but I don't associate with any of them.
The latest was after a traffic accident I witnessed back in August. A high school student was driving across Main St. with the green light in her favor (I was very much aware of the light's status, since I intended to turn left onto Main after she got through the intersection). A minivan driven by a girl in her 20s zoomed through the intersection on a red light and slammed into her.
Immediately after the accident, the similar-aged female passenger in the minivan (a cousin of the driver, as far as I could determine) jumped out and started screaming. At first I thought she might be injured, but she wasn't. She was screaming at the girl in the car, saying that SHE had been the one to run a red light. This girl never stopped screaming at everyone. She ended up spitting at a man who had also witnessed the accident and told her that she was wrong. She was even screaming profanities at the cops as soon as they arrived.
A guy showed up wearing a wife-beater (a sleeveless t-shirt); turned out he was the father of the screamer. He took off his shirt because he wanted to mix it up with the guy his daughter had spit at (admittedly, the guy had lunged at the screamer after being spat on and was pulled back by other men who were present).
Across the screamer's dad's back was a HUGE "White Power" tattoo.
What a fqked-up family!
"If they are a Democrat they are afraid to say so."--------100% this. Either they're blind or they're afraid, or both. Intense cognitive dissonance.
Perfectly said. Until the American Jews change their voting habits, this sick
Antisemitism perpetrated by the Dems and started by the Obamas/Susan Rice and al will continue unabated
YES YES YES, it's all downstream of Obama. Every ill in society today is downstream of this professional liar.
It is painful enough to discover that people next to you, of whom you thought as normal, are actually blood-thirsty scum, perfectly willing to sacrifice your life on the altar of their ideology.
However, it causes even more disappointment in humanity to see people who are victims or potential victims of these monsters being unable to extricate themselves from the grip of the same sinister, bankrupt ideology that their tormentors use to justify themselves.
Matthew: Thank you for expressing the thoughts of many, especially me.
I'm now on the threshold of elderly, a product of mid-century attitudes and culture. Our fathers served in "the" war, mine in the South Pacific, my childhood friend's in Europe. The latter, a warm Italian-American man, was in an army division that liberated a death camp. Afterward he kept a manila envelope with large B&Ws that recorded what they first encountered, and he would give it to the kids to take to school for show & tell. "Show them what they did." Not your standard stamp collection. At school we read "The Diary of Anne Frank." We watched "Judgment at Nuremberg" and thought, how awful, but at least this could never happen again. What is happening now, in American streets and on American campuses is something I can't believe I'm seeing.
What to my mind is most amazing is that this death virus is taking hold in the midst of plenty. The Nazis drew on the resentment of a nation that had suffered terrible privation during and after World War 1. German propaganda had made it seem they were winning, then the next thing they knew they had lost. They lost militarily, but Hitler blamed the Jews, and of course many believed him.
In the French Revolution there was hunger, and there an actually unjust system to which they were reacting.
But here, in America, our young have somehow convinced themselves they are oppressed, despite having the highest standard of living in human history, the most rights, the most opportunities.
In my view, it is precisely the EXTENT of the lying needed to build such resentment and ridiculous sense of privation in the midst of plenty that presages--if enough people don't wake up quickly enough--truly terrible atrocities. Once you build the habit of lying, the world vanishes, along with all the people in it. All that are left are the projections of their own inner viciousness, which has the unpleasant effect of making them angrier at their enemies the more vicious and unfair they themselves are.
And its worth noting the Gazans have TV and internet and video games. They are not left out of this global resentment project, and of course their local media feeds hate every chance it gets, nakedly, obviously, and with the malicious intent that has manifested often in the past, even if never worse than on Oct. 7.
The Gramscian project of marching thru the institutions has, by their terms, been a smashing success. I am thankful that I grew up, raised a family, and had a successful career in saner times. I fear for my progeny.
It's always appropriate to fear gradualism combined with fanaticism, which is what those sorts of people employ.
A fanatic, as I think Churchill said, is someone who redoubles their efforts, having lost sight of the goal. The goal, in principle and at the outset, was a more just society. But the people who claim they want a more just society are rationalizing the rape and murder of unarmed young women, and the torture and murder of families in front of young children, who are then kidnapped.
