I worry more about the Anglosphere. We are all devolving into authoritarian madness. The Antipodes being the worst but Britain and Canada are deeply troubling, as well. Perhaps all due to the bacillus of leftism imported from the US.
Trudeau would have us believe that everything wrong in Canada is because we have become populist Trumpers. In fact it is Justin Trudeau who is destroying Canada with his woke beliefs and actions.
I think much has been imported from the US with great enthusiasm. It is why Tom Owolade wrote his book This is Not America: Black Lives Matter in Britain, for example, explaining that the experiences are different and not necessarily analogous.
But the authoritarian madness is certainly there and currently does seem to go hand in hand (as it often does) with antisemitism.
Britain's relationship with Israel has always been slightly different than the US's in part because it was the British Mandate in Palestine which the various Jewish groups targeted in 1947/8. A friend's father was injured at the King David Hotel, for example. However peace was made a long time ago.
Having familiarity with the scriptural prophecies involved, I was not surprised or disillusioned. Disgusted, yes.
As a teenager, I thought it was impossible that the U.S. would be among "all the nations" turning against Israel. Having seen the antisemitism building on the Left for over a decade, it now seems inevitable.
I live in hope that it doesn't happen and that the realisation of what is at stake causes the US to pull back from the brink.
Having read Israelophobia, I think you have to go back further -- it has been building since the 1960's, particularly when the USSR decided that it was the way to go. Of course Stalin had supported the Jewish quest for a homeland with arms as he hoped to influence the state but there was a strain of severe antisemitism which seeped over, intermingled, and cross-pollinated with the pan-Arab antisemitism, resulting in what we have today. And that is before you get the attested antisemitism from the Nation of Islam under Farrakhan leadership. Thomas Sowell had an interesting argument about the role of ethnic minority middlemen in his essay 'Are Jews Generic?' which I almost did not read due to the title but did find hugely interesting when I decided to.
You're right that it started in the '60s. I was a student in Bologna, Italy (a communist party governed city) in 1969 and working with the local radical groups to organize demonstrations against the Vietnam war. But it became obvious very quickly that all they were interested in was Palestine and "Israeli colonialism".
I once thought of Jewish friends and relations moving to Israel as a puzzling act. I looked around and thought things were swell in the U.S., and it made no sense to me. It was as if someone had inherited an ancient family seat in another city, a property that had great emotional and historical value, but which was located in a neighborhood that had become unsafe, a view that's a combination of strong risk aversion and native hedonism. October 7 actually confirmed that thinking. It was Oct. 8, and the reactions we've been seeing here, that changed my perspective.
Yes extremely key. How this was accomplished and the various research into in/out groups etc which enabled it to happen and why it was far more than the 1950s reparations deal that Germany did with Israel is hugely important.
Isn’t it ironic that the only people who seem to have moral clarity on this issue here in the US are the uneducated rubes in the parts of America that have been ridiculed by by the elites, both here are in Europe? Hopefully we can learn from this and resurrect those Middle American values here, and their counterparts in Europe, and end the experiment in multicultural equivalency that has led us down this path to Hell.
Societies in the West, after giving so much to humanity, have been infected by a cultural disease. Maybe this event was a symptom that finally becomes obvious to all and a cure will emerge from it.
I have moral clarity on this issue and I am a lifelong Dem with multiple graduate degrees. My adult children have clarity and they are college graduates.
Most Democrats who aren't far Left have moral clarity. The ones who think with their hearts have been swayed by the propaganda that is so bad, you can clearly see that the dead "baby" one wailing Palestinian woman is holding is a doll.
Even supposedly smart people aren't using their brains.
I think the one thing we have learned in the last few years is not to confuse a college degree with intelligence. While moderate, educated D’s like you and your children may see this issue clearly, has it caused you to reevaluate any other issues from the past? Do you see anything else differently now? If most of the left is wrong on this, might they have been wrong on a few other things as well? Also please consider that if you and your adult children got your degrees 20+ years ago, maybe it’s a different educational experience now.
My children are in their 20s, so not too long ago. I have had an issue with the gender nonsense for the past few years. Biden signed the "Equality Act" day one and lost my vote. I was politically homeless until RFK Jr. came along. He is an old time liberal, which to me means critical thinking, sensible lawmaking and stepping in to right moral wrongs. Most Dems have lost me with their nonsense.
Please consider the R's. There are many rooms in our house and we seem to be more open to internal strife and discourse, which sometimes works to our advantage and disadvantage. I know Trump is a hard personality to swallow, but his policies actually fit in with JFK, Truman, etc. LBJ was not exactly Mother Teresa either. I am not a Trumpist. The more moderate D's who make the jump to R, the more balanced the R party will become. The D party is hopeless now. I find the R's more practical. They are just seeking solutions to problems. RFK, Jr. would fit into a wing of the R's. On many issues, he is in synch with Rand Paul.
