My parents were full hearted Americans. They believed in the American system totally. True Justice and the American way.  What you earn, you keep. There was in those days n concept that everyone had to have the same amount of money as there is nowadays.

But even with wide variations of what the USA is, they always believed in it. 

This is in stark contrast to their attitude towards the religious world. Though they never expressed this, still it was clear they thought then religious world is highly corrupt and unjust--as is in fact the case. 

So while they believed in Torah fully, they did not think the religious world has any actual connection with Torah.

I however felt there was and is true Torah in the Litvak world of the Mir and Shar Yashuv in NY and Ponovitch in Bnei Brak. Still even the Litvak approach is not perfect. Often a few rotten apples ruin the whole bushel.

[Nowadays with Socialism the direction of the USA, my parents might have second thoughts. 

I also agree fully with my parents. There is something about the founding fathers and the Constitution of the USA which is so remarkable one has to classify the USA as one of the greatest wonders of the ages.--a model of freedom and justice for all. If anything comes anywhere close to the ideal of "peace of the stare [shalom hamedina] " it is the Constituation of the USA. []Peace of the state is one of the goals of the commandments of the Torah as you can look this up in the Guide for the Perplexed of the Rambam and Sefer HaHinuch

z27 D minor  [It is midi. I can not convert to mp3 anymore.] 

My dad never talked about his work at home--ever. The only reason I was at his lab at TRW was because I expressed always great interest in his work and his service in the USAF.

 LLGT satellites

The regular radio way of communication is by having waves superimposed on a radio wave. 

The idea of laser communication is to have your messages superimposed on a laser frequency wave.

This is already the means by which you have relays communication for the internet.

And this is going to be the prime method of communication when mankind starts to colonize the Solar System. 

So while I realize that there were some things my dad worked on in collaboration with many other great people [like the U-2 camera]. But there were things that were his sole ideas and inventions. One of course is the Infrared Telescope as detailed in Life Magazine.

And I know he was the chief inventor of laser communication at TRW. I actually saw the laser and that was his lab. Not a joint lab. So what was the story after that? Well, TRW was infiltrated by the KGB. When the mole that was stealing the technology was discovered obviously TRW was not going to get any more government contracts. My dad left it and the company because an auto compony until the 1990's when they were rehabilitated. In the meantime what ever they were working on was all sold to the aerospace company and NASA.

My dad never talked about his work at home--ever. The only reason I was at his lab at TRW was because I expressed always great interest in his work and his service in the USAF. And I probably would still not bring this up if not for the fact that I have heard of others claiming credit for his inventions.

Hegel only published four books

Hegel only published four books even though there were plenty of notes that his students took down at his lectures. The only one of these that I read from the beginning to end was the later Logic. [That is the part of Logic in his Encyclopedia.] While I am no expert, still I had the distinct impression of his approach to be simply a post Kantian Plotinus  --that is simply Neo Platonic philosophy, but taking the three critiques of Kant into account. That is that there is the One , then the Logos, then the physical universe of Being.

 I was happy to see Cunningham agree with me.

But I also can see a lot of merit in the later Kantian approach of Kelley Ross who bases his approach on Fries and Leonard Nelson. He however does modify Fries and Nelson--taking just the best aspects of their approach to build his own system.  [Dr Ross does mention that Nelson made some improvements on Fries and I have to say that I believe that Ross made improvements on Nelson.] [Robert Hanna has an idea of "Forward to Kant", but I think that the Friesian school is an improvement on Kant.] [I should mention that interest in Fries has been a lot more in Russia than in the West. [Fries' book were published from 1967 to 2011. Nelson's from 1970 -1977.]

And while seeing the differences between these two schools, I do not see the big differences. There is of course the "immediate non intuitive issue." But I do not think the differences are as great as either school of thought thinks. [Walter Kaufman wrote a nice piece  on Hegel which I think relates to this issue.] 

Dr Ross is basically a Platonist. That is Plato after the Critique. Hegel is basically Plotinus [ie neo Platonic after the Critique.]

[I might add here that the Chovot Levavot and the rishonim go with Plotinus as you can see in all Musar books up to and including the Ramchal. And thought the Rambam was leaning towards Aristotle, still you can much of the influence of Plotinus in him also. [Besides that the Ari and the Ramchal and Rav Avraham Abulafia all are going with Plotinus--Neo Platonism. But you can see a slight variation on this in Rav Shalom Sharabi [the mystic from Yemen who made his way to Jerusalem.] He holds the order of the higher worlds starts out like Plato [all the higher levels are above. That is vertical.] but in the future they wll be like Aristotle--all the higher levels with be in things --horizontal]

The Musar movement [and in a wider context the Litvak Yeshiva] has the advantage of representing authentic Torah.

 There is reality behind the words of the books of Musar of the disciples of Israel Salanter. It is nor the words of their books, but rather there is the reality behind the words. As the Roman saying goes: "Acta non verba" (Actions, not words). When I learn or hear the Or Israel or Madragat HaAdam there is some aspect of fear of God or trust in God that enters my soul. The reason is that these people  worked themselves to come to fear of God and trust in God. 

The Musar movement [and in a wider context the Litvak Yeshiva] has the advantage of representing authentic Torah. Not just intellectually, but rather in the whole spirit of Torah that permeates the Litvak yeshiva. The rest of the religious world seems very false to me. The façade of Torah, the whole showing off is very foreign to Torah. But more so. It is like the pig that stretches out its hoofs to show that it is kosher, but hides that fact that it des not chew the cud. Or like the idol that was dug up on Mount Grizim which showed that the Samaritans were in fact serving idols. But it was hidden. 

China stealing proprietary secrets that is troublesome.

 The feat of the rover of China that landed on Mars and deployed successfully would be more impressive if the feat had been accomplished without stealing American technology. Or at least they might have mentioned their gratitude to the USA for much technology that was transferred legally to them, and also they might be upfront and say openly they hold from the Marxist doctrine that there is no such thing as copy rights or rights of a capitalistic country as to withhold their secrets from China. After all to a Marxists private property is theft by definition. But at least an acknowledgement of gratitude might make sense, Thus they hold stealing from the USA is a virtue. So why should they be embarrassed? They should be proud that they stole.

Elon Musk acknowledged his debt to Russian designs for the raptor engine. At least giving credit where credit is due.[Even though he did not seal anything. Rather it is the theft aspect of the China stealing proprietary secrets that is troublesome.

 normalization of deviance. That is something that creeps into  straight Torah that should not. That is something that hitchhikes off of real Torah. That is the reason the Gra signed his name on the famous letter of excommunication in order not to let any trace of the Sitra Achra [Dark Side] have a foothold in Torah. You might be aware of it and yet you get used to it. You get to even expect it. Then one day it comes back to bite you. That is we need vigilance to keep out the Sitra Achra in the first place