The ugly truth is…

The New Neo Posted on by

…that most of us don’t floss.

I happen to be one of the world’s champion flossers. Perhaps that’s because I have a pretty complex dental situation. I have two congenitally missing teeth—a canine and a bicuspid—as well as a root canal that failed, and have had various sorts of reconstructions since I was in my early teens. That includes a veritable treasure trove of dental techniques: various crowns, implants, some sort of veneer (I forget what it’s called), a cantilevered bridge, all replacing an older removable bridge.

You name it, I’ve got it. If I don’t take good care of my teeth I’m in trouble.

I have actually received compliments from dental hygienists on my flossing. So there.

Compare and contrast: coverage of Hillary Clinton’s emails

The New Neo Posted on by

Glancing at today’s memeorandum page, I noticed two stories towards the top that deal with Hillary Clinton’s emails, one right under the other.

The first is from Britain’s Daily Mail, and this is what you see on the memeorandum page:

Daily Mail:
Email bombshells from Hillary’s secret account show she didn’t know when cabinet meetings were held, was dumbfounded by a fax machine and emailed aides to fetch her iced tea ”” State Department published a massive tranche of Hillary Clinton’s emails Tuesday night from her days as secretary of state…

The second is from the NY Times, and it goes like this:

New York Times
New trove of Hillary Clinton’s emails highlights workaday tasks at the State Department…

Bombshells versus big yawn.

[ADDENDUM: More on the emails here.]

More on forgiveness: the trial of Oskar Groening

The New Neo Posted on by

In line with our recent discussions on forgiveness, what it means and how and when it should be given, I came across this story today:

A former SS officer known as the “bookkeeper of Auschwitz” and a woman who survived the Nazi death camp delivered wrenching testimony in a German courtroom Wednesday as his historic trial neared a verdict.

German national Oskar Groening, 94, stands accused of 300,000 counts of “accessory to murder” in the cases of deported Hungarian Jews sent to the gas chambers between May and July 1944…

Groening served as a bookkeeper, sorting and counting the money taken from those killed, collecting cash in different currencies from across Europe and shipping it back to his Nazi bosses in Berlin.

So that’s what Groening did. As for how much guilt he thinks he bears, this is what he said at his trial [emphasis mine]:

[Groening] has acknowledged “moral guilt” but denied any legal culpability since the trial in the northern city of Lueneburg near Hamburg opened in April.

In a statement to the court read out by one of his attorneys Wednesday, Groening expressed his “humility and guilt before the survivors and victims’ families”.

He also stressed that he bore “shared guilt for the Holocaust, although my part was small”. But he “expressly” stopped short of asking for “forgiveness for my guilt”.

“In view of the scale of the crimes committed in Auschwitz and in other places, I do not believe I am entitled to make such a request,” he said. “I can only ask my Lord God for forgiveness.”

So (to refer back to yesterday’s post, in which I discuss three Jewish terms for “forgiveness” that describe three different types of forgiveness), Groening is asking only for kapparah, which is forgiveness from God. He minimizes his part in the Holocaust by saying it was “small,” but from the description in the article it hardly sounds small at all.

Why is he reluctant to ask for forgiveness from survivors such as Irene Weiss, a former Auschwitz inmate who testified against him at his trial? He says that despite his small role, the magnitude of the crimes was so great that he does not feel “entitled” to ask for forgiveness (I assume in that context he means a form of mekhilah or of selikhah) from them. He is implying that some crimes are too great to be forgiven.

It seems that Irene Weiss agrees:

Showing two photographs of her family as they arrived at Auschwitz that were recovered 25 years after the Holocaust, Weiss said her mother, three younger siblings, and older brother were all murdered soon after in the gas chambers.

Her father was forced to work as a Sonderkommando, removing corpses from the gas chambers and cremating them, until the SS shot him.

Weiss said she was unable to forgive Groening.

“He has said that he does not consider himself a perpetrator but merely a small cog in the machine,” she said.

“But if he were sitting here today wearing his SS uniform, I would tremble and all the horror that I experienced as a 13-year-old would return to me.

“Any person who wore that uniform in that place represented terror and the depths to which humanity can sink, regardless of what function they performed.”

By not asking her forgiveness, Groening is emphasizing his awareness of the magnitude of the harm done (as opposed to what he considers his small role), and refusing to put any pressure on her to forgive him. Would some Christians say she should do so anyway? To me, that seems wrong—but then again, as I’ve said before, I’m not a Christian.

