It’s been a while since we have shared anything with you all. Apologies if this particular effort meanders a bit. We have a lot to cover, though, folks. So, let’s get started.
I had the opportunity to hear U.S. Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt speak recently. She is clearly a well-intentioned person who has dedicated her life to fighting Holocaust denial and other forms of anti-semitism. She is now a part of the U.S. State Department and is traveling the world with her message of understanding.
As I sat there, I simply wanted to SCREAM. When will the Left realize that the house of anti-semitism in which we reside was built on the foundation of their collectivist philosophy?
Let’s go through some of her arguments by which she tries to encourage others not to hate Jews.
“We are not all white, or rich.” Huh? Where do we start? The fact is that every Jew is not the same, but most of us are white and statistically, we are rich. The implication of her statement is that only what she perceives to be our diversity justifies our existence. Anti-semitism would be OK if we were all white and all rich? In his seminal speech at Davos this year, Argentina’s President Milei pointed out a few facts that many leftists refuse to acknowledge. Before capitalism, almost every single person in the world lived in poverty. I would posit that for thousands of years, as most people had no playbook for prosperity, that they felt extremely jealous of the Jews in their midst who had succeeded on a relative basis because they executed on a brilliant game plan whose details had somehow eluded most others: Respect your parents. Educate your children. Be inquisitive about the world. Yes, Jews are statistically richer and more influential than most other groups of people. Maybe you can learn something from how they did it, which unfortunately was not via some vast worldwide conspiracy.
“Of course we all have Palestinian rights and freedoms in mind and mourn all loss of innocent life.” Actually, no. I do not care one bit about a group of people who have elected to not respect every human’s right to life and liberty. If they are willing to use their own children as human shields and rape and murder mine, then I am completely out of empathy. It is time to stop glorifying empathy. We do not have to put ourselves in others’ places if they are incapable of doing the same in return. There was probably no group of people on earth who had actually invested as much of themselves into the rights and freedoms of the Gazans as many of their neighbors in these hyper-left kibbutz communities. What thanks did they get for their empathy other than rape, murder and mutilation aided and abetted by those whom they had invited in to their communities to work?
“The anti-semitism of the left and right are morally equivalent, and rely on the same tropes and assumptions, so we need not differentiate them.” Well, there is one way in which we definitely need to differentiate them - their scale, their scope and their effectiveness at harming Jews. And on that score there is not even a game going on. Right-wing extremism is kind of like Islamaphobia, a made-up strawman for people to point to to justify their own stupidity. Other than the occasional Charlottesville or Pittsburgh incident, there is no evidence of widespread, influential, well-organized right wing racism or anti-semitism. Sure there are a few skinhead kids out there somewhere with swastikas on their bedroom walls, but I don’t see them and I really don’t worry about them ever affecting my life. On the other hand, the hyper-left Marxist anti-semites control academia, the mainstream media and can mobilize vast numbers of demonstrators all over the Western World. The Biden Administration is clinging to the radical portion of their “base” for fear of losing the election. Why do we want leaders who do not stand for anything? Why can liberal Jews not see the fallacy of this right vs. left equivalence? This notion is as repugnant as the moral equivalence generally foisted upon Israel itself when it is evaluated in the context of the “quagmire” of the Middle East.
Many pundits and demonstrators take the position that being against some policy of the Israeli government does not necessarily make one an anti-semite. That is, of course, true, since the Israeli population themselves usually are about 50/50 on anything that their government does. The larger point, though, is that for a free state, Israel is wildly more scrutinized than any other and wildly more scrutinized than most authoritarian states. Dennis Prager makes a wonderful point when he suggests that free states do not generally start wars because there is always an authoritarian state on at least one side of every conflict. The reason is that free states have a lot keeping their people busy. They do not need scapegoats or distractions to keep their people from focusing on how much their own leaders are screwing them over. What solidifies the notion that criticizing Israel makes one an anti-semite is the following: Israelis are BUSY. They have 10x the GDP per capita of all of their neighbors. They value life in the present and want to go to work, school and spend time with their families. They have a lot to do. You have to believe that Israelis are uniquely demented because they want to interrupt their productive endeavors to exchange for focusing on destructive ones, almost for sport. It’s a totally insane perspective.
The other issue that reeks of anti-semitism is the Biden administration and much of the Western world choosing the aftermath of the October 7 atrocities to put the onus on Israel to accept a Two-State Solution. The problem that Israel’s critics keep having is there have to be two states that are willing to obey international law to implement such a solution. Do we really want to reward a gang of criminal terrorists for their brutality by putting them in charge of a state? Of course, the obvious implication of putting the Two-State Solution forward at this moment is to implicitly shift blame to the Israelis for the state of affairs with the Palestinians.
I read a piece this week that said that part of Joe Biden’s popularity issue was that he was much more effective in projecting empathy four years ago - he was your kind Uncle Joe. So, let me get this straight. His weakness isn’t that his policies have caused wreckage, but that he doesn’t convey enough empathy toward his victims?
I am sick of empathy. I am sick of how selective it is - that it is only available to people who are victims of perceived oppression. Empathy is part of the virtue-signaling decathlon and I am over it.
I have decided that almost every misguided, counterproductive policy or opinion in the world seems to be rooted in what the holders perceive to be virtuous empathy.
Imagine the plight of people who are so desperate for food that they have to steal it. How can we possibly hold them accountable for theft? Leads to - no grocery stores in poorer neighborhoods.
It is cruel to send people who have legitimate asylum claims back to from whence they came while we adjudicate those claims. They will be in danger and we can take better care of them while they wait than anybody else can. Leads to - 10mm migrants, most of whom do not have legitimate asylum claims, flooding our country stressing our resources and putting us at increased risk for a terror attack.
Oh the poor Palestinian woman and children who are dying by the thousands in Gaza. How can we not demand a cease-fire now to put an end to their suffering? Do we dare mention that their suffering was brought on by their own government who attacked their neighbors brutally without provocation, and also said that given the opportunity they would do so repeatedly?
What’s really annoying about all of this empathy is how selective it is. It’s really just Marxism, disguised as morality. Where is the empathy for the family of the security guard who is assaulted by shoplifters, or the grandmother kidnapped by Hamas, or the landowner in Texas whose property is overrun with migrants?
Is it not fascinating that in the face of a horrendous attack on Israel, before the Israelis responded, the demonstrations that started were anti-Israel? Is it not fascinating that in the wake of Iran’s attack on Israel, that the demonstrations that have broken out around the world are anti-Israel? The anti-Israel crowd have a conclusion for which they will create facts if necessary to make their case. Objectivity is an oppressor’s notion.
The problem with emotionally-driven points of view, is it is impossible to refute them, and it is impossible to evaluate when their solutions have had the desired effect. How infuriating is it to hear Jewish college students talking about how SJP protests make them feel? I don’t care. When somebody takes your life, your liberty or your property, let me know. I heard a story of a Cornell student who could not find a faculty member to write a letter of recommendation for an internship because the internship was with a Member of Congress who is unpopular with the woke left. Go to the administration, go to the press and get a lawyer - because now it is not your feelings that are getting hurt, but your opportunity to succeed.
The beauty of the American system in its construction is that it defends individuals against the feelings, even legitimate ones, of others. We build a system where the lawyers could create reasonable doubt and get OJ Simpson acquitted for a murder he most likely committed. We built that system because we felt that the ends NEVER justify the means. If the process of holding someone accountable is broken, then our opportunity to properly hold them accountable is lost. Elevating the integrity of the process is how we protect the rights of all.
We hear a lot of expressions from our leaders of a desire for “stability” in the Middle East. If I hear one more adolescent geopolitical chess expert talk about “de-stabilizing” the Middle East, by “escalating” the conflict there, I am going to spontaneously combust. Why? Do you know who likes stability? People who are in a vulnerable but advantageous position. Why is regime change only a priority for the US in the free state of Israel, but not in the terror state of Iran?
Is stability a priority for China? For Russia? For Iran? Why do all of our adversaries have a vision for the world as they would like to see it while we simply root for the status quo?
Neville Chamberlain appeased Hitler in pursuit of stability. Biden appeased Iran in pursuit of stability. We supported various atrocious counterweights to Communism all over the world in the interest of stability. What values were we supporting when we backed the Shah or Batista? Is it surprising that the people of Iran or Cuba wanted something different? Something that perhaps looked more like what we have and less like what they have?
One other point - people are upset about the tenor of the demonstrations that are taking place. I want my enemies, especially the most dangerous ones, to feel absolutely free to speak their minds publicly so that I can know how many of them there are and what their intentions are. The last thing we should ever want to do is restrict speech in any meaningful way. The more harmful we perceive that speech to be, the better it is for all who oppose those ideas to see those who hold them share those ideas out in the open.
A better place to place our frustrations with these demonstrations is to ask how our institutions have produced so many otherwise intelligent people who hold these radical anti-factual, anti-freedom views. We need to go to the source and stop prioritizing the demonstrators and start prioritizing the educators - from K-Grad School. As Robert Kraft recently posited, let’s start looking at how faculty are chosen and protected so that we can start reform where it is most desperately needed.
We need the boards of our secondary schools and colleges to take their responsibilities a bit more seriously. It is time to roll up our sleeves and root out the systematic rot that is present. We have to re-do the hiring process. Re-do the tenure process. Re-examine the authority structure for how faculty are managed and disciplined. Create new guidelines that require a diversity of points of view among the faculty that makes it just as objectionable for the faculty to be 98% marxist as it would be for that faculty to be 98% white dudes. Not a bad idea at a few media or tech companies as well. And we need these schools to aggressively redefine what the role of a teacher is and what that role is not. You will be fired if you use your teaching opportunity for the purpose of sharing your personal point of view. You can do that on your own time on social media, but when we are paying you and providing you the resources, your job is to teach your subject matter and stay away from indoctrination.
One final point in my stream of consciousness…
Do all of these moron marxist professors and students like the fact that they are being used and manipulated? Do they like the fact that they are like trained dogs jumping through hoops for their masters? Do they like being part of an orchestrated series of demonstrations funded by authoritarian theocrats? Do these geniuses who have a particular insight into how individuals can have their agency undermined by systemic forces realize that they have themselves lost their own agency?