It's a game. The rules of this game are simple: you give up all ability to reason--which perhaps most importantly includes a sense of proportionality--and we will give you a reason to live. We will tell you what to do, what to say, what to believe, and that will make you MUCH better than all those ridiculous people out there who only know what to do, say and believe because of Right Wing Propaganda.
You get the good coffee, the ironic combat boots, and the EASY sense of moral superiority that is unassailable. Untouchable. You stick with us, you are ALWAYS in the right. Always. And you don't even have to do anything or learn anything. Just let us do the talking.
You take stupid kids who were callow going in, marinate them in this for a few years, and only a swift kick in the nads by reality is ever going to wake them up, and even that is patently not enough for most. It's a lifelong deal, and that deal works year in year out to diminish human light, human flourishing, human joy, human beauty, and human cultural creativity.
An incisive statement of the sad state we're in. Thanks for giving it time and thought.
Not long ago I might have pushed back on this. But it fits so well.
"But here, in America, our young have somehow convinced themselves they are oppressed, despite having the highest standard of living in human history, the most rights, the most opportunities"
This. They know nothing either about history or other countries.
I think a big part of that is about perception. Yes, they have more than 99.9% of humans ever. But they are constantly shown the people at the very tip top and how they live. This normalizes wealth in their minds. So, when they don't have access to the best things, the best jobs, etc, they assume it means that the whole system is broken and that means someone has cheated them and must be dealt with.
And I think this mentality is only strengthened by how coddled our youth have been. They don't really know what hardship or struggle is. So every small inconvenience is a huge slight against them. You can see this in that video going around with the Gen-Z gal who simply cannot handle a 9-5 job and the tons of people agreeing with her.
We have made generations of spoiled people who increasingly need to turn to an authority figure to save them. And I am pretty sure this is by design.
Gen Z's concerns about work life balance is actually something I admire about them. I've watched my grandfather and my dad's best friend completely dedicate their lives to careers at the expense of their wives, children, and overall spiritual health. The fact that Gen Z finally understands that a career won't provide you with healthy relationships or the meaning of life is a GOOD thing, especially since most companies show almost no loyalty to their workers in return. So even though that girl on TikTok didn't take the best approach, she had some valid concerns. But yeah, this doesn't solve the monsters who are ripping down these posters in the name of "justice." I don't know how the same group of people who got so mad about Diary of Anne Frank or Mauz getting banned from school libraries could be silent about this.
Work life-balance is one thing. I certainly don't bust my butt to get ahead. The inability to work for 40 hours with having a breakdown is another. Through most of human history work was a given. Most people couldn't follow their dreams...there were none to be had. You were born a farmer, or hunter and you died a farmer or hunter. So the idea that if someone has to work a 40 hour work week, largely sitting still in a comfortable room getting paid more than people who slave away for 10+ hours a day across the globe, they are somehow overworked and so stressed they can't have a life is downright privileged and spoiled to me.
Gen Z has the worst mental health of any generation. So perhaps their need for so much work-life balance is the problem not a symptom.
Why are you surprised at what is happening in times of plenty, a thing unprecedented in history? When you needn't worry from whence comes you next meal, your mind can become hideously unfocused. Soft time breed soft men and all that -- so much more than a cliche.
This demonstrates that poverty and privation are not the only causes. It is difficult in social sciences, to the extent they are sciences, to demonstrate that one factor is the sole cause of a particular effect.
There is rarely ever ONE cause. Probably never. But poverty and privation are arguably not even A cause for any of this lunacy in our country. Even our poor are richer than most of the world, and our legal system is vastly more just and inclusive than those anywhere else in the world.
Similar product. Almost everyone’s Dad was a WWII or Korea vet. Most of the males in my family were too. They did not toss around ideas of killing/maiming/“cleansing” other people. They’d seen it first hand. One of my great uncles married a Polish girl he’d met who was in a DP camp after wars end (they merely worked Poles to death rather than exterminating them). “Crazy” Heddi never held back around us kids about her 1940-45 experiences. I fully appreciate that now as an adult.