Would she receive some psychological relief from forgiving him? Perhaps, but not necessarily, and at what price? I’m not sure it would be possible, or even desirable, for most people who had gone through something like Weiss endured to forgive the perpetrators of the crimes. She lives with an almost unimaginable history, and perhaps the best thing she can do for herself is exactly what she’s doing now: to bear witness in a court of law.

[NOTE: The state of unawareness that Groening describes himself as having had is extraordinary. Either he is lying, misremembering, or is a master of protective denial. Perhaps all three:

In Wednesday’s statement, Groening said he had known at the time about the “mass murder” at Auschwitz but was unaware until his trial about the horror endured by the victims while they were still alive.

“For example I had no idea about the terrible conditions during the deportations — that shocked me,” he said.

“It also became clear to me how much Auschwitz and the Holocaust influenced the lives of the witnesses I heard here. They have obviously suffered their whole lives from their experiences in Auschwitz and the loss of so many loved ones.”

I’ll accept that he may not have known directly about the conditions during the deportations. Maybe he also didn’t know the extent of the torments perpetrated on those who weren’t gassed immediately at the camps. But under what conditions did he think people were deported? In first-class railway carriages? Or didn’t he think about it at all? And what effect did he think having one’s whole family murdered would have on a person? Did he expect them to just shrug and go on?]

Islamist terrorists strike at Egyptian military

The New Neo Posted on by

There was a series of coordinated Islamist terrorist attacks today on the Egyptian military in the Sinai, killing at least 53 soldiers. Resultant fighting is reported to have killed about that many of the “militants,” as well.

This is the latest installment in a long, long war Egypt has been fighting to keep control of the country from Islamist extremists. I’ve written about the history of the struggle in many posts, most of which can be found here; if you read just one, I’d recommend this. And whether the current group calls itself the Muslim Brotherhood or any one of a number of other names, or is a splinter group, the goal is the same: to topple al-Sisi’s [I’ve seen many different spellings] government, to undermine the Egyptian military that currently shores up the government, and ultimately to control the country:

The assault came a day after Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi pledged to step up the battle against Islamic militants and two days after the chief prosecutor was assassinated in the capital, Cairo. The officials said 50 militants were killed in fierce fighting that started in the early morning and was still raging at the end of the day ”” the deadliest battle in Sinai since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

Later in the day, a special forces team killed nine members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, including a former member of parliament, in a raid on an apartment in Cairo’s Sixth of October district, security officials said. The team was fired upon when they entered the home and returned fire, killing the nine men. No security forces were wounded, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to brief the press.

Previous strongman Mubarek first came to power after Anwar Sadat’s assassination by similar forces within the Egyptian military:

Earlier in [Sadat’s] presidency, Islamists had benefited from the ‘rectification revolution’ and the release from prison of activists jailed under Nasser but Sadat’s Sinai treaty with Israel enraged Islamists, particularly the radical Egyptian Islamic Jihad. According to interviews and information gathered by journalist Lawrence Wright, the group was recruiting military officers and accumulating weapons, waiting for the right moment to launch “a complete overthrow of the existing order” in Egypt. Chief strategist of El-Jihad was Abbud al-Zumar, a colonel in the military intelligence whose “plan was to kill the main leaders of the country, capture the headquarters of the army and State Security, the telephone exchange building, and of course the radio and television building, where news of the Islamic revolution would then be broadcast, unleashing””he expected””a popular uprising against secular authority all over the country.”

In February 1981, Egyptian authorities were alerted to El-Jihad’s plan by the arrest of an operative carrying crucial information. In September, Sadat ordered a highly unpopular roundup of more than 1500 people, including many Jihad members, but also the Coptic Pope and other Coptic clergy, intellectuals and activists of all ideological stripes. All non-government press was banned as well. The round up missed a Jihad cell in the military led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli, who would succeed in assassinating Anwar Sadat that October.

Each leader of Egypt faces a dilemma of how much to crack down, and how hard. It’s an old old story in Egypt (and elsewhere), and al-Sisi is confronting his own version of it. My reading of al-Sisi is that he’s one of the best leaders Egypt has had in modern times, and I wish him good luck. He’ll need it.

