If you are protecting Hillary then guns are the answer. If you are protecting ordinary people from criminals that is different.

Virtue signalling is not virtue

The essence of the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on is virtue signalling by dress and by elaborate display of rituals. "Virtue signalling is not virtue, it is the pretense of virtue.  Being virtuous results in status. People look-up to virtuous people. But on the other hand virtue is hard and requires sacrifice and discipline. You are only as generous as the portion of your income you’re actually willing to give to others.

Some people try to acquire status a dishonest way. They practice virtuous activities so they can show off their virtue to others. But this virtue is not real virtue.

A generous man gives to the poor because it’s the right thing to do or because he is compelled by compassion, duty, or guilt; he does so for some reason intrinsic to himself and his own character. He is generous because he is a generous person. The generous man who gives to the poor while telling those around him how generous he is, is not being virtuous. He is not displaying his own virtue, rather he is buying the status of being a generous person with his gifts."

I think it matters what the character of the higher power is and what kind of obligations He imposes. The Rambam definitely mentioned this in the Guide for the Perplexed. Let's take for example Venus. She imposes certain obligations. Her obligations are opposed to those of Artemis. In fact, so opposed such that if one serves Venus, Artemis is likely to get mad at him, and visa versa. That is perhaps an extreme example. But the point I think is clear.

This was a short note I wrote on social revolutionary 




I think the point is brought out well in Kelley Ross's essay the Dark Side of the Tao.


The point I am trying to make is that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob imposes certain moral obligation that are unique and different from other "higher powers."   Thus everything depends of what higher power one is serving.

However nowadays it has become profitable to  signal to others that one is serving the God of the Torah. It has become big business. This is why you see many people making elaborate display of their religiosity.


My feeling is that it matters which higher power we choose. That is choosing the First Cause is important. But then there is a subject element of how we understand the first cause. Schopenhauer put it the best way to make this understandable. Not a direct quote but his idea is, "The representation is provided half by the subject and half by the object." All I am saying is how we understand the First Cause is important.

This is why the Torah and the books of Musar make it clear that God requires certain standards of morality and does not leave it up to us to decide what we want to be moral but makes it clear from the outset.

Song for the glory of the God of Israel, r45 3-4 time.

r45 B flat major mp3 [same piece in midi  same piece in nwc]  r1mp3 [r1 midi][r1 nwc] r2mp3 [r2 in midi] [r2 nwc] r43 mp3[same piece in midi] [same piece in nwc] r3 mp3 [r3 in midi]  [r3 in nwc] r4 mp3[dito in midi] [dito in nwc] r5 f major mp3 r5 midi  [r5 nwc] r6 mp3 r6 midi r6 nwc r7 mp3 [r7 midi] -r7nwc  r8 C major mp3 r8 midi  r8 nwc

An American Folk Song about the Land of Israel. I should mention I was in Safed for seven years in the north part of Israel and this song is no exaggeration.

On Jordan's stormy banks I stand
And cast a wishful eye
To Canaan's fair and happy land
Where my possessions lie


There generous fruits that never fail
On trees immortal grow
There rocks and hills, and brooks and vales
With milk and honey flow

 I am bound for the promised land
I am bound for the promised land
Oh, who will come and go with me?
I am bound for the promised land



Oh, the transporting, rapturous scene
That rises to my sight
Sweet fields arrayed in living green
And rivers of delight

When shall I reach that happy place
And be forever blest
When shall I  see my Father's face
And in His bosom rest

I am bound for the promised land
I am bound for the promised land
Oh, who will come and go with me?

I am bound for the promised land

_________________________________________________________________________

I should mention I was in Safed for seven years in the north part of Israel and this song is no exaggeration.
In fact I think it is quite accurate  a description of how things were for me in Israel for the time I merited to be there.

The trouble with religious teachers is they are not trustworthy. Friendship is just a word, but money is forever. They get what they can from other people. Their obligations to others is null. Their attitude is: "There is only me. There is only what I can get for myself. Trust no one." And thus, no matter what you do for them. No matter how much you try, when you are in need, they will always turn their back on you.

There should be a list exposing the rotten religious teachers for what they really are. Anti Torah, Anti Jewish, anti Morality, that have penetrated the body of sincere Torah keeping Jews.


It can be helpful in understanding this  to take a
voluntary organisation like a yeshiva or a synagogue as the relevant social practice or concept, with the policies  and  principles  written  into  the  organisation’s  constitution  and
rules and the leadership body responsible for carrying out of these principles.
When a Trojan horse of religious teachers has entered the walls of Troy and managed to infiltrate into positions of leadership it is safe to say we are in a crisis.


This list is not hard to make. All religious teachers in LA are Trojan horses. Even places you would expect to be better because they learn Torah are in fact no exception.
There ought to be an official list that people could add to if their experiences with some religious teachers show that that religious teachers is in fact a Trojan horse. There are plenty of religious teachers to fill the bill and in fact so many that perhaps there ought to be a short list of the few one that are in fact loyal to Torah.

The trouble with religious teachers is they are not trustworthy.  Friendship is just a word, but money  is  forever.  They get what they can from other people.  Their obligations to others is null. Their attitude is: "There is only me.  There is only what I can get for myself.  Trust no one."  And thus, no matter what you do for them, no matter how much you try, when you are in need, they will always turn their back on you.


If it would be that they are rotten people I would not bother writing about it. But what really bother me is they give the holy Torah a bad name. When people find out how really bad the religious teachers are they tend to attribute the cause to the Torah.
However it is true that even without that reason, I would have an obligation to warn people about a stumbling block. But I just do not feel that degree of social responsibility to warn people about every bad group out there. But the rotten religious teachers is more close to home. So at least this one group I think it is proper to let people know about.

Perhaps we lack a right to engage in activities that reasonably appear to show an intention to harm or impose unacceptable risks on others. For example, I may not run towards you brandishing a sword, even if I do not in fact intend to hurt you. The principle also explains why we punish people for merely attempting or conspiring to commit crimes. Thus, suppose that people who read the Communist  Manifesto are slightly more likely than the average person to attempt the violent overthrow of the government. (This might be because such people are more likely to already have designs for overthrowing the government, and/or because the reading of the book occasionally causes people to acquire such intentions.) I take it that this would not show there is no on the face of it  right to read the Communist Manifesto—though perhaps the situation would be otherwise if the reading of the Manifesto had a very strong tendency to cause revolutionary efforts, or if the occurrence of this effect did not depend on further free choices on the part of the reader. But let us take the Koran. There is a strong tendency on the part of people that read it to take violent actions against Jews and Christians. This should be taken as good cause to  throw it out. Similarly I think we can show similar effects from that certain books of the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on. That is they may not directly cause violence, but  cause insanity. In other words reading any book we have to assume is OK unless some  kind of meme inside of it seems to cause people to swallow it and become violent or insane. It is for this reason that pharmacies are not allowed to sell poison under a label "Pain killer. Guaranteed to relieve all your ills." [The advertising would be absolutely true. Still it would be against the law.]