But I tend to agree with Isaac Luria that people are souls.-not selves

Soul is a difficult concept. But I tend to agree with Isaac Luria that people are souls. The modern self seems to me to not have succeeded very well as an explanation of what people are about. So far I have not heard a rational account of the self. Though John Locke used the part of the self that he needed to create a just society but he did not deny the deeper aspects of the soul.


The thing which i need to figure out is the idea of Socrates of a third element of the soul. the first two are the well known rational part and the desire part. (Kabalah divides both of these into ten.) But to Socrates there is a third element--the spirit or passion. and as usual he proves it it is not desire and usually opposed to desire. So what is this third part?\




E. Spodek: The soul is a rider that can steer when given the chance, when she calls out. Only through this world can she attain her true perfection. Although the soul initially loathes the body, it can transform it to receive the soul's full-potency, which will come at the time the soul re-enters the body at the level of Adam before the sin.

A. Rosenblum: That seems like the scheme of the Ramchal (Moshe Chaim Lutzato) which is a development of the Ari (Isaac Luria). That is an Okay scheme, but I still am not sure it is satisfactory. To me it seems there is a definite conflict between the concept of soul and the concepts of self and I am at this point not ready to accept either one. To me it seems that the soul is in the realm of the "thing in itself" (Dinge als sich alein) that is simply not open to human understanding--and that trying to use reason to understand it generates contradictions.

E. Spodek: One cannot grasp the infinite nature of the soul. It is only through our emotions, thoughts, and feelings that we have a hint of our souls.
That is why the soul is like a different entity. It exists outside of the self, but it is inside of oneself and definitely has influence on the self. It is the real understanding of being a "servant of G-d", not for reward. It's all about kindness for your soul. She's going to live on and take part of a most awesome regeneration. Whether it will be with you, or be with your re-incarnation, there is a fixing of soul that will take place. We're all in it together. G-d is ultimately leading everything towards perfection. It's a matter of how you want your name remembered. It's a matter of self-respect.

Natural Law and the Ninth Amendment of the USA Constitution.Here I defend the idea that there is natural moral law. The result of this is that the social so called "safety net" in the USA is theft. Just because you can use your numbers and voting power to take money from others does not give you the right to do so.

Here I defend the idea that there is natural moral law.
I need to go into the issue of natural law and the ninth amendment of the USA Constitution.
In short: Natural rights come from the concept of natural law-which in turn comes from the idea that human beings can perceive objective morality.]

To defend the idea that there is natural law is a two fold project. I need to prove that universals exist and (2) that moral laws are universals that are perceived by reason. [This fact is what caused Kant to try to find one a priori universal rule for morality.] I will quote Huemer to add me in this project.
"What is a universal? I have here two white pieces of paper. They are not the same piece of paper, but they have something in common: they are both white. What there are two of are called "particulars" - the pieces of paper are particulars. What is or can be common to multiple particulars are called "universals" - whiteness is a universal.
First: Universals exist necessarily. For instance, yellow is a universal. It is something that lemons, the sun, and school buses, among other things, all have in common. Yellow is 'abstract' in the sense that it is not a particular object with a particular location; you will not bump into yellow, just sitting there by itself, on the street. Nevertheless, yellow certainly exists.
Here is an argument for that:
1. The following statement is true: (Y) Yellow is a color. 2. The truth of (Y) requires that yellow exist. 3. Therefore, yellow exists. Therefore universals exist.
The reason this needs to be proven is because scientism is the primary ideology of our age. It is the belief that only atoms and their properties exist. "It hardly need be pointed out that the illusions scientism engenders are so pervasive and so insidious that it is practically impossible to get anyone who is subject to them to consider the possibility that they might be illusions." (Peter van Inwagen)
"It would be very difficult to actually argue that the discoveries of modern science show that there is no such subject as ethics. Exactly what experimental result does or could possibly lend support to such a conclusion is hard to say." (Huemer)
Some of the problem about the existence moral values comes from Hume and the "is- ought" problem. [You can't derive a ought from a "is".]: However this is wrong. I can derive the value judgment that Hitler was evil from the fact that he had eleven million people murdered.

Now let me show that reason perceives moral values.
Let me give some examples of things that reason perceives. "1+1=2" and "the shortest path between any two points is a straight line". A metaphysical intuition, "The number of planets in the solar system is a contingent matter." As physical intuitions, try "Forces cause motion" and "Physical causes are local; there is no action at a distance." Finally, as a moral intuition, consider "Torturing people just for the fun of it is wrong."
It seems to many people that moral values are strange. They don't exist in any particular place. We don't bump into them as we walk down the street. But the same could be said for the number "2." Saying that ethical (or mathematical) statements are true or false does not imply that there exist some ethereal substances that are values (or numbers). Rather that some things have quantities (for mathematics) or some things are good or bad (for ethics).


The reason that many people have not noticed that stealing (welfare) is forbidden in the Torah is that what radical ideologues are most interested in is political power. This means that people will continue to be used as the necessary bait to bring about the "changes" that radical ideologues deem important for power.

An essay about the United States must deal with the problem of disinformation -- a formidable and perhaps Sisyphean task of persuasion, since the disinformation in question is not the result of pardonable, correctable mistakes, but rather of a profound psychological need. This is why you never hear of the basic principles that the U.S.A. was founded on and why these principles are ignored today by the very government elected to safeguard them.

