I am not sure how to put this in short. I saw that Rav Shach has an answer for the Rambam [Laws of Forbidden Sexual Relations 12:1] that is a little different than the answer I put down in my little booklet on Bava Metzia.

In short the Rambam says it is a prohibition from the Torah to marry a gentile. The curious thing about this is that it seems to be going like R Shimon that we look at the reason for  a verse. The gemara in Kidushin and Yevamot says one can not marry a gentile. It asks why not? To R. Shimon it is clear because the verse says בתך לא תתן לבנו Do not give your daughter to his son nor your son to his daughters because they will tilt the hearts of your children towards idolatry. {Deuteronomy.}
But that is only to R. Shimon who looks at the reason for a verse. But to R. Yehuda the verse is only talking about the seven Canaanite nations.[The Gemara answers it is a decree.]

In short Rav Shach brings another argument in Sanhedrin about the verse that says a king should not have many wives because they might tilt his heart. The Sages say no more than 18. R. Yehuda says He can marry more than 18 as long as they do not tilt his heart. R. Shimon says even one that tilts his heart is forbidden. Then why say "He should not have many"? To tell us even if they are a righteous as Abigail.
 The way Rav Shach says it is that we see R. Yehuda holds דורשין טעמא דקרא (we go by the reason for the verse, not the literal meaning) if the reason is stated in the verse. So to R. Yehuda only the seven nations would be forbidden because they are very attached to idolatry but others not. However the Sages would hold that the simple explanation of the verse would be referring to all gentile nations. [This is different than my own explanation  but still closely related.] One problem I see with this is that R Yehuda holds if the reason for the verse is stated then it would mean you could marry anyone as long as they do not tilt your heart. That is one possible question on Rav Shach's approach.

[That is the exact parallel to what R. Yehuda says about a king where there also is written the reason for the verse.]

[I might mention that the Tur, the son of Rabbainu Asher decided the halacha like R. Yehuda that we do no go by the reason for the verse, but rather by the literal meaning which in this case means only the seven Canaanite Nations are forbidden.]

 It is also important to point out that idolatry is not limited to gentiles. Thus anyone doing idolatry would be forbidden to marry. כל המסירות all that could cause one's heart to stray from God to serve false gods.will be forbidden. And the religious world is sadlly jam packed with false gods-(non with standing the extreme emphasis on rituals).




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 I saw that רב שך has an answer for the רמב''ם   הלכות איסורי ביאה י''ב:א
In short the רמב''ם says it is a prohibition from the Torah to marry a gentile. The curious thing about this is that it seems to be going like ר. שמעון that we look at the reason for  a verse. The גמרא in קידושין and יבמות says one can not marry a gentile. It asks why not? To ר. שמעון it is clear because the verse says בתך לא תתן לבנו Do not give your daughter to his son nor your son to his daughters because they will tilt the hearts of your children towards idolatry.
But that is only to ר. שמעון who looks at the reason for a verse. But to ר. יהודה the verse is only talking about the שבעת העמים.The גמרא answers it is a דרבנן.

Without being aware of what רב שך had written I wrote my own explanation of the רמב''ם that in fact is closely linked to רב שך, but slightly different.

In short רב שך brings another argument in סנהדרין about the verse that says a king should not have many wives because they might tilt his heart. The חכמים say no more than שמנה עשרה. But ר. יהודה says he can marry more than שמנה עשרה as long as they do not tilt his heart. ר. שמעון says even one that tilts his heart is forbidden. Then why say "He should not have many"? To tell us even if they are a righteous as אביגיל.
 The way רב שך says it is that we see ר. יהודה holds דורשין טעמא דקרא if the reason is stated in the verse. So to ר. יהודה only the seven nations would be forbidden because they are very attached to idolatry but others not. However the Sages would hold that the simple explanation of the verse would be referring to all gentile nations.  One problem I see with this is that ר. יהודה holds if the reason for the verse is stated then it would mean you could marry anyone as long as they do not tilt your heart. That is one possible question on רב שך approach.