Or wait till 2028. But if we have another D administration in 2024 they may burrow themselves so deeply that the US turns into California or NYC. A one party country.
It may sound counterintuitive but even a Trump administration would move the needle back to normal compared to what we have now.
RFK, based on what he has said and written in the past, is farther left than the impression he is leaving. He is a third party candidate, however, and they never win.
Look, I am going to say this to you (and to Bari and Suzy) and other sane Ds out there. If you want to stop the country from an irreversible slide into becoming the North American Soviet Socialist Republic, you must vote Republican. Even if that means Trump.
If he is assassinated, you are looking at a civil war and a breakup of the country. And while we are fighting our civil war, the rest of the world will go to complete hell, with Iran, Russia and China having a free hand.
I have moral clarity because I fully embrace the Decalogue as well as the New Covenant. Did you know you can never love God too much? But everything else in this world, if you love it too much, it can harm you. Our political division’s & divisiveness does not allow the Gospels to be heard by those that need it most. Seek a Transcendent Good and anti-sematism melts in it face
Not everyone has received the gift of faith. I wish I had but I haven't. There must be a way to individual everyday morality without having received that gift.
Hey Philly Guy, New Atheists and their cousins before them have been seeking morality in the absence of faith since the Enlightenment, and I'd argue without great success. This will be unpopular view by some, but I believe every human being has been granted the gift of Salvation, it's a matter of being exposed to the Gospels and examining one's very heart. Did you know that ancient Jews were so afraid of taking God's name in vain, that they simply stopped uttering the word 'YHWY'? For centuries and centuries, they would not say this name aloud. YHWY literally is translated as 'God' to Israelites. It was not until the New Covenant arrived did this name get uttered again as 'Yehosua' (Jesus) which translates as 'YHWY is Salvation'. There is massive healing power in the very name of Jesus. It transcends all our differences.
My son came home shortly after Oct 7. He frowned and asked me why I was wearing my Star of David. Like many of his lefty friends—I used to be one but no longer==he started spouting off about the poor Palestinians. I had to ream him a new one. I told him about the cross burned on my family’s lawn in 1963 when I was nine years old, and having “kike” written on our sidewalk. He was chastened for sure but I think there is still some educating to be done.
They are just responding to peer pressure from their nonthinking friends.
I asked my son in law why he isn't calling on Hamas to release the hostages and stop sending bombs over? He is getting captured by this, although my own children know better to believe propaganda.
When one is cued to see everyone weaker as good and everyone stronger as good, this is the result.
That is so sad. My wife and I are nervous because we have youngish relatives visiting soon from California and staying with us. We are going to try to avoid political discussions. I don't know what we will do if they are unavoidable though.
The thing is, I love them deeply. If I didn't, it wouldn't hurt so much to see them siding with *literal* Nazis and excusing rape, torture, and murder. They were taught right from wrong and strong classical liberal values in our home, but they've been caught up in the Woke values of their social groups.
I think there comes a point where kids can simply go beyond the pale. In short, they become evil. Obviously, you don't yet consider your kids evil, but when they disagree with you on the most fundamental issue of all - one's right to defend one's self and stay alive - perhaps the differences ARE irreconcilable.
The Free Press is my daily read for sanity in this world. Without your words I would feel lost in the morass of insanity. The words from much of the mainstream press truly exemplify Houellebecq's novel(?) Submission. I read it early on, but truly I didn't believe the world could be that insane. Now we see it.
For decades we were taught - and believed - that "NEVER AGAIN" meant something. Now we know - with a searing and awful realization - that the people who mouthed those words are nothing but cowards and scoundrels. This is not a time for being "nice." It is time to take a stand. To treat these temporizing cowards with the scorn and disgust they deserve. If you can't stand proudly with the people of Israel - against the depravity of the barbarians - you need to look in a mirror and contemplate the meaning of shame.
It's worth noting the NSDAP--National Socialist German Worker's Party--was by any reasonable perspective not right wing. Right and left "wings" come from the French Revolution, and the right was Monarchists of some stripe or other. The middle was people who were recognizably Liberal. And the Left was where the murderous sociopaths sat.
No ideology which rejects the Church, traditional aristocratic forms of power, and traditional social hierarchies is right wing in any sense. And to state the obvious, Nazism was indifferent to social class. Most German elites in fact hated Hitler, if memory serves; and he himself, of course, was "the Corporal".
The Nazis WERE very, very much opposed to the Bolsheviks, but not because they were not a Collectivist ideology using totalitarian methods to impose Identity politics and define all people by the group into which they were born. That's very much what they did.
And of course it's very much what today's Collectivist Totalitarians do also. Morphologically, in belief and action, they are Nazis.
The antidote to Collectivism is Individualism. A focus on individual rights and individual opinions is inherenlty inimical to mobs and Mobthink. Individualism is in fact the only good solution humankind has ever come up with to deal with the Tribalism that has both comforted and afflicted the human race far back into the mists of what remains unwritten.
