Is Trump Worth The Risk?

Posted on June 5, 2016 by Luke Ford

[Editor’s Note: This article was rejected by 45 different magazines, periodicals, and journals across the political spectrum: Far left, left, center, unaffiliated, right, far right, and libertarian.]

Two professors write:

Perverse as it sounds, the Trump brand of political mockery might be just what this nation needs most right now.

These problems truly are cancers to our democracy, and a President Trump might be potent, if rough, medicine. There’s little question that his incompetence, inexperience, impetuousness, and incivility would cripple both the effectiveness and reputation of American politics for as long as he held office; and the embarrassment to the American citizens, if it were to elect him, would be almost unbearable. Our relationships with many, if not most, other countries would deteriorate, our economy would struggle (if it didn’t crash outright), and many of our problems would either multiply or fester. Such pains, though, may be the metaphorical equivalent of what chemotherapy does to its unfortunate patients. The question to our minds, then, isn’t whether a Trump presidency would be bad for America—it unquestionably would—but whether America might survive the medicine and come out better for the noxious treatment.

We think it may. The United States is a carefully constructed democratic republic with divided powers, and a terrible president, while coming at a serious cost, will prove limited in the scope of his capabilities. Congress is very unlikely to back much of what Trump proposes, for instance, and they just spent eight years demonstrating that if only half of our elected legislators have such a mind, they can grind American politics largely to a halt. Even if he is able to unduly pressure Congress, Trump would still have the Supreme Court to reckon with, and it would rarely go in his favor even were he able to stack the deck slightly to his favor by placing a few justices. Some in the US Military have already indicated that it is unlikely to follow his orders as Commander in Chief, if they are unconscionable or outright war crimes (a concept that Trump, in all his bluster, clearly doesn’t understand). In all likelihood, the force of the laws and traditions of the United States will be strong enough to render Trump largely impotent as president.

Is it a risky bet? Absolutely. A Trump presidency cannot be seen in a more flattering light than an attempt to drink a little chemo, get sick, and kill a handful of political cancers at once. Is it flirtation with fire? Yes. The whole gambit rests upon the horror of a Trump presidency creating a political backlash that repairs our most damaged institutions. Are we going to vote for Trump? No. No one should. What we’ve written constitutes the only reasonable case for supporting Trump, and it’s weak. That there’s even such an argument to be made, though, tells us a great deal about what’s going wrong in our society.

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Tchernovitz, Bitzaron and Israel Stiefel

Posted on June 5, 2016 by Luke Ford

Jay Stiefel (jrstiefel at gmail.com) emails: Hi, Luke-

I enjoyed reading your thumbnail bio about Chaim Tchernovitz, founder and publisher of Bitzaron, the international Hebrew monthly. My father, Israel Stiefel (1898-1966) was its chairman during the period that the Rav Tzair’s son Maurice ran it. He also contributed articles to it, including one on Joseph Klausner whom he first met at Bialik’s house in Odessa and befriended on their aliyah on the Ruslan to Jaffa in 1919. Klausner became his favorite professor at the Hebrew Teachers College in Jerusalem. My father also established literary prizes for the best contemporary Hebrew short stories. The winners of the Stiefel Prizes were published in Bitzaron.

I am presently working in my father’s archive at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (collection 4025). Given his close association with the Tchernowitz family and Bitzaron, I wanted to make reference to any correspondence of his that may have survived in papers of that family or the publication. Have you any suggestion as to any repository or individual in that regard?

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Muhammad Ali’s complicated relationship with the Jews

Posted on June 5, 2016 by Luke Ford

How can any gentile proud of his racial, national or religious identity not have ambivalence and negative feelings about Jews? How can any Jew proud of his Jewish identity not have ambivalence about goyim?

The Nation of Islam is a powerful group strategy for blacks.

Haaretz:

Adopting Arab causes after his retirement from the ring, ‘The Greatest’ frequently clashed with the Jewish people, accusing ‘Zionists’ of world domination, even as some notable members of the U.S. Jewish community were his fervent admirers.

