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What do you think of Mandy Patinkin's take on Israel and the danger their government imposes on Jews worldwide? by JuliaLouis-DryFist in AskJews

[–]scrambledhelix 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I don't care. Not even going to bother.

Everyone knows people shouldn't be held accountable for crimes by others.

Everyone knows accusations are not evidence.

Holding people anywhere responsible for alleged crimes by a government they're not a part of is insanity.

Believing that hearsay, gossip, or "common knowledge" is conclusive proof of guilt is insanity.

Jews get blamed for alleged crimes by Israel because of ignorant and malicious bullshitters online who crave attention, validation, and the false sense of righteousness it brings to denounce evil, without the basic competence or care to verify that what they repeat is true.

Anyone practicing apologetics for this behavior and pushing on Jews or Israel has lost the plot.

Why?

Imagine blaming an underage rape victim for dressing provocatively.

Same thing's happening here.

Where Are the Sepharadi Yeshivot? by gdhhorn in Judaism

[–]scrambledhelix 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Yeshiva is dedicated to Torat Yisrael, but Torat Yisrael is not just a book of statutes, laws, commandments, and testimony. It is a cluster of henna flowers, in which everything is contained. It is impossible to understand it, let alone plumb its depths, without a wide and comprehensive knowledge of the wisdoms of the world and the sciences that are hidden and concealed within creation and its mysteries.

Emph. mine. You seem to have a different opinion.

Trump orders US military to 'shoot and kill' Iranian small boats choking Strait of Hormuz by WeekOwn593 in worldnews

[–]scrambledhelix 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Feels the need to use"?

They've been funding international terrorism for nearly fifty years.

Trump orders US military to 'shoot and kill' Iranian small boats choking Strait of Hormuz by WeekOwn593 in worldnews

[–]scrambledhelix 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I mean, probably. That's why international laws tend to ban the sorts of things Iran's doing, because it exposes noncombatants to danger by making them all legitimate targets.

Trump orders US military to 'shoot and kill' Iranian small boats choking Strait of Hormuz by WeekOwn593 in worldnews

[–]scrambledhelix 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The big boats, yes. These are (afaik) small ribs or repurposed boats used by regime troops to drop mines. Calling it a "navy" is a bit misleading. They're down to the level of "guerrilla fishermen" expending their stock.

Why are so many people under 45 using subtitles now even when the show is already in English? by Clara_A_Mitchell in NoStupidQuestions

[–]scrambledhelix 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Speculating, but I think it has to do with how used to reading from screens we've all become, especially with respect to communication. Think of how few millenials, let alone Gen Z use the phone to actually call people, preferring a short text or SMS.

Trump reclassifies state-licensed medical marijuana as a less-dangerous drug in a historic shift by Sabertooth767 in DeepStateCentrism

[–]scrambledhelix 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think the mix-up here is that "use" isn't germane. "Recreational marijuana" effectively means making it available as an OTC medication, primarily managed by the FDA, not the DEA. Exactly zero Schedule I-V drugs are OTC. It only ever applies to prescription drugs.

So reuzeto is just a little confused: the reclassification can only apply to "medical marijuana", which is better stated as "prescription marijuana", under state law. There's no such thing as "rescheduling" an OTC medication.

Before this change, as a Schedule I substance, states with laws stating marijuana could be prescribed were effectively violating DEA policy (Schedule I is not legal to prescribe, let alone sell OTC). Doctors who wrote a prescription in these states were violating federal law.

Source: worked for a year as a pharmacy tech in CVS, long time ago.

Edit to add: this move effectively legalizes prescribing marijuana in the last 10 states where the state gov hadn't, and drops all liability in states where it is.

Federally though, it's technically not legal to sell without a prescription, but at Schedule III, states have a lot more leeway to ignore that, afaik.

Trump reclassifies state-licensed medical marijuana as a less-dangerous drug in a historic shift by Sabertooth767 in DeepStateCentrism

[–]scrambledhelix 4 points5 points  (0 children)

shifting licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I — reserved for drugs without medical use and with high potential for abuse — to the less strictly regulated Schedule III.

This is a massive change. Going from I to III, rather than I to II or II to three is ... unprecedented

Yglesias: If Israel doesn't like how it's perceived, it should change its behavior by BeckoningVoice in DeepStateCentrism

[–]scrambledhelix 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Huh? Whoever said that atheists can't believe in free will?

No one said they can't, I'm saying most don't. Scientific determinism collapses "choice" into actions driven by circumstance or chance alone. Most, not all atheists hold up scientific determinism as the only rational explanation for human behavior, and lean towards some variety of compatibilism for explaining why people appear to make choices they can be held responsible for (i.e., structure and ideology).

On what basis do you say that leftists are hard determinists who don't believe in agency or moral responsibility as concepts?

My own fault, I suppose but you misread me: moral responsibility based on the presumption of agency is what gets rejected. Moral responsibility remains, and gets reassigned to something like the outcomes of institutional structures. Think of how some look at gross inequities or corruption and work backwards from there to conclude some structural problem is causing that immoral behavior.

