Obamacare has nothing to do with health.
The redefinition of marriage to include same sex couples (why not polygamy?) has nothing to do with civil or human rights.
And gun control has nothing to do with curbing violence.
These social justice movements—code for Marxism—are methods whereby our civil society is undermined by the radical forces of big government.
Obamacare destroys the relationship between every American and his physician. Now, the government decides when and how you breathe.
Homosexual marriage is an assault on the traditional family, civilization’s oldest institution. The intent is to destroy the family so government can step in and be your daddy and your mommy.
And gun control is the jewel crown of big government authoritarians. Disarm the individual and he is no longer a free citizen; he is a subject.
There is nothing new under the sun. Tyrants have always sought to ban weapons in order to centralize their hold on power.
In ancient Israel, the Philistines kept the Jews under their boots through a weapons ban.
As we read in I Samuel, 13:19-23
No blacksmith could be found in all the land of Israel because the Philistines thought, “This will keep the Hebrews from making swords or spears.”
But all the Israelites went down to the Philistines, to sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his ax, and his mattock.
And the price of a filing was a pim for the mattocks, and for the coulters, and for the forks with three teeth, and for the axes; and to sharpen the goads.
So it came to pass in the day of battle, that there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people that were with Saul and Jonathan: but with Saul and with Jonathan his son was there found. And the garrison of the Philistines went out to the passage of Michmash.
The Philistines banned blacksmiths in the land of Israel because blacksmiths could forge weapons.
Not only did the Philistines ban weapons, but they forced the Jews to pay a pim to sharpen their farming tools. Pim was a weight measure averaging 7.82 grams, or approximately two thirds of a shekel, the basic Hebrew unit of weight. (Pim is a Hapax legomena, meaning the word appears only once in the Torah.)
In short, the Philistines were price gouging the Jews, a super tax if you will. Exactly what Democrat legislators are attempting to do today.
Saul and Jonathan defied the Philistine’s weapons ban. Just as we must resist and defy whatever unconstitutional gun laws Obama and his radical leftists manage to impose.
Seraphic Secret refuses to be a Jew Without a Gun.
Throughout history, every ban and restriction on weapons has been broadly understood as a deterrent to rebellion or overthrow. It is only in the modern era that people somehow believe such bans are meant for their own good.
My last day in Israel, I was at a cafe with a Canadian and a couple other people. The Canadian adamantly said that common people (not his exact phrase, but you get my meaning) should not be allowed to carry. I pointed out that we were currently in the middle of a city full of 18-year-olds carrying automatic weapons wherever they went (the IDF draftees). He said, “But that’s government!” as though it were self-evidently obvious that handing a stupid kid a uniform would automatically work an alchemical transformation on his character.
I sometimes think that the greatest achievemt of the founders was to rein in government so well that they managed to fool much of civilization into thinking that government was somehow no longer fire and could no longer burn those who mishandled or misestimated it.
Those four guys on top didn’t need a dictionary for liberty, they defined it and they had no use for history books to understand the sacrifice entailed therein, they wrote the history.
To the people who think it is patriotic to disarm – do they feel themselves a danger to innocents?
We are surely headed for some kind of crucible.
Robert – all these people stockpiling are the reason I haven’t been to the range in a good year
Michael and Robert are exactly right. Here is a small taste of what went on right after Prop 8 passed in California. My father is an Assemblies of God minister so we know about the Lansing attack pretty much first-hand.
http://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen/08c/Prop8/church_attacks.html
The modern equivalent of a blacksmith, as far as weapons are concerned, is a machine shop. Any well-equipped machine shop should be able to make a gun. Will we see licensing of machinists? Compulsory registration of lathes and milling machines?
Also, the development of 3-D printing will soon enable people to make guns at home…basically, every man his own blacksmith, given appropriate plans in the form of CAD models. Will we see restrictions on the ability to exchange such designs over the Internet? Will a Second Amendment issue turn into a First Amendment issue?
Dear Robert:
I live in Grand Rapids Michigan. You know the G-dly part of the state, where the private colleges have verses of Tehillim engraved over the doorways.
I regularly go to the Detroit area ( 2+ hrs. by car). When my business is early I leave so I can make minyan there. Fifteen years ago I was the only CCW holder in the shul. Last time we were a minyan of CCW holders.