In sum: Universals exist. Moral principles are universals that are perceived by reason. Natural rights are a negative way of saying the Ten Commandments of the Torah. One of them is "Thou shalt not steal." (These are called negative rights just like "Thou shalt not steal" is called a negative commandment.--a "Thou shalt not" is a negative commandment. In the Torah there are many of these. But there are also positive commandments like, "Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother."  The Bill of Rights is a like a negative commandment. It is a limitation on the government not to interfere with peoples' lives- and not to steal their property. An example of something forbidden by the Constitution of the U.S.A. is to promise a sector of voters free money in return for their votes. This would be considered stealing by the Torah and the Constitution. Thus Welfare is against the Constitution. [See the Federal Papers for more information.]

The way people are duped into voting for the Democratic party which is the main source of this type of theft is the fact that people want to be nice guys. They think by voting to give other people's money away makes them nice. In the Jewish world this has a common name. It is called being frum (religious) at someones else's expense. This is very wide concept in the Jewish world. It can refer to a whole range of behavior like praying so loud in synagogue that it makes other people unable to concentrate on their own prayers. Or learning Talmud until late at night and then coming into your dorm room and waking up other people. But this is a great example of this type of behavior --in the worst way possible. If you want to be nice then give your own money away. You don't give other peoples money away, and then consider yourself generous.

There is no such thing as a right to receive money, goods, or services from anyone else. Social benefits and health care are charities, not rights. (Steven Dutch) The Communists teach an ideal state of humanity, but in fact are no less bloodthirsty than the Nazis. But the liberals were the most dangerous of all modern ideologies. Ready to do battle with Fascism, the liberals are blind to the (true nature of communism) Ben Zion Wacholder

[1] In defense of limited government.
To show that the Democratic Party in the USA is problematic it is necessary to bring together these ideas:
(1) The contrast between "positive" freedom, the right to exercise political power, from "negative" freedom, the right to be left alone by others exercising political power.
I need to show that John Locke idea of the State of Nature not only does not depend on his empiricism, but in fact contradicts it. In terms of the State of Nature, John Locke is a thoroughbred rationalist. Laws of reason exist for him in the state of nature.
(The state of nature and the reality of people wanting to preserve their life and property is not a imaginary state, but rather the state of every person that gets up in the morning as they race to get their first bowl of cereal.)
I don't need to refute Rousseau's State of Nature and the basic Noble Savage paradigm. A simple visit to Somalia will do that for anyone in doubt. [From Doubt to Danger.]
[The reason why the State of Nature is ignored by intellectuals today is because their "State of Nature" (benign ) turned out to be false. So instead of accepting the truth of John Locke, they ignore the idea completely.]


[2] John Locke admits a Torah government is different. So after we get the John Locke democracy, we still have to deal with Torah law for Jews. John Locke admits this. Right now I am simply trying to get to John Locke. Locke says: "The Jewish commonwealth to which the laws of Moses were issued was an absolute theocracy, in which the magistrate—the chief legislator—was God. So there was there no distinction
between religious law and civil law; there could be capital punishment for religious offenses because the latter were also civil offenses. This doesn't hold for any Christian commonwealth.)(Toleration. Section 7)

The way I deal with this is Rabbi Shimon Ben Yochai-- (that is dorshin taama dekra--). He holds that we use the reason for the verse the determine how the verse is applied. I.e. an early version of natural law. (note [1])
--in this area I need to deal with the fact that natural law is not the same as Kant's moral autonomy (John Locke's natural law is heteronomous; Kant's is autonomous.); plus the issues involved in the fact that freedom which I am defending here has nothing to do with democracy at all; and even less to do with equality. Freedom and equality are exact opposites. I am going to have to work this out later. This will take some time.--In fact today I skipped learning Talmud in the morning because I wanted to start this long process already.


[3] One challenge to Liberal Democracy comes from Muslims. Personally I spent years living in an Arab village and was friendly with the two muftis [sheiks] and their children. One of their children had gotten a law degree from the University of Cairo and with him I discussed politics and religion at length, (every day over a few years.) So you could say I understand something about the danger and threat of Islam to Western Civilization and all humanity.
I know about what Muslims actually do, not just what they say In America most people know what Muslims say. That is not the same as what they do.

John Locke: "An evil that is less visible but more dangerous to the
commonwealth occurs when men [i.e. Muslims] claim for themselves and
their co-religionists some special prerogative that does in fact
conflict with the civil right of the community but is covered
over with a glittery show of deceitful words. For example: a
sect that teaches explicitly and openly that men aren’t obliged to keep their promises (to infidels)." I might add that Islam holds that a all non Islamic governments should be overthrown by force. They hold there is no crime in murder of Jews and Christians.
These beliefs are threats to civil society. According to John Locke people with such beliefs should not be tolerated.