Boxing great and cultural icon Muhammad Ali, who passed away on Friday aged 74, was known for his quick and darting technique in the ring and his ability, as he put it himself, to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. 
That gift for stinging characterized Ali both in and outside the ring, where his quick tongue and stinging repartee made headlines no less than his fists – and sometimes with greater effect. He became a symbol for black liberation during the 1960s by standing up to the U.S. government and refusing to enlist to the army for religious reasons, famously saying: “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. No Vietnamese ever called me a nigger.”  
His conversion to Islam in 1964 – accompanied by a name change from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali – and his subsequent sympathy for Arab causes made Jews a frequent target of his silver tongue, even as several Jews were among his long-time supporters and admirers. It made for a complex relationship between the boxer and world Jewry.   
When Ali made his triumphant comeback to the ring in Atlanta in 1970, after being out of action for 43 months on draft-evasion charges, he commented on the possibility of another bout with long-time rival Joe Frazier by saying: “To those who might want it, the fight will come. All those Jewish promoters – they’ll see that it comes off.”
Though a reporter said Ali was smiling as he said it, boxing insiders criticized him for insulting “the guys who went to bat for him” – specifically. Harry Markson, the boxing director of Madison Square Garden in New York, and Sam Massell, the mayor of Atlanta.

After announcing his retirement from the ring in 1974, Ali lost no time in throwing right hooks at Zionism and embracing the Palestinian cause. Talking to reporters in Beirut, Lebanon, at the start of a tour of the Middle East, Ali said that “the United States is the stronghold of Zionism and imperialism.”
On a subsequent visit to two Palestinian refugee camps in southern Lebanon, the former heavyweight boxing champion was quoted by a news agency as saying: “In my name and the name of all Muslims in America, I declare support for the Palestinian struggle to liberate their homeland and oust the Zionist invaders.”
Ali even visited Israel, coming to “arrange for the freeing of the Muslim brothers imprisoned by Israel” in 1985, when some 700 Lebanese Shi’ites were detained in the Atlit camp, against the background of the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. 
Ali wanted to discuss the release of “all 700 brothers” with the “very highest level in the country,” but Israeli officials politely declined to enter the ring. 
In 1980, during a visit to India to promote a boycott of the Olympic Games in Moscow after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, Ali maintained that Zionists “control” America and the world. 

Asked for his thoughts on the Iranian hostage crisis by India Today, Ali denounced the Iranians as “fanatics,” but still managed to blame the Jews.
“Religion ain’t bad; it’s people who are bad,” he said. “You know the entire power structure is Zionist. They control America; they control the world. They are really against the Islam religion. So whenever a Muslim does something wrong, they blame the religion.”
Despite his frequent jabs at the Jewish community and Israel, Ali couldn’t seem to alienate some of his most fervent Jewish admirers, among them Hollywood star Billy Crystal.
Crystal’s 1977 impression of the boxing legend deciding to convert to Judaism and change his name to Izzy Yiskowitz became legendary on its own right. Fifteen years later, Ali had the pleasure of having Crystal perform at his 50th birthday party.
Sportscaster Howard Cosell, born Howard Cohen, was perhaps Ali’s biggest defender. Unlike many others, Cosell immediately called Ali by his new, Islamic name after he changed it from Cassius Clay, and also stood up for his right to resist the draft. The Jewish journalist and the Muslim champion had a rapport that was evident in post-fight interviews, where they exchanged barbs and bantered, drawing in enchanted viewers.