I’m the generation after you - almost everyone’s grandpa was a WWII or Korea vet. The emotional impact of what they went through seems to have made its mark on two successive generations, but not on the twenty-something’s who didn’t know them personally.
Unless they had Holocaust survivor grandparents or parents. That severe generational trauma lives on in DNA as a continuing existential crises the same as an “ordinary” cancer does. It’s in remission lying just below the surface. Then something like this happens and you realize the cancer was never really cured, but lives on, somewhat dormant until the next time. While all of it is shocking beyond comprehension, so painful has been bearing witness to people who I thought were friends/colleagues that have remained silent or worse. It’s clear to me now that any one of those would “out” me or family members if the new Nazis come calling. As MLK said, “We remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
Yes. I'm probably close to your age (late Gen-X, both granddads were WW2 vets) and we grew up with their stories. We were also old enough that there were still a lot of Holocaust survivors, and it was common in schools to have an all-school assembly where a survivor came in to tell their story. As those survivors and veterans die, the younger generations lose the personal link to that history that so marked Boomers and Gen X/early millennials.
1970 - 2000 ... If you don't teach it, people don't learn it.
2000 - 2015 ... If you never learned it - you just might believe the opposite.
2015 - 2023 ... If you teach the opposite - people will learn it.
Noting the ever-shorter evolution times, complicity of the media is apparent.
Mark Twain said a lie can get half way around the world before the truth gets its pants on.
He lived in the era of the telegraph...
I’m likely your age. I was raised on WW II literature. I CAN believe what is going on because that’s EXACTLY what happened then, as had happened throughout human history. Demonize, dehumanize, then destroy. The Classics taught us this. Social Justice Theory doesn’t.
Candace Mittel Kahn, I don’t know if you read these comments, but this article was one of the best I’ve read. It touched me deeply. I have friends who went the way Sarah did and it hurts so bad. You made me feel less alone. I hope with all my heart that these people - the ones we know, and all the others - one day very soon find morality and basic ethics.
Heartfelt, Matthew. But what we are seeing is the paucity of quality education - from grade school through to the end of university. Critical thinking, the ability to put an issue into perspective, to criticize, to doubt, to see beyond the noise - that is what is lacking. Ideology buries ethics and morality - but the ability to critically think through a problem using all your mental tools buries ideology. Sarah never had the underpinnings to see through the ideology. She might one day, but not today.
if i did a map of antisemitic attacks in the usa it would overlay perfectly with urban areas that pour money into social justice and dei programming
Sounds like a great project. You should really do it.
What? You mean it's not in MAGA flyover country?????
That was heartbreaking. The past few years have revealed too much about people who we know or even considered friends. Were they always like this, or did college indoctrination and urban group think warp their minds?
“People all over the world—especially young, cool-looking people, with nose rings and neon backpacks—are ripping them down.”
Call they for what they are - anti human leftists. The same people like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot who have slaughtered millions over the past century. You cannot reason with a demoralized person, my namesake tried to warn us in 1984...
College - and earlier educational institutions like primary/secondary schools - have converted many people to the woke, intersectional religion which has now decided that Jewish people are too privileged. However, I know many older folks who have had their minds warped in these same ways. Do not discount the effect that CNN, NBC, CBS, NYT, WaPo, The New Yorker, etc can have on people. Same with cinema and other entertainment industry products that have been subtly conditioning people with messages.
“Jacobins” is the term I most often use.
Yes
Cadre is another
These people are dead inside, like the Kmer rouge
They are actually one step away from being Manson acolytes! Reading of the horrors that were inflicted upon the Jewish families on 10/7, I can't help thinking "Helter-Skelter"! These loons pulling down posters would've fit right in on the Spahn ranch!
anti life indeed
How little did we learn in the high-school civics class/es? It was mostly inert info about the Constitution, Bill of Rights, government structures and activities.
It would have been enlightening to perform a half-dozen learning role-plays of civilization processes that depend on adherence to common-sense rule-of-law examples to accomplish America's intentions to make The Golden Rule a natural part of American culture, communities, businesses, families, everyone.
