The recent rise in anti-Semitic attacks demands a response. Here are two case studies to that end–one a case study in how to, the other a case study in how not to, respond. Continue reading
Statement on the Jersey City Shooting
We’re still reeling here from the Jersey City shooting, along with the string of anti-Semitic attacks that have come in its wake–eight nine in the last few weeks,* and then another one yesterday. Here’s a nice statement from Jersey-area religious leaders of various faiths. I wish there was a secular one going around, but I don’t think there is. If anyone hears of one, please mention it.
*I miscounted. Eight of the attacks were in New York City (excluding the Jersey City attack); adding the Jersey City attack makes nine. The Monsey attack makes ten.
The Guardian Angels: High Noon in Brooklyn
Diligent readers of this blog know that I’m a big fan of Curtis Sliwa and his much-maligned organization, the Guardian Angels. So, depressing as the recent rash of anti-Semitic attacks in the NYC metro area has been, I was pleased to encounter this item online (ht: Chris Santo):
The Guardian Angels, a private, unarmed crime-prevention group, said it would start patrolling New York City’s Brooklyn borough on Sunday following a series of anti-Semitic attacks.
Curtis Sliwa, who founded the organization in 1979 in New York City, said the patrols would start at noon in the Crown Heights neighborhood and expand to Williamsburg and Borough Park later in the day.
There’s a lot of bad blood between the Guardian Angels and the NYPD, and between the Angels and the press, or at least the left-leaning press. A huge heap of horseshit has been written about the “vigilante” character of the Guardian Angels, or going to the other extreme, about its hapless ineffectiveness as a crime fighting organization. It all seems pointless to me. I don’t get the hostility. Continue reading
Missing the Corpses for the Case
The New York Times reports on the “disturbing” case of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher:
On this episode of “The Weekly,” members of SEAL Team 7 tell Navy investigators that Gallagher was a reckless leader with a disturbing hunger for violence. They say they spent much of their time protecting Iraqi civilians from their battle-crazed chief instead of going after ISIS. And never-before-released video from the SEALs’ deployment shows Gallagher kneeling beside a defenseless ISIS captive moments before Gallagher plunged his knife into the prisoner’s neck.
The problem is, Gallagher was acquitted of the most “disturbing” charges made against him. But don’t shelve your outrage too quickly. There is something outrage-worthy here. To see this, it may be worth our while to stand back a bit and see the battlefield corpses for the legal case. Continue reading
An Open Letter to the IDF Maglan Unit in Englewood, New Jersey
Victim-blaming and aggressor-valorization are two sides of the same maudlin, propagandistic coin. From a piece in The Jewish Standard (Teaneck, New Jersey): Continue reading
Are Equal Rights Anti-Semitic?
Considering how frequently the “anti-Semitism” card is used against the campaign for equal rights for Palestinians, I thought it’d be useful to reproduce an ordinary donation letter I got the other day from the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), an organization blacklisted by the Israeli Strategic Affairs Ministry. If these demands are your idea of “anti-Semitism” (not that I necessarily agree with them all), maybe it’s your conception of that concept that needs revision, not the demands of USCPR or its allies. The idea of a “racist campaign for equal rights” is a contradiction in terms. The only question worth asking in this context is which party is guilty of the contradiction involved. 
“This Will Kill That”
Both of these came in the same day’s mail. One casts an ominous shadow over the other. But only one can prevail. Any guesses which one?
Sie wollen mein Herz am rechten Fleck
Doch sehe ich dann nach unten weg
Da schlägt es links
“Imprisoning a Generation”: Film Screening and Discussion (Montclair, NJ)
Quote of the Day
One of the tragic aspects of the emancipation of the serfs in Russia in 1861 was that while the serfs gained their personal freedom, the land – their means of production and of life, their land was retained under the ownership of their feudal masters. The land should have gone to the serfs themselves, for under the homestead principle they had tilled the land and deserved its title. Furthermore, the serfs were entitled to a host of reparations from their masters for the centuries of oppression and exploitation. The fact that the land remained in the hands of the lords paved the way inexorably for the Bolshevik Revolution, since the revolution that had freed the serfs remained unfinished.
The same is true of the abolition of slavery in the United States. The slaves gained their freedom, it is true, but the land, the plantations that they had tilled and therefore deserved to own under the homestead principle, remained in the hands of their former masters. Furthermore, no reparations were granted the slaves for their oppression out of the hides of their masters. Hence the abolition of slavery remained unfinished, and the seeds of a new revolt have remained to intensify to the present day. Hence, the great importance of the shift in Negro demands from greater welfare handouts to “reparations”, reparations for the years of slavery and exploitation and for the failure to grant the Negroes their land, the failure to heed the Radical abolitionist’s call for “40 acres and a mule” to the former slaves. In many cases, moreover, the old plantations and the heirs and descendants of the former slaves can be identified, and the reparations can become highly specific indeed.
Anarchy in Philadelphia
The Molinari Society will be holding its mostly-annual Eastern Symposium in conjunction with the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association in Philadelphia, 8-11 January 2020. Here’s the schedule info:
Molinari Society symposium:
New Work in Libertarian and Anarchist Thought
G5E. Thursday, 9 January 2020, 9:00 a.m.-12:00 noon, Philadelphia 201 Hotel, 201 N. 17th St., Philadelphia PA 19103, room TBA.
chair:
Roderick T. Long (Auburn University)
presenters:
Zachary Woodman (Western Michigan University), “The Implications of Philosophical Anarchism for National Identity”
Jason Lee Byas (University of Michigan), “What Is Violence?”
William Nava (New York University), “The Causal Case Against Contributing to Public Goods”
Roderick T. Long (Auburn University), “Ayn Rand’s ‘New’ (Posthumous) Critique of Anarchism: A Counter-Critique”