Ali mellowed in his autumn years, perhaps partly due to becoming “zaidy” to a Jewish grandson, born to his daughter Khaliah Ali-Wertheimer and her husband Spencer Wertheimer. Ali was there to witness little Jacob Wertheimer “becoming a man” at Philadelphia’s Congregation Rodeph Shalom in 2012, and, according to his daughter, was nothing but respectful of the bar mitzvah ceremony.
“My father was supportive in every way. He followed everything and looked at the Torah very closely. It meant a lot to Jacob that he was there,” she said.
But Ali expressed tolerance well before that, when in 1996, before lighting the Olympic flame at the Atlanta games, he declared: “My mother was a Baptist. She believed Jesus was the son of God, and I don’t believe that. But even though my mother had a religion different from me, I believe that, on Judgment Day, my mother will be in heaven.
“There are Jewish people who lead good lives. When they die, I believe they’re going to heaven. It doesn’t matter what religion you are, if you’re a good person you’ll receive God’s blessing. Muslims, Christians and Jews all serve the same God. We just serve him in different ways.
“Anyone who believes in One God should also believe that all people are part of one family. God created us all. And all people have to work to get along.”

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Scott Adams Endorses Hillary Clinton

Posted on June 5, 2016 by Luke Ford

Scott Adams blogs:

I’ve decided to come off the sidelines and endorse a candidate for President of the United States.

I’ll start by reminding readers that my politics don’t align with any of the candidates. My interest in the race has been limited to Trump’s extraordinary persuasion skills. But lately Hillary Clinton has moved into the persuasion game – and away from boring facts and policies – with great success. Let’s talk about that.

This past week we saw Clinton pair the idea of President Trump with nuclear disaster, racism, Hitler, the Holocaust, and whatever else makes you tremble in fear.

That is good persuasion if you can pull it off because fear is a strong motivator. It is also a sharp pivot from Clinton’s prior approach of talking about her mastery of policy details, her experience, and her gender. Trump took her so-called “woman card” and turned it into a liability. So Clinton wisely pivoted. Her new scare tactics are solid-gold persuasion. I wouldn’t be surprised if you see Clinton’s numbers versus Trump improve in June, at least temporarily, until Trump finds a counter-move.

The only downside I can see to the new approach is that it is likely to trigger a race war in the United States. And I would be a top-ten assassination target in that scenario because once you define Trump as Hitler, you also give citizens moral permission to kill him. And obviously it would be okay to kill anyone who actively supports a genocidal dictator, including anyone who wrote about his persuasion skills in positive terms. (I’m called an “apologist” on Twitter, or sometimes just Joseph Goebbels).

If Clinton successfully pairs Trump with Hitler in your mind – as she is doing – and loses anyway, about a quarter of the country will think it is morally justified to assassinate their own leader. I too would feel that way if an actual Hitler came to power in this country. I would join the resistance and try to take out the Hitler-like leader. You should do the same. No one wants an actual President Hitler.

So I’ve decided to endorse Hillary Clinton for President, for my personal safety. Trump supporters don’t have any bad feelings about patriotic Americans such as myself, so I’ll be safe from that crowd. But Clinton supporters have convinced me – and here I am being 100% serious – that my safety is at risk if I am seen as supportive of Trump. So I’m taking the safe way out and endorsing Hillary Clinton for president.

As I have often said, I have no psychic powers and I don’t know which candidate would be the best president. But I do know which outcome is most likely to get me killed by my fellow citizens. So for safety reason, I’m on team Clinton.

My prediction remains that Trump will win in a landslide based on his superior persuasion skills. But don’t blame me for anything President Trump does in office because I endorse Clinton.

The rest of you are on your own. Good luck.

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ABC’s Costa Giorgiadias Of Garden Australia Visits Tannum Garden Centre

Posted on June 5, 2016 by Luke Ford

(Link)

Chaim Amalek: You should move back. You are fifty. Long past time to think about how you will spend your remaining years. Why not spend them with your family, helping out with the family business?

Lewis Fein Are you advocating that he move into assisted living?

Chaim Amalek In a way, yes.

[Paul] is good looking, smart and successful family. All in Australia waiting for your return. I say this is your best bet.

Just think of the fascinating stories you will have to tell your townsfolk. Everyone will seek you out just to hear your take on things here. You can be a big(ger) man there than you are ever going to be here. I say do it! Make that move.

Susan Williams What could Luke do at the nursery like is a Jew with physical abilities or would he drive off the customers explaining tzitzit to young ladies who come in to buy a terrarium?