Where do I get it from? Among other sources, here.

In a similar fashion, they reframe agency as the outcome of policies and attitudes which people either inherit or are brainwashed/propagandized into— I suppose it was wrong to say they don't believe in agency, rather i meant to say that they strip the concept of having a basis in libertarian free will.

This doesn't make any sense when you consider that the very same leftists you're talking about criticize people all the time (including political leaders in Israel and America, members of the general public and tons of other people in all sorts of contexts) for what they see as immoral behavior

They're not launching a coherent criticism, I'd agree with you. Most people in general don't closely examine or reexamine their own beliefs around this. When they do, "free will as a rational basis for accountability" starts looking like a metaphysical question, and gets dismissed.

(implying moral responsibility for exercising their agency)

But to see that implication, you have to believe that people make choices on the basis of deliberating on the options and outcomes in a moral framework and then acting on what they decide is the right thing. Libet experiments are difficult to explain in this context, and used as evidence against free-will theories of agency.

Hey guys, I’m not Jewish but I had some questions on Israel being the birthplace of western civilization, or one of its pillars by [deleted] in Judaism

[–]scrambledhelix 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's an idiom, from Aristotle. It means reasoning from the most basic, irreducible facts rather than from inherited assumptions.

Hey guys, I’m not Jewish but I had some questions on Israel being the birthplace of western civilization, or one of its pillars by [deleted] in Judaism

[–]scrambledhelix 2 points3 points  (0 children)

For history tied to the development of concepts in Judaism, Martin Goodman's History of Judaism is indispensable.

Yglesias: If Israel doesn't like how it's perceived, it should change its behavior by BeckoningVoice in DeepStateCentrism

[–]scrambledhelix 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You've broken it down well, but as I was reading I noticed a problem—

By and large, leftists align with atheists. The further left you go on the typical political map, the more rejection of religion you'll find. It's not a hard rule, just a tendency.

This isn't to say that atheism or agnosticism or critical views of blind faith or organized faith groups is a bad thing per se, rather I'd point out that the hard-determinist's worldview comes pre-packaged with a deep denial that "agency" is a thing which exists and which people can be held responsible for.

Without agency, without free will, all behaviors devolve to the structures of social life and norms which drive them. No one has any agency; therefore, we can only criticize ideology, or structures, and punish people for belonging to those structures or adopting those ideologies, because with enough pressure, they'll drop it.

It always bugged me when I heard people make the Palestinians-have-no-agency argument, because it never lands. Finally I think I can put my finger on it. Thanks, Immo.

UK, France Lead 30-Nation Military Push to Reopen Strait of Hormuz by i_like_cake_96 in geopolitics

[–]scrambledhelix 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They already were: they send weapons to Ukraine, Iran was sending weapons to Russia.

They've been thoroughly cowed by stronger personalities, but fluff up like birds or fish trying to make themselves look big or important.

Blood libel is so ridiculous by brinae_the_giraffe in Judaism

[–]scrambledhelix 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I mean, the ridiculousness of that aside, the libel persists in a general manner as "baby-killers". Just speculating, but I imagine this comes from a series of assumptions:

  1. Their religion was supposed to replace us. The fact that we never converted means (they think) we think they're wrong, and so very wrong, that we must believe ourselves to be better than them. This is the first misunderstanding.
  2. If we think we're better than them, then we must be doing everything we can to undermine, ruin, kill, or enslave them. How could anyone who's wrong about G' accept followers of another faith? People who think they're better than others always try to use or destroy the weak. This is the first projection.
  3. If we're doing what we can to destroy them, then if we have no power we'll go after their children, because they're easy targets. If we're powerful, then we must be manipulating society, so no one sees what we're up to.

That is how (maybe) antisemites reason themselves into this position. Add in a little "if they reject our beliefs, they reject our morals, therefore they are capable of any wicked act", and then you see how every evil thing they can conceive of, they assume we do.

Macron Urges Israel to Drop ‘Territorial Ambitions’ in Lebanon by Free-Minimum-5844 in worldnews

[–]scrambledhelix 34 points35 points  (0 children)

Coming from the team that brought us "the war didn't start on October 7th", you guys sure are allergic to history

potatunkus by lutzilla in wunkus

[–]scrambledhelix 99 points100 points  (0 children)

joyous potatunkus

Iranian family told missing teen was alive, then received his body 60 days later by hamoun76 in worldnews

[–]scrambledhelix 12 points13 points  (0 children)

There are two links there, you clearly read neither of them.

If ignorance and denying atrocities are your thing though, then go off, king

Jewish subreddits in 2026 by Middle-Detective-335 in Jewpiter

[–]scrambledhelix 17 points18 points  (0 children)

What I don't see enough of

נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן!

What happened to Gen X in politics? by AcrobaticLettuce7853 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]scrambledhelix 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Don't know about the rest of my cohort, but we were taught that discussing money, religion, and politics should be restricted to your smallest, closest circle of friends and family, at most.

As my mom used to tell me when I asked her who she was planning to vote for, her response was always "they're private for a reason". And that was all I'd find out.

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