[4] I need also to defend John Locke democracy from the challenges from Nietzsche and Freud. That is: I need to refute Nietzsche and moral relativism.
(He held there are no objective moral values. You make your own values)
Moral objectivity is proven by Professor  Michael Huemer thus:
Moral objectivity (like objectivism in general) is entailed by the law of excluded middle and the correspondence theory of truth, along with a couple of what seem equally obvious observations about morality:

(1) There are moral propositions.
(2) So they are each either true or false. (by law of excluded middle) (3) And it's not that they're all false. Surely it is true, rather than false, that Josef Stalin's activities were bad. (Although some communists would disagree, we needn't take their view seriously, and moreover, even they would admit some moral judgement, such as, "Stalin was good.")
(4) So some moral judgments correspond to reality. (from 2,3, and the correspondence theory of truth)
(5) So moral values are part of reality. (which is objectivism)
Also the basic claims of the Democrats is that: (1) all truth is relative to the interests and perspective of the person. (2) There are no universally valid truths.
(3) There are no absolute truths.
It looks like in each case you have to exempt the claim itself from the scope
of its application. But then you have given up the claim, for the
claim was supposed to be universal in in its application.

As for Freud. There is no reason to challenge him because everything he says is pure pseudo science. There is no conceivable observation that could refute him. He can explain everything with his theory. Therefore it is the very essence of pseudo science.


[5] Also I need to refute the idea that perception determines reality.
People who profess "perception determines reality" don't actually believe it or act on it. We never hear "George W. Bush has his reality about the Iraq War which is is valid in its own way as my own," we hear "George W. Bush lied about the Iraq War." If perception really determined reality, the easiest route to social justice would be to condition disadvantaged groups to perceive their realities differently.


[6] I also need to refute legal positivism as opposed to natural law--against Mill.
Now Mill claims the principle of utility to be the first principle of morality and itself not in need of proof. But if the principle that we ought to promote happiness is acceptable as a first principle--if, that is, it does not require to be proved--then why the principles of justice (we ought not to steal, to break agreements, to punish the innocent, etc.) should not equally be accepted as first principles becomes obscure. Why does the utilitarian feel that just action needs to be justified while benevolent action does not?

[7] To see how the principle of limited government of John Locke was incorporated in the Constitution of the USA, you need to see the Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
That means the USA government can not take more power that that which is given to it by the constitution.


Dr. Kelly Ross writes: "This (the Tenth Amendment) was regarded by ..[many] involved in the writing of the Constitution as the capstone of the whole project, affirming that the federal government had only limited and enumerated powers. It was the ultimate principle preventing the United States government from acquiring absolute and unlimited powers. It is thus the ultimate nightmare to the partisans of tyranny, of statism, of absolute power, of a police state, of socialism and communism, of social engineering (whether secular or religious), or of those who simply want to be able to do anything to buy their way into power and pay off their friends."

[8] The basic concept of natural rights is written in the Constitution in the 9th amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Dr Ross writes: "Here it is obvious that just because a right is not listed in the Constitution, that does not mean that it does not exist. Indeed, it cannot even be argued that rights listed in the Constitution are more important than the ones not listed, for this would be to "disparage" the others."

Many Jews sadly feel that rights are granted by government.It is just the opposite. Rights are inherent. Just that because people want to live in a civil society they give up certain rights --like the right to punish criminals--in order to form a perfect society.they do not give up any rights or powers to the government except what they have stated. This makes me wonder what most Jews did during American History class.

[9] I will also have to show the reason can perceive values. In this I will have to deal with the apparent conflict between Kant and Michael Huemer. But for a long time I have held this is really no conflict. Kant had been stuck in a concept from Hume that reason can perceive only contradictions. This is clearly not true--since as Kant noticed right away--we have synthetic a priori knowledge. So Kant made structures in perception.  But the basic approach of Hegel Michele Huemer and Brian Caplan is with Kant himself--that reason perceives a lot of stuff besides contradictions!!
Just with Kant reason places structure on what it perceives.





[10] "Natural rights"
Dr. Kelly Ross: Another recent conception of "positive" liberty, which gets confused with the "natural rights" advocated by Locke and Jefferson, are "welfare rights" such as a right to a job, a right to medical care, a right to adequate housing, a right to disability payments, a right to child support (from the government in default of a "deadbeat" parent), a right to be cared for in retirement, etc. The problem with "welfare rights" as positive "liberties" is that, while they might enable the beneficiary to do what he wants, they must be applied by the threat or the use of force against the freedom and/or property of others. A "right to a job" means that somebody else must be required to provide the job. A "right to medical care" means that somebody else, doctors and nurses, must be required to provide that care. These kinds of rights thus will either effect "involuntary servitude" on the part of employers, doctors, nurses, etc."

[11] The use of force is not a natural right in the state of nature. Sorry it took me this whole essay to get to that one simple point. In the state of nature you have the right to protect your life and your possessions from the force of others. And you can use force to protect yourself and your possessions. But you can't use force to get the possession of others. And that is why the Democratic party in the USA is Satanic. It uses force or the threat of force to get possessions of people to redistribute them. And do so in the name of Justice. This is pure Marxist Socialism.
In the state of nature to get possession one has to work--not use force applied against others.



note [1] Natural rights come from the concept of natural law- which in turn comes from the idea that human beings can perceive objective morality.]



Bibliography
Von Mises
Kant
John Locke, Two Treaties and Toleration.
Hobbes
Professor Kelly Ross
Professor Brian Caplan
Professor Micheael Huemer.
Professor Searle
Habermass.
Professor Steven Dutch
Isaiah Berlin

Negative liberty of John Locke.

The 9th amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

This affirms that the federal government had only limited and enumerated powers. The principles of civil rights have now been corrupted as part of the process by which, as Jefferson said, the power of government is expanded. 