לרב יש שך תשובה עבור הרמב''ם הלכות איסורי ביאה י''ב: א'. בקיצור רמב''ם אומר שזה איסור מן התורה להתחתן עם גויה. הדבר המעניין בזה הוא שזה נראה שהולך כמו ר. שמעון שהולכים לפי הסיבה של פסוק. הגמרא בקידושין ויבמות אומרת אחד לא יכול להתחתן עם גויה. זה שואל למה לא? ועונה זה ל ר. שמעון  כי הפסוק אומר בתך לא תתן לבנו (אל תיתן בתך לבנו) ולא בנך לבנותיו כי הם יוכלו להטות את לבם של הילדים שלך כלפי עבודה זרה. אבל זה רק  ר. שמעון שמסתכל על הסיבה של הפסוק. אבל אל לר. יהודה הפסוק רק מדבר על שבעת העמים. גמרא עונה היא דרבנן. בקיצור רב שך מביא טיעון נוסף בסנהדרין על הפסוק שאומר למלך אסור להתחתן עם נשים רבות, משום שהן עלולות להטות את לבו. חכמים אומרים לא יותר משמנה עשרה. אבל ר. יהודה אומר שהוא יכול לשאת יותר משמנה עשרה, כל עוד שהן לא נוטות את לבו. ר. שמעון אומר אפילו אחת שנוטה את לבו אסורה. אז למה הפסוק אומר "לא ירבה"? כדי לדווח לנו שאפילו אם הן צדיקות כמו אביגיל. הדרך שרב שך אומר הוא שאנחנו רואים שר. יהודה מחזיק דורשין טעמא דקרא אם הסיבה נאמרה בפסוק. אז אל ר. יהודה רק שבעת האומות תיאסרנה משום שהן קשורות מאוד לעבודה זרה אבל אחרות לא. אולם חז"ל מחזיקים כי ההסבר הפשוט של הפסוק מתייחס לכל אומות העולם. בעיה אחת שאני רואה עם זה היא כי ר. יהודה מחזיק אם הסיבת הפסוק נאמרה, אז זה אומר שאתה יכול להתחתן עם מישהיא, כל עוד שהיא לא נוטה את הלב שלך.
My own answer here was that when the reason for the verse is written then the Sages and R. Shimon agree. [I think that was my answer, but I have not looked it up to check.] But if so then on my answer also there is a question because R. Shimon and the Sages do not look to agree completely in such a case,

Each group seems to have its own particular variety of the evil inclination.

I can see that people feel they are on the side of good just because of some group they belong to. And there is often some reason that justifies their belief. In the groups I have hung out with I have seen this much. But the Sitra Achara--the Dark Side has its own formulas for each group.
There is always some special brand of evil that attaches itself to every group and none are immune.

Dante is a good cure for that delusion.
That is in Dante,  hell is reserved for people with bad character. That is to say when people do evil, they end up in hell and the social group they belonged to does nothing to help them out of it.
I have found this a lot in Jewish groups, but all groups seem to have this problem with unwarranted pride. That however does not mean all groups are the same. Each one seems to have its own particular variety of the evil inclination.

Even though democracy in itself has drawbacks still a lot depends on who is involved. The Athenian Democracy is different than a democracy that has to take blacks into account. It is not the type of government that is the issue but the kind of people involved.

Sparta after all did not produce anything except warriors and the destruction of Athens. Athens on the other hand produced the greatest Art, Mathematics, literature, music, philosophers that the world had ever seen.
From the Rambam's point of view however there would only seem to be one justification and that is that it is a contract. That is whatever system people decide to live under has the force of Torah Law as long as it does not violate other Torah Laws. The reason is because any contract has the force of Torah validity. This applies to government also as is brought in Bava Batra.

Government of course is not the same as private contracts-. But all the more so that gives it a need and validity that goes beyond private contracts. For without government, no private contract is possible as Dr Epstein makes clear in his debate with Dr Michael Huemer.

There is some connection between trust in God with no effort and accepting the yoke of learning Torah.

There is some connection between trust in God with no effort and accepting the yoke of learning Torah. Both of these things are accepted parts of the Litvak yeshiva world but no connection between them is ever spelled out exactly.

The way both are connected are in the sense that it is understood that: if one accepts the yoke of learning Torah, then the troubles and difficulties of making a living will be removed from him. But in fact both ideals on the surface to be totally independent.  What exactly is the connection?
I am not really sure about this even though there is  statement from the Gra about the right path of trust in God is specifically without effort on one's own part. It is not as if the Gra accepts the חובות לבבות opinion about trust in God with effort on your own part. See Proverbs 3:25 the commentary of the Gra there.

For writing on the computer on Shabat I depend on the Rema in the Shulchan Aruch that the prohibition of writing is Ashurit [and I would imagine also the ancient Hebrew letters called "Ketav Evri."]  along with the idea of the idea brought down on buildig that the form needs to be preserved for twenty four hours -not stored in megabytes.
But I admit there are perhaps many other areas in which I am too lenient. The truth is it is hard to get exactly how to keep the holy Torah. There are inherent ambiguities like honor of one's parents. It is hard to tell how far to take that.
 It is not just when one mitzvah seems to interfere with another. It is that sometimes the actual fulfillment is unclear.
I have written about the problems involved in keeping Torah quite a lot but not in a unified format. Mainly the problems come from the Sitra Achra {the Dark Side}which pretends to keep Torah in external form but internally is demonic. That makes trusting anything that the religious world says about Torah almost certainly wrong.

