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Where is John Brown when we need him?

I know that most of my readers know who John Brown is.  The best book on John Brown is by David Reynolds.  John Brown may be the greatest moral leader in American history, ranking with George Washington, Lincoln and Hamilton.  He realized that slavery would not be ended in America with talk, negotiation or Court decisions.  He said, and he acted on his belief, that only warfare would free the American slaves.

Nearly every American believed that slaves were meant to be slaves, they were inferior people.  In 1859 John Brown, with support from his sons and a few others tried to start a war against slavery.  He was hanged.  But John Brown played a major role in helping the few educated and moral people in the U.S. to understand the necessity of a war to free the slaves.

We are in nearly the same position today.  Most of the world denies that Jews have a right to self defense because they haven't had this right for 2,000 years. Nearly every government leader has attacked the Jews right to self-defense.  Jews everywhere are surrounded by Jew hatred, rampant now that a friend of the Jews, a president of the United States (George W. Bush) has been replaced by an enemy of the Jews, Barack Obama, and a large contingent of Jew Hating Democrats. 

With Obama as the U.S. president it is open season on Jews everywhere on the planet.  "Remember Khaybar" is the chant in Europe and the Middle East "Down with Israel" is the chant on the streets in every large city in America.

Now is the time for a John Brown.  The forces of evil are at a screaming level.  Hatred of Jews is growing daily.  It is now time to take an action.  The action is needed to teach every educated and moral (not the same) person that Jews have a right to self defense and that many Arabs and Europeans will have to die for this lesson to be learned again. 

The lesson obviously was not learned outside of Germany after the Holocaust.  Many more people must die for the world to learn that Jews have a right to self defense.  The modern John Brown is needed to teach that lesson.

Yoga or Chinese internal martial arts?

On the right is the most amazing photo I've seen in a long time.  This is the Prime Minister of China, Wen Jiabao, in Tokyo, doing Tai Chi.

Fascinating for three reasons.  First he was in Tokyo last week for a full week as he had been two years ago.  That never happens with the heads of state.  Reagan spent four days in Reykjavik with Gorbachev.  Japan and China are growing closer than anyone can imagine. 

Second the Prime Minister of Japan (Hatoyama) resigned during the visit. Of course, it is their staffs that do the negotiating, with Jiabao approving.

Third, and this is strictly personal.  The photo was taken in Yoyogi Park near our home in Tokyo.  We go there regularly, to the very spot of the photo.

Now the core issue.  At age 60, I had to make the choice of what physical discipline I would pursue for the rest of my life.  I had been a daily runner for the previous 30 years and shifted that cardio work-out to swimming.

For strength and balance in old age I had to choose between Yoga, Chinese Internal Martial Arts and a military type workout.  I tried the military work out ( running in sand with a 40 pound backpack) and turned grey.

I had done some Yoga and knew many Yoga teachers.  I chose Chinese Internal Martial Arts (one of which Jiabao is doing, Tai Chi).

My reasons were straight forward, highly personal and I believe rational. Both Yoga and Internal Martial Arts help you to focus on your body and its structure. Yoga is fairly static, stretching muscles and interstitial connections.  It has important elements of balance and flexibility in its training.  Chinese Internal Martial Arts are distinctly dynamic.  Every part of the body is always moving and balance is the by-product of dynamic movement.  These two modes are not exclusive and some teachers combine elements of both (such as Pauli Zink) and Monkey Yoga.

I'm happy after many years and daily practice.  I have learned a great deal about my internal organs, the structure of my body and its mechanical leverage.  The movement is rewarding, adds flexibility and balance.

I would expect Wen Jiabao to live long and be physically healthy for a long time.

I knew it

Now we have it confirmed: the U.S. State Department is anti-Israel and always has been. An honest man has brought history up to date.

We know that the State Department fiercely opposed the creation of the State of Israel until Harry Truman shoved it down their Skull and Cross Bones Yalie throats.

As Michael Oren points out (in his great book Power-Faith-Fantasy), the U.S. State Department was pro-Arab for 200 years, exactly like the British Foreign Office and the French Quai d 'Orsay.

Here is an honest man, with a lifetime in the State Department, the top of U.S. government and a lifetime in the foreign service: Elliott Abrams "In the American government, it is never the State Department bureaucracy that wishes to brave the endless assaults [on Israel] at the UN. Normally the resistance comes not from the various regional bureaus or from the International Organizations bureau, where Israel is so often viewed as a giant pain, but from the White House and sometimes (example: George Shultz) the Secretary of State."

This is what I have always seen.  The State Department over-rode the great George Bush in his final year by commandeering his close friend, Condi Rice, and turning her (the highest ranking real black woman [up from slavery] in world history) into an anti-Israel puppet.

Hamas be nice to spies

Note to Hamas: spies are your friends.

There is a tactical reason that the Israeli Army has been the most moral and humane army in the world... in history for that matter.  The U.S. army 'in country' is copying the Israelis for the same tactical reasons: if you are respectful and protective of a native population when they are under the jack boots of corrupt tyrants, you will be able to recruit allies and spies.  You will be especially successful at recruiting spies.

If the population that surrounds an Army trusts that army it is the perfect place to vet family and tribal warfare.  You want to protect your family and your tribe, you offer to spy for the Israelis.  It works for both you and the Israelis.

When the Israeli Army attacked and invaded Gaza they were infinitely careful to protect civilians, especially their own spies.

It is because of the need to protect and recruit spies that Israel acts so carefully in its military operations.

So again: advice to Hamas.  The Israeli spies in your midst is the reason Israelis don't slaughter you wholesale. Protect the spies.

The greatest lesson

This is an essay on the most fundamental human value.  Understanding this core value explains two very strange current anomalies.