No one in these wealthy liberal Jewish suburbs EVER says anything good about guns in public.I know the people who run the largest and best indoor range and gun store in that area. They are doing a landslide business. People are voting with their dollars. That area has also had a pro-gun and pro-business Republican Congressman for many years.
Just as an aside, on Shabbos when my wife and I walk to shul (seprately), if the weather is bad someone will stop an offer a ride. When we explain about driving they say, ” Well Good Sabbath to you and G-d Bless.”
Best Wishes and Regards,
Dovid Fauman
Dovid:
Last time i was in my local gun shop it was mobbed. As you say, people voting with their pocketbooks. I’ve been stocking up on ammo for my various weapons. And so have all my friends. Obama is the best gun salesman in the country.
When I was in Florida in February I should have bought ammo. You can be sure I won’t make that mistake again.
Nearly everyone knows that it isn’t ‘politically correct’ to support gun ownership. I’m not Jewish – but I am solidly demographically placed in that same upper-middle-class, well-educated, well-traveled, ‘Whole Foods’ familiar strata. I generally keep my politics to myself – as-well-as my own pro-gun ownership stance. It’s a dilemma – in order to socialize in one world I have to dissemble about my politics, etc.. (I actually had one friend tell me she “couldn’t believe” I was a conservative – every-other aspect of our lives was similar;) It is so nice to have found Robert’s blog – because here I have found people of a ‘like-mind’ where it isn’t ‘anathema’ to be a conservative and sophisticated. Whenever I am straightforward with anyone-else regarding my politics – I get the disbelieving expression from them that conveys: Oh my, we didn’t realize you’re a viewer of ‘Duck Dynasty’ and ‘Honey Boo Boo’ (I’m not – ‘Jane Austen and ‘Masterpiece Theatre’ are my taste;).
Oh, I hear you. When I was a grad student I had a committee member who raged at me over the 2000 election–the only thing that marked me as a conservative was the American flag decal in my window. Otherwise I had never discussed politics at school, EVER. I was concerned that he would sink my PhD hopes over politics; although he did similar intolerant things while I was dissertating, he ultimately didn’t stand in my way.
Up to the moment when he barged into my grad student office with that rant, I had great respect and fondness for him. After that, well, I kept my distance.
My son is currently a grad student at my old campus and plans on continuing on to his Doctorate. He’s more of a Libertarian than anything – but I guarantee that if he actually were a traditional conservative – that would not be tolerated by the faculty. I truly believe he would not have been admitted to the graduate program.
I doubt they’d be too happy with libertarian either. We’re too attached to things like fact, truth, evidence, etc.
I was in the engineering college, so I was kind of lucky. Not only was I able to ignore most of the leftist atmosphere common in universities, but people tended more towards conservatism or libertarianism where I hung out anyway, since our professions tended us towards hard evidence in the first place.
Yeah, well, that *was* in an engineering school!
The conventional thinking is that engineering and business profs are more centrist/right of center but in my experience at two universities, that’s not necessarily so.
Regarding same sex marriage. Not a for or against issue. If these people are citizens and tax payers…reminds me of miscegenation…government has no business deciding who can or cannot be a couple legally. I am personally indifferent by politically in favor of people bonding in marriage. If a minister, priest or rabbi does not feel like performing the service, fine. But, a magistrate must.
Barry, you must know that approving gay marriage will not be the end of this. If it were, civil union would solve the issue. The next step, as in Canada, will be to punish churches that do not agree. I don’t care either but I see the next step coming.
Michael, is, of course correct. Same sex marriage is just the opening salvo in the Democrats war against family and traditional gender roles. The end game is to abolish the male-female paradigm. Bathrooms will no longer be for male or female, but for whatever you feel like.
And those Rabbi, Priests and ministers who refuse to perform same-sex weddings will be sued.
As I said, it’s not about same sex marriage. It’s about government replacing family.
Again, I ask those who support government recognizing same sex marriage: why not recognize polygamy, which, after all, has a long history, in contrast to same-sex marriage which has never been a norm in any civilization.
Robert,
I don’t agree with your conclusions but there is certainly a lot to think about. Polygamy strikes me as a second cousin to slavery…not quite the same thing as a voluntary union.
And why not incest?