And in other news that should surprise no one on earth…

The New Neo Posted on by

…illegal immigrants are no-showing their court appearances:

Most of the illegal border crossers from Central America who arrived in last year’s surge have skipped out on their hearings, according to immigration court statistics obtained by Fox News. Only about 1 percent of the total have been awarded legal status or relief from deportation by immigration judges, but a significant number (37 percent) of the unaccompanied juvenile arrivals have had their cases closed or terminated, which indicates that they most likely also will be allowed to avoid deportation. In spite of these facts, yesterday the Obama administration announced that it will release the few illegal crossers who were detained, as well as any new arrivals who “state a claim” for asylum.

The immigration court statistics are the latest evidence that the Obama administration’s response to the surge has been an utter failure. Very few of the aliens are cooperating with the generous due process that they have been allowed. Only a small number are qualifying for asylum. Most concerning, it is now clear that very few of the illegal arrivals will ever be repatriated, even if they fail in their request for asylum or other status, and that the administration’s repeated assurances that they would be sent back were insincere and misleading.

I beg to differ with the first sentence of that second paragraph. “Utter failure”? Raging success, rather.

How can people still think that the administration meant for these people to show up, rather than to give them back-door amnesty? How foolish can some people be?

Forgiveness: what did Jesus mean?

The New Neo Posted on by

First, a disclaimer: I am far from an expert on Jesus, Christianity, or the New Testament. But I’ve long been puzzled by the tendency of Christians to forgive when the person who wronged them has not asked for forgiveness or, more importantly (to me, anyway) has shown no indication of awareness of wrongdoing or change of heart. So the following is offered in the spirit of starting a conversation on the matter—or rather, continuing it.

It came up in yesterday’s thread about turning the other cheek. If you missed the discussion, see “starlord”‘s comment here. An excerpt:

Whether or not you agree with Father Morris, he’s not acting outside what his Savior would expect…

Here’s a few of Jesus’s own words that are probably familiar to the least devout of Christians…

Our Father, which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name…
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us…

And in 14: “14 “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Seems pretty clear to me why a priest would excuse someone spitting on him…

Father Morris isn’t Jesus, but it seems he tried, imperfectly, to behave in a way that Jesus would have approved…

My response is that it depends what the meaning of “forgive” is. I realize that there’s a lengthy and ancient tradition of discussion on the matter of what Jesus meant by his words on forgiveness, but the following is my own contribution, for what it’s worth.

Bringing up the meaning of the word “forgive” isn’t some sort of sophistry. At the time he was speaking, at least as far as I know, Jesus was a Jew speaking to Jews (I will skip the controversy over whether he spoke Aramaic or Hebrew and say “I don’t know,” and will add that the New Testament was written in a form of Greek and that some scholars think the original was in Aramaic).

I’m not sure when the following distinctions began, but in ancient traditional Judaism there have been at least three different words for forgiveness, only two of which are interpersonal and the last of which (kapparah) is the realm of God only. Of the two human ones, the first is “mekhilah,” required only if the offender has taken steps to correct the wrong: “The principle that mekhilah ought to be granted only if deserved is the core to the Jewish view of forgiveness.” Another Jewish word for (and type of) forgiveness is selikhah, which is basically empathy with the transgressor. In Judiasm, it is considered wrong to withhold forgiveness (mekhilah) if the person has asked for it, shown remorse, and demonstrated the desire to act differently in the future. Short of that, forgiveness is not required, although it is certainly permitted (selikhah). The idea is that mekhilah without the person showing remorse and change just encourages further bad behavior.

I am definitely unfamiliar with all the words of Jesus (or others) on the subject, but “starlord”‘s particular examples can be read in the light of the above paragraph. From the Lord’s Prayer, “As we forgive those that trespass against us” can be seen as the forgiveness we offer someone through mekhilah, and Jesus’ words “if you do not forgive men their trespasses” could be interpreted as referring to “if you don’t offer mekhilah to those who have repented.” None of these passages indicate a requirement for blanket forgiveness to the non-repentant.

In addition, this is in the New Testament:

5. Luke 17:3-4 NIV

So watch yourselves. “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says , ”˜I repent,’ forgive him.”

“If he repents forgive him” is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about. This statement in Luke 17:3-4 is pretty much the same as the Jewish teaching on forgiveness.

It seems even more explicit in Matthew 18:15-17:

15 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.

16 But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.

17 And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.

Lastly, on the Cross Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Notice that he is quoted as asking God (the Father) to forgive them (kapparah, in other words). He does not say that he himself forgives them; I leave it up to you to decide why. I certainly don’t know, but I think it’s an interesting omission in the New Testament.

