When communism is brought up, someone has to blame Hegel.

On one hand almost invariably when ever communism is brought up, someone has to blame Hegel.  Not that he was a communist, but clearly a capitalist. See his Philosophy of Right and his views about private property. But the reason he gets blamed is because the individual gets meaning only by being part of a larger group. However there is no freedom for the individual without the state. 

However I think he was trying to get to freedom for the individual without the craziness  and reign of terror of the French Revolution. And in fact looking at the kings of Prussia during that period do show them on the side of a liberal Constitution.

What the situation in Germany was lacking I think was people like Alexander Hamilton and James Madison whose forte was how to frame a political question and how to answer it with a just Constitution. That simply was not the forte of Hegel nor Kant.

See Walter Kaufman on Hegel.

I would suggest to blame Marx and Communism all you want, but leave Hegel alone. In fact. it could be that allowing the communists to hijack Hegel, is what gave them the small amount of credibility that they had. After all it could not have been simple to convince the average peasant in a Russian village that the success of the more well to do peasants was all because they had stolen it from the less successful.Just the opposite --to anyone living in a village or small Russian town it is clear where the prosperity comes from--the few smart peasants that bring in all the business..It is always just the few who are the big producers. So the Marxists had to use word play to convince the poor peasants to murder the wealthy peasant and steal his property and rape his daughters, and do it in name of social justice.

[Is it possible, I might suggest that communists took a hitch hiked with Hegel on some issues because he was the best thing out there?]

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to betray those that do the most good to us

 It is not just that people have a evil inclination [yezer hara]. Rather people have a very specific yezer hara--to betray those that do the most good to us and we owe the greatest gratitude. Not just lack of gratitude but even to do positive harm to those that have helped us the most. So while there are all kinds of yezer hara, this one seems to me to be the worst of all

[You can see examples with the hatred of people towards the USA, when according to their enlightened views they might have done better by staying in Somalia. Instead they come to the USA to turn us into another Somalia. [which recently blamed whites for not staying there and teaching them how to run an economy. Or course it is hard to blame the whites for leaving since they were being murdered.]

Another example is fathers who are by default the arch villain in the minds of most people. Again the same reason--to repay good with evil. 

I am no prophet, but I can say with some degree of confidence that this can not end well. There is a Judge and justice. People that betray those that have done the most for them will almost certainly not end well.

Can communists take over America?

To me it seems depend on one thing. If people can believe promises of everything for free without being aware of what is planned to make everything free. I mean there are enough examples of communism to provide evidence whether the promises of utopia becomes real.

Plus there is the slight inconvenient fact that communists think only the "rich" will lose all their money. They are not thinking that they themselves will no longer have private property, but will live where the State assigns them to live, and will work at what the State assigns to them to work at.

But the trouble is Americans believe in something only after seeing it on the internet. Since the main sites are Communist, how is there any chance of correction? 

"You were shown to know that the Lord is God, there is none other besides Him."

 אתה הראתה לדעת כי השם הוא האלוהים אין עוד מלבדו מאי אין עוד מלבדו אפילו כשפים

 "You were shown to know that the Lord is God, there is none other besides Him."

The simple idea of the verse is there are no other gods besides God, -not that nothing exists besides God. 

The sages ask in tractate Shabat "What does it mean 'there is none other besides Him?' Even magic"

You would imagine that if the point of the verse was to tell us that nothing exists besides God, this would have been the perfect place for the sages to tell us this. Instead they explain that there are no other spiritual forces--even magic.

The truth be told, monotheism was always the faith of the Torah. That God created everything something from nothing. (And he is other than the world. He is not the same thing as the world.])That is not to say nothing exists besides God.  

[To all Rishonim [medieval authorities], Monotheism is assumed. That is that God made the world something from nothing, and that he is totally "other" that this world.] 

In tractate Avoda Zara 41:b

Almost anything can be an idol. Even though pictures are permitted to make that does not mean that a picture can not be made into an idol. However baseball cards do not count as idolatry. There has to be the idea that by worship of the object of idolatry that that object can save or help one.

You see this really in the Tosephta on Sanhedrin. [Or at least that is where I first saw this idea.]

But stated clearly you have to see the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach in laws of idolatry 7:1.

So here I want to introduce that subject.

In tractate Avoda Zara 41:b. R.Yochanan said: an  idol that broke by itself [e.g fell down in an earthquake] is still forbidden [to use, as e.g. to sell the pieces]] Reish Lakish said it is permitted. The Gemara asks from the mishna R Yose said a person can take an idol and crush it and throw it to the winds. The sages said "but then one might end up using the dust. and the verse says "So that nothing will stick to your hands from it". So why the gemara asks is this any different from an idol that broke by itself? (and we see the sages forbid it.)

The Gemara answers [for Reish Lakish] from Rava: it is a gezara (decree) because as he is  crushing it he might pick it up and then he owns it an a Israeli can not nullify his own idol.

The Ritva asks the same question applies to R Yochanan since on page 43 we see he makes a distinction between when the idolater gives up from just the monetary worth of the idol or also from the prohibition.

To the Gemara, even R Yochanan would agree that if the idolater gave up on both, then the idol that broke by itself is permitted in use [as e.g. to sell the pieces].

The Ritva [a later rishon after Tosphot] answer the case of the idol that broke by itself is different for the idolater does not know yet that it broke. For it to be permitted there has to be knowledge that it broke and became worthless. [The point is that the question of the gemara on Reish Lakish  would not apply to R Yochanan- Because to R Yochanan for the idol to be permitted in use the idolator has to be aware that it broke.]

Rav Shach in the Avi Ezri asks this same point ought to apply to Reish Lakish also. And his answer is the very point I made up above. To both Reish Lakish and R Yochanan an idol that can not save itself is not an idol. For the very essence of idolatry is the thought that people have of it that it can help. Onnce it is broken it automatically loses that category. But R Yochana requires at least an act of nullification.

[Even though it is still unclear to me where this idea comes from. I mean I have heard of requiring an act of "bitul" nullification but I am not sure where you see this here in R Yochanan. I am sure my learning partner David Bronson would be puzzling about this point maybe for weeks on end-unless an answer could be found.]

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