second amendment

Gun rights and natural law

There is a lot of material on natural law. Though the start of it being stated explicitly began with Saadia Gaon.  Still the basic idea in the Constitution itself seems clear from two angles. One is the grammar of the second amendment. In grammar, the prefatory clause [being that] is subordinate to the main clause [therefore]. Second of all, the 9th amendment makes it clear that there are natural rights that the Constitution does not cover, and it limits the power of government to infringe on those rights. Though not tied openly to the second amendment, the implication is clear that natural law and natural rights are the underlying structure.

Gun rights in England were made clear by the Bill of Rights in 1689: Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law. But the USA Constitution, while depending  a lot on England for the basic ideas, is still different in particulars. 

[The whole thing began with King Alfred, but the more modern problem was with King James the Second who used the militia to collect taxes. James the Second was removed peacefully and thus came the Bill of Rights of 1689.]


In any case, I just can not see this working in Ukraine. The trouble is that different kinds of people make this whole thing improbable. See Sapolsky about DNA [at Stanford University]. 

There is a kind of similarity in witch trials in Salem and accusations of sexual harassment in the USA. Just the fact of being accused is the same as being convicted.  One can perhaps trace this to the Puritan roots of the USA. But to me it seems to be already mentioned in the Gemara itself: "Lashon hara [slander], if it does not convince completely, at least it does so by half." And this dynamic seems to be a regular human trait --nothing to do with Puritans. Just accuse someone you do not like of some dastardly, wicked deed, and you already get at least half of what you want. There is no loss.  You get everything or half. But you do not lose anything--[at least at first]. Eventually, the ball  bounces back.

[The trouble of tracing this to the Puritans is that you find it enough in England and on the Continent to suggest it was more wide spread.] 

The problem of Reb Nahman is that he has advice and ideas that are amazingly insightful, and yet the observation of many is that people that get involve in Breslov lose the desire to learn Torah, and often seem to go off on awkward tangents.
You can try to answer this question in different ways, by ignoring it, or denying the reality of the situation.
It is like the Mind-Body problem that seems to defy solution.

The great Litvak roshei yeshiva seemed to have dealt with this problem in a uniform way. They always refused the option of considering Reb Nahman anything but a great tzadik. Yet as for the issues that I have raised, they said, "It is high things." That is: too high for them to deal with. It was thought to be outside their ares of expertise. That is what I myself heard from Reb Shmuel Berenbaum of the Mir in NY, and also Rav Montag in Netivot in Israel and also Rav Issahar Meir the friend of Bava Sali and rosh yeshiva of the Yehivat HaNegev and that whole group of yeshivas that were started by Rav Issahar Meir.

In general the way it became clear to me that Lithuanian roshei yeshiva are strongly pro-Reb Nahman was that I would usually approach them trying hard to get some kind of negative comment about Reb Nahman. Any slight criticism, anything at all. But no matter how hard I tried I could never get any of them to utter the slightest negative comment about Reb Nahman.

U-86 B Flat Major I have no ear phones and so I do not really know how this sounds. Also I use a new app Zamzar.com which coverts midi to mp3 in  in different ways than the converter from google.
So if this sounds OK to you, I am pleased.

Reb Moshe and Reb Aaron Kotler were both of the opinion that דינא דמלכותא דינא "the law of the state is the law"

In the USA there are insane people that hate you if you say one nice word about Israel. Better to avoid the subject. As for the actual subject of the army [IDF]  the idea is if people enjoy a certain benefit from the State -[for example their lives which they would lose if the Arabs would attack]-they ought to contribute.
When I was at the Mir in NY and making preparations to make alyia [go to Israel] I was made aware of this and all the more so in Israel itself. The whole anti Israel thing is really a kind of antisemitism.
The whole anti Israel thing seems  like a mistake. But still I swallowed the view because that s what I thought I was supposed to think. It was only very much later that I saw Reb Moshe and Reb Aaron Kotler were both of the opinion that דינא דמלכותא דינא "the law of the state is the law" that I began to open my eyes.  [The view of Reb Aaron I saw in the introduction to a sort of Musar book that he wrote. The view of Reb Moshe I forget where I saw it.]

Their view of course is not as positive as others that consider Israel the fulfillment on ancient prophecy. But one way or the other, in terms of Torah, serving in the IDF is a good deed and also an obligation.

forms of totalitarian systems

Karl Popper hated all forms of totalitarian systems. That is great. But his blaming Hegel seems misplaced. The reason he blamed Hegel is fairly clear that he was depending on the Scribner’s Hegel Selections [and Gans’s additions]. But furthermore in fact the communists made a very big deal out of Hegel even though they specifically repudiated him.  But still they found in his writing someone that they felt they needed to fight and repudiate.
Still what is sad about this is that Hegel does seem to have a lot of good ideas.
If you hate socialism-which is a proper approach as we learned from Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge and more recently Venezuela, still it makes little sense to blame Hegel. Why not blame Socialism itself?

In an case, philosophy and politics seem to be separate. Hegel and Plato both seem to have been trying to get too much out of their ideas.  It seems that when philosophers step into politics they misstep and overstep. I think in terms of politics the founding fathers of the USA saw a lot further than any philosophers.


There is a moral aspect to politics. To advocate socialism has an aspect to it that is not moral. That is even if you do not do it yourself, but if you recommend to others to deprive people of their property, that is like אבק גזילה [the dust of theft.] If you vote for such a thing that also has a aspect to it of stealing other people's property.  Even though you do not do it yourself, but to use you vote to empower the government to steal also is אבק גזילה the dust of theft. [We find this concept in the Talmud. Some things are not slander but אבק לשון הרע the dust of slander, and some things are not forbidden relations but אבק עריות the dust of forbidden relations.]

Dr Kelley Ross of the Kant Fries School] and Michael Huemer do not think much of Hegel. And I am not one to stand between giants. But to me it looks like Hegel, the Kant Friesian School and also Michael Huemer have good points. Just for one example:Michael Huemer noted that Hume's limitation of what we can know a priori is not true. Hume just assumes that all that can be known without observation is what can be derived from definitions. Hume states this over and over again without any proof or argument. And there is no reason to belive it is true. But still that does not invalidate kant of Hegel. since there is still a different kind of thinking that goes into a priori knowledge than what you can know from induction.

I might add that for some reason or other the only people that seem to pay attension to the Kant Fries School are in Poland [and maybe some in Germany]. I get the impression that for most people that are interested in Kant go with the Neo Kant School of Marburg and Herman Cohen. However, to me it seems to Friesian school is better.

low class people

Hanging out with low class people [in terms of "Midot" that is traits like honesty, compassion etc] tend to damage one's own traits. I have definitely not been careful about this myself partly as  result of naivety, and partly because in the USA it is considered that all people are equal. So I did really not get an idea of dividing people by traits.
But for myself, now I can see in retrospect that it should have been easy to identify groups that I could have avoided by simply being aware of the difference between groups that excel in traits and those that do not. The difference is obvious if you look for it.

That is to say I see "midot tovot" [That is what is called "being a mensch"] as being the main key to Gan Eden. Another way to look at this is simply to fulfill the Ten Commandments.
However the Rambam did add to this in הלכות תשובה that one's portion in the next world also depends on his wisdom.