This is where slippery slopes lead—when you accept the premise that some groups are "oppressors" (comparatively affluent, largely white looking Israelis) while others are the victims (poor, brown-skinned Palestinians) then you've drawn a morally black and white line in the sand that is based on ethnic groups. It is not a big leap to say that the bad guys, the "colonizers" are simply getting what they deserve, if you accept the prior premise. The only way to avoid this is to view people as individuals, not faceless masses of people to whom you can assign collective guilt to.
I cannot imagine any slippery slope leading to decapitating babies. I think probably you were talking about the woman tearing down the posters, and true she sounds not very intelligent and probably hasn't considered the truth. No slippery slope leads to what Hamas has done, that was a steep, evil hill those people climed.
No, I do in fact mean it's a slipper slope into evil. Evil comes slowly, then all at once when a tipping point is reached. The Nazis didnt open up concentration camps their first day in office, nor did the Soviets start their revolution with intentionally starving millions of people—you have to slowly acclimate people with new ideas, then push the boundaries again and again each time they get comfortable with the new low moral bar that's been set. The question begged when you start to normalize describing some ethnic groups as the evil "oppressors" and others as the virtuous "oppressed", is what is to be done with the so-called oppressors? Surely it can't be anything good. As some radical leftists have been so infamously saying in the aftermath, "what did you expect de-colonization to look like?".
True but also unfortunately impossible to do not least because we are also, inevitably and by nature, also part of our team. I am, as much as anyone can be, colourblind but at the same time I have to view people and make assumptions based on how they look and act when I meet them. To not do so would be stupid and increase the chance of me being a real victim.
I'm with you there—i dont think there can ever be a world without some stereotyping. In the absence of information, one must run the odds and make assumptions until new information can be aquired. But that is not the same as creating a kind of academic framework to support the claim that some ethnic groups can be best categorized as oppressors, while the others are victims—that is akin to scientists in the 1800's coming up with fake science to justify why other races were inherently lesser than the white race. The big difference in thinking is one of causation vs correlation—saying that you notice a correlation between X immutable trait and Y behavior, and acting accordingly cautious, hurts no one and is different than saying that everyone with X immutable trait shares collective blame for Y behavior, regardless of if they have ever directly participated in Y behavior themselves.
And I'm trying really hard to see these liberal leaving college students as individuals too. My sister (who has had more experience in academia than me) has reminded me that many of the friends and professors I see being silent right now are likely being silent out of discomfort. Up until now, it's been easy for them to take the most woke position on everything because it was easy to make that position seem compassionate (and to make Conservatives look heartless by comparison). As what Hamas actually did to these people comes more to light, it's getting harder and harder to take that position uncritically. So I pray that the silence I'm seeing is actual character development on these liberal's part. Sure the silence is cowardly, but that's better than openly wanting Jews to die. (Also if the unconfiness of this makes more liberal think tanks like Stanford and the WGA ACTUALLY commit to staying neutral about politics, that'd be better for society as a whole. I'm done with every brand and college trying to lecture me about morality, just sell your freaking product!!).
I agree with this. I think colleges should stay neutral on issues that are not directly questions of how academia should being teaching—I am annoyed, like everyone else it would seem—that they have only just now discovered the value of neutrality when it suited them, but if it teaches a lesson and changes how they act in future it will be worth the hypocrisy. We also most remember that most on the left are not evil—most do not wish for the death of innocent Jews—they are just simply receiving a completely different narrative in their little bubbles than the rest of us, and have been brainwashed with bad ideas such as CRT for years leading up to this.
I see video of these people ripping down posters, or cheering at such barbarism committed against the Jewish people, or openly showing their hateful antisemitism & I just feel like they have gone mad. It has been supremely disorienting to me at a time where, as a life-long California liberal, I have felt in a frequently disoriented state since 2020, where I look around at the people that I used to “get” and just say to myself “how could you? What happened to you?” .
How can they attempt to dehumanize these victims? I am grateful for the incredible reporting the Free Press is doing right now. I realize it is taking an enormous emotional toll on you all. Thank you & please don’t stop.
If you "were" a liberal does that mean you now finally learned "cause and effect?"
To me it actually seems reminiscent of the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers starring Donald Sutherland. If you haven’t seen it, check it out. It’s uncanny.