So, logically, anyone speaking in general terms about groups and the characteristics of groups, is dealing in some form of bigotry and prejudice. Period. And anyone dealing in mass bigotry and prejudice is ALWAYS going to resort to violence whenever anyone starts reacting in defensive ways to their aggressions.
Yes, thank you. The association of Nazis with the conservative right in America is absurd, but the Marxist members of the Frankfort school created that myth decades ago and it has stuck. They saw the conservative right as “authoritarian” and “narrow minded” and concluded that strong fathers were just American Nazis. (An abbreviated explanation)
Nazism cannot tolerate individualism, independent thought, and belief in God. Even the raising of children was a Nazi thing. Sounds a lot like the American left.
nazis were a lot of things, but they were not reactionary, they were a revolutionary secular movement of hate that believed they were on the right side of history
Not to mention they called it the “National SOCIALIST party.” Fascism is simply socialism mixed with a strong sense of nationalism, but with heavy emphasis on the socialism part.
Wonderfully stated, and I might add that the amount of foreign money that is poured into these universities, with strings attached, should be illegal. The foreign students that are attending our universities on foreign visas, and are demonstrating in support of harming their fellow students, should be deported immediately. The safety of all of our students should be ensured.
MIT was going to suspend students who were involved in something antisemitic but when they found out they would be deported, they just suspended them from social activities.
Islamic immigrants throughout the world have heightened antisemitism and violence in every country they immigrate to. Sorry to say that the statistics back this up. Sweden and other Nordic countries have never had the violence they are currently dealing with.
Everyone must reassess their allies. This article exemplifies that identity politics trump decency and kindness. Where one falls in the pecking order of the identity chart solely determines their worth. Affirmative action is the birthplace of this cancer. More discrimination does not solve discrimination it only leads to death and destruction. DEI must be purged from society along with all other non-meritorious criteria. Character, competence and integrity, CCI, must be the new standard. It promotes fairness while advancing society to equality. That is the goal is it not?
It seems that universities see gray areas in this matter but can’t find any shade other than black and white when it comes to other issues. That’s what strikes me as appalling.
You can get expelled from an Ivy League school for wearing the wrong Halloween costume or saying men shouldn't compete on women's athletic teams. But calling for the genocide of Jewish people is A-OK as long as you don't pull the trigger yourself - according to the Presidents of MIT, Harvard and UPenn. Time to call out these so-called "elite" schools as the total hypocritical idiots they truly are.
So proud of the Penn Trustees for standing up for what Ben Franklin wanted his school to stand for. McGill's testimony on national tv was more chilling than the hoards of young people shouting 'Genocide" on College Green.
Two of my children went to Ivies and Little Ivies. I would cross all of the Ivies off our list today and focus on U of Chicago, Catholic schools like Notre Dame and the new University at Austin. I can't imagine any Jewish students applying to the Ivies and feeling safe.
I do think that the video outraged people, though. It showed so clearly how calling for genocide is OK with these universities but misgendering will get you fired or expelled. The DEI programs have to go and there needs to be more balance in the viewpoints of their leaders.
My son went to St. Andrews in Scotland, and if the university ever took a stand on something outsides of academics I didn't hear about it, nor did he.
However.
My daughter went to Smith. My wife went to Smith. My sister went to Smith.
Until my daughter's junior year I was pretty sure my grand daughter would go to Smith.
But Smith turned into DEI central, before it was even called that.
The atmosphere turned into one where non indoctrinated women felt like they were walking on egg shells all the time lest they transgress with a microaggression or an inappropriate pronoun.
One of the points of Smith and schools like Smith was that women would be free to pursue growth without the effect of attempted male domination and influence. And then Smith willingly replaced that with a much more pernicious mode of domination and influence.
The has got to break at some point - the Smith alumni group has way too many super smart and influential women for this to go on much longer.
Trans women are likely sharing dorm rooms with women at Smith. And all it takes to be trans now is to say it, even though they have all their male parts.
These colleges have been erasing women for several years. Now they are erasing Jews.
I am a Smith alumna from way back and I can tell you that silencing and shaming people and viewpoints was going on when I was there. I am horrified at what the school has become and although I committed to support the Alumnae Association every year, I stopped 15 years ago.
My wife (Haven) and my sister (Baldwin) are class of '90 and '89 respectively. My daughter (Gardiner) is class of '17.
As the black sheep of my family (Dad Princeton, Grandfathers Harvard and Bowdoin) I was on scholarship at UMASS but lived on Green St in NOHO above Onks Pizza.
My wife and I became engaged during the fall of her senior year. Some Smithie was making a documentary film about relationship styles at Smith - we were the trad couple - even then over 30 yrs ago.
