Stealing moral if starving?

[anthony]

4 hours ago, RobinReborn said:

 

The left has nothing to do with this, do not pigeon hole my arguments into other people's arguments.

 

Of course I know the difference between violence and self-defensive force, but in a primitive, collectivist and tribal area like the middle east the distinction isn't always easy to draw, perhaps you've heard the phrase it started with Isaac and Ishmael.  There's been violence in the middle east for longer than there's been recorded history in the middle east.  Joshua committed six genocides in Israel and he is celebrated for it.  Just because there is a record of jewish history doesn't mean the record is accurate, history is written by the victor and the first casualty of war is truth.  For Israel to be declared a 'Jewish State' is a tactless move. They were violent towards the British, there was no self defense then.  They were attacked by neighboring 'nations' (who did not initiate violence against the British and French who colonized them)... this is an endless conflict because the parties involved are collectivist.  Taking sides is pointless.

 

As for defensive wars, that's a narrative that people disagree with.  The British gave all of Israel away because of Jewish terrorism, it was a rational move.  There has always been conflict in Israel and the nations that exist there don't exist there for long.

Skating the surface.

I'd advise too that "jewish" conveys disdain, it doesn't bother me but it could irritate others; you repeat it so regularly I imagine the contempt is intended..

Study up on this subject from Wiki (for a complex and impartial account) including the Balfour Declaration, the settling of Jews there going back to the late 19C - and so on.    .

All I read from you are rationalization, historicism and half-truths: There has always been conflict in Israel. Joshua, genocides. The British gave away all of Israel because... Defensive wars...narrative people disagree with. History written by the victor. Attacked by neighboring ... who did not attack the British....

The usual mix of skepticism, apologism, distortions, determinism and false causality prevalent from the Left's song book, so you will appreciate how I could make the error of presuming that you sing from it too.

And I agree. "Collectivism" - was a major cause. Starting with Nazi Germany's collectivist view and treatment of Jews, accelerating the massive influx of Holocaust survivors and European refugees to Palestine, where they were met by tribal Arab collectivists.

(Oh, and the British were tasked with limiting the numbers coming in, quite reasonably. Quite reasonably too and morally, the Jewish terrorists opposed their control and succeeded to smuggle in more Jews. But that was not a thing to do with giving "all of Israel" away. (Whatever that means). The Jews were prepared to keep to their circumscribed borders - until the Arab League attacked in '48 on the stroke of the independent State when the British officially washed its hands of them all. Those initial "terrorists" were the forces that pushed them back).

There is a simple question I'm recently learning to ask before I discuss the matter of Israel with any individual:

"Do you think Israel has the right to exist?"

This device saves time and trouble. No one is going to persuade against emotionalist prejudice. When it is "No", I abandon further discussion.

 

[william.scherk]

4 minutes ago, anthony said:

"Do you think Israel has the right to exist?"

Yes.

[anthony]

That I've never doubted. You and I can always discuss and fight, William. ;)

[william.scherk]

"Do you think Palestine has a right to exist?"

[anthony]

Ahh. Come on!

2 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

"Do you think Palestine has a right to exist?"

(You asking me?)

[william.scherk]

49 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

54 minutes ago, anthony said:

"Do you think Israel has the right to exist?"

Yes.

 

19 minutes ago, anthony said:

24 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

"Do you think Palestine has a right to exist?"

(You asking me?)

Yes.

[anthony]

YES.

[william.scherk]

41 minutes ago, anthony said:

You and I can always discuss and fight, William. ;)

That's good enough for me.  Here's an indication from PEW that the discussion is 'on' within Israel. 

The peace process, settlements and U.S. support

Edited December 28, 2016 by william.scherk
Added link to PEW survey results in re 'peace' and settlements ...

[BaalChatzaf]

3 hours ago, wolfdevoon said:

Dear Bob,

Saying that knowledge of true and false, right and wrong, is something that genomes do, involuntarily, by natural selection perhaps, is a rejection of reason. That you toy with the existence of God, shrug and say you don't know, is of a piece with denying that moral questions have any relevance to empirical science. It is an empirical fact that navigation of physical reality entails choices, most certainly who we love and who we shun. I'd be pleased if you omit claiming that love is involuntary, or that novelists face no moral choice about their work, pay no price for envisioning true and false, right and wrong. Thank you.

We love whom we please to love.  It is a voluntary an action as ever there was.

[anthony]

The gap between "I want it" and "I want it, but I begin to fear it's not possible".

Pew does not distinguish that (or I didn't notice) concentrating on "possibility". They should have questioned "desirability" too.

Polls!! Damned statistics!