In both cases, the corruption is effected with specious principles that confuse the role of government with that of private individuals: that private individuals may be identified instead of government as adversaries of civil rights.
Forcing others to provide benefits is a behavior merely directed against the negative freedom of classical liberty, the basic right to be left alone

 I think it would be a good idea for me to go into the important subject of the basic principles of negative rights that are enumerated in the Constitution of the USA.
They are based on the State of Nature and the reality of people wanting to preserve their life and property. This is not a imaginary state but rather a state that every person that gets up in the morning as they race to get their first bowl of cereal. This is opposed to the imaginary scheme proposed by Rawls. But Habermas already blew Rawls clear out of the sky with his critique.

My impression is that there are too many books. I think the minute a person has finished shas (talmud) with rashi then he is fit to be a rav.

(1) My impression is that there are too many books. I think the minute a person has finished Shas (Talmud) with Rashi then he is fit to be a rav. (no pseudo semicha needed. In fact anyone with semicha is by definition a fraud since semicha itself is a pretense. Everyone know the type of semicha recognized in the Talmud is no longer in existence. So people that get the title rabbi today are people that do willful fraud.)
All the other books don't add much to this.
often the other books give people the feeling that they know halacha because they learned in the Shulchan Aruch how to kill animals and to salt them. This goes for the other books also.
I don't mean to belittle the greatness of the Shulchan Aruch but without shas it seems to do little for people.
(2) But then you could ask what about Halacha and Hashkafa [kosher world view]? What about modern issues in keeping Shabat etc? I plead like the Maharshal- better a wrong halacha based on Shas than a right halacha based on the poskim-authorities.
[3] After Shas I think people should
learn the two basic halacha books, Rambam and Shulchan Aruch with the Beer heiTeiv straight from beginning to end-from the first page to the last. And then start again.

Do like Maimonides said- learn Aristotle and Kant for hashkafa. And Modern Physics for what the Rambam called Physics. Though to the Rambam, Chemistry would also fit into what he called Physics.
[] Kabalah I would drop. True that philosophy does not get anyone very far (Modern philosophy is a desert.) but that probably better than Kabalah. Despite the great insights of people like the Ari-Isaac Luria, kabalah has one basic drawback- the Zohar. Not only do people that learn it consistently start to believe that they are the messiah.--but also the basic words "im kol da" show it is a medieval forgery.
A little real spirituality that is true is better than a lot that is based on a lie.

[] All this brings me to a good question: what would a Judaism based on Talmud be --if after all I claim that orthodox Judaism is not it. I would have to admit that conservative Judaism is much closer to what I think Talmudic Judaism would be. They have a lot of basic points that I think are necessary for a true to Talmud Judaism, e.g. support for Israel, Monotheism, an application of the delicate dance between Talmud and reason. I am sorry to say it but there is nothing from the Talmud I can see in the insane religious world  today. It all looks to me like one sick fraud.

Arizona Mom Faces Child Abuse Charges After Arrest for Pouring Beer Into Her 2-Year-Old's Sippy Cup If we understand tyranny in this way we can see how America has collapsed in to tyranny.

If you think I am exaggerating take a look at these headlines  I saw after  I wrote this small essay here: Arizona Mom Faces Child Abuse Charges After Arrest for Pouring Beer Into Her 2-Year-Old's Sippy Cup


Though I am aware of the KGB spending a lot of time and effort on subverting American universities during the 60's and 70's. still it occurred to me that the pervasive culture of suspicion and suing and lack of understanding what human rights are in America really comes as a result of the very essence of democracy. I am not absolving the KGB entirely because they certainly tried to give American a push in the wrong direction--a direction it is taking now. But still as my KGB friend said when I asked about the student movements of the 1960's: I don't think the KGB had the resources to be able to have that kind of influence. I.e he said and still thinks until this day that the KGB simply could not have done the job on its own unless a lot of the emotion and direction was indigenous. As i think about it now i must admit that from what i remember the atmosphere of the 1960 was extremely pervasive. I think i will have to limit my idea that it must have simple been in the higher areas of education that the KGB was trying to convince the top echelons of the schools of philosophy and education of their approach. In that I think we can see there were successful

Which brings me to one of my favorite heroes- Socrates. He was not much for democracy. He saw it as a final step of deterioration before tyranny.and he was not stupid. He knew that democracies are about those two magic words "freedom" and "equality". But just wait a minute--he says also that having a king is the best form of government. Today we tend to think of a king and a tyrant as being synonymous. Socrates sees democracy and tyranny as being close to synonymous and the king on the exact opposite end of the spectrum. My way of explaining this is that a king allows no political freedom but allows total economical and personal freedom. a tyrant allows no economical or personal freedom. If we understand tyranny in this way we can see how America has collapsed in to tyranny.