Chaim Amalek He could be their house raconteur, regaling the customer with tales of America. But also, whatever manual labor they can give him to do. He’s been around enough Mexicans to see how it is done.

Susan, everyone knows that Aussies are a bunch of wankers. Which means they consume lots of porn, an area on which Luke, though rusty, is still expert. He could give public talks on the porn trade. And charge an admission fee to porn hungry Aussies. Or switch the topic to Jews and Judaism.

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Many LA Jews Back Trump

Posted on June 5, 2016 by Luke Ford

From the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles:

For Edo Cohen, a local 36-year-old head of a digital marketing agency, his main issue, too, is immigration.
“The biggest threat to the Western world is a demographic threat,” Cohen said, pointing to the influx of Arab immigrants to Europe as an example. “When people lose their borders and lose their identity, they slowly lose their country.”
While he liked Cruz for being a “constitutional conservative,” Cohen said he thinks conservatives sometimes “obsess a little bit too much on that.” Cohen sees domestic issues such as fiscal and economic policies as being reversible, while demographic transformations are irreversible.
“To me, the most important thing, and the thing you can’t reverse — you can always reverse economic policy — but you can’t reverse an invasion,” Cohen said.
Asked how his friends, Republicans and Democrats, view his decision to vote for Trump, Cohen said most of his Republican friends plan to vote for him, too, while his Democrat friends “are not very happy about it.”
“They think he’s a racist, and they think that he’s dumb, but I think that’s what they thought about every Republican candidate, so I don’t see the difference,” Cohen said. “The veil that Donald Trump is lifting on the political correctness front, on the nationalistic front … the fact you’re allowed to say things like, ‘This is my country, and I want to keep it’ — that’s the real appeal that I have for Trump.”

COMMENTS:

* Trump needs no apologists, His record as a businessman speaks for itself. There are many ‘celebrities’ out there that have turned personal millions into personal bankruptcy. Trump, on the other hand, turned his ‘silver spoon’ into billions. Dumb? We all should be so dumb.

Foreign policy? Whatever that is. Many of his business entrprises are located in foreign lands. Countries where business practices are often radically different from those we have here. Trump has succeeded.

Relationship with Israel and Jews? The apple does not fall far from the tree. His daughter converted to Judaism, and not just to Judaism, but to Orthodox Judaism. Yes, her father in law has a stain in his past, but compare it to a similar relationship in the Clinton family. But for a presidential pardon that father in law might still be in jail.

A misogynist? A woman hater? A racist? Look at his businesses, and those in high positions. Of course, his mantra is”produce’, or. You’e FIRED!’. Expect him to do the same as POTUS.

And then there is Hillary. Her claim that she left the White House broke. And the government had to recover the items that she stole when she left. A degree in Law, but she could not pass the bar exam, until her husband became governor. Fired from the Watergate staff for lying. Became Senator from New York, without ever having lived there previously. Is there a reason that she was not the Senator from Arkansas? And then there is Secretary of State. Need one list all of her failures in that position?

Sanders? He is not worth the ‘ink’ to describe him. Just ask his last private sector employer.

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Steve Sailer: Bizarre NYT Reader Service Spin: Why oh Why Won’t Trump Speak Out Strongly Against the Violence Marring His Rallies?

Posted on June 3, 2016 by Luke Ford

Comments at Steve Sailer:

* The Mexican cries out in pain as he beats you.

MORE COMMENTS:

* This one worked out well. Handsome Trump supporter hit by cowardly illegal with mystery bindle.

He didn’t look hurt but the blood made for good visuals. It will go on the campaign ad.

This guy has earned his duchy in the Trumpenreich.

* Trump ought to hire that guy to be on his campaign staff. Pretty darn poised. Most people’s reaction to something like that — including my own — would be either pathetic or very unsympathetic — either unsettled and angry to the point of being near tears or absolutely raging mad. He described being spat on, taunted and hit with a bag of rocks (or whatever) like it happened to someone else. Impressive.

* The San Jose Police did not intervene as Trump supporters were being assaulted. NBC reporters Katy Tur and John Harwood tweeted how outrageous the police were to do nothing as people were being attacked.