My wife and sister loved their time at Smith. As did I, as a plus-one. Our peer group seemed very typical for Smith at that time - really widely varied. Full of people from different backgrounds, everyone was bright, motivated, engaged, clearly going places. It seemed OK to have even fairly heated arguments about issues of politics, race, class, and sexual orientation. Although the tea and chocolate chip cookies at Haven on Friday afternoons was very comforting - it seemed pretty clear - Smithies were supposed to be challenged at Smith, even if that meant hurt feelings.
By the time my daughter got there, all that had changed. Safe spaces, trigger warnings, microaggressions avoidance, and mandatory appropriate pronouns ruled the day. Knowing and having tremendous respect for oodles of Smith Alumni - my wife and I wondered aloud how anyone was supposed to rise to that status in such an impoverished environment.
My daughter was on the honor board and was chosen to be on the task force of board, faculty, alumni, and students that were to recommend if transwomen would be allow to matriculate.
It was very hard getting our daughter not to drink the cool-aid - the pressure was immense.
The outcome was predetermined.
We used to give to Smith, and we still hope to one day give a bench overlooking the pond where we courted - but the Smith of our youth has lost its way - badly. We hope it finds its way back - in about 20 years we'll have granddaughters that will need a place like Smith.
Oh, my...did you bring me back... "You went to Smith!!!...What house?" That immediate question let you know you were talking to a fellow Smithie... I was Albright then Friedman. When I got there I couldn't believe they'd let me in. So many bright, interesting women with whom to have endless conversations over dinner. And the profs...all leftists... but at least they allowed for dissent. I found my empowered female voice there. It hits me like a ton of bricks to see what it's devolved into.
Even U. of Chicago has largely been taken over by the left, and despite their Catholic affiliations, major Catholic Universities, from what I understand, are also highly woke - especially if they have an affiliation with the Jesuits.
What a lot of liberal/leftist Jewish parents might have to consider is sending their kids to schools in red states. They might not like that idea, but faculty lean strongly left even there. But at least the Republican state legislatures tend to hold the radicals in check.
And besides - Auburn has excellent engineering programs - and a Jewish basketball coach. :-)
Even red state universities are not safe. Schools like UNC and Vanderbilt are apparently captured too. Seems like only colleges in FL, Hillsdale, and Brigham Young are not captured. But Brigham Young would not be for right for most people.
I'm not saying these schools are dominated by leftists. But Republican legislatures can use the power of the purse and the power of legislation to rein in their excesses. Right now, NC has a lefty Dem governor.
Remember the Research Triangle area of NC (along with Asheville) are now inhabited primarily by liberal northerners and a lot of Democrat voting Asian immigrants. I am familiar with the area. So yeah, Duke and UNC are loony left, while NC State is somewhat saner.
Thank you for writing this. It is a sad thought that Israel has received an even larger wound since October 7th, than it received that day. That wound has been caused by the rest of the world's pathetic response to an outrageous act of terror, choosing to mumble about moral equivalence, proportionality and the "context." And why? If we are honest with ourselves, it is not from anything other than cowardice. No one is afraid of what Jews will do if we insult them or desert them, but western nations are afraid of the hotheads and extremists among their own muslim populations. Cowardice is never pretty, but this time it is sickening.
A masterpiece of moral clarity.Bravo .
Thank you. Wonderfully clear and I shared the disillusionment.
And to all those who say that ideas can't be defeated on a national level, one should look to post-war Germany for proof that they can be.
I worry more about the Anglosphere. We are all devolving into authoritarian madness. The Antipodes being the worst but Britain and Canada are deeply troubling, as well. Perhaps all due to the bacillus of leftism imported from the US.
Trudeau would have us believe that everything wrong in Canada is because we have become populist Trumpers. In fact it is Justin Trudeau who is destroying Canada with his woke beliefs and actions.
I think much has been imported from the US with great enthusiasm. It is why Tom Owolade wrote his book This is Not America: Black Lives Matter in Britain, for example, explaining that the experiences are different and not necessarily analogous.
But the authoritarian madness is certainly there and currently does seem to go hand in hand (as it often does) with antisemitism.
Britain's relationship with Israel has always been slightly different than the US's in part because it was the British Mandate in Palestine which the various Jewish groups targeted in 1947/8. A friend's father was injured at the King David Hotel, for example. However peace was made a long time ago.
Having familiarity with the scriptural prophecies involved, I was not surprised or disillusioned. Disgusted, yes.
As a teenager, I thought it was impossible that the U.S. would be among "all the nations" turning against Israel. Having seen the antisemitism building on the Left for over a decade, it now seems inevitable.
I live in hope that it doesn't happen and that the realisation of what is at stake causes the US to pull back from the brink.
Having read Israelophobia, I think you have to go back further -- it has been building since the 1960's, particularly when the USSR decided that it was the way to go. Of course Stalin had supported the Jewish quest for a homeland with arms as he hoped to influence the state but there was a strain of severe antisemitism which seeped over, intermingled, and cross-pollinated with the pan-Arab antisemitism, resulting in what we have today. And that is before you get the attested antisemitism from the Nation of Islam under Farrakhan leadership. Thomas Sowell had an interesting argument about the role of ethnic minority middlemen in his essay 'Are Jews Generic?' which I almost did not read due to the title but did find hugely interesting when I decided to.