What is bad about Modern is exactly that "Modern" defines them. Not right and wrong. . If psychology is the in thing then they make a psychology school. Even though is is pseudo science. [First: there is no conceivable observation that could disprove  psychology -therefore it is pseudo science. Second: Freud was an idiot. The human mind is not a steam engine with pressures and steam outlets. Not all human phenomena are results of turning one kind of heat energy into mechanical energy or sexual energy into civilization. Only an idiot could think to reduce all human motivation to the one that he saw in himself. There are more wheels
and balances in this clock than are easily imagined. I image in the time of Freud when the steam engine was new, this must have seemed progressive. It is like people today try to explain human thinking like computer programs. It sounds classy and new and plausible. But in a hundred years from now it will sound like Freud explaining human thinking by showing how we are like steam engines.
sublimation --turning one kind of energy into another. talking to reduce pressure. Every so called great insight of Freud he got from steam engines. And to believe that people believed this nonsense?!
And these were the same people that thought Kabalah was crazy!  Sorry but the show they put on the wrong foot. Psychologist are crazy and insane for even believing such idiocy about human beings in the first place.



The one thing Torah is supposed to give to people is a sense of the difference between right and wrong and true and falsehood. Nothing in the modern orthodox world indicates that they got that lesson. At least in the charedi world they have a guide post--Torah and Talmud.

talking with God as a friend talks with another friend and pouring out ones' heart and problems to him.

Talking  with God as a friend talks with another friend and pouring out ones' heart and problems to him.


 I can suggest a general approach towards attachment with God. Talking with him in an informal setting. Let me just say I am not the first person to think of this. It looks a lot  like what King David was doing. .

People should do this all day from the morning  until evening. People should pack a lunch and a bottle of water and go out into the forest and talk with God all day long. 

 However I think that everyone in the world should learn and finish the Talmud with Tosphot and the Maharsha. However I don't want it to seem that this is because the Talmud is somehow the greatest of all books. Not at all. Rather because it is a great book and opens up a connection with the Divine.The way it does this is it examines the written word of God in rigorous logic. It does not think that it is up to every individual to decide what it means for them, but rather that it has objective meaning that it is upon us measly human beings to strive to find out with all means possible.

This might seem difficult to understand but perhaps I can make it clear. It seems to me that God has blessed humanity with a few great books. Each one is important but does not have all the truth about people and life. But rather some aspect of truth. To me it seems the one on the top of the list is the Torah (The Old Testament).

There are two approaches to Talmud. One is the present day  way which began with R. Chaim Soloveitchik. I must say that I did not learn this way personally. I heard many lessons along the lines of Reb Chayim. But when I got back to my shtender "seat" I plowed through the Talmud with the Tosphot and Maharsha and the early "achronim" (later authorities like the Pnei Yehoshua). Sometimes I would go over and over a Pnei Yeshoshua about ten or more times until I got it.
But even this way could not be called traditional. The traditional way of learning was different. The principles were these: (1) Learn Tosphot. (2) It is forbidden to add any so called principles to make Tosphot make sense. He wrote it to make sense on its own. If you have to add outside concepts, then you don't understand it. [Sadly, most people are taught that you don't understand it unless you add some outside principles. So they spend the whole day making up nonsense, and they call it "learning" and think that people that don't do this idiocy can't learn.] (3) There is a point that you get to when you understand Tosphot that something comes up almost by magic. Some thought or question. It is that magical point that is called "Learning." For me it is very hard to get to that point.
The way of Reb Chayim Soloveitchik was different. He did add yesodot יסודות or principles, but from elsewhere in the Talmud itself. And he did it in a way that does fit.
The major school of thought of Reb Chaim [Chidushei HaRambam] continued through Baruch Ber (the Birchat Shmuel), Shimon Shkop, and the most difficult  of all- Rav Eliezer Menachem Shach of Ponovitch (that is his book the Aviezri).
These four constitute a whole and complete set by which it is possible to understand the Rambam.
No home is complete without them.

psychologists provide much of the ideology justifying divorce

Professor Allen Bloom: "Psychologists provide much of the ideology justifying divorce—e.g., that
it is worse for kids to stay in stressful homes (thus motivating the potential escapees—that is, the parents—to make it as unpleasant as possible there). Psychologists are the sworn enemies of guilt. [The exact opposite of the Torah which says that without feelings of guilt there is no repentance. ] And they have an artificial language for the artificial feelings with which they equip children. Psychologists who deal with these matters simply play the tune called by those who pay the piper. The facts of the market and the capacity for self-deception, called creativity, influence such therapy. Teenagers are not only reeling from the destructive effects of the overturning of faith and the ambiguity of loyalty that result from divorce, but deafened by self-serving lies and hypocrisies
expressed in a pseudo-scientific jargon. Modern psychology at its best has a questionable understanding of the soul. It has no place for the natural superiority of the thoughtful life, and no understanding of education. So children who are impregnated with that psychology live in a sub-basement
and have a long climb just to get back up to the cave, or the world of
common sense, which is the proper beginning for their ascent toward
wisdom. and they have an ideology that provides not a reason but a rationalization
for their timidity."

Socrates: And if, I said, the male and female sex appear to differ in their fitness for any art or pursuit, we should say that such pursuit or art ought to be assigned to one or the other of them; but if the difference consists only in women bearing and men begetting children, this does not amount to a proof that a woman differs from a man in respect of the sort of education she should receive; and we shall therefore continue to maintain that our guardians and their wives ought to have the same pursuits.

What Socrates is saying here in plain English is that we don't start out thinking men and women are different in ability. We give them exactly the same education. But when and if an individual begins to show more aptitude or interest in one specific area then we concentrate on that.






As an introduction let me just say that I have liked woman from day one. It is only bitches that I don't approve of.




