To come up with a political system based on the best philosophy ends up with the worst system in politics.

WWI and WWII brought an end to interest in German Idealism.

As a matter of fact it was mainly WWI but WWII finished the job. And in place of Kant and Hegel you got a host of  vacuous philosophies of the twentieth century.  

The reason was that the connection between philosophy and politics  is non trivial.

On the other hand, I think this is somewhat tragic since Kant was  the best thing that happened in philosophy ever since Aristotle and Plotinus. But in fact when it comes to politics, philosophy  is weak.
Starting from Plato, philosophers have come up with one ridiculous scheme after the other when it comes to politics and in understanding human nature.

What makes this confusing is that in some cases Hegel and Communism seem still to be functioning like in China. And even in Czarist Russia,  the simple implementation of some kind of Parliament  system [the Duma] did not help any of the problems of WWI nor the civil war.


The best idea in political thought to me still seems to be the Constitution of the USA. Politics and Philosophy seem best to be divided. To come up with a political system based on the best philosophy ends up with the worst system in politics.

The Constitution was based in part on John Locke, but mainly on the English system that had evolved in the 1700's along with a great deal of understanding of ancient systems like Athens and Rome. The Natural Law ideas of Aquinas certainly played a role. But the philosophical element was weak.
And the great effect and force of philosophy in the USA seems to constantly to be directed at undermining the Constitution-- starting from the Frankfurter School at Colombia,- but also including just about every other stream of philosophy.  It is like a great hobby -to throw darts at Christianity and at the Constitution. It is almost as if people get up the morning and wonder: "What can we do today to undermine the Constitution and/or faith."

Appendix: (1) Dr. Michael does not think any state is legitimate. He also favors open borders along with Dr Bryan Caplan. The Frankfurt School is well known to have been plotting the downfall of the USA since its inception.
Socialists on one hand, anarchists on the other. All brilliant philosophers. Where has common sense disappeared to?

(2) To some degree you can see that the Constitution based on a WASP population simply would not have worked in Czarst Russia. But the problem seems to be that people expert in their own field often get so caught u in their own worlds that they cannot see the limits of their ideas when applied  elsewhere. A good example is the war in Vietnam when the presidents of the USA were taking advice of economist on how to wage the war. That was to make it non cost effective for the North Vietnamese. But what works in economics does not necessarily work in governments and politics.

(3) I think getting philosophy right is important. And Kant, and the Kant Friesian School of Dr Ross  go a long way. But Philosophy still seems to have some kind of stumbling block in it when it comes to politics or common sense. [My impression is that Kant, Schopenhauer and Leonard Nelson are somewhat better than Hegel, even though I do not share their complete dismissal of him.]
I am thinking that as much as getting philosophy right, it is just as important to get politics right, and for that I think learning the Federalist Papers should be first priority.

Or perhaps to be more accurate in terms of political theory the best thing is to learn the background of the Constitution which is England in starting from Elizabeth plus John Locke and DeFoe. For starting to learn about the USA Constitution at the time it was written is losing the entire perspective.

Dates on the calendar have a problem.

Dates on the calendar have a problem that I have mentioned before. The reason is there does not seem to be any evidence that the calendar was in place during the period of the geonim. There are letters from the early geonim that have dates that do not correspond the the regular calendar that is in use.
So to say it was established by Hillel II  is false. The earliest record of the calendar is from the time of the later geonim. So it is impossible that Hillel II sanctified all future new moons.  And there is no Gemara which even hints to such an event.
The logical thing to do is simply count the day of the מולד the conjunction as the day of the new moon. That is at least what Tosphot says in Sanhedrin page 10 side b. But you could make a case for the Molad to be the actual date of the new moon from the actual people mentioned in the Gemara over there like R. Elazar who holds if the court sanctifies the new moon on time fine, but if not then anyway they sanctify it from heaven. Also from Rava and Rav Ashi you could make  good case in this direction. But what seems to be the most compelling  about this is that there is nothing else to go by. There is no other calendar,- since the present day one was adopted under false pretenses.

The main reason why this is serious  is things like Passover when the issue of leaven bread is about as serious as it gets.  When most people are still eating leavened bread, it is already 15 days after the Molad.

It is an odd fact about the Ketubah marriage document that sometimes it is written and signed before the actual marriage. If the שטר/document is dated in the day and the wedding takes place at night, the שטר/document is a שטר מוקדם/predated document.



One way that it might be OK is the fact that a קניין סודר acquisition made by handing over a handkerchief . So perhaps the obligations start right  then and there even though the actual marriage does not take place until the evening.
The trouble is what makes the obligations is the marriage.



Otherwise a  שטר מוקדם [document that has a date before the actual acquisition was made.] is straight forward not valid.

[This I think happens in the summer when days are long and the wedding might be called for 7:30 P.M., but then the wedding does not take place until an hour later. In NY 730 is still daytime.

One way to get out of this problem is to in fact have the date on the document the next day [which starts at night]. Also an important fact  to know is that a  כתב יד [hand written] obligates. That is even if the actual Ketubah is not valid because of the above mentioned problem, one can always just write on any scrap of paper, that he is obligated to pay the מאתיים זוז [the two hundred zuz] to his wife and have the date. This in fact seems a lot better than a Ketubah written by someone else because of  a number of problems that exist in the regular document. Another thing might be simply to write the regular document himself. [or just print the regular version and put in the names by your own handwriting.]