You're right that it started in the '60s. I was a student in Bologna, Italy (a communist party governed city) in 1969 and working with the local radical groups to organize demonstrations against the Vietnam war. But it became obvious very quickly that all they were interested in was Palestine and "Israeli colonialism".
I once thought of Jewish friends and relations moving to Israel as a puzzling act. I looked around and thought things were swell in the U.S., and it made no sense to me. It was as if someone had inherited an ancient family seat in another city, a property that had great emotional and historical value, but which was located in a neighborhood that had become unsafe, a view that's a combination of strong risk aversion and native hedonism. October 7 actually confirmed that thinking. It was Oct. 8, and the reactions we've been seeing here, that changed my perspective.
The key word here is "post-war."
Yes extremely key. How this was accomplished and the various research into in/out groups etc which enabled it to happen and why it was far more than the 1950s reparations deal that Germany did with Israel is hugely important.
And that required a world war with 40 million lives lost.
Now let's say the quiet part out loud.
This new rise of illiberalism and antisemitism is a direct result of Barack Obama's "Radical Change Now"
Of course you are 100 percent correct. But that is the dirty little secret our msm will never utter out loud.
Are you kidding? If you dare say it you are denounced as a racist.
Barak Obama, the real Manchurian Candidate. Am Yisrael Chai.
Yup! I could not agree with you more.
Isn’t it ironic that the only people who seem to have moral clarity on this issue here in the US are the uneducated rubes in the parts of America that have been ridiculed by by the elites, both here are in Europe? Hopefully we can learn from this and resurrect those Middle American values here, and their counterparts in Europe, and end the experiment in multicultural equivalency that has led us down this path to Hell.
Societies in the West, after giving so much to humanity, have been infected by a cultural disease. Maybe this event was a symptom that finally becomes obvious to all and a cure will emerge from it.
I have moral clarity on this issue and I am a lifelong Dem with multiple graduate degrees. My adult children have clarity and they are college graduates.
Most Democrats who aren't far Left have moral clarity. The ones who think with their hearts have been swayed by the propaganda that is so bad, you can clearly see that the dead "baby" one wailing Palestinian woman is holding is a doll.
Even supposedly smart people aren't using their brains.
I think the one thing we have learned in the last few years is not to confuse a college degree with intelligence. While moderate, educated D’s like you and your children may see this issue clearly, has it caused you to reevaluate any other issues from the past? Do you see anything else differently now? If most of the left is wrong on this, might they have been wrong on a few other things as well? Also please consider that if you and your adult children got your degrees 20+ years ago, maybe it’s a different educational experience now.
My children are in their 20s, so not too long ago. I have had an issue with the gender nonsense for the past few years. Biden signed the "Equality Act" day one and lost my vote. I was politically homeless until RFK Jr. came along. He is an old time liberal, which to me means critical thinking, sensible lawmaking and stepping in to right moral wrongs. Most Dems have lost me with their nonsense.
Please consider the R's. There are many rooms in our house and we seem to be more open to internal strife and discourse, which sometimes works to our advantage and disadvantage. I know Trump is a hard personality to swallow, but his policies actually fit in with JFK, Truman, etc. LBJ was not exactly Mother Teresa either. I am not a Trumpist. The more moderate D's who make the jump to R, the more balanced the R party will become. The D party is hopeless now. I find the R's more practical. They are just seeking solutions to problems. RFK, Jr. would fit into a wing of the R's. On many issues, he is in synch with Rand Paul.
The only answer for Dems to move to the R party is Nikki Haley.
Or wait till 2028. But if we have another D administration in 2024 they may burrow themselves so deeply that the US turns into California or NYC. A one party country.
It may sound counterintuitive but even a Trump administration would move the needle back to normal compared to what we have now.
That is an interesting approach. Recruiting moderate Dems to save (or strengthen) the Republican party.
More like to simply save our country from the brink of insanity.
RFK, based on what he has said and written in the past, is farther left than the impression he is leaving. He is a third party candidate, however, and they never win.
Look, I am going to say this to you (and to Bari and Suzy) and other sane Ds out there. If you want to stop the country from an irreversible slide into becoming the North American Soviet Socialist Republic, you must vote Republican. Even if that means Trump.
Actually, ESPECIALLY if that means Trump.
Unbelievably I agree with this- Trump NEEDS to win but the stronger scenarios are
1) he will be unfairly jailed before the election
Or
2) if he makes it into Office, he will have assassination attempts made which may or may not be successful.
It's clear that we have a combination of both evil and incompetence in Power- a very dangerous combination.
