Posted on 12/05/2013 5:38:11 AM PST by SJackson
Thank you.
You’re welcome.
One of the reasons I finally signed up on this forum is to develop some ideas.
One of these is that the conventional approach to ‘voting blocs’ (sex, race & ethnicity, net worth, self-identified religious affiliation) is completely wrong, wrong-headed, and causing us (conservatives) to campaign incorrectly and consequently to lose elections. These distinctions are invented, IMO, by marxists and other leftists to balkanize, to distract, and to induce people to vote against their own best interests.
That's because socialism is more important to them than antisemitism.
.
Bump for later.
No, seriously: what do you mean by the term?
Does “Jews” refer to an ethnic group, or to a group of people who practice a certain religion?
I suspect that there are a lot of people who identify themselves as “Jewish” who haven't darkened the door of a synagogue, read Torah, or refrained from eating ham in decades (if ever). To put them in the same category as those who keep kosher etc. is more than a bit silly.
IMO.
Same can be said for many “Christians”.
They go to a “christian” church like 0bama, or a liberal social justice church where God is a mist on the meadow.
Or, they are like several members of my conservative church; they consider themselves christian but never darken the door and the FBI couldn't fine them, but when they die their obit will claim their lifelong membership in said church.
There’s another element, pertaining specifically to the slur used against France, at work here as well.
France has a large, growing, increasingly influential and vocal but also confrontational and violent Muslim population.
Some of this was certainly aimed at them, both to help rile them up AND spur them to leverage their increasing political influence against the French gvt.
By all means discuss it. But you are being rational. Support for Israel in America comes from Christians. Blumenthal promotes a fantasy where there is no criticism of Israeli actions allowed.
“Does “Jews” refer to an ethnic group, or to a group of people who practice a certain religion?”
Historically, the term refers to the ethnic group; and while we might make distinctions between practicing and non-practicing Jews amongst ourselves, anti-semites wont.
For instance, I can’t imagine anyone asked Leon Klinghoffer if he was a practicing Jew before murdering him. His name was enough.
That’s all very nice, but it completely misses my point. This has nothing to do with “anti-semites”. It has everything to do with understanding voting patterns.
Is Charles Schumer (the democrat Senator from New York) Jewish?
Was Aaron Zelman (founder of JPFO) Jewish?
Most people, I think, would answer both questions in the affirmative ... yet politically, these two men could hardly be more different. Race/ethnicity and self-identified religious affiliation are not good lines of demarcation when trying to understand voting patterns ... yet many are mentally stuck using them.
“Race/ethnicity and self-identified religious affiliation are not good lines of demarcation when trying to understand voting patterns ... yet many are mentally stuck using them.”
Well, I’m not so sure your interpretation is that correct. You CAN say that the majority of Jews vote Dem, and that the majority of Blacks vote Dem and be 100% correct, based on their ethnicity. It’s a fact. Would you not say that that is a voting pattern?
Yes, you can say that ... but it isn't particularly informative. It doesn't tell us why the majority vote as they do, and the minority vote differently. Again consider Chuck Schumer and Aaron Zelman, or Al Sharpton and Thomas Sowell.
On another thread, I proposed viewing people in voluntary behavioral or occupational categories, rather than less voluntary or involuntary racial, ethnic or religious categories. I proposed the following classes: Productive, Protective, Ruling, Parasite, and Criminal. I suspect that identifying someone that way will be much more predictive of voting behavior than identifying someone by the conventional class, ethnic, or religious groups.
“To my mind, Jewish influence in politics and society should be as open for discussion as for any other group. But I guess that POV makes me anti-semitic.”
No, it’s not anti-Semitic.
But because so much of such “discussion” has historically been anti-Semitic and, at least on the left, is really anti-Semitism dressed up in new clothes, it’s a delicate discussion to be had.
“You CAN say that the majority of Jews vote Dem,”
You can also say, if not a majority, a plurality of the well-known conservative writers and commentators are Jewish, far outstripping our piddling 1.7% of the USA population:
Mark Levin
Jonah Goldberg
Lucianne Goldberg
David Horowitz
Denis Prager
Michael Medved
John Stossel
Bernie Goldberg
Pam Gellar
Ben Stein
Michael Savage
William Kristol
Charles Krauthammer
Matt Drudge
Does that mean anything, either? Nope.
“Mark Levin
Jonah Goldberg
Lucianne Goldberg
David Horowitz
Denis Prager
Michael Medved
John Stossel
Bernie Goldberg
Pam Gellar
Ben Stein
Michael Savage
William Kristol
Charles Krauthammer
Matt Drudge
Does that mean anything, either? Nope.”
Yup, it does mean something. It means I love them all. However, believe me, they are not the majority of conservative commentators by a long shot. The list of conservatives who are commentators is long, much longer than your list above. My point is simply about voting patterns, and pointing out the obvious, Jews and Blacks predominantly vote for Dems. Although Jews less and less, thank goodness. Hope the same thing happens with Blacks one day also. And it does mean something by the way. It means we have to change that equation. After Obamacare, there just might emerge a new voting pattern amongst both groups, one might hope.
The conservatives that are Blacks and Jews, are great thinkers, and I hope they can convince their fellow ethnics to follow suit. They are wonderful role models. My faves are Kraut, Pam Geller whom I think is incredibly brave, David Horowitz for the same reason, and Savage who in spite of his idiosyncrasies is brilliant also. A few on your list definitely fall into the category of RINO, like Medved and Bernard Goldberg and Ben Stein. Stossel is pure Libertarian. But I am just quibbling a bit about your list now for the sake of quibbling, lol. I want all Jews and all Blacks to be conservatives and vote that way. Sooner than later.
People asserting Jewish influence in American politics need only quote PM Menachem Begin's first visit with newly-elected President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and Begin's offer to "help out" with some votes in Congress, which was an insult to the integrity of the U.S. Government (and yes, we still believed in it back then). Which is not to say that Israel was any sort of national adversary then or now.
All that said, one doesn't have to stretch at all to see how virulently anti-Semitic the Iranians are, and it should disturb anyone to see the Obama Regime hesitate to call the Iranians out on it, and to worry about the Regime's motives in hesitation.
I think 11 US senators are Jewish. Which is around 6x their percentage of the population.
I don’t have a problem with that, but most Jews are strongly liberal, and liberals are the ones who are constantly bringing up statistical disparities of this type as proof positive of discrimination.
bkmk
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