Check out the salaries (and names) of San Jose Police Department.

Here’s the first five listed:

http://data.sanjoseca.gov/dataviews/225564/employee-compensation-2015/

Guerra, Daniel
Department: Police
Job title: Police Officer
Total cash compensation: $315,390.77
Base pay: $106,194.40

Vasquez, Hector M
Department: Police
Job title: Police Officer
Total cash compensation: $299,854.41
Base pay: $106,194.40

Uribe, Jose J
Department: Police
Job title: Police Officer
Total cash compensation: $310,661.62
Base pay: $106,194.40

Luu, Linh N
Department: Police
Job title: Police Officer
Total cash compensation: $297,524.21
Base pay: $106,194.40

Tran, Bach T
Department: Police
Job title: Police Officer
Total cash compensation: $292,682.80
Base pay: $106,194.40

The offspring of peasants– wetbacks and rice paddy farmers– making $300k/year. Retirement with a huge untaxed pension at 50. Life in America is great. We just need to rid it of the pernicious white male.

* How much gnashing of teeth from the media will be treated to the first time a Trump supporter returns fire with their CCW and sends a few SJWs to their final reward?

While likely it’ll be a WM shooter and some mystery meat “activist”, I personally want to see the Coalition of the Fringes explode when it’s one minority type shooting another. Maybe some female Indian named Sunny Vangapranesh defending herself from D’shitvarious Brown. I really am curious how the media will handle that curveball and if they have the sack to try and Zimmerman the situation.

* Maybe that’s what Eric Holder meant when he said he wanted to have a national conversation.

* Will the major networks bother to show the violence and the Mexican flags waving? Doubt it.

* the cops colluded with the municipal govt to allow the “protestors” to attack the trumpsters….san jose is a sanctuary city…what we have here is a low grade civil war…the elite in the establishment have these cheap labor immigrants, quasi-slaves, if you will, and they are exploiting them…the white majority want them gone…it’s civil war all over again…

* This whole event was disgusting and is horrible optics for the Democrats and shamnesty supporters.
Even the cultural Marxist guardian paper realized this, here are some more videos documenting the antiamerican pogrom.

The conquistador-american mayor of San Jose is really a piece of work, this is what he told the AP:

“At some point Donald Trump needs to take responsibility for the irresponsible behavior of his campaign,”

Steve you should foia San Jose for all police records on the event. Clearly the police were ordered to stand down, maybe they were dumb enough to put it in writing.

* If that video with the girl does not become a rallying call to Americans, then we deserve to be whipped and sent home with tail between legs.

* I’m looking forward to when these little thugs pick on the wrong Trump supporter. I’m ready.

* This is a good thing.
It clearly delineates the Trump supporters from the uncivilized.

Posted in America, Donald Trump | Comments Off on Steve Sailer: Bizarre NYT Reader Service Spin: Why oh Why Won’t Trump Speak Out Strongly Against the Violence Marring His Rallies?

Black Is Beautiful

Posted on June 3, 2016 by Luke Ford

From the Wikipedia entry on social identity theory:

The “black is beautiful” movement and the associated African American embrace of African hairdos (like afros), culture, traditions, and music was provided by Tajfel and colleagues as an example of the cognitive creativity of low-status groups in the face of stable intergroup relations.

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Social Identity Theory

Posted on June 3, 2016 by Luke Ford

Saul McLeod writes: Henri Tajfel’s greatest contribution to psychology was social identity theory.

Social identity is a person’s sense of who they are based on their group membership(s).

Tajfel (1979) proposed that the groups (e.g. social class, family, football team etc.) which people belonged to were an important source of pride and self-esteem. Groups give us a sense of social identity: a sense of belonging to the social world.

In order to increase our self-image we enhance the status of the group to which we belong. For example, England is the best country in the world! We can also increase our self-image by discriminating and holding prejudice views against the out group (the group we don’t belong to). For example, the Americans, French etc. are a bunch of losers!