If he is assassinated, you are looking at a civil war and a breakup of the country. And while we are fighting our civil war, the rest of the world will go to complete hell, with Iran, Russia and China having a free hand.
Unfairly jailed? Someone’s been drinking the koolaid
I have moral clarity because I fully embrace the Decalogue as well as the New Covenant. Did you know you can never love God too much? But everything else in this world, if you love it too much, it can harm you. Our political division’s & divisiveness does not allow the Gospels to be heard by those that need it most. Seek a Transcendent Good and anti-sematism melts in it face
Not everyone has received the gift of faith. I wish I had but I haven't. There must be a way to individual everyday morality without having received that gift.
Hey Philly Guy, New Atheists and their cousins before them have been seeking morality in the absence of faith since the Enlightenment, and I'd argue without great success. This will be unpopular view by some, but I believe every human being has been granted the gift of Salvation, it's a matter of being exposed to the Gospels and examining one's very heart. Did you know that ancient Jews were so afraid of taking God's name in vain, that they simply stopped uttering the word 'YHWY'? For centuries and centuries, they would not say this name aloud. YHWY literally is translated as 'God' to Israelites. It was not until the New Covenant arrived did this name get uttered again as 'Yehosua' (Jesus) which translates as 'YHWY is Salvation'. There is massive healing power in the very name of Jesus. It transcends all our differences.
I have no argument with that but we shouldn’t need the Bible to tell us that beheading infants and raping young girls is wrong.
Couldn’t agree with you more, brother
I saw on Facebook last night that my oldest son and youngest daughter were spouting Hamas propaganda. Heartbreaking.
My son came home shortly after Oct 7. He frowned and asked me why I was wearing my Star of David. Like many of his lefty friends—I used to be one but no longer==he started spouting off about the poor Palestinians. I had to ream him a new one. I told him about the cross burned on my family’s lawn in 1963 when I was nine years old, and having “kike” written on our sidewalk. He was chastened for sure but I think there is still some educating to be done.
why did you let him in the house?
They are just responding to peer pressure from their nonthinking friends.
I asked my son in law why he isn't calling on Hamas to release the hostages and stop sending bombs over? He is getting captured by this, although my own children know better to believe propaganda.
When one is cued to see everyone weaker as good and everyone stronger as good, this is the result.
Ouch! What a way to find out. A sign of our times.
חנוכה שמח תודה לך בחיי אף פעם ראיתי אנתי שמיות כזה. כל כך כואב לי. יש המון עבודה כן בארצות הברית
חנוכה שמח!
That is so sad. My wife and I are nervous because we have youngish relatives visiting soon from California and staying with us. We are going to try to avoid political discussions. I don't know what we will do if they are unavoidable though.
Ask them when they are their gay friends are planning to visit Gaza.
Brilliant
yes tickets one way would make great Xmas gifts
So sorry for you.
Hope you can persuade them to the truth.
Children get caught up in the moment, with any luck, they will change their views. At least it can be hoped for.
I'd write them out of my will if I had kids and they did that.
We're too poor to leave them anything of value.
The thing is, I love them deeply. If I didn't, it wouldn't hurt so much to see them siding with *literal* Nazis and excusing rape, torture, and murder. They were taught right from wrong and strong classical liberal values in our home, but they've been caught up in the Woke values of their social groups.
Don’t give up hope yet. Social pressure is harder to fight when you are younger. Praying for your children to see through the lies and propaganda.
I think there comes a point where kids can simply go beyond the pale. In short, they become evil. Obviously, you don't yet consider your kids evil, but when they disagree with you on the most fundamental issue of all - one's right to defend one's self and stay alive - perhaps the differences ARE irreconcilable.
only one solution. disown them. or at least write them out of the will
May I respectfully suggest that smart people with multiple graduate degrees don't vote Democrat: https://mikebond.substack.com/p/democrats-renounce-thy-name
That is precisely my hope.
The Free Press is my daily read for sanity in this world. Without your words I would feel lost in the morass of insanity. The words from much of the mainstream press truly exemplify Houellebecq's novel(?) Submission. I read it early on, but truly I didn't believe the world could be that insane. Now we see it.
For decades we were taught - and believed - that "NEVER AGAIN" meant something. Now we know - with a searing and awful realization - that the people who mouthed those words are nothing but cowards and scoundrels. This is not a time for being "nice." It is time to take a stand. To treat these temporizing cowards with the scorn and disgust they deserve. If you can't stand proudly with the people of Israel - against the depravity of the barbarians - you need to look in a mirror and contemplate the meaning of shame.
It's worth noting the NSDAP--National Socialist German Worker's Party--was by any reasonable perspective not right wing. Right and left "wings" come from the French Revolution, and the right was Monarchists of some stripe or other. The middle was people who were recognizably Liberal. And the Left was where the murderous sociopaths sat.
