Thursday, August 20, 2009
This is just a quick link to follow -- an "aside." These are links to interesting things that, for one reason or another, I didn't place into a full posting. Click the link to visit the full article. Go to the blog index for a regular listing of posts.
George Gilder: Capitalism, Jewish Achievement, and the Israel Test - '...The real case for Israel is as the leader of human civilization, technological progress, and scientific advance. In a dangerous world, faced with an array of perils, the Israel test asks whether the world can suppress envy and recognize its dependence on the outstanding performance of relatively few men and women. The world does not subsist on zero-sum legal niceties. It subsists on hard and possibly reversible accomplishments in technology, pharmacology, science, engineering, and enterprise. It thrives not on reallocating land and resources but on releasing human creativity in a way that exploits land and resources most productively. The survival of humanity depends on recognizing excellence wherever it appears and nurturing it until it prevails. It relies on a vanguard of visionary creators on the frontiers of knowledge and truth. It depends on passing the Israel test. Israel is the pivot, the axis, the litmus, the trial. Are you for civilization or barbarism, life or death, wealth or envy? Are you an exponent of excellence and accomplishment or of a leveling creed of frenzy and hatred?' [The crux of the matter.]
As a Jew is to a community, so is the Jewish state among the community of nations -- the canary in the coal mine.
Daniel,
To us Gentiles that believe in the state of Israel, it is unfortunately true.
More unfortunate is that the rest of the world will shrug when the canary is put to the test.
Thankfully the Israeli canary has the swiftness and talons of an eagle.