The Republic by Plato:

"Let us further suppose the birth and education of our women to be subject to similar or nearly similar regulations; then we shall see whether the result accords with our design.

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean may be put into the form of a question, I said: Are dogs divided into hes and shes, or do they both share equally in hunting and in keeping watch and in the other duties of dogs? or do we entrust to the males the entire and exclusive care of the flocks, while we leave the females at home, under the idea that the bearing and suckling their puppies is labour enough for them?"

"No, he said, they share alike; the only difference between them is that the males are stronger and the females weaker."


"But can you use different animals for the same purpose, unless they are bred and fed in the same way?"

"You cannot."

"Then, if women are to have the same duties as men, they must have the same nurture and education?"

"Yes."

(The education which was assigned to the men was music and gymnastic.)

Yes.

Then women must be taught music and gymnastic and also the art of war, which they must practice like the men?

That is the inference, I suppose.

I should rather expect, I said, that several of our proposals, if they are carried out, being unusual, may appear ridiculous.

No doubt of it.

Yes, and the most ridiculous thing of all will be the sight of women naked in the palaestra, exercising with the men, especially when they are no longer young; they certainly will not be a vision of beauty, any more than the enthusiastic old men who in spite of wrinkles and ugliness continue to frequent the gymnasia.

Yes, indeed, he said: according to present notions the proposal would be thought ridiculous.

But then, I said, as we have determined to speak our minds, we must not fear the jests of the wits which will be directed against this sort of innovation; how they will talk of women's attainments both in music and gymnastic, and above all about their wearing armour and riding upon horseback!

Very true, he replied.

Yet having begun we must go forward to the rough places of the law; at the same time begging of these gentlemen for once in their life to be serious. Not long ago, as we shall remind them, the Hellenes were of the opinion, which is still generally received among the barbarians, that the sight of a naked man was ridiculous and improper; and when first the Cretans and then the Lacedaemonians introduced the custom, the wits of that day might equally have ridiculed the innovation.

No doubt.

But when experience showed that to let all things be uncovered was far better than to cover them up, and the ludicrous effect to the outward eye vanished before the better principle which reason asserted, then the man was perceived to be a fool who directs the shafts of his ridicule at any other sight but that of folly and vice, or seriously inclines to weigh the beautiful by any other standard but that of the good.

Very true, he replied.

First, then, whether the question is to be put in jest or in earnest, let us come to an understanding about the nature of woman: Is she capable of sharing either wholly or partially in the actions of men, or not at all? And is the art of war one of those arts in which she can or can not share? That will be the best way of commencing the enquiry, and will probably lead to the fairest conclusion.

That will be much the best way.

Shall we take the other side first and begin by arguing against ourselves; in this manner the adversary's position will not be undefended.

Why not? he said.

Then let us put a speech into the mouths of our opponents. They will say: 'Socrates and Glaucon, no adversary need convict you, for you yourselves, at the first foundation of the State, admitted the principle that everybody was to do the one work suited to his own nature.' And certainly, if I am not mistaken, such an admission was made by us. 'And do not the natures of men and women differ very much indeed?' And we shall reply: Of course they do. Then we shall be asked, 'Whether the tasks assigned to men and to women should not be different, and such as are agreeable to their different natures?' Certainly they should. 'But if so, have you not fallen into a serious inconsistency in saying that men and women, whose natures are so entirely different, ought to perform the same actions?'—What defense will you make for us, my good Sir, against any one who offers these objections?"

(I am trying to avoid saying that Hegel was positivist but he sure was on the slippery slop towards it. And his thought led to disastrous consequences in the twentieth century. Despite his depth of thought, it is hard not to see all the tendencies of Nazi and Communist totalitarianism in his thought.

In Western Civilization following the Enlightenment, there is supposed to be a connection between Man's Laws and Natural Law [Natural Law is not what people do naturally but rather do what is their "telos" to do. That is at any rate how natural law was understood by its originators the Stoics, Saadia Geon Maimonides and Aquiness]. Man's laws are at least supposed to have as a goal to come to Divine Law. This started with Saadia Geon who defined many of the laws of the Torah as Laws of Reason. The Rambam (Maimonides) took this process further. It ended up with John Locke. The attack of on this Natural Law concept was from Austin. This is what is called legal positivism. After this introduction, we can understand Germany. Hegel was the most popular and powerful influence in Germany during his tenure in Berlin.. His idea of the individual being an insignificant part of the State is what led Germany to a radical Legal Positivism. Sadly, this same process is happening in America. (I am trying to avoid saying that Hegel was positivist, but he sure was on the slippery slope towards it. And his thought led to disastrous consequences in the twentieth century. Despite his depth of thought, it is hard not to see all the tendencies of Nazi and Communist totalitarianism in his thought. This does not bode well for systems based on Hegel today or Legal Positivism. (In fact, taking a glimpse of Supreme Court decisions in the U.S.A. it is hard to see any connection at all with the U.S.A. Constitution. It looks to me like pure Legal Positivism. I mean, for Bruce's sake, what does someone growing vegetables in his back yard have to do with interstate commerce? Why would the Supreme Court think they have any right to rule in such matters- except that they want to?

[Just to be clear- Hegel still sees the "Absolute" as the standard. And to him, the Absolute is rational. To to have it embodied in "The State" does not in theory equal Legal Positivism. This is because there is a prior source of authority. It could be that he would even agree that the Absolute might not be embodied automatically in all government resolutions.]