The "gap" grows over time when people who are hated/distrusted start to despise and distrust in turn. Good will to others turns sour when it's little or never reciprocated, which is very human while not always rational. You won't be surprised that ~mostly~ I blame the PA and its cynical, dirty power shenanigans for that loss of benevolence, less the Israeli Right.

[anthony]

21 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Survival is a moral issue.  There is very  sage advice in the Babylonian Talmud:  If he is coming to slay you,  rise up early and slay him first.  (Missecta San Hedrin,  72 B). I am sure the Israelis know that one. 

Thriving is a (rational and selfish) moral issue, as well. To take the Israelis and their achievements, perhaps the suggestion is that they and Israel can be tolerated and allowed only because of their contributions to humanity. The immorality is that a person may be considered a productive animal, one of utilitarian and sacrificial benefit to others.

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, anthony said:

Thriving is a (rational and selfish) moral issue, as well. To take the Israelis and their achievements, perhaps the suggestion is that they and Israel can be tolerated and allowed only because of their contributions to humanity. The immorality is that a person may be considered a productive animal, one of utilitarian and sacrificial benefit to others.

If the Israelis did nothing but make felafal for each other they still have a right to exist.  Every human not doing harm to his fellow has a right to exist.

[RobinReborn]

3 hours ago, anthony said:

"Do you think Israel has the right to exist?"

 

I reject that question as meaningful on principle.  Individuals have rights, states do not.  Individual Israelis are free to leave Israel and exist in other countries, many of them do (the smartest and most virtuous, in general).  Did the Boer Republics have a right to exist?  They were crushed by the British and their citizens were put into concentration camps.  You can moralize that all you want but it doesn't change history.

 

Based on historical data, Israel will most likely cease existing within a hundred years or so, perhaps even within a few decades.  It is less in the interests of the United States to ally with a country that is doomed than it is in our interest in fighting in the graveyard of empires (Afghanistan).  It was in the interest of South Africa's Apartheid to ally with Israel, but the world rejected the Apartheid government, a large portion of the world rejects Israel, or at least some of Israel's settlements.

 

Seriously though, you're usually reasonable but you aren't even attempting to refute my points, you're just labeling them as leftist (which is meaningless, it's a term coined based on where people sat during the French Revolution, what does that have to do with Israel?)

 

And I still question your take on Apartheid, did you do anything to fight it?  Are you doing anything politically in South Africa now?

[RobinReborn]

5 hours ago, wolfdevoon said:

Wikipedia: "he co-founded the militant Umkhonto we Sizwe in 1961 and led a sabotage campaign against the government ... Mandela later related that he and his colleagues had 'guided the ANC to a more radical and revolutionary path' ... Mandela concluded that violent action would prove necessary to end apartheid and white minority rule. He advised Sisulu to request weaponry from the People's Republic of China ... Becoming chairman of the militant group, Mandela gained ideas from Marxist literature on guerilla warfare ... Although initially declared officially separate from the ANC so as not to taint the latter's reputation, [Umkhonto we Sizwe, aka 'MK'] was later widely recognised as the party's armed wing ... MK publicly announced its existence with 57 bombings..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing

 

"South Africa has never been the vaunted miracle portrayed by the sympathetic global press. To start with, consider some of the most basic measures of human wellbeing. Life expectancy in South Africa was 62 years in 1994. Last year, it was 57 years – a reduction of 7 percent. Meantime, global life expectancy increased from 66 years to 72 years – an increase of 8 percent ... Corruption, of course, has gotten worse over the last two decades and, as I have noted elsewhere, the same can be said of the rule of law, favoritism in decision making by government officials, wastefulness of government spending, diversion of public funds, transparency of government decision making and, inevitably, trust in public officials." [https://capx.co/south-africas-anc-government-corrupt-inept-and-immoral/]

 

 

Wolf... I've tried editing the wikipedia page on Mandela and had my comments questioning Mandela's commitment to communism rejected.

 

Mandela's campaign was as you say, against the government, not against the people.  It was violent, but the violence was directed at buildings, not people.  I can't find information, but I'm pretty sure that whites were allowed guns in Apartheid South Africa and Blacks were not.

 

Mandela had his right to free speech violated before he went to prison and was in prison for most of the anti-apartheid violence in South Africa.  He had nothing to do with Necklacing (his wife did, but he divorced her when he got out of prison).  It is ridiculous to blame a man in prison for violence outside of prison.

 

I have a level of skepticism towards your statistics though they are the best part of your argument.  I do not think the Apartheid government kept accurate records... I have many reasons to believe that.