The core human value is: self defense.  You are not a fully human being until you have the right to self defense.  Slaves never had the right of self defense, nor did women.  Women still don't have it in the Arab world.

Self defense comes before life, liberty, property or happiness. Without it, the other four don't truly exist.  Think about the meaning of each word in that Lockean-Jeffersonian sequence.  A full life is not real without self-defense as women would be the first to tell us.  While property would appear to be the basis for self defense, as the American founding fathers and English common law postulated... it is the other way around.  Having property is no protection if the rights to defend the property and yourself don't exist.  I challenge scholars of Kant, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer to defend their insights into the power and meaning of life or death without the right to self defense.  All else evaporates before the ability and right of another to kill you.

This issue is burning bright for me at this moment as I see a ship full of Muslims singing Khaybar Khaybar ya Yahoud, Jaish Muhammad Saofa Ya'ood. (Remember) Khaybar O Jew, the Army of Muhammad is returning/coming. The Jewish State used every tactic and legal form to try and peacefully turn away the ship.  The Jews finally descend from the heavens to protect their country and then they had to protect their own lives.

The successful use of self-defense to protect themselves and all their fellow Jews was met by the loudest most vociferous global outcry against Jews in memory.  

It is at this point that I see a 2,000 year old lesson that we Jews need to teach the world. The first fundamenatal human right is to defend yourself.

We are a people who have not had that right for 2,000 years.  That is what the Muslims are reminding us. They are summoning the ghosts of their marauding murderous ancestors who proudly slaughtered defenseless Jews in Khaybar ( an oasis that was in modern Saudi Arabia). 

That is similar to the chant of the modern Fourth Reich, the European nations, who never utter a word about Israel but to deny Jews the right to self-defense.  (The European chant is:'Stop, stop your Armies. Stop, you Jews are only allowed 'proportionate defense' as we Europeans define it.)

Now to be honest with my readers.  Israel has only existed for a little over 100 years and has only had an army for 60 years.  It is a little early for a world that has watched defenseless Jews get slaughtered for 2,000 years to get used to the idea that Jews can and will defend themselves. It is too soon.  In a couple of hundred years we can expect an ordinary European, Chinese or Indian to say ' everyone has a right to self defense, Jews included.' 

In the mean time we must suffer the static European world view that Jews have never had the right to self defense and still don't.

Now back to the two strange current anomalies that are explained by this understanding of the Jews newly demanding the right to self-defense.   

* The first anomaly is the enthusiasm of the Left in their hatred of Israel.  It is very strange and anomalous for Lefties, the people who believe in pacifism, the people who are opposed to capital punishment, who want to ban nuclear weapons... to be the cheer leaders of the hate Israel chorus.  But the reason is in the word pacifism.  The Left is pacifist, lovers of Gandhi.  The Jews were the former model nation.  People without guns, without defense; the Jews survived as pacifists for two thousand years (usually using bribes).  If we could only continue to be the model people for the Lefty pacifist worldview, the Left would love us.

But the Left hates us because we have abandoned self abnegation. We don't turn the other cheek, we don't love the bombers who attack our open air cafes and defenseless school buses. We Jews can never be the heroes of the Left.  We believe in self defense for Jews... and they, the Europeans and Leftists, are stuck in a 2,000 year tradition that denies us self defense.

* The Arab world is different.  The Arab world still has the taste of blood in their mouth. Like a tiger who has tasted human blood and wants more.

Since the 15th Century, when Jews were exiled by the Catholic Church into Muslim lands, Jews have been defenseless dhimmi.  That is all the Arab Muslims know. When Israel was created, the Muslim world drove all these defenseless people from their lands, roughly a million Jews.  Drove them out, kept their property. Nobody on the whole planet complained.  Nobody.  

So, justifiably, Arab Muslims still see Jews as defenseless dhimmi, with no right or ability to defend themselves.  Arabs have a long view... they still hate Alexander the Great who defeated them 2,300 years ago.  He defeated them 'unfairly' by their telling of it.  Arabs will not believe Jews have the right to self defense for at least two more centuries.

Summary: we Jews have a new lesson to teach the world.  We have taught the 10 Commandments, the wisdom of Hillel and much more.  Now after 2,000 years as defenseless people we have our own state and are defending ourselves. The lesson we are teaching is that self defense is the first and most formidable human right.

Talk radio wins twice in six years

There are two debates that talk radio has won. 

The first was immigration reform and the second was Obamacare. 

Talk radio won the immigration debate. America has always been divided on the issue of immigration.  Most Americans are immigrants and they don't feel the doors should be closed to anyone who wants to come here and work hard.  Another group of Americans,  who were part of the rise of labor unions in the 1880's believes that immigrants take away jobs from existing workers. The most hostility toward immigration has come from Irish immigrants against Chinese immigrants from 1880 to 1940.  The most severe legal barriers to immigration were raised during the peak of union power from 1925 to 1960.

Talk radio changed the debate recently and focused on Mexican immigrants who walk across the Southern border.  The argument was that as long as we don't control the border, we can not discuss the level of acceptable immigration. That argument was a winner.  In the past week, regarding Arizona, 2/3rds of Americans expressed the 'close the border' argument and agreed with it.  The 'close the border' argument was helped by the 9/11 Islamic terrorist attack.

Talk radio also made two points about the Obamacare debate. Now 2/3rd of Americans can express and agree with the talk radio position:  (a) Obamacare is too expensive for the government and will create massive debt.   (b) Obamacare is bureaucratic and will consequently not save money. 

Those two points are understood and accepted by the overwhelming majority of Americans.  They will not be forgotten come November 2nd because they are points raised and won in a year-long argument.  There is a subset of Americans, maybe 40% of voters, who also believe that the Obamacare legislation was passed against the will of the people.

Talk radio won two arguments and will probably win more in the future.