I realize I’m probably treading on a lot of toes here. Let me reiterate very strongly that I’m not saying I know better than Christians about what Jesus said or thought about forgiveness, or even that I know at all. But even within Christianity it’s my impression that there’s quite a bit of disagreement on this. I’m merely offering my own speculations and a somewhat different perspective.

[NOTE: See this for a more complete explanation of the Jewish attitude towards forgiveness and repentance.]

Greece crisis intensifies

The New Neo Posted on by

Sunday is referendum day for Greece. The leftist Prime Minister Alex Tsipras thought the country would reject the terms the EU has proposed for a bailout, but indications are that the country will vote “yes” (accepting the terms) instead. A “no” would mean:

…near-certain departure from the euro, followed by years of further financial pain as Greece reintroduces its old drachma currency, which is likely to start at a low value.

Doesn’t sound like a happy prospect to me, nor apparently to most Greeks—that is, if the polls are right, and polls haven’t had a great track record lately. Tsipras claims “that the terms of the EU-bail out deal are simply too harsh for the country to bear.” The question is, compared to what? Tsipras can’t seem to understand that Greece may be close to running out of other people’s money. That’s a hard thing for socialists to accept, I know.

Here’s a more in-depth article about how Greece and the EU got to this sorry state of affairs. I’ve often said that economics isn’t my strong suit, and I can’t say whether the Business Insider article is correct, but it has a lot of interesting background information in it, such as the fact that Greece got into the EU under false pretenses, having fudged the figures on its budget deficit. And it wasn’t the last time it misrepresented its deficit figures, either.

Here’s the situation on austerity measures for Greece:

Many economists were sympathetic to Greece’s position. They argued that debt payments were onerous, the creditors would never receive full payment, and the programmes were restricting Greek economic growth. It quickly became clear that few finance ministers inside the Eurogroup, if any, agreed.

Unlike during the euro crisis, most other peripheral countries were *finally* making economic progress by the end of 2014, and they weren’t natural allies for Greece. What’s more, every European nation has its own anti-austerity parties (particularly Podemos in Spain) ”Žthat would be emboldened by any concessions given…

Initially there was a gulf between Athens and the creditors on almost everything. Athens asked for outright debt relief, an end to privatisation, stimulus funding from the ECB, and the rolling back of many economic reforms (such as lower minimum wages) made in previous years. The rest of Europe was not impressed.

Over months of tortuous negotiation, there did appear to be genuine progress at times. By early June, the Greek government had conceded on large parts of its initial programme. Issues such as privatisation had been sidelined. It became clear that the major issues that could sink the deal were labour-market regulations, fiscal austerity, and the pension system.

Things were looking up. And then…and then…:

On Sunday, just when it looked as if a deal may be done, Tsipras shocked the country by calling a referendum on the bailout. Having negotiated the deal, he said it wasn’t good enough and didn’t fit with his party’s mandate. So [Tsipras’ party] Syriza is now campaigning against the deal it reached, offering up the decision to the Greek people.

I guess it will be up to the demos.

Christie’s in

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m not sure anyone cares at this point, but Chris Christie has joined the crowded Republican field.

Pretty soon we’ll just have to list the Republicans who aren’t running for president.

I don’t think Christie’s going to be much of a factor. The bloom is off that rose, for the most part.

Turning the other cheek—to spit on

The New Neo Posted on by

In line with the post below, we have this story:

Fr. Jonathan Morris is likely a familiar face to readers of TheBlaze ”” the Catholic priest based in the Bronx also has been a longtime analyst for Fox News.

Morris said he was walking Sunday in the vicinity of Broadway and 22nd Street in Manhattan and happened upon a gay pride parade. Two men spat on him as they walked by, he said.

Morris’ response? “Oh well”¦ I deserve worse.”

But Morris went even further:

He noted that the men who spat on him are likely “very good” individuals who were probably “caught up in excitement and past resentment. Most in that parade would not do that.”

Well, it’s true that most in that parade didn’t do it, although I’m not sure there weren’t some others who would have if they’d seen him. I am almost positive that most gay people wouldn’t do it, either, nor would most liberals.

But so what? A great deal of hatred is there, and what’s up with Morris’ response? Is it merely Christian of him? It reminds me most of all of the response of Robert Fisk to his own beating in Afghanistan, a response which as far as I know originated in his leftism rather than Christianity. You can find the story here.

There is a Jewish saying, and it goes like this:

The Medrash teaches us that “Whoever is kind to the cruel will end up being cruel to the kind.”

A priest who would turn the other cheek, even rhetorically, to those who would spit on him in the street is being kind to the cruel.