The fact that a כתב יד [hand written by the person himself] is much better that a שטר written by a scribe also is relevant to Gitin. 

U-69 D Major

u-69 midi file 

u-69 in nwc format

Serving in the IDF {Israeli Defense Force}. "Your brothers will go to war and you will sit here?"

Serving in the IDF {Israeli Defense Force} to me seems to be a great thing and also an obligation. Not just from the Gemara which makes it clear but also from the Old Testament. One place you can see this is in the Five Books Of Moses when Moses gathered troops together to fight Og and Sihon
But also many places in the Old Testament. One striking example is in Judges 12 when the tribe of Ephraim  were upset with Jephthah that he did not draft them. He went to war without drafting them into his army. So they threatened to burn down Jephtah's home and Jephtah went to war with them. --all because of the sin that he did not demand that they join his army.

From a simply legal point of view, there is no question that for מלחמת מצווה [a war of defense] one drafts even a bridegroom and bride out the the marital bed.

אחיכם יעלו למלחמה ואתם תשבו פה? Moses asked the tribes that wanted to stay on the other side of he Jordan river, "Your brothers will go to war and you will sit here?"
And Moses went on to say further that if the would not go to war and by that weaken the resolve of their brothers, then God would leave them all in the wilderness and they would destroy the entire people.[Numbers 32:6 is the start of the whole idea.]

In the Gemara a difference is made concerning community projects like digging outside the walls of the city and local taxes for which people that are involved in learning Torah are not obligated and between defense for which they are obligated.  [See the relevant Gemaras in Bava Metzia and Bava Batra. The Gemara makes does say people that are sitting and learning Torah do not have to go out to dig ditches nor pay taxes but it makes no exceptions concerning a defensive war.]

The Book of Nehemiah also has an account of people that lived in Israel and did whatever they could to stop the return of the People of Israel back to the Land of Israel and to prevent the building of the walls and the Temple. So it is no surprise that the reincarnation of those same wicked men exist today. The builders of the walls in fact had to build with their tools in one hand and their weapons in the other because of the wicked men that were trying to prevent the return of the people of Israel back to the promised Land.

Thus the fact that many people in the Land Israel give comfort and support to the enemies of  Israel really ought to be considered as treason and they ought to be expelled from the land.

trust in God

I certainly never got the trust in God (Bitahon) subject straightened out. I never knew [nor  know now] when it is proper to trust in God and when it is proper to make some effort. Even learning the two books of Musar that deal with this subject [חובות לבבות ומדרגת האדם] never helped me much in getting the subject straightened out in my own mind.
I assume the reason is the "need to know" thing that you have in the USA Military. This is one area where free will has to play a role and therefore it is left ambiguous.

In the Mir in NY they get a certain stipend from the government. And that much I got when I was married and part of the Mir Yeshiva  group of married guys that received that stipend.
I learned before I was married that people supplement that stipend in different ways.  In any case, after  a short time, I was invited to join the group in Meor Haim in Safed.

But the subject still remains fuzzy in my own mind. From what I can tell, if one can receive that stipend that the State of Israel offers, and just sit and learn, that is the best idea. Running around for money just does not seem like a great way to spend time when one can be learning Torah. There is also what I think is a somewhat better idea;- to be part of the kind of yeshivas that are coordinated with the State of Israel in such a way that one learns Torah for a few years, and then serves in the IDF for a year, and then back to learning. Back and forth. 

John Locke

The basic idea of John Locke about natural rights is not spelled out as clearly as one might expect in the Two Treaties of Government. But from the general approach he takes in most of his writings, you can see the basic idea. That man in a state of nature possesses all his rights.  But he is vulnerable. Without the State, he in effect has no rights because any criminal can come along and take what he wants from him. Without a state we would all we vulnerable to the very worst criminals--and the most evil and most violent would have all the power. So in order to form a state, we give up some natural rights. We pay taxes. And limit our activities to things that will not hurt others and we obey the law.
So to John Locke rights are not made by the state. People have natural rights that the State is there to protect. It is subtle and you do not see it clearly in the Two Treaties.

The right to self protection is therefore not made by the state. It is a natural right that no one gives up.

[There are problems however with the social contract theory as Danny Frederick pointed out. John Locke works better with a consequential theory that goes according to the lines of the Rambam. That most of the commandments including the one to have  a king are consequential. Their purpose is to bring to peace of the state.]

To continue in this same  line of reasoning Karl Popper pointed out that the best way to evaluate a system is to see the natural consequences of the system. Not to look to see how well it can be defended by logic. But the thing is that any system has already been tried. You never have to evaluate what would be the natural consequences of the system. All you need to do is to look at what were in fact the actual consequences that actually happened. That idea cancels almost any social system I can think of except the Constitution of the USA.

[I have noticed that German and English thought seem to excel in different areas.That is the English in the 1600 and 1700 set the foundations of the kind of thinking that created the USA. While German thought seems very weak in politics but gets to amazing depth in the natural sciences and in philosophy. Thus it seems to me when it comes to politics it is a good idea to read the English authors of the 1600's and 1700's. In fact there is no understanding of the USA Constitution without knowledge of the Glorious Revolution in England and John Locke and Defoe.