JEWISH GUILT

(From an e-mail sent September 14, 2012.)

One is obliged to separate the nation of Israel from the ethnic identity of Jews.  They are not synonymous.

HOWEVER--

If there is any group of people anywhere in the world who know how to instill guilt, it is the Jews!  They seemingly learn this from their mothers, and the US has been atoning for the Holocaust ever since WWII, even though blameless!  Of course, the post-war Allied moguls made sure that the State of Israel was created for the Holocaust Jews so that the Jews would go there and not come to THEIR countries!

Now the "Holocaust Guilt Package" has been further augmented by the Republican doctrine of the "End of Days" when (as witless, bigoted evangelicals are convinced), during the Rapture in the "Holy Land," i.e., border-expanded Israel, Jews will surely all convert to Christianity and be saved by Jesus then be swept into Heaven (along with all the Jew souls that have, thankfully, been converted, post-mortem, by the Mormons), and the rest of us schlubs (including known Muslims like Barack Obama) can just burn in Hell forever!  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  I can't wait!

So, we were recently assured that the Republican platform was righteous enough to mention "God" at least 5 times and also reinforced their political-theological embrace of the State of Israel, unlike the proto-atheist heathens in the Democratic Party who were finally "brave" enough to railroad a platform amendment from the floor of the Convention to mention "God " and "Israel," despite the firmly hostile "NO" vote clearly heard on the issue!  Now, the Democrats are clearly stand-up kinda guys for principle, just like their feckless, spineless, betraying leader, Barack Obama, who was reportedly the engineer of the locomotive on that "railroad"!

We know that Israel ALREADY has nukes, so why should not Iran seek a strike-back capability to discourage a pre-emptive strike by Israel?  The threats have been levied time and again, and we also know that if it happens, the US government and Obama won't do one single thing about it, except "tsk-tsk."  All the heated rhetoric from US government sources about Iran's ALLEGED nuke capability justifiably invites Israel's first-strike against Iran!  Scare the Hell out of everybody, then do as you please!  A strangely familiar climate following 9/11/01!  Neat!

Some years ago in his book on the subject, former President Jimmy Carter compared the policies of Israel toward Arabs and Muslims as "apartheid," and that stuck in the craw of the political leaders of Israel and the American-Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC).  It is way past time for the US to decouple its Middle East policies from Holocaust guilt.

STATES' WRONGS (Part 2)

(See Part 1 below, 7/31/11.  The following ran as a letter to the Editor of the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch on September 13, 2012.)

According to "Wikipedia," the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions (incorporating the "Principles of [17]98") were written by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, respectively and were merely their individual OPINIONS about the asserted POWER (not "right") of the states to refuse to enforce federal constitutional principles, smugly repeated by Pauline Madden in [the T-D] on August 31.  Those opinions embracing "nullification" and "interposition" (a/k/a "states' rights") were clearly rejected by the outcome of the Civil War, so one must wonder about those who, like Madden, continue to beat that dead horse today.  Seven of the new states pointedly REJECTED adopting those Resolutions.  None of the 13 original states adopted them.  George Washington was vehemently opposed to them.

Jefferson and Madison did not like the idea of the federal courts being the sole judges of the constitutionality of federal acts, as Alexander Hamilton had asserted in the Federalist Papers (incidentally co-authored by James Madison).  Most opinions of the day agreed with Hamilton's views on the matter, that the federal courts should be the EXCLUSIVE arbiter of federal constitutional law.  This view was buttressed by John Marshall's opinion in 1803 establishing the principle of (federal) judicial review in MARBURY vs. MADISON.

The phrase, "states' rights," does not appear in the US Constitution anywhere.  There is no expression therein of the powers of "nullification" nor "interposition" nor "secession."  I think it's way past time to give all that "states' rights" foolishness a rest.