The religious war: against Christians, among Christians

The New Neo Posted on by

If you had asked me twenty years ago what the 21st century would hold in store, “religious wars” probably wouldn’t have been tops on my list.

But it should have been.

There are many forms of it. The most obvious one until now has been between radical Islam and everybody else. Yes, radical Muslims are somewhat of a minority, but they’re a huge, activist, vocal, violent, determined, and ruthless minority, and they’ve been fighting the fight for the better part of a century (centuries, that is) and have really stepped it up since their victory in Iran in 1979. During the Obama administration the threat has grown both in numbers, in strength, and in barbarity.

I wrote that it’s a war “between radical Islam and everybody else.” The war against the Jews has been going on for a long time, with Israel/Palestine as the epicenter (that war isn’t just a religious one, but it certainly is a religious one as well as a political one). The war against the Hindus also is of great antiquity. The ancient war against Christians took a breather after the Siege of Vienna. In recent years, however, radical Islam’s revived war against Christians has reached a new violent fever pitch.

The West could fight that war and win it, if it chose to do so. But radical Islam is aware of, and takes advantage of, another war—an internal one within Christianity that weakens the response immeasurably. Christians are divided into two camps, one of which is what for want of a better term I would call leftist Christianity (revisionist Christianity? non-traditional Christianity?), which rests on social justice warrioring, embrace of same-sex marriage and related causes, and intense devotion to third-world problems. This is the “bleeding-heart liberal” wing of Christianity, and its numbers are strong.

Traditional, or fundamentalist, or socially conservative Christianity is opposed. The recent SCOTUS decision in Obergefell on same-sex marriage pits that group against the latest trends in the law. The same is true of orthodox Jews and Muslims, of course, but somehow I don’t think the left will make them their next target—they’ll begin with legal attacks on dissenting Christians because they are seen as weakest and most numerous. And they are weakest because of the fact that their fellow-Christians have abandoned them, and because there has been a campaign for a long long time to stir up hatred against them.

I’ve seen this myself among many liberals I know. I’m not talking about leftists, who tend to hate religion in general (unless they’re members of one of the aforementioned leftist-oriented churches, or unless the religion is Islam). For decades I’ve heard casual comments about how awful fundamentalist Christians are, and this is from liberal Christians themselves, or at least liberals who were born Christian. Conservative Christians now equal hatemongers in many people’s eyes, and so whatever is done against them legally will not, I predict, ruffle many feathers.

I’m not a Christian. I’m not even especially socially conservative. But it will ruffle my feathers if it happens, and I believe it will happen.

Perilous times.

A blow against proof of citizenship in federal elections

The New Neo Posted on by

SCOTUS refused to hear a case (Kobach v. U.S. Election Assistance Commission) in which Kansas and Arizona were endeavoring to require proof of citizenship in federal elections.

A standard form known as the federal form is required in federal elections, although states can use their own forms for state elections. States are allowed to require proof of citizenship for state elections, but the federal form does not require it. When Arizona and Kansas requested that the U.S. Election Assistance Commission change the federal from to require citizen proof, the agency told them what they could do with that request (nothing), saying that swearing under penalty of perjury was enough. In other words, it’s the honor system, and of course no one is going to have the ability to separate out the liars and pursue them; that’s why requiring proof would act as a screen.

A refusal to hear a case leaves lower court decisions intact, but it doesn’t rule definitively on the legal issue itself.

Obviously, this is another victory for the left. As William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection points out, this is not a small issue:

In spite of substantial public controversy, very little reliable data exists concerning the frequency with which non-citizen immigrants participate in United States elections. Although such participation is a violation of election laws in most parts of the United States, enforcement depends principally on disclosure of citizenship status at the time of voter registration. This study examines participation rates by non-citizens using a nationally representative sample that includes non-citizen immigrants. We find that some non-citizens participate in U.S. elections, and that this participation has been large enough to change meaningful election outcomes including Electoral College votes, and Congressional elections. Non-citizen votes likely gave Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health care reform and other Obama administration priorities in the 111th Congress.

What’s going on? The decision was 7-2, which means that at least one of the three very reliably conservative justices (Scalia, Thomas, Alito) voted against hearing this case (against granting certiorari). I can’t discover who it was, but to me that aspect of the vote means that there might be something I’m missing about this. On what basis did that justice think that SCOTUS shouldn’t hear this case? I’d like to know, but I don’t think that information is out there anywhere. If you can find a link, please post it in the comments section.