A Friend of Man (and Israel)

Several years ago an article was published in the WSJ: “The Quakers: No Friends of Israel.” I was appalled and embarrassed.

How did this happen? How did an article like that get published? Why were Friends not outraged? Frankly, the article escaped my perusal at the time it was published, but when I (finally) saw it I had an epiphany: The national “Quaker” organizations, if not the local meetings, have been seized by political extremists and are now taking political positions in the name of American Friends. Including seeing to it that this article proclaiming their opposition to Israel and the Jewish people in favor of the Palestinians was published.

Why?

The vast majority of those taking a hardened position and opinion are not students of the history of the region or the history of the parties involved, have never lived in or visited Israel, and "know" only what they have been indoctrinated with, and yet Friends let that article go unchallenged and unconsidered.

Why?

The philosophies of the American Friends and the philosophy of the Jewish people are almost perfectly compatible. In fact, I would assert that the Pennsylvania Friends, William Penn in particular, were informed by the Jewish philosopher Maimonides, and Friends’ practice of silent and expectant waiting is, without doubt, a direct expression of our Jewish cultural heritage (click the link to an excellent article, one of many, by Rabbi Brant Rosen).

Some form of silent worship has a long tradition in Judaism, one that our people has regrettably allowed to lapse. The Talmudic sages would “be still one hour prior to each of the three prayer services, then pray for one hour and afterwards be still again for one hour more.” (Moses Maimonides) interpreted this as silent motionlessness in order “to settle their minds and quiet their thoughts.”

In this new age of Reason, most of us have come to reject the dogma and the infallibility of ancient religious texts and recognize our common humanity, while accepting that some groups of people are not interested in subjugating and subsuming their culture into the whole. On a personal level, I reject the idea of “peoplehood,” ethnicity, and race identity. But that does not mean to suggest that I would use force or coercion on those who feel differently, and I am completely untroubled by the inconsistency of rejecting “peoplehood” while thoroughly enjoying the cultures created as a result of “peoplehood.” People will associate, disassociate, propagate, miscegenate, evolve, and devolve as they will and must be free to do so. Humanity will be unrecognizable to any of us in a thousand years.

But who is it in America, and in the West in general, that has taken this stand against Israel, and the absurd posture and policy culminating with the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement? Well, it is the same political interests that have seized control of the national organizations claiming to speak for American Friends. I think we all know who “they” are. “They” are the inherently violent political factions that hate family, children, property, and liberty in general—and the United States and Israel in particular. They are the purveyors of anger, the promulgators of propaganda, and the sworn enemy of the life force that provides humanity with a path to the future. We all know whom I speak of. Apparently, it is not enough to hate America, the moral and political scions of the greatest political achievement ever—the Friends' creation of Pennsylvania. Now we must hate Israel, too.

So I say to Israel, and to the Jewish people:

This Friend is your Friend. I consider you, and all people of reason and peace, to be Friends. All of us have been confronted with the incredible and overwhelming evidence and discoveries regarding our existence that has come to light since the dawn of the Age of Reason and that have swamped and routed the explanations that came from an earlier time in human history. The Jewish people have made greater contributions in this effort than any other “peoplehood”—and they have also suffered the “blackest crime in human history". One wonders if these are not related (and I do not mean to belittle the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cambodian Killing Fields, the Cultural Revolution, the Ukraine Famine and Stalin in general, or the slaughter in the Congo; these are also “the blackest crimes”).  Please do not think or believe that American Friends are “no friend of Israel.” I don’t know the precise genesis of this story, why the WSJ thought it was worth publishing, or why more people here were not appalled by it—but I have my suspicions and I am working to counter the disturbing ideas of these people in my sphere of influence.

Gregory T. Jeffers
Quaker Universalist and Unitarian Church, Inc.

Israel Gets It, Russia Gets It

Demographics trumps politics in any intergenerational struggle for primacy. No belief system, no faith, no political ideal, and no socio-economic strategy can overcome demographics. Quakerism collapsed in North America. It was almost completely extinguished by demographics—the meetings that survived the collapse did so via recruiting members, not by producing children. And let us speak "plainly": Many of these self-identified Quakers are not attempting to live out the testimonies. They are using the brand name of the Quakers to legitimize the political belief system that took one of the largest faiths in Colonial American and nearly killed it.