So you don't want to hire criminals? Hmmm...

In April, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission signaled that it would begin to crack down on employers who use the criminal histories of job applicants to discriminate against them illegally. ...

So you don't want to hire criminals? Hmmm...

(1)The God of Maimonides and Aristotle

(1)The God of Maimonides and Aristotle tends to lack personality. (2) The omnipotence and benevolence of God, while happy and comforting to contemplate, generates the Problem of Evil, that the evidence of the world and of events frequently would seem to contradict an omnipotent and benevolent agency.
(3) It seems to me that Yaakov along with Job and King David [עד אבא למקדשי אל אבינה לאחריתם in Psalm 73 ] found some way of dealing with these issues. The way they did this was to project God's goodness out over a longer period.
To me it seems that this was the opinion of Job and God himself who agreed with Job.
The friends of Job said: "God is just". God said they were wrong. Point blank. At point blank range. There is no way to misinterpret this because the entire Book of Job shows this.


 The first statement is that Job was without sin. So trying to fudge the variables here does not work. Trying to make it that there were other faults is clearly not what it says. Then the whole story of how God caused him to suffer in order to win a debate with Satan just shows the point. Because you want to win a debate with someone does not give you cause to make someone else suffer. This is the clear position of the narrator of The Book of Job 



What enrages people is that the Rambam understands the Torah thorough the eyes  and world view of Aristotle. And that he is not embarrassed about that makes it worse. At least he could try to hide where he gets his ideas from like everyone else. And what makes it even worse is that no one can claim to understand the Torah better than the Rambam unless they want to seem like an arrogant, ignorant fool. Thus people just ignore the Rambam when it comes to the world view of Torah.

My approach is different than the generally accepted approach. I say the Rambam was right, and everyone else simply does not understand the Torah.

In any case  the Rambam's approach to Torah is I think about as close to the actual Torah approach as possible. In another approaches there are strong elements of polytheism. They may not reach pure polytheism but they certainly come close. Today  Torah practice often contains polytheist beliefs. In fact it is almost an axiom that the more strict one is in practices the more likely there are underlying polytheistic beliefs. Monotheism is not the same as polytheism except in number. There is more than a quantitative difference. There is a qualitative difference. A difference in world view. And the world view of Torah could not be further away from what people think it is today. It presents a reality that is radically different than what people think the Torah is about.

A Rambam Yeshiva would not be anything like the yeshivas we see today. The books there would be the Mishne Torah and Aristotle's encyclopedic work, Physics and his other encyclopedic work, the Metaphysics.   In the beginning of Mishne Torah he writes that the Mishne Torah contains all the Oral Law and take a good look at his language there when he says "One does not need any other book from among them."  "One reads the Old Testament and then the Mishne Torah and one does not need any other book from among them for any law," i.e. the books that he just mentioned in that paragraph. However he says one needs no other books to know what the law is (that is what among the laws of the Talmud is the halacha. But that does not mean that one understands the meaning of the law without knowing the Talmud. That is how all sages of Israel after him understood him. That is without the Talmud one can not know the meaning of any law in the Mishna Torah of the Rambam. Just like the Guide require background in Aristotle and Plato so the Mishna Torah requires the background of the Talmud.



So you can ask then what to do after you have read the Mishne Torah? You can finish it in two weeks easily. Start at 9:00 AM and go until 5:00 PM. A normal working day. You can finish it in two weeks. Then he explains you learn "the work of Creation and the Divine Chariot which are the Physics and Metaphysics of the ancient Greeks." Here too he explains this clearly in several places in the Mishe Torah and  Guide. And he not ambiguous in any way. You can see what enraged people about the Rambam. He says after one has finished reading the Written and Oral law (as he defines Oral Law to mean his book the Mishne Torah) then he spends all his days learning Physics and Metaphysics.



So clearly a Rambam approach to Torah  would be a radical departure from what people think today compromises a Torah approach. And he writes in a letter that the only reason that his book was not accepted as the final decision is because of the arrogance and pride of people wanting honor and power. So when the final redemption comes and arrogance and the evil inclination will be eliminated from the world then his book will be accepted as the objective truth. In the future the Mishne Torah of the Rambam will be considered as the truth and final decision. The son of the Rambam who became the Rav of the city after the Rambam in fact taught the Mishna Torah instead of Mishna or other things that had been customary to teach between the afternoon and evening prayers.

 My personal opinion is that Physics today (and Metaphysics) has gone considerably beyond Aristotle and that today the Rambam would hold to learn the Old Testament, then the Mishne Torah and then modern Physics and Kant. (I must admit I  have not gotten far in Mathematics or Physics. My impression is they both need about the  same amount of time and effort as knowing the Talmud even at the most amateurish level.  That is about 20,000 hours each. That is you have the normal 10,000 hours for just barely scratching the surface. Then the next 10,000 hours for gaining expertise. That was in any case my own experience with Talmud and it seems to me that Math and Physics are not all that different.)

And I should mention that this is the way I have accustomed myself to be learning for some time now. The only thing is I admit I do learn Talmud as I thing it is the only way to understand the Mishne Torah. Without knowing from where the Rambam gets his decision, people always misunderstand what he is saying. [And they think they understand.] For that reason, one should also learn Talmud and Rav Shach's commentary on the Rambam together with the Rambam..