Some of the basic difficulties and ambiguities  are:
(1) The attitudes towards Reb Nachman, who was certainly a great tzadik, but when people get involved in Breslov they definitely get caught up into the Sitra Achra
(2) The ignoring of the signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication. This is not simply ignored but outright declared wrong. To me it is clear that the Gra was 100% correct. [But that it would not apply to Reb Nachman for reasons that are easy to see if you read the actual letter itself.]
(3) The attitude towards the State of Israel. I would rather not go into this right now but service in the IDF and general support of Israel I consider very important.
(4) Attitudes towards what are called secular studies. To the Rambam there is no such thing as secular studies. Physics [in his terminology means also Chemistry] and Metaphysics are holy studies that are part of the Oral Law. Other things that are considered secular are simply treif, nevela, in the opinion of the Rambam.
(5) Attitudes towards kollel. This really is not that ambiguous in practice because you can pretty much tell whether people in any institution are using Torah to make money or if they are accepting money in order to learn Torah. If the later, then  clearly it is  great thing what they are doing.

(6)My own mistakes seem to be in the area of the Mir Yeshiva in NY. On one hand you might say it was important to get to Israel but that seems to have caused a lot of bitul Torah and getting involved in pretty dumb sitra achra stuff. What perhaps I might have done would have been to find  a Litvak kollel in Israel. But even that is hard to say could have made up for the loss of not learning in the Mir.

There was on America's Most Wanted a story about a father and son Taylor and Taylor that had been kidnapped for the apparent reason that they had found some means of commutation or communication with distant regions of space.

There was on America's Most Wanted a story about a father and son Taylor and Taylor that had been kidnapped for the apparent reason that they had found some means of commutation  or communication with distant regions of space. I can not imagine what it was, but I assume that there in fact might be something like that. If forced to I could think of a few things. If some small particles are black holes, they might have thought to combine enough together to make a worm hole.Also since their experience was in electrical engineering maybe they had thought of some aspect of electricity which always  involves imaginary time. Another suggestion would be that if one takes the paper of Feynman about two arrows of time and puts it together with two more arrows of entropy he gets results that are remarkable and suggestive of some deeper structure. 

Overall, the current findings provide evidence that interracial couples elicit disgust

Humans Naturally Dislike Mixing of Race.

See this link

Study 1   demonstrates that bias against interracial romance is correlated with disgust. Study 2 provides evidence that images of interracial couples evoke a neural disgust response among observers – as indicated by increased insula activation relative to images of same-race couples. Consistent with psychological theory indicating that disgust leads to dehumanization, Study 3 demonstrates that manipulating disgust leads to implicit dehumanization of interracial couples. Overall, the current findings provide evidence that interracial couples elicit disgust and are dehumanized relative to same-race couples.

The fact is that everyone knows that if you are mixing races, you have turned your back on your heritage. This puts you in the camp with traitors, cowards and profiteers.

Next, they realize that you are an unfortunate person. Other than for novelty points at the bar, you will never have a real identity. Instead, you will always be flogging your “uniqueness” while neither of your constituent groups accepts you.

Finally, looking into miscegenation shows us the inner workings of life. We do not like to think about it, but we are biological beings with our personalities arising from genetics. Miscegenation breaks apart the visions of people that we process socially, and shows us that beneath the level on which socialization operates, we are animals and can be bred as such.

As the age of ideology ends, tribe becomes more important. The result of this is that people are struggling to find their identities and live within them, lest them become people without a nation or origin, which in a time where identity is more important than elective categories like political alignment or religion, makes them the loneliest people in the world.

Now contrast this with research that shows racial identity outlasts diversity:

What makes the current study, published in the February issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, more conclusive is its size. The study is by far the largest, consisting of 3,636 people who all identified themselves as either white, African-American, East Asian or Hispanic. Of these, only five individuals had DNA that matched an ethnic group different than the box they checked at the beginning of the study. That’s an error rate of 0.14 percent.

Neil Risch, PhD, a UC-San Francisco professor who led the study while he was professor of genetics at Stanford, said that the findings are particularly surprising given that people in both African-American and Hispanic ethnic groups often have a mixed background. “We might expect these individuals to cross several different genetic clusters,” he noted. That’s not what the study found. Instead, each self-identified racial/ethnic group clumped into the same genetic cluster.

Over the long term, people resist miscegenation because it destroys who they are, which they innately know is tied to genetics and history even if these concepts offend their notions of “free will” and individuality. In other words, having an identity that gives the individual a starting point in their narrative of self — origins, purpose, rank — is more important than joining the generic, mixed-race social group.

For this reason, they also dislike and instinctively are disgusted by miscegenation. The mixing of racial groups constitutes the destruction of those groups over time, so in the practice of miscegenation, people see the erasure of their identity. As a result their is a natural revulsion to loss of identity, which is in part a destruction of the self.

Highlights

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Bias against interracial romance is correlated with self-reported feelings of disgust.

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Interracial couples elicit a neural disgust response among observers – as indicated by increased insula activation.

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Manipulating state disgust leads to implicit dehumanization of interracial couples.

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Findings suggest that meaningful social units (e.g., couples) influence person perception.