No ideology which rejects the Church, traditional aristocratic forms of power, and traditional social hierarchies is right wing in any sense. And to state the obvious, Nazism was indifferent to social class. Most German elites in fact hated Hitler, if memory serves; and he himself, of course, was "the Corporal".
The Nazis WERE very, very much opposed to the Bolsheviks, but not because they were not a Collectivist ideology using totalitarian methods to impose Identity politics and define all people by the group into which they were born. That's very much what they did.
And of course it's very much what today's Collectivist Totalitarians do also. Morphologically, in belief and action, they are Nazis.
The antidote to Collectivism is Individualism. A focus on individual rights and individual opinions is inherenlty inimical to mobs and Mobthink. Individualism is in fact the only good solution humankind has ever come up with to deal with the Tribalism that has both comforted and afflicted the human race far back into the mists of what remains unwritten.
So, logically, anyone speaking in general terms about groups and the characteristics of groups, is dealing in some form of bigotry and prejudice. Period. And anyone dealing in mass bigotry and prejudice is ALWAYS going to resort to violence whenever anyone starts reacting in defensive ways to their aggressions.
Yes, thank you. The association of Nazis with the conservative right in America is absurd, but the Marxist members of the Frankfort school created that myth decades ago and it has stuck. They saw the conservative right as “authoritarian” and “narrow minded” and concluded that strong fathers were just American Nazis. (An abbreviated explanation)
Nazism cannot tolerate individualism, independent thought, and belief in God. Even the raising of children was a Nazi thing. Sounds a lot like the American left.
Let’s just say it: THEY are the Nazis now.
It was ever thus. Socialism, communism, far-left freedom causes always reveal themselves as functional totalitarianism.
nazis were a lot of things, but they were not reactionary, they were a revolutionary secular movement of hate that believed they were on the right side of history
Not to mention they called it the “National SOCIALIST party.” Fascism is simply socialism mixed with a strong sense of nationalism, but with heavy emphasis on the socialism part.
Whoa. That. Was. Spectacular.
Now let’s pray it hits the heart of all the feckless leaders across the Western world like a tsunami.
It will have no effect on them except to entrench them further in their beliefs.
Sadly, I believe you’re correct. People are most interested in vindication of their positions.
Thank you Mathias Döpfner for you clarity and brave words.
You speak the truth. Thank you.
Wonderfully stated, and I might add that the amount of foreign money that is poured into these universities, with strings attached, should be illegal. The foreign students that are attending our universities on foreign visas, and are demonstrating in support of harming their fellow students, should be deported immediately. The safety of all of our students should be ensured.
MIT was going to suspend students who were involved in something antisemitic but when they found out they would be deported, they just suspended them from social activities.
Rotten to the core.
I wish parents would save their money and yank their kids out of these “elite” schools!
Islamic immigrants throughout the world have heightened antisemitism and violence in every country they immigrate to. Sorry to say that the statistics back this up. Sweden and other Nordic countries have never had the violence they are currently dealing with.
Everyone must reassess their allies. This article exemplifies that identity politics trump decency and kindness. Where one falls in the pecking order of the identity chart solely determines their worth. Affirmative action is the birthplace of this cancer. More discrimination does not solve discrimination it only leads to death and destruction. DEI must be purged from society along with all other non-meritorious criteria. Character, competence and integrity, CCI, must be the new standard. It promotes fairness while advancing society to equality. That is the goal is it not?
That is not the goal of those who want to control everthing and everyone.
Amen. I like that goal!
It seems that universities see gray areas in this matter but can’t find any shade other than black and white when it comes to other issues. That’s what strikes me as appalling.
You can get expelled from an Ivy League school for wearing the wrong Halloween costume or saying men shouldn't compete on women's athletic teams. But calling for the genocide of Jewish people is A-OK as long as you don't pull the trigger yourself - according to the Presidents of MIT, Harvard and UPenn. Time to call out these so-called "elite" schools as the total hypocritical idiots they truly are.
So proud of the Penn Trustees for standing up for what Ben Franklin wanted his school to stand for. McGill's testimony on national tv was more chilling than the hoards of young people shouting 'Genocide" on College Green.
Two of my children went to Ivies and Little Ivies. I would cross all of the Ivies off our list today and focus on U of Chicago, Catholic schools like Notre Dame and the new University at Austin. I can't imagine any Jewish students applying to the Ivies and feeling safe.
I do think that the video outraged people, though. It showed so clearly how calling for genocide is OK with these universities but misgendering will get you fired or expelled. The DEI programs have to go and there needs to be more balance in the viewpoints of their leaders.
And I'm a lifelong liberal.
Yup, agree.
My son went to St. Andrews in Scotland, and if the university ever took a stand on something outsides of academics I didn't hear about it, nor did he.
However.
My daughter went to Smith. My wife went to Smith. My sister went to Smith.
Until my daughter's junior year I was pretty sure my grand daughter would go to Smith.
But Smith turned into DEI central, before it was even called that.