It's not an attempt at dehumanizing. It's what they're actually doing. Just like the fisherman who chum the waters in an attempt to attract a feeding frenzy. Anything to do with Israel, or Palestine, the media is the first to chum the waters hoping for a feeding frenzy.
These college boys need a serious ass whooping by a real man.
I haven’t read anything as emotional and moving as this piece in a while. Thank you for your beautiful words and your powerfully personal perspective.
As pessimistic as I am (and have long, long been) about human nature, it is agonizing to watch people demonstrate how deeply evil they really are.
It isn't that I didn't know that humans are capable of evil. It's that most humans try to wear a mask of respectability that only occasionally slips off.
Now we are seeing hundreds of people ripping off those masks of respectability and stomping on them. And claiming that the monsters they've revealed underneath are really the only "righteous" people in the world.
As ugly and unsettling as it is, I’m glad the Sarahs of the world are being honest about themselves.
Recognizing the enemy is the second step in defeating them.
Recognizing the enemy is one thing. Understanding how certain people are so easily brainwashed in their hatred for others is quite another.
Quite true. I doubt I’ll ever understand it anymore than I understand why mass murderers think as they do.
The boldness with which they flaunt the evil and dare us to challenge them is stunning. Hopefully, not stunning enough to invoke the fear they wish to instill in us. The worst thing we can do is stay silent. We must push back unapologetically in the name of human decency. Articles like this one from TFP are vital to expose such blatant hateful acts.
This: "It's that most humans try to wear a mask of respectability that only occasionally slips off."
Exactly. And we’re at one of those moments where the masks are slipping off - ironically off many of the same people who were enthusiastically masking themselves recently for a different purpose.
I wonder if this is a slight upside in social media. It makes people so comfy in their bubbles that they don't just let their masks slip, they rip them off in broad daylight.
Ultimately that is one of the points in favor of Free Speech. It helps you know where the bad people are.
Yeah, that connection also occurred to me.
A lot of evil has been done in the name of Righteousness. Many like to point at all of the things religions have done in the name of righteousness. I think this shows that the evil wasn't from the religion necessarily. It is in US. When we allow ourselves to see ANY other human as less than, we can and will allow ourselves to do horrible things to them. And when we convince ourselves that what we are doing is holy, blesses, on the right side of history, it absolves us of responsibility in our heads.
I worry that we are creating so many rifts that will allow violence that we may not be able to fix it. Societies run on trust. And we are increasingly showing that you can't trust anyone.
The reality is the evil people will use whatever ideology is available to support the evil things they wish to do. Religion is only one of the ideologies that have been employed for that end. The millions of people murdered by Communists are not less dead because the murderers were atheists.
One of the things that the Enlightenment of Western Civilization managed to accomplish was the recognition that ideology is not a sufficient excuse for committing violence.
Which is, of course, why the violent ideologues of the Left want to burn Western Civilization to the ground.
How much of this new dystopia is the result of self-serving amoral news media?
They appear to be only interested in shouting incendiary 'stories' to divide the 60% rational people in the middle, and attract eyeballs and advertiser $ for themselves.
In some cases you are likely right. But I think that many of the individuals that work at these places are purposely pushing specific narration and agendas and they are doing it ideologically, not capitalistically. If it were just about money, companies like Disney wouldn't keep making the same choices while their profits keep shrinking.
I think the news media is a symptom, not a cause.
Maybe both and symptom and cause. In either case, their massive influence can't be ignored in the social contagion of ignorant destructive ideas.
Candace, she is not your friend, she is antisemite. She is the ultimate proof on how DEI/ Ethnic degrees / postcolonial studies and the universities supporting them (with our tax payer money) are a machine to create radicals. She checks all the boxes (bonus for the pronoun).
The universities are really the last bastion holding free thought, they are in free fall and failing, if they fall that's it. They will be creating more Sarahs...
I’m not sure non-Jews and ordinary passersby understand how painful this is...
You don’t have to be Jewish or even religious to understand how heartbreaking it is to know that children have been abducted and are now in the hands of Hamas.
But you do have to be human and value other human beings. You do have to have a heart...