Therefore, we divided the world into “them” and “us” based through a process of social categorization (i.e. we put people into social groups).

This is known as in-group (us) and out-group (them). Social identity theory states that the in-group will discriminate against the out-group to enhance their self-image.

The central hypothesis of social identity theory is that group members of an in-group will seek to find negative aspects of an out-group, thus enhancing their self-image.

Prejudiced views between cultures may result in racism; in its extreme forms, racism may result in genocide, such as occurred in Germany with the Jews, in Rwanda between the Hutus and Tutsis and, more recently, in the former Yugoslavia between the Bosnians and Serbs.

Henri Tajfel proposed that stereotyping (i.e. putting people into groups and categories) is based on a normal cognitive process: the tendency to group things together. In doing so we tend to exaggerate:

1. the differences between groups

2. the similarities of things in the same group.

We categorize people in the same way. We see the group to which we belong (the in-group) as being different from the others (the out-group), and members of the same group as being more similar than they are. Social categorization is one explanation for prejudice attitudes (i.e. “them” and “us” mentality) which leads to in-groups and out-groups.

Examples of In-groups – Out-groups
o Northern Ireland: Catholics – Protestants

o Rwanda: Hutus and Tutsis

o Yugoslavia: the Bosnians and Serbs

o Germany: Jews and the Nazis

o Politics: Labor and the Conservatives

o Football: Liverpool and Man Utd

o Gender: Males and Females

o Social Class: Middle and Working Classes

Posted in Diversity | Comments Off on Social Identity Theory

The Alt-Right Is Evil and Must Be Opposed

Posted on June 3, 2016 by Luke Ford

Walter Hudson, a black guy, writes: The ascendancy of Donald Trump has dragged the amorphous “alt-right” from the shadows of internet obscurity to coalesce as a legitimate political force. What is the alt-right? That depends upon whom you ask. The one consistent characteristic seems to be a politics defined by white racial identity. YouTuber “ramzpaul” explains:

The people at that Trump rally weren’t there because Trump was promising lower taxes. They were there literally to try to maintain their survival, their survival as a people, as Americans, because Trump was the first one to say that – yeah – he would build a wall to keep out illegal Mexicans. I don’t know if that’s enough to help, but at least it’d be something, because people are so desperate to maintain their way of life, to maintain their families, the America they knew. It doesn’t mean they hate Mexicans, but they don’t want this country to turn into Mexico. That’s how they see it. That’s why they were there at that rally.

So for [conservatives] to talk about economic tax plans — these people are trying to fight for their survival. And that’s really the alt right. That’s what really binds us together… It’s not taxes that they’re concerned about. They’re concerned about who they are.

Who they are is white people. That’s how they define themselves, by racial identity.

When called racist, the alt-right deflects by pointing to social justice warriors. Look at all these groups openly antagonistic to white people, they exhort. Look at the attacks on so-called “white privilege” and white men and white culture. How is it racist to push back against that?

They have a point, to an extent. Logically, it cannot be racist to oppose racism. To the extent social justice warriors are racist, and they are, they should be vehemently opposed. The problem with the alt-right is that they do not fundamentally oppose racial identity politics. They merely substitute one brand of it for another.

It matters not whether the beneficiaries — or victims — of your collectivist authoritarianism are white. What matters is whether you are a collectivist authoritarian and therefore categorically evil. That is why #NeverTrump conservatives remain indignant toward the Republican presumptive nominee for president, because he personifies a fundamentally un-American and immoral paradigm that is in essence no different than the regressive left.

It has become necessary to parse out interwoven concepts in the immigration debate. When the alt-right talks about maintaining the American way of life, maintaining “who we are,” it could be taken to reference a legitimate concern. There does exist a distinctly American way of life which properly ought to be preserved. But it is not defined by race.

The American way of life is defined by philosophy. To be American in the spiritual sense is to affirm “that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” There is nothing racial in that conviction. Anyone, from any background, can adopt it. The proper concern in immigration then is not whether immigrants share a white national origin, but whether they are American in their spiritual destination.

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