אתה הבורא וממציא יש מאין

בראשית רבה א’ ט’:

פילסופי אחד שאל את רבן גמליאל אמר ליה צייר גדול הוא אלהיכם אלא שמצא סממנים טובים שסייעו אותו תוהו ובוהו וחושך ורוח ומים ותהומות.

אמר ליה, תיפח רוחיה דההוא גברא, כולהון כתיב בהן בריאה. תוהו ובוהו שנאמר עושה שלום ובורא רע חושך יוצר אור וגו’, מים הללוהו שמי השמים והמים למה שצוה ונבראו רוח כי הנה יוצר הרים ובורא רוח תהומות באין תהומות חוללתי.

Rafi Farber Changed My Mind!

With his article against the “French Law” (we reprinted).

On the one hand, term limits are wrong-headed (they may have good effects; I speak of the idea behind them), because they are a step toward democratic government and away from monarchical government. And Feiglin seems shallowly correct; liberty lies in turf wars between government departments.

But politicians should certainly not be permitted to break laws. This is certainly true for real laws, but is also true for fiat laws, since this presents some minimal disincentive upon the crats imposing these upon us, their victims.

And the penalties, too, should be stricter (to some degree), in both cases. This also helps hamstring the pols (almost everything political is cruelly wrong, and the rest is apparent only in retrospect).

And the Israeli Supreme Court is not a real threat, except to non-politicians, as Moshe Feiglin himself explains, so this is the wrong way to go about vitiating that institution.

Thank you!

How to Lead an Adaptive Life

Curtis Yavin (in the comments):

The entire intellectual system of the West was corrupted by its 20th-century connection to government. Public opinion reflects press opinion, press opinion reflects academic politics, and academic politics are driven by power-struggles in which the attraction of the state is clear.

The victory of Keynesian over Misesian economics, for example, is a classic case of this. Theories of economics which led to jobs advising the state were adaptive. Theories which didn’t weren’t.

Borrowing evolutionary biological terms for anything but evolutionary biology spooks me…

Get to the point!

OK.

Lies are “adaptive” short term, not long term. Truth works… eventuallyI footnote myself here as proof (that post didn’t get enough eyes, anyway!).

An expression leaps to mind: בשעת המכניסין פזר בשעת המפזרים כנס.