We can get a good idea how close an idea has come to the "Truth" by the violence, if any, of the response. If I said that little green men nearly killed Quakerism, people would sympathize with my obvious mental illness. If I say that scolds and anti-family/anti-children political sensibilities (nearly) destroyed Quakerism, I am set upon with requests for censorship. And though I do sympathize with the mental illness of those who wish to engage in censorship, I will not stand down.

What happened in the 1600's in England is historical fact—but it has little to do with Quakerism in America. Too, we have a great deal more information about existence than the people who were relying on Bronze Age politicos engaging in tribal aggrandizement. I am sure that George Fox was a good and prophetic man, but reason and rationalism, like shaving cream, cannot be stuffed back in the can. The evolution and the subsequent political achievements of Quakerism in colonial Pennsylvania dwarf's everything before or after it—with the possible exception of the Magna Carta—and that incredible achievement was brought low by demographics. By identity politics; and—irrespective of what the agenda editors and astroturf specialists of the humanities professoriate in general, and the "Women's Studies" departments, in particular, have to say in their Wikipedia edits—it was not the scolds putting men out of meetings over their participation in the American Revolutionary War. That idiocy is an outrage.

Israel gets demographics. (Click the link.)

Russia's President Putin gets demographics (if you don't want to watch the 5-minute address, and I highly recommend it, just watch from 3:45 to 4:30. "Let children be born!").

What about us? What is it "we" get? That was rhetorical.

What we get is outrageously hypocritical identity politics and requests for censorship.

Several years ago, a couple of friends of mine and I conducted a demographic study of the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States Senate, and the Arizona state legislature (we felt a state legislature would be less elite, and one of the people helping was from Arizona). What we found was that Republicans produced nearly 3 children each and Democrats produced less than 1.4 children each. We also found that the SCOTUS had very high fertility (well, the men on the Court had high fertility. The three Feminists on the court had 2 children between the three of them; Scalia skewed the distribution as the father of nine. 9!!! But all of the men on the Court had gone through the maturation process that comes of being a parent; unfortunately two of the three Feminists on the Court had not had the benefit of the experience of parenthood). In fact, roughly 1/2 (50%) of the elected female Democrats were childless vs 1/5 (20%) for elected female Republicans. Only 3% of Republican men where childless.

The mathematical model that governs demographics is "e" when women produce more than 2.1 babies, or "exponential decay" when women produce fewer than 2.1 babies. Well, sort of. The equation is complicated by the number of years between generations. Hence the imperative for the demographic dead-ends who now control the power structure of the humanities professoriate. They simply do not produce enough offspring to maintain their numbers, and so must recruit the offspring of others.

We also did a follow-up study on Democrat marriage. NOT ONE of the "white" Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate was married to a non-white. ZERO interracial marriages.  In fact, the only prominent (Governor, U.S, Senator, Congressman, Big City Mayor) "white" politician with an African American wife was the mayor of New York. (If you have a data point of other such unions, please point them out to me.) The hypocrisy of that one still boggles the mind, but there it is.

"Those who breed, succeed. Those who do not, lose their seat at the table." (Original to me, but feel free to use it early and often.)

What is it "Liberal" Friends want (there does not seem to be any "Conservative" Friends)? To be "right"? To be virtuous? To claim the moral high ground in every conversation? Because what we are really doing is sitting together in silent expectation of our impending doom—unless we stop politicizing everything and start creating families who produce children. I write to reach out to the young and potentially fecund among us. I am not trying to change the mind of a 50/60-something, childless, and self-identified "Liberal" (read: Feminist/LGBTVQRS)—because it wouldn't matter if they changed their minds (though I would hope that such people would not be hostile and do damage to the cause given the short time they have left). The philosophy of liberty and freedom of conscience that yielded the testimonies will live or die in the conception of children, at the First Day Schools, and perhaps at some of the colleges that carry on the tradition. At the moment, things are not looking good—but that can change. And the only way it will change is to renounce the gender and identity politics that has set us at each other's throats and raise happy and well-adjusted children. If we do not change we will die.

QIASL




















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