The atmosphere turned into one where non indoctrinated women felt like they were walking on egg shells all the time lest they transgress with a microaggression or an inappropriate pronoun.
One of the points of Smith and schools like Smith was that women would be free to pursue growth without the effect of attempted male domination and influence. And then Smith willingly replaced that with a much more pernicious mode of domination and influence.
The has got to break at some point - the Smith alumni group has way too many super smart and influential women for this to go on much longer.
Trans women are likely sharing dorm rooms with women at Smith. And all it takes to be trans now is to say it, even though they have all their male parts.
These colleges have been erasing women for several years. Now they are erasing Jews.
Who's next?
Christians. They are now the neo purveyors of evil.
They have taboos which annoy the hedonistic commercialism that drives DEI and CRT and therefore get in their way.
Ppl who won’t get their “woke” badges are now enemies of the state and “evil”.
I am a Smith alumna from way back and I can tell you that silencing and shaming people and viewpoints was going on when I was there. I am horrified at what the school has become and although I committed to support the Alumnae Association every year, I stopped 15 years ago.
My wife (Haven) and my sister (Baldwin) are class of '90 and '89 respectively. My daughter (Gardiner) is class of '17.
As the black sheep of my family (Dad Princeton, Grandfathers Harvard and Bowdoin) I was on scholarship at UMASS but lived on Green St in NOHO above Onks Pizza.
My wife and I became engaged during the fall of her senior year. Some Smithie was making a documentary film about relationship styles at Smith - we were the trad couple - even then over 30 yrs ago.
My wife and sister loved their time at Smith. As did I, as a plus-one. Our peer group seemed very typical for Smith at that time - really widely varied. Full of people from different backgrounds, everyone was bright, motivated, engaged, clearly going places. It seemed OK to have even fairly heated arguments about issues of politics, race, class, and sexual orientation. Although the tea and chocolate chip cookies at Haven on Friday afternoons was very comforting - it seemed pretty clear - Smithies were supposed to be challenged at Smith, even if that meant hurt feelings.
By the time my daughter got there, all that had changed. Safe spaces, trigger warnings, microaggressions avoidance, and mandatory appropriate pronouns ruled the day. Knowing and having tremendous respect for oodles of Smith Alumni - my wife and I wondered aloud how anyone was supposed to rise to that status in such an impoverished environment.
My daughter was on the honor board and was chosen to be on the task force of board, faculty, alumni, and students that were to recommend if transwomen would be allow to matriculate.
It was very hard getting our daughter not to drink the cool-aid - the pressure was immense.
The outcome was predetermined.
We used to give to Smith, and we still hope to one day give a bench overlooking the pond where we courted - but the Smith of our youth has lost its way - badly. We hope it finds its way back - in about 20 years we'll have granddaughters that will need a place like Smith.
Oh, my...did you bring me back... "You went to Smith!!!...What house?" That immediate question let you know you were talking to a fellow Smithie... I was Albright then Friedman. When I got there I couldn't believe they'd let me in. So many bright, interesting women with whom to have endless conversations over dinner. And the profs...all leftists... but at least they allowed for dissent. I found my empowered female voice there. It hits me like a ton of bricks to see what it's devolved into.
Even U. of Chicago has largely been taken over by the left, and despite their Catholic affiliations, major Catholic Universities, from what I understand, are also highly woke - especially if they have an affiliation with the Jesuits.
What a lot of liberal/leftist Jewish parents might have to consider is sending their kids to schools in red states. They might not like that idea, but faculty lean strongly left even there. But at least the Republican state legislatures tend to hold the radicals in check.
And besides - Auburn has excellent engineering programs - and a Jewish basketball coach. :-)
Even red state universities are not safe. Schools like UNC and Vanderbilt are apparently captured too. Seems like only colleges in FL, Hillsdale, and Brigham Young are not captured. But Brigham Young would not be for right for most people.
I'm not saying these schools are dominated by leftists. But Republican legislatures can use the power of the purse and the power of legislation to rein in their excesses. Right now, NC has a lefty Dem governor.
Remember the Research Triangle area of NC (along with Asheville) are now inhabited primarily by liberal northerners and a lot of Democrat voting Asian immigrants. I am familiar with the area. So yeah, Duke and UNC are loony left, while NC State is somewhat saner.
I meant to say that "I'm not saying these schools are NOT dominated by leftists".
Thank you for writing this. It is a sad thought that Israel has received an even larger wound since October 7th, than it received that day. That wound has been caused by the rest of the world's pathetic response to an outrageous act of terror, choosing to mumble about moral equivalence, proportionality and the "context." And why? If we are honest with ourselves, it is not from anything other than cowardice. No one is afraid of what Jews will do if we insult them or desert them, but western nations are afraid of the hotheads and extremists among their own muslim populations. Cowardice is never pretty, but this time it is sickening.
Amen
Spot. On. Thank you for your words. So concerned for the world in which my daughter will grow up.