[I should mention that this is not how Litvaks go about learning. And for myself if I have any time for learning at all I go straight to the Gemara. Being limited to what you can get I would say get a Bava Metzia (one full Talmud Tractate with Tosphot Mahrasha and Rif.). One Musar book and one of Jewish world view like the Guide for the Perplexed.

Why do I think that Islam is a threat to America? (This is rhetorical question.)

Why do I think that Islam is a threat to America? (This is rhetorical question.)


Ask the Bulgarians, Greeks, Ionian Greeks and Armenians about how different things were. Moslems were murdering, raping scum from the start, and they are murdering raping scum today. Dirty too. Greeks founded and maintained a circle of splendid cities on the perimeter of Anatolia 5 hundred years before Christ. Islam massacred raped and pillaged the city of Smynra (Izmir now) in 1922 and at that time over one million Greeks who had lived in Analtolia for thousands of years were either killed or forced to emigrate to Greece. Similar stories of course with the Armenians, Hungarians, Serbians and Bulgarians, in fact with all unfortunate enough to come in contact with these people.
Constantinople was the capital of the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Christian empire till 1453 when 'peaceful' Islam conquered, massacred, raped and pillaged it.
It is today what it always has been, an anti-civilization nomadic primitive and violent culture. Islam has no place and no part in Western civilization and must be entirely removed from Europe and America.

Though I am against Communism- but still it was based on the Enlightenment ideas and trying to create a just society. (And there were abuses that the czars were doing at the time, e.g. getting involved in WWI.) So I see the debate between Communism and Capitalism as an internal thing, a honest disagreement of how to have a working just society. But Islam is different. It is the worst threat to civilization on every possible level. Islam is the number one threat to the continued existence of the human race and planet Earth.



"To begin with, all manner of leftists are stuck with that whole cultural-relativism thing, at least when it operates to the detriment of the white race, Western culture, and America and old American ways. That drives them to cuddle up to primitive non-Western peoples, the more dodgy and exotic the better; and, to the extent they can, import them into the United State." -Nicholas Strackon

Most leftists (including the femi-nazis) are reticent to admit that they will ally themselves with the most barbaric creatures on Earth if they too are anti-Western and anti-American.
They know EXACTLY who/what they are standing with, but will do so anyway.



Just while I am at it let me mention a problem in political philosophy that relates to the inability of the left to see the threat of Islam.
As John Searle put it: "The leading political event of the twentieth century was the failure of ideologies such as communism, and in particular the failure of socialism in its different and various forms. The interesting thing is that we lack the categories in which to pose and answer questions dealing with the failure of socialism. If by “socialism” we mean state ownership and control of the basic means of production, then the failure of socialism so defined is the single most important social development of the twentieth century. It is an amazing fact that that development remains unanalyzed and is seldom discussed by the political and social philosophers of our time. "

Here is a good example from todays news:
Muslim insurgents attack Kabul hotel; 15 killed
One guest at Spozmay Hotel, Sharif Aloko, said he and 11 friends were sitting on the patio eating dinner when the gunmen entered wearing police uniforms and strapped with explosives. Three of them stood guard outside the restaurant while another one shot a father and a daughter while Aloko and his friends watched in horror and the family members pleaded “please don’t kill us.”
(Washington Post)
In the world of philosophy, there is no way to understand what is wrong with Islam. And when people lack a way of understanding something they simply can't see it. (like south American tribes that live on plants that they grow. They will starve rather than go fishing because the concept does not exist for them.) I mean take yourself for example. You are reading this little essay. How would you examine this? Clearly people have lots of buttons you can push. If you read Talmud or the Bible--it tends to push certain buttons in people. Some people read the Bible and go out and start a Salvation Army or a soup kitchen. Some people read Talmud and decide on daily schedule that that is basically taken up with learning and prayer and high moral standards. Some people read the Koran and decide that to murder lots of Jews is the way to come to the highest spiritual levels of Enlightenment. But if you try to analyze why this is or what is going on you are at a lose. The problem is Modern Philosophy in itself. It is the prime fallacy of Philosophy. It is the fallacy that it makes sense to look at a structure without knowing the contents of the structure. So philosophers feel they can examine religion without regard to the contents of the religion.
Here is what Steven Dutch says about this: " What we can call The Fundamental Fallacy of Modern Philosophy might be defined as the idea that it makes sense to study structure divorced from content. This is the idea that has given us businessmen who think they can "manage" without knowing anything about what they manage, critics who claim that only the technical excellence of a work of art matters, not its content, and sociologists of science like the one with whom I corresponded who think you can study the Velikovsky affair without regard to the scientific validity of Velikovsky's ideas."

hindu revisionism and Prabhakar Kamath

Hindu Revisionism: Was Shankaracharya Deceptive Or Just Ignorant?



(1) I want to mention that the type of revolution that the Bhava Gita was trying to do I look on with approval because of many aspects.
To break through the rule of the Brahmins seems to me to be worthy since basically the ruling class of Brahmins came to India from Iran and enslaved the local population and made them into the untouchables and created the Vedas to give spiritual significance to their rule. The BhavaGita and the Upanishads intended to break that rule and bring people to a true spirituality.