I am not a Jew...I guess I am just a "passerby"...but I DO understand how painful this is...not just in Israel...but in my country...when people can believe these lies...when people can say and do these things...my heart grows heavy...I wish I could do something...to make [or help] people understand...I try...but..."A man hears what he wants to hear...and disregards the rest"...I will keep trying...I will keep hoping...
So well said Heather.
Spouse (Jewish) and I (not) have simply, gently, stopped communicating with our admittedly limited circle of friends. We have already heard too much.
On the surface, it sounds reasonable to express sorrow for Gazans whose homes are being bombed. But I do not think very many Brits, after having lost 40,000 to the Luftwaffe, worried much about Germans. I do not think that the wives and mothers of those murdered at Pearl Harbor particularly considered the fate or feelings of the Japanese. Nor did most Americans for the next four years.
And I can tell you that my young father, steaming towards Tokyo Bay for what would have been a mortal engagement with a military and population for whom surrender was high shame, was, like his fellow sailors and America at large, inordinately grateful that the Japanese were forced to surrender at last -- and mind you, only because the emperor made that decision after not one but two atomic bombs.
Some Palestinians lost their homes in 1948. Many more Jews lost their homes in Egypt, Syria, and other Arab lands over the next 10-15 years.
Close family friends, Greeks living in Istanbul and other largely Greek towns, had to flee Turkey in the 1920s, taking with them nothing but their memories of their homes, in the so-called exchange of populations: None spent the rest of their lives plotting murder.
Our friends are far too broad minded for us to be comfortable with them just yet. Perhaps when the hostages are released . . . Perhaps after Hamas has been crushed . . . .
They're just fair weather friends. Drop them.
Not even "fair weather." Just insane morons. Drop them.
Hamas will never be crushed! Sure, you can crush the current leaders, but when you marinade your children in hatred, to believe that their sole purpose is wage jihad and die for Islam you can't just wave it away. We seemed to have forgotten that we were born into a fallen world, where evil, and hatred, lives alongside love, and compassion. Evil is among us, and has been from the beginning of time. You can't eradicate it. Sure, you can tamp it down or drive it underground, but it's still with us. When people who show you their evilness believe them.
Agree. Qatar and Hamas have learned the power of education. And playing the long game.
As was said in a famous horror movie "The calls are coming from inside the house!". That's the US now.
Brilliant.
Life was so simple before cell phones..
I feel for you. Two years after I left Law Enforcement to become a therapist the BLM riots kicked off. It broke my brain. I lost so many friends and was isolated from my coworkers. I asked my own brother point blank if he thought all cops were racist and if he thought it was an inherently racist system. He refused to answer the question.
In times like these people show you who they really are. It sucks, i’m sorry your former friend has been radicalized.
All the normal people feel for everyone in law enforcement. I can't imagine how much worse metro areas can become with prevailing attitudes. And how hard it will be to attract people to essential law enforcement jobs.
Repeating a post I left above...
How much of this new dystopia is the result of self-serving amoral news media?
They appear to be only interested in shouting incendiary 'stories' to divide the 60% rational people in the middle, and attract eyeballs and advertiser $ for themselves.
the MSM are both cause and symptom. I've heard conspiracy theories about why - why do people with power want to destroy society, civilization, and none of it really makes sense. It's like mass stupidity without a cause. I really don't understand it. I pointed out one day to a well-meaning white liberal that most black Americans are not living in poverty and are not criminals - and she looked surprised! Sometimes I think maybe this is related to the breakdown of antitrust laws - too much segregation between the wealthy and everyone else, not enough mixing, and stagnant waters breed mosquitos.
This is the sort of “product” and attitude that caused me to terminate any further giving to Northwestern eight years ago after examining what was being taught in these new “studies” disciplines.
PS. Arm yourself. Seriously.
And if you choose to arm yourself, get training and practice regularly. Like any other tool a weapon is only useful if you know how to use it and are comfortable doing so.
I don't think that an actual human being will ever be comfortable doing so. Perhaps I'm speaking for very few, but the only thing that scares me more than having to use it, is not having it. And -- of course! -- being practiced in the thing itself.
Well I think there is an overlap between these they then pronoun folks and poster tear down folks. A denial of utter reality.