 

Care to reevaluate Mandela?

[RobinReborn]

Mandela was a tribal prince, but he also studied at one of the best Universities in South Africa and was a lawyer (before Apartheid came into existence, it wasn't easy for him to be a lawyer afterwards).  Despite all the fear mongering about him, after he was elected president of South Africa he didn't try to turn it communist or create hyperinflation like Mugabe.  He wasn't perfect as a leader, but he was definitely better than both his Apartheid predecessors and his ANC successors.

[BaalChatzaf]

5 minutes ago, RobinReborn said:

Mandela was a tribal prince, but he also studied at one of the best Universities in South Africa and was a lawyer (before Apartheid came into existence, it wasn't easy for him to be a lawyer afterwards).  Despite all the fear mongering about him, after he was elected president of South Africa he didn't try to turn it communist or create hyperinflation like Mugabe.  He wasn't perfect as a leader, but he was definitely better than both his Apartheid predecessors and his ANC successors.

Mandela's wife Winnie was a very rough customer though. Please see:  

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/whatever-went-wrong-with-winnie-1613232.html

[RobinReborn]

By the way Tony, why aren't you defending Mandela?  He's the guy who ended Apartheid.  Why don't you move to Israel?

[BaalChatzaf]

.....

[Wolf DeVoon]

35 minutes ago, RobinReborn said:

Care to reevaluate Mandela?

Care to live in S.A., the black-dominated society Mandela created?

[anthony]

18 hours ago, RobinReborn said:

I reject that question as meaningful on principle.  Individuals have rights, states do not.  Individual Israelis are free to leave Israel and exist in other countries, many of them do (the smartest and most virtuous, in general).  Did the Boer Republics have a right to exist?  They were crushed by the British and their citizens were put into concentration camps.  You can moralize that all you want but it doesn't change history.

 

Based on historical data, Israel will most likely cease existing within a hundred years or so, perhaps even within a few decades.  It is less in the interests of the United States to ally with a country that is doomed than it is in our interest in fighting in the graveyard of empires (Afghanistan).  It was in the interest of South Africa's Apartheid to ally with Israel, but the world rejected the Apartheid government, a large portion of the world rejects Israel, or at least some of Israel's settlements.

 

This superficial mish-mash of history overlooks salient fundamentals.

"Individuals have rights, states do not". Oh, true. Except that you beg the question and ignore the context: Yes, and it would be much more so, in a much less Statist world. But it is modern statist-collectivists of the world, from students and intellectuals to politicians who've been demonising Israel - collectively. Altruism-collectivism is the dominant morality now. That's the self-evident reality. Secondly, a nation may be 'reified' in the sense that a good nation had been created and sustained according to real and moral ideas which it concretely represents. (Or not).

Therefore, the 'collective idea' of Israel is what is being attacked as you are doing, and so I defend it 'collectively', contra collectivists.

"A large portion of the world rejects Israel..." only demonstrates the same majoritarian-collectivist view. ie., Numbers make right.

In this collectivist climate my question stands: Does one recognize the right of Israel to exist? By asking, I can identify those with whom it's not worthwhile discussing it. Did it have the right to exist in the first place? now THAT would require a lot of historical 'revisionism'. But as it exists today, Israel can only be overturned by brute force and the exile of millions. That is reality. The number of Palestinians/Gazans who would willingly coexist with Jews is a minority, and intimidation by the barbaric Hamas would eliminate those. So bear in mind this nihilist hatred, particularly from Gazans who have not stopped vowing to eradicate Israelis despite being left alone to self-rule. In that light, whoever doesn't recognize Israel's right to existence is implicitly lending weight to the killings of large numbers, on both sides . Such a person should know and absorb this fact explicitly so it can't be evaded any longer. (That's many sanctimonious people on the secular Left with the radical Muslims).

Still, you revert to the fallacy of determinism/historicism: According to your argument, the rightness of any cause/country is all-reliant on consequentialism: Did it survive long? Does it survive still? That suggests you are an after-the-fact prophet/mystic. Ask youself, did it 'come' to the American Revolutionaries in some flash of Divine Revelation that the country would survive and prosper for hundreds of years later? Or rather, were their actions the effect of their resolve that their revolt "is right", moral and rational, for living men and women? After that we know their fortitude later inspired millions more Americans to continue their original effort to freedom. Similarly, initially some men, now seen as the first Zionists, recognised that Jews were not much accepted in Europe and/or would not always be in future, so planned for a crisis and purchased land to settle, and to that "revolution" came millions more with the same ~rational~ conviction: to live in self-determined, unrepressed freedom.

There exists nothing man-made which 'had to be'. (From the Objectivist song book).

If Israel (or any other nation) were wiped out tomorrow by nukes, that would make its existence/creation "wrong" the day after tomorrow in your book. Reading you, I am sure you would have your rationalizations ready in such an eventuality: "It had to happen - (anyway, they brought it upon themselves)". Then the destructive effect and its evil cause can be morally reversed, subjectively, at will.

"It is less in the interests of the US to ally with a country that is doomed..." Again, mystical prophecies.

But more disturbingly, it is a display of weak, unprincipled, anti-conceptual cynicism. In your opinion (and the USA's, you claim, and I believe and hope you are wrong), not anything and not anybody is worthy of standing up for with integrity, if there isn't immediate, 'self-interested' benefit or pay off. Not even for oneself, and one's convictions.

It is a parody of rational self-interest (to which I gather you are trying to appeal). News alert. A surrender, if only partial, of one's knowledge, principles, character and virtues - and betrayal of the justice deserved to others' who share similar values - won't leave much of a "self" to uphold.

[anthony]

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9676/kerry-israel-speech

Dershowitz is another class of observer and commentator, I found over time. It is good to hear from the intelligent and informed - and objective - centre-left, on Israel/Palestine.

[BaalChatzaf]

On 12/28/2016 at 5:36 PM, RobinReborn said:

I reject that question as meaningful on principle.  Individuals have rights, states do not.  Individual Israelis are free to leave Israel and exist in other countries, many of them do (the smartest and most virtuous, in general).  Did the Boer Republics have a right to exist?  They were crushed by the British and their citizens were put into concentration camps.  You can moralize that all you want but it doesn't change history.

 

Based on historical data, Israel will most likely cease existing within a hundred years or so, perhaps even within a few decades.  It is less in the interests of the United States to ally with a country that is doomed than it is in our interest in fighting in the graveyard of empires (Afghanistan).  It was in the interest of South Africa's Apartheid to ally with Israel, but the world rejected the Apartheid government, a large portion of the world rejects Israel, or at least some of Israel's settlements.

 

Seriously though, you're usually reasonable but you aren't even attempting to refute my points, you're just labeling them as leftist (which is meaningless, it's a term coined based on where people sat during the French Revolution, what does that have to do with Israel?)

 

And I still question your take on Apartheid, did you do anything to fight it?  Are you doing anything politically in South Africa now?

Do Jews have a right to exist  and to get together to form various kinds of Jewish associations?    I think that question now has the  correct form.

[anthony]

On 2016/12/29 at 1:20 AM, wolfdevoon said:

Care to live in S.A., the black-dominated society Mandela created?

Not much.

Not that Mandela directly "created" the position we are in presently, he was most insistent on the whites having their place for the 'greater good of all in SA' (yup, I know...). But he retired from office too soon after a single term(I heard unofficially he was ordered by the ANC to step down, and as a loyal cadre member he obliged and completely withdrew his influence from politics - only for that do I fault him), and those idiots (especially the second, the loathsome Zuma) who've followed lacked any iota of his quite rational vision and have been busy looting the land and not so subtley exacting pay-back on whites (to the greater discomfort of all).

Mandela was a brilliant man, and the right man for the right time. He didn't escape his marxist beginnings.

[Wolf DeVoon]

22 minutes ago, anthony said:

Mandela was a brilliant man, and the right man for the right time. He didn't escape his marxist beginnings.

Now, see? It intersects the very thing with which I've struggled with my entire life. Not brilliant, not wanted in my time, can't stomach Marx.

[anthony]

On 2016/12/29 at 0:54 AM, RobinReborn said:

By the way Tony, why aren't you defending Mandela?  He's the guy who ended Apartheid.  Why don't you move to Israel?

Wrong. He didn't end Apartheid, the system could have continued indefinitely, for years. Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island, remember? The "armed struggle" is mostly revisionist fiction to create heroes, and was largely contained by police and Defence Force. It was a moral question for many of we younger whites, more than pragmatic, and another brave, far-sighted man (who's been forgotten) was FW de Klerk, the last white President of the last all white Party who detected the changing mood of the white populace, defied his own National Party, personally unbanned the ANC, released Mandela and then called for a National Referendum in the final all-white election (1992) . We, the majority of about 3-4 million whites, voted to end the status quo*. The drawn out, sometimes bitter, multi-party CODESA negotiations which I attended as photographer many times accomplished the rest - not too satisfactorily for de Klerk, who was after a federalist system of governance - and eventually the whole country went to the polls.

*"Today we have closed the book on Apartheid": de Klerk